[DJ Lantis]

Lemme detail it for ya.

Steam is an online community made by Valve (creators of half-life) with the intent of letting people buy games off the net without having a hard copy (digital download). When it started it was just Valve games onboard, but now Sega and many other companies are placing games on Steam because it is the largest Digital Download site for PC games. Plus you save some green when you buy digitally because you don't have a hard copy. But a bonus is if you have the Hard Copy of a game that steam carries you can upload your security key onto your Steam account and it will be stored there so if you lose your hard copy you still have your Digital copy that will remain with your account untill you delete the account. It also has it's own friend layout called Steam Friends. Where you can add a players account and you can chat to them while you are both in 2 different games (similar to XFire). Also you can join one of your friends right away to the server they are playing on as well.