OK, that explains a lot about how steam is operating in a business sense. They do want monopoly control and I would not be surprised if they are connected to microsoft in some sort of shady, back alley way. Even if there is nothing in the official paper trail of either that connects the two.

While I was dubious about using steam for any product, I'll be certain to boycott them completely now.

To be honest, I don't understand TBS and Civ enthusiasts claiming that they won't by Civ V. Actually, I don't believe the claim either - I'd bet most of you will in the end buy Civ V anyway. To me it feels stupid to skip a great came (if it turns out to be one, that is) just because of a move by 2K that is bad from their producer point of view.

To recap, I understand and agree with

1) Brad thinking the move by 2K is stupid

2) Brad not going to mod for Civ V as a statement (still have a hunch that he might buy and play it, depends on does his businessman or tbs-gamer side win)

3) Impulse not selling in-house games on Steam and vice versa

4) Steam trying to get deals such as this one with 2K

5) Steam's business model in general being very successful and making sense (even though I don't like it)

6) Stardock's business model in general being very successful and making sense (and I like it too, until they get the monopoly and become the monster Brad keeps talking about)

7) Consumers here not being happy with this news, even though it doesn't really affect their lives all that much

What I do not understand is

1) Consumers here saying they will skip a game they would love and have been waiting for years just because it is only available from store X

2) Why it's so hard to understand that it's 2K who is at fault here, not Valve, and that this isn't a consumer issue, but rather a producer issue

If games being released as Steamworks-exclusive becomes commonplace, this will be a big problem for us consumers. However, I'm not going to sacrifice not playing Civilization V just because of some possible future scenario. I let Stardock (and other publishers) fight the good fight for me, and I will always support Impulse over Steam when possible. But let's be real here, we're talking about Civ V, not some random average game we can live without.  

Religion was removed because of your first reason: it just didn't do a lot. It was dumbed down in Civ 4 so as to not "offend" anybody, and you can remove it entirely with a minimal impact on how the game actually works. Really it wasn't done overly well.

BTS doesn't have unique leader traits. Each leader has a unique combination of the standard traits, and each Civ has a unique unit/building.

Tech trading was removed mostly because the computer tends to cheese abuse it anyway.

Ah, the strawman approach.

The religion model in Civ4 was one of the reasons I never cared for Civ4. There were others, such as the units having 1 number for both offense and defense, the ai was only marginally improved from Civ3 and the difficulty of modding the game are some of the others I can think of right away. The combat/unit changes in Civ5 were inspired by the way it's done in the old SSI Panzer General series from the 90's, from what I read in an interview with some Firaxis guy. That would be an improvement over Civ4, but still, this is using a model that is 15 years old and already fairly dumbed down (to make the games more appealing to a less specialized gaming market). An improvement for Civ, yes, but still very primitive when compared to military strategy gaming now. From what I've seen of the directions the developers of Civ have taken the last several years, I'm guessing that the combat/unit model they'll use wont even be as sophisticated as the 15 year old PG model and will be an adaptation of the Civ3 model that will be somewhere between Civ3 and that of PG.

1) It's to discourage that future scenario.  Companies respond to sales, not opinions.  If people called Elemental the greatest game ever, but didn't buy it, no more games like Elemental from Stardock. 

2) People blame 2K for doing this, with some dislike of Valve for the business model.  I think people are blaming both, though 2K more, as it should be.

The question I'm curious about will be this: do TBS gamers have more impulse control then MW2 players?  I think they will, though the percentage of boycotters will be low.  Some boycotters will buy cheap (If it drops to 20, I'll consider it then)

I dislike and distrust Steam, but I don't outright boycott it.

when i read the steamworks/civ5 news it means the following to me:

+1 for steamworks features (i like steamworks features, and i like steam)

-1 for steam exclusive (civ5 will only be on steam, right? i like steam but also like competition to be more toward what people would call fair. i guess in a way, steamworks is valve's way of competing with other distributors trying to show why their service is "teh best", but I dont want exclusives. if you knew how long i waited before i bought DG...)

-2 for steam special editions that have extra maps that should all be part of the base game anyway (i dont like special editions where people end up paying more for stuff right at release that was probably intended to be part of the base game. i don't like the whole "for your extra $10 you get a few extra maps" pitch; the whole dlc thing is getting just abusive in some places.)

so overall, I rate myself as at -2 about this.

Fallout: New Vegas has easily the most disgusting set up since Dragon Age: each seller gets their 'Special Kit' which is supposed to appeal to a certain type of player.  One for Melee Focused, etc.

I agree with this, but the "special" versions aren't really Steam's or Valve's fault. Those things are usually dished out/sold by the publishers for advertising and getting first day sales. A lot of the pre-order crap is also done for that reason, as well as to combat used game sales. It's ok to hate these things, but let's aim the hate at the right people, the publishers.

I can't speak for anyone else, but if I believe that Store X infringes on my rights as a buyer, then I will no longer do business with them.  I put Steam squarely in this category.

If you as a consumer accept online registration as a condition of a single-player game, you're giving away your rights.  What happens ten years from now if the company is bankrupt and the server is permanently offline?  Your DVD is a coaster, and your direct-download is nonexistent.  This is flatly unacceptable to me.

Yeah, I'd like to get Civ, but I'm not putting up with this crap any more.  No Mass Effect, no Starcraft 2, no Civ V.  No Majesty 2.  No DOW2.  If that's the way game companies want to play it, that's their prerogative.  If I think they're a bunch of f*ckbags who aren't getting a dime of my money, that's mine.  And when I jones for a game, I can always reinstall MechCommander or JA2 or Civ 3 or GalCiv because, hey, I still have the DVDs.

While your response to your displeasure is perfectly legitimate, my response is a little less extreme. When faced with a situation like you are suggesting, I will pay less, a good deal less, to make up for that restriction which will probably cost me my ability to play the game sometime down the road. 20 dollars is pretty close to bargain bin prices, and that's what I paid for DA and ME2, which both should work down the road without server access, but the DLC won't. Tropico 3, pretty much all stardock titles now and paradox titles horde their patches behind servers that can disappear so I won't pay full price for those games either. There are really only a few circumstances I refuse to pay for even at bargain bin prices, games made by Ubisoft, for example, or that have installation limits (don't give a shit how many limits they give any limits is not okay to me), and that weird thing where the stripped down pc version of Ghostbusters had no online component but required the Internet to authenticate.

In Australia.  I'm not sure what would happen in the United States.

International precedent is a very common and very often used method of arguing in courts.  I would imagine that the Australian precedent would weigh heavily in a US court, specially since our society values and legal thoughts are extremely similar.  It's common practice for courts to consider precedents not just from their own jurisdiction, but outside and international precedent as well.