What is the benefit of linking games to Steam?

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ASRCSR

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#1 ASRCSR
Member since 2008 • 2793 Posts

I bought Starcraft 2 the other day and thought i would link it to steam as well as the rest of my non-steam games, but then i searched for the benefit of doing so, so i don't waste my time or mess something up. So is there any benefit or reason to do so?

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KHAndAnime

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#2 KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts
Linking non-Steam games doesn't actually do anything other than create a launch shortcut that lets you launch you game from Steam. Aside from that, it'll say what you're playing on your friends list.
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quijeros

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#3 quijeros
Member since 2008 • 1728 Posts

The in-game Steam overlay (Shift-Tab) is the only one I can think of.

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tjoeb123

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#4 tjoeb123
Member since 2004 • 6843 Posts

The in-game Steam overlay (Shift-Tab) is the only one I can think of.

quijeros
Nope. Basically, if Valve lets you and if the game is avaliable on Steam, you can register the game's CD-Key to your Steam account and you can download a digital copy and get all the Steam benifits.
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w4rrior17

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#5 w4rrior17
Member since 2010 • 943 Posts
[QUOTE="tjoeb123"][QUOTE="quijeros"]

The in-game Steam overlay (Shift-Tab) is the only one I can think of.

Nope. Basically, if Valve lets you and if the game is avaliable on Steam, you can register the game's CD-Key to your Steam account and you can download a digital copy and get all the Steam benifits.

Yeah, but that's a very small percentage of games (growing every day though it seems, Steamworks FTW). SC2 is a Blizzard game though so obv. it's not going to link to Steam like say DoW2, or MW2.
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IcyToasters

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#6 IcyToasters
Member since 2007 • 12476 Posts

[QUOTE="quijeros"]

The in-game Steam overlay (Shift-Tab) is the only one I can think of.

tjoeb123

Nope.


I think it works for some games :?
I have STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and STALKER: Clear Sky shortcut-ted on Steam, and they have the in-game overlay, whereas when I linked Battlefield 2, I didn't get the in-game overlay feature.

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Dante2710

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#7 Dante2710
Member since 2005 • 63164 Posts
For SC2 there is no benefit aside from having the in game-overlay available to you and your friends can see what you are playing.
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quijeros

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#8 quijeros
Member since 2008 • 1728 Posts

Nope. Basically, if Valve lets you and if the game is avaliable on Steam, you can register the game's CD-Key to your Steam account and you can download a digital copy and get all the Steam benifits.tjoeb123

Yes, I knew that. I was talking about the "non-Steam" games, which is what I gathered the TC was referring to.

Also, you can't activate just any game that happens to be on Steam. There's only a handful of retail games that you're able to do that with.

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the_mitch28

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#9 the_mitch28
Member since 2005 • 4684 Posts

I'm pretty sure the whole idea is so you can use the overlay which is pretty handy considering on top of being able to talk to friends it also has a web browser.

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gameofthering

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#10 gameofthering
Member since 2004 • 11286 Posts

What was said above is my reason for linking games to steam.

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mkaliaz

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#11 mkaliaz
Member since 2004 • 1979 Posts

I've started to use Steam as my game launcher for every PC title I have. One thing I especially like about it is that I just right click on Steam icon on the taskbar and can select SC2 or whatever else from 'Recently Played'. Very convenient for me since I can keep my desktop clean and dont have to bother with the start menu.

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Iantheone

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#12 Iantheone
Member since 2007 • 8242 Posts
Pretty much just the overlay. Which is exactly what I want with my games since I chat to friends quite often.