I run steam on my gaming desktop and I would never ever run it on my daw. It hogs my pc significantly, to the point that I try to avoid using it. It’s just that the deals they have are extremely good. It works for many people though, so it must be related to my setup. Still not going anywhere near my daw laptop.
Why should I need to install a piece of software just so that I can install another piece of software?
Officially, it’s to provide a common platform for online gaming.
Unofficially, it’s to fight piracy (not much fun to play an online game alone…) and sell you more stuff. I read somewhere that their limited-time sales constitute something like 75% of their entire business.
Mostly for licensing and providing updates.
The USB eLicenser works great at licensing, it’s simple and it keeps my work machines off the Internet. I download updates on a separate machine and copy between setups using USB memory sticks.
Why would I want to manage yet another account for yet another service?
Steam would force computers to be on the Internet, if not always then some of the time.
It would also require me to run at least one additional application/service running.
Does Steam download advertisements in the background?
(The questions are rhetorical. 
)
Nah, I am sorry, but if it’s not better, they can keep it.
And Cakewalk sells SONAR X3 on steam now:
Man, they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel… 
Then there must be some $$$ down there. 
{‘-’}
Probably not much, just wishful thinking… The STEAM crowd don’t strike me as the types who’d fork out 500 bucks for a DAW. I’ve read somewhere that something like 75% of STEAM’s entire business is generated by their limited-time sales. Which means people are there for the bargains, and Sonar X3 Producer definitely doesn’t look like one to them… They might sell a few copies of the lesser versions though. That is, if the software doesn’t need STEAM to run in the background. Or else it would be pure madness.
But the STEAM crowd seems to be glad on affording 10 bucks a month to rent a SONAR Artist subscription.
(64-bit supported SONAR Artist has no limits on how many Tracks/AUX/Plugins used per project, while Cubase Pro does.)
It really is a good time for Steinberg to think about doing businesses on STEAM.
(eLicenser is fragile and is a bit trouble for USB-port-insufficient MacBook laptops.)
Probably, someday in the future, STEAM would offer a new standalone client for pro-app usages only.
I don’t know about you but I don’t see Sonar on steam, just some cakewalk addons
They won’t offer SONAR X3 on steam anymore, but those people who purchased SONAR X3 on STEAM could still use it.
Currently I am really hoping that DAW makers can all work together and move towards a service like Steam in order to deliver a single application to install and update all plugins, host backups for preset and personal configurations, and provide community portals for forums, support, and sales.
I think SB could worj with Steam but I am not convinced Steam is the right choice to support DAW and various plugin types. But it sure is a good inspiration.
I think we really need a service to manage those things… so we can spend less time updating and backing up.
Also there is a potential for such a service to also host cloud storage for project files.
If these companies can find a service to host all VST and protools plugins together, I think we will have a winner…
The key, I think is using this service as a plugin service which small and large companies can take advantage of so they can spend much less time on their own marketing and sales, website management, security schemes etc…
So I doubt that Steam will be able to support installation and handling of VST2, VST3, AAX plugins for both OS’s as well as 32/64 versions but it still has some potential.
There should not be anything running if you don’t want it to (with Steam) it has no bloatware as far as I can tell. So far my experience with it has been fantastic, but then I do have the Steam service launcher removed from the Startup list so it doesn’t load on boot.
I do hope that they work more on providing the Steam service for general applications, though. I am going to start buy all my apps on that service from now on if I can.
Also I love the marketing aspect - the sales team is fantastic at providing both new products in the full price range and older products in the discount price range. Sales is super secure as far as online sales go.
Backup and reinstall is the best, everthing is stored in one folder and if you just want to copy the install files into place manually instead of redownloading everything - you can do so…
Go Steam
Current Steam client does not require pretty much background resources…
…besides, there’s an option for you to turn off the game news pop-up every time you run steam.
But I still think Steam should provide a standalone client for pro-apps only…
…since most university on-campus network services block steam access.