Also...what's with people and Steam?
What do you mean?
Its like, everyone wants to get everything on Steam. I mean, I understand if its somethin otherwise hard ta find or a Steam exclusive, but...Guild Wars 2? Its right freakin there, you can even get a digital download version thingy. I mean, unless you're gonna wait for a Steam sale, should it come there...then, that would make sense.
Ease of installation
Community (You can keep in contact with your Steam friends without having to drag them in-game)
Sales potential
Automatic updates that can happen anytime Steam is loaded up
Organization
Some form of weird loyalty that doesn't make any sense
Having your right to download the game basically stored in your Steam account as opposed to a potential digital download key that can get lost
Aye, but like...one of those things, maybe two (Steam community and...whatever organization is), apply to GW2. Sure, you can lose your digital product code, but that doesn't prevent you from accessing the game, and that easily applies to the hardcopy version you get with the on-DVD form of the game...that, and its generally good practice to write those things down, anyway.
Ease of installation? Download the client from the GW2 website, and tell it where you want it to go. It does -not- get simpler than that.
Sales potential? Eeh, maybe, but its hard, in my mind, to offer a game for digital distribution...when its already got digital distribution that doesn't come tied to another service and potential DRM from said service clashing with other programs you might have installed on your machine don't make a whole lotta sense.
Automatic updates? Already handles that in the launcher itself, don't even got to log in, just fire the fucker up.
Lose your game due to HDD crash or having to reformat/repartition? Again, just download the client, install, and you're golden so long as you remember your account info, which applies equally to Steam and GW2 on its own.
Again, while Steam certainly works well for other games, I don't see any reason why GW2 would ever need or want to be on there, other than to pander to a niche market of folks who refuse to play any games that aren't available on Steam. Steam sales are the only real reason I see why you'd want the Steam version over the one you can get directly from the game's site. Or Amazon. And probably a lot of other places, too. Well, that and the whole Steam friends list thing.