Valve has Informed us about their plans to deliver free games to all owners of ATI RadeonT graphics cards via Steam, a popular platform for the distribution and management of digital content.
 
Effective immediately, all owners of ATI Radeon graphics cards may receive a free copy of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch via Steam, http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/. Steam will automatically confirm the presence of ATI RadeonT hardware and then enable immediate access to full versions of the games free of charge.  
 
For added convenience to new purchasers of ATI RadeonT products, Steam will be included in all ATI CatalystT Software and Driver packages through early 2008.
 
And, as recently announced by AMD, customers who purchase the new ATI RadeonT HD 2900 XT will also receive, upon release via Steam, the highly anticipated trio of new games coming from Valve: Team Fortress® 2, PortalT, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
 
That's a very good deal, we expect to see more Radeon users within the next few weeks.  
 
http://www.strategyinformer.com/member/3/blog/2586
 
http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/

yeah i read that    
 
sounds cool, will have to see hwo it turns out. Gonna install steam when i get back and see if its any ati card, or just the 2900 cards.

Wonder what other games there are ...

Steam... yuck!

Steaming pile of Cra* if you ask me.
I cant install my copy of HL2 and play it because I dont have internet at my home.

A working internet connection is among the requirements that are listed on the box, if you read it carefully.
 
I guess it's better than nothing, but HL:2 Lost Coast is just a tech demo, and HL2eathmatch well... it's not Counter-Strike, which is the actual HL2 multiplayer when you buy the game.
 
Are the savings offered on HL2 and Episode One only available to ATI Radeon users?

 
Who doesn't have internet at home in this day and age?

 
Now that's the worse news of all.  Geez freakign whiz, why can't we keep all the extra crap out of driver installs and other things. everytime I turn around, someone is trying ot install googletool bar, Yahoo, blah blah.
 
I bought the card, Just give me the drivers and nothing else ! Maybe this is why they haven't released the 7.5 drivers, tehy are busy trying to get Steam added
 
HL2eathmatch and Lost coast, what a joke 1 It's like given away a demo copy of Doom3. Who cares, it's yesterdays game. The real hope is that once they get steam on your ysstem, you'll be more out ot buy the full game and other games they sale. Especially since Episode 2 is due out soon.
 
I don't hate Valve or Steam, I just hate all the "bundling" of software in software.
 
Maybe, I'm just mad, because I already have HL2 and all these freebies.

ATI's website currently has the option to just download the driver, and I'm sure it'll stay that way.

well...this is what i get and if i keep clicking next...it says i require about 3.4 gigs of space...so i dunno if its just the demo or full games since i havnt had either before      
 

I never use the Catalyst drivers anyway, but I agree it's annoying to constantly have to check installers carefully. If you follow the reccomended settings you think you're installing program x but in fact you're installing programs x, y and z, contextuals menus to your right-click button in Windows, useless shortcuts everywhere and support for 4 or 5 things for which you were already using others programs. God this gets on my nerves.
 
Steam should be just a website, I don't like it's "Windows Update" behavior.

For those who already have a registered copy of HL2 have been able to get Lost Coast, HL2 Deathmatch, as well as some other Valve software for free already.  I didn't like steam at first, because it made it such a pain in the a$$ to get HL2 up and running.  But, in the end, I'm quite happy with it.  Did I want to play HL2?  Yes.  Did I have to install steam and start an account to play HL2? Yes.  Was it worth it? Absolutely.

I have steam on all my computers, i don't know why people hate it so much.

 
Who doesn't have internet at home in this day and age?
 
The IT guy, who else?"
Lol, What happend was I just moved to a new location and the previous residents did not disconnect their cable TV... and are still paying for it. So Comcast wont let me open an account at this addresss or modify the account to include Internet until the owners of the account are contacted and give the OK to disconnect everything.
 
On the upside, I get free cable.
... not a very good upside.

No free porn?

Very nice. Looks like I get to keep the games with my account even if I upgrade to a new machine with an nVidia card. Cool, I'm glad I didn't upgrade yet!

Meh, nice for people who like online software, but I agree that the thing I hated about HL2 was Steam, so not getting an actual CD, I don't think I'd care.  
 
I bought the supah-doupa edition of HL2 (cause I wanted to be sure of a DVD installer not CD) complete with all the free downloads, etc (and the free T-shirt I sent out to forum member EDEN [for the cost of shpping it to him]) and I never used the free download stuff, and had to checkk the FAQ to disable the Steam authentication so I could play HL2 when I travelled with the laptop.
 
It's interesting, and a nice bonus or tie-breaker for many, but for me, I'd give it a 1c value in my decision making process if that.
 
It costs Valve nothing more than the bandwidth, and likely ATi much much less than their original HL2 deal, so it's likely worth it to them, but it's still kinda gimmicky IMO.