Steamworks, by contrast, is a separate (but related) set of development tools--an API, if you will--designed to help publishers keep games up-to-date, handle DRM, and manage saved games.

It's not yet clear which of the above components come bundled with the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, and whether you'll be forced to access the Steam client and/or storefront itself every time you want to play the game. In either case, it raises questions not just about fair market competition--this is unambiguously a hostile move on Valve's part--but also digital rights management (what's the difference between Steam and something like SecuROM?), application-encapsulating (how many "fail points" should we tolerate?), and privacy rights, i.e. the traditional right to play a game without feeding back unlimited "User Generated Information" to a company that brazenly states it "may share aggregate information and individual information with other parties" in .

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