Idol wins. But yeah, I'm with keebs. Shelling out a few bucks more for the box is worth it to me even without the added benefit of avoiding Steam. But avoiding Steam alone is priceless.
Agreed. Steam's a pain -- and I'd rather shell out a few more $$ for a physical copy, if the physical copy avoids it.
For example, I bought X3: Reunion for $5 at the CompUSA retail store for the physical copy, which is selling also on Steam for like $20 to download it.
Though, the physical copy comes w/ StarForce and NOT with STEAM, while the download version comes w/ STEAM. Well, I win b/c with the physical copy, in Q4 they will patch the game which will remove the NEED of StarForce!!! So, I will be avoiding both STEAM and StarForce w/ the physical copy!!! YAY!!!
All in all, I love it when it works this way. I'm all for being able to download games, but I also like to have a physical copy shipped. I did that with Galactic Civilizations 2 as well, and I was very pleased with that. I'm fine with the future being online marketplace stuff, as long as I can get a physical product shipped to me. If I can't get that, I feel ripped off. Don't ask me why.
I'm w/ Que -- if I was to download a game, I feel that they should also ship me the physical copy, as well.
That or I should be able to back my copy of the game up and all -- which STEAM does have a utility that does so.