Steam???

I am again feeling ignorant. There are two new 'MYST clones" under developement right now. The demos and pictures of both are really interesting and since they look a bit like MYST, I'm very interested. One is for presale for $8.00 and I will probably make that purchase. However, they are both trying to connect to, or with, or about "Steam." What is "Steam" and should I care about it? I am a PC gamer and really don't know what steam is all about. Any info would be appreciated.

just a quickie until someone comes to you with a better response.
here is a link to check it out.
http://store.steampowered.com/about/

I have a few games stored on it..

Well, since I don't use it, I may be wrong in saying it's the equivalent of Big Fish for other-than-casual games. You have to download the Steam Client to use Steam though you can play games, they say, off-line once they've been downloaded and installed.

Here's a fairly decent (I think) article on Steam from last year by a guy who likes Steam if you want to do some reading. I always hit the comments, too, for reactions.

Edit: In my cranky view, what it all means is that it's your game as long as Steam says it is. They claim that if they ever go bottoms up, they'll release some kind of code that frees you of having to use their client. I am not trusting. And I don't like clients.

Gil.

The thing with Steam is, you always have to initially be online and log in with them before you can play any game. After the initial log in you can then disconnect from the internet if you want and then play the game. But you can't begin to play without first connecting.