Hats off to Steam for monopolising the online gaming market. If the simplistic and, usually, reliable interface weren't enough, over the last few months they've seen fit to put out more special offers than you can shake a stick, or a phalanx of sticks, at!

It isn't like Steam needs to have clearance sales, they're not a high-street shop, beset on all sides by the looming recession. No, instead they merely seem to have cottoned on to the fact that if you reduce the price of games, you'll sell more games than there are bicycles in Beijing.

Not only that, they've successfully negated the need to travel to gaming shops, or to wait for your game to be delivered. The download time is the only constraint!

These two factors have led me to believe that the chaps at Steam are actively trying to prevent people from being productive; including the sale, I've purchased in excess of 40 games from steam in the last 3 months. Arguably, I won't play 60% of these, but so far my life has slowly been sucked away by the four cornered screen succubus.

Now that I've come to write my dissertation, or undergraduate thesis, depending on where you're from, I've had to set myself certain daily quotas to meet before I can load up Dragon Age, Batman, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, or Total War (I've only 900 words to go today before play-time).

In all fairness, good job Steam, you've actually made things slightly simpler, but I do think that productivity deserves an apology.

Roper.