The Orange Box and Steam

Steam, Valve's once notoriously bad game service has slowly transformed into a beautiful combination of usability, functionality and community.  Steam now has IM capabilities, detailed friends list that show what game a friend is playing and whether or not he is online or off, a lot more developer support (activision, id, 2k games, eidos, and more), more multimedia content, a better layout in general and the community support is amazing with the Steam Forums @ steampowered.com and the Steam ID profile that each and every steam user can create.  This Steam ID profile has numerous similarities to websites like facebook or myspace and even has a blog.  I'd say Valve has perfected digital distribution, now all that we need is a faster internet connection to download the games at a quicker rate than going to a retail store and buying the disc.

 The most recent release from Valve is The Orange Box, a compilation of games.  It includes Half-Life 2, Half-life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.  You might be thinking: "I already have HL 2 and HL2: Eps One, so all I really want is eps 2, portal and TF 2."  Well, while valve has uncrated the games for individual purchase, the total cost of buying all the games seperately is more than double that of buy The Orange Box.  You'll pay 49.99 for all the games combined or you could pay 29.95 for episode 2, 19.99 for Portal and another 29.95 for TF 2.