Console gaming is so last year; it’s all about PC gaming now. Take a look at a program by the name of “Steam”. Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation. Big companies like Bethesda Softworks, Activision, Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, 2K Games, and Sega all have game catalogs on Steam. Even though I have only recently entered into PC gaming, I can already tell you that it is way better than playing on an Xbox or PS3. PC gaming has been around for a while now, but only now is it evolving. No more do PC gamers have to go to a store to purchase CDs to install games; Steam is here to help. Steam, for me, is the best attack against piracy. You get all the games you want and they’re all right in front of you.

The thing that separates buying from Steam and going to a Walmart is the prices. Steam has absolutely amazing sales on their games including discounts from up to 70% off! I would much rather pay for a game that’s that cheap then to go online and pirate it. I think we should all help out game developers from all over the world. The only problem I see with this is not having a physical copy of the actual game. While this may not affect individuals like me, sometimes having the physical CD disc is worth the extra price.

The community is amazing tool you can communicate with players all around the world that have the same games you do. You can start chatting in game, or even start voice chatting. Since it’s all from Steam, it’s all integrated into the games you buy. That’s what separates Steam from just regular PC gaming, you have integration in the games you buy. It’s kind of like Apple and their iCloud; everything you do on your iOS devices is synced up to the cloud and you can access it anywhere. Each time you quit a game on Steam, it saves all your data onto the Steam cloud.

Here’s an infographic to give you some more interesting things about Steam.