[ihodes]

Harry pretty much answered this for me: also, the downsides of Steam (them being in control, the DRM, the possibility of losing the account without much chance recourse) are balanced by the plusses that Harry enumerated, as well as the smaller cognitive load I have to endure by having all my games in just one place (granted, I have a Battle.net account with a ton of games as well…). I really don't want to have to worry about more than one account, more than one set of receipts, more than one place to update and launch and sap my RAM: I just want to game, and not to worry.

I think it's a similar reason that Apple's App Store is doing so well: I pay for convenience.

I'd pay +$20 because of the above.