I wonder if, steam allowing downloading of full software is reducing need for stores, truckers, salespeople to sell it? If this gets used more and more in future from all internet sites, could it reduce need for stores and jobs that go with them ? Also, could the internet, or their servers be so bogged down that internet user quality would suffer as we've seen plenty of through steam? I realize it is a big cash supporter which they would claim is needed to update their game system cost and keep increasing it's user support ability. However, they had no problems with their won servers before like they now have with steam using much more internet bandwidth of all servers and users. a solution is to either pay more for internet plyable games or pay to play on net like a number of game servers now. If I were in government, i would put to vote whether only demos and updates/upgrades to full software should be offered thru net. the $20 or so each person may save downloading full software thru net, multiplied by many thousands of people, equals that many stores/jobs/job-earnings lost maybe in future. how might that effect the stock market and unemployment rate ? besides, most of you know internet hacks/attacks/viruses/etc ... mean we sometimes end up reformatting/reinstalling everything ... so better to have cds for faster restoration :wink: as result of these many considerations, i enCOUARGE Y'ALL to let these corporations know these considerations. YES to UPDATES/PATCHES/UPGRADES/DEMO TRIALS ... NO TO FULL SOFTWARE DOWNLOADS :roll:

If things are only sold on the internet then yes, people will lose jobs, BUT there will be other jobs available and probably on a larger scale. Computers might take away 1mil jobs, but they then create 2mil jobs. See what I'm getting at? Truckers turn to be coders, store keepers are server owners, salespeople are the people keeping up the websites and so forth.

the honest answer to this is.... do i really care? i beleive the world is moving on., its liek a car place expecting to sell the model T ford for 500 years when we have the Mustang Available, things change, peolpe have to move on, they will still sell ALOT in the stores, because some people are still sceptical about internet purchases.

shotty is taking jobs by buying the game via download

No; because the more servers/bandwidth that's required by the games, the more system adminstrators they're going to need to ensure that their server is up and running, the more tech people they're going to need to make sure everything is working; the more ISP's are going to need tech people, there won't be a 'lose of jobs, but there will be a transition from "clerks" to "techies".

Don't forget Sarge that steam is actually owned by Valve. Valve and Sierra(vivendi) are the ones that are producing and distributing Half-life 2. Companies are looking toward future releases like this to reduce cost- shipping, physical media, packaging, and the like. Its really up to the consumer as to how they want to recieve there media, I myself prefer having the physical media for you'll have it incase of errors. But anyway thought I'd throw that out there for ya. Later