[drivebyacct2]

>Steam has a package so dependancies can be satisfied easily without resorting to "install xyz beforehand",

This isn't even true. The deb has dependencies just like any other DEB you'd get through apt-get. That's... kinda the point of package management...

[eikenberry]

No. He means using a deb with a packaging system will install those dependencies automatically. Otherwise it would be the instructions to manually 'install xyz beforehand'.