The answer is likely no, but... Steam

[PopeAdrian]

I would love for them to be on steam, but only if we got a free steam key for the games we have purchased on the WDS site store. If not, then im content with the the way it is now.

why would you love it?

It’s nice having all my games in one library, also steam games update automatically, which would be nice to have for WDS games rather than manually installing updates.

[KAreil]

Automatic updates are not just good, they can break PBEM compatibility.

[OldMan 68]

I have tried Steam and I am not Impressed, If it ever comes a time that WDS goes to Steam I will sadly say goodbye. I'm not a casual user I belong to several clubs and own all JTS/WDS games except Modern Airpower games. Just voicing my opinion.

[Verdun1916]

Firstly, I don't think WDS should go on Steam. I think the current WDS concept works great as is and I think the WDS-team should continue that path.

However I have no issues with Steam. I own a bucket load of Steam based games and sims (37 in total if I remember correctly) and have used the platform for atleast 14 years. And I have NEVER EVER had an issue with any of my games there.
Alot of critique I see in this thread clearly stems from people with little to no actual experience with Steam, knowledge of it's content or simple paranoia.
After all any online seller of digital game copies only can fail at some point. And so can CD- and DVD-roms aswell as memory sticks or external hardrives. And so does computers at some point.Why would the risk of your Steam library be at any greater risk than any of the others?
I have a massive collection of wargames and sims on CD-rom and DVD-rom that are utterly useless today because I have no drive to use them in on my laptop. And even if I had, most of those CD- and DVD-rom discs doesn't work anymore anyway. I have lost count of how many times I have had CD/DVD-rom discs, memory cards, sticks or external hard drives fail on me for various reasons resulting in me loosing game install files aswell as precious research material and holliday photos. I still haven't recovered all my lost games and sims I lost when my daughter accidentally knocked over a cup of coffee on my former gaming laptop. For 3 years I had to suffice with an old hand-me-down Win 8 laptop utterly unsuitable for any sort of gaming besides WDS games. And now, when I finally got a descent rig again Steam was a saving grace as it's the ONLY place were you can get your hands on classic war sims like Silent Hunter III, IL-2 1946, Red Baron 3D, Falcon 4.0 along with alot of other classic war, strategy and tactical games if you lack an old working game dish and has a rig that can run it.I still have my complete Operation Flashpoint/ArmA Cold War Assault to ArmA 3 war sim collection thanks to Steam.

This is one reason I also like that Matrix games provides the option of Steam keys for those in need of them or who prefere to play through Steam.

Is steam perfect? H*ll no! It has it's issues! But by my experience they are limited to a horrible tagging system making it very difficult to search and find specific types of war games or sims without having to scroll a bucket load of stuff not related to what you are looking for. There are to few specific tags and for those that are there, the variety of games attached to those tags is far to wide range.
The Workshop section, were the mods and other addon and player created content is located suffer the same issue. I spent an hour last night looking for firearms addons for ArmA 3 and had to sift through ALOT of unrelated stuff, like full on mods, scenarios and other things I wasn't looking for thanks to the bad tagging system.

I understand that the automatic updating system can pose a problem for those of you who play online, PBEM or want to use certain mods. But there are ways for most games on Steam to roll back to earlier versions of the game if you so desire. But of this is not an issue it definatley makes life easier, especially when there are updates affecting an entire game series. Having to individually update 3-5 game titles manually takes time. I guess this comes down to individual taste, and whether or not you engage in online or PBEM playing or if you run mods or not.

Well I've been ranting on a bit now. But suffice to say, I have no fear of Steam taking my games and sims away. I have a far greater fear of developers going Ubisoft and suddenly pull older titles from their inventory so your already owned copy stop working. But with that said, I do think WDS should keep to what they are doing, because they do it right and they do it well.

[parmenio]

If it ever comes a time that WDS goes to Steam I will sadly say goodbye.

I think there's a world of difference between "being on Steam" and "only being on Steam". Nothing wrong, in my view, with Steam as both an option for purchase or an addition via a Steam key to a standard purchase.

[Ashcloud]

I have 698 games in my steam library, I don't want WDS on steam personally. I prefer the current method by long way.

[rahamy]

LOL, guys - no one ever said you would be forced to use it, if it was ever even offered! Relax...

[unonimus]

Personally, it doesn't matter for me. For most of my friends, it's another story .

Is steam perfect? H*ll no! It has it's issues! But by my experience they are limited to a horrible tagging system making it very difficult to search and find specific types of war games or sims without having to scroll a bucket load of stuff not related to what you are looking for.

Tagging of games on Steam are mostly done by users, by the way, just like how Board Game Geek does.

[Erzhog Karl]

Something else to consider, you do not own or have a perpetual license to a Steam game, meaning, no matter how many games you have "purchased" on Steam, Steam can take those games away, or your account, at any time and you have no effective recourse. ....

I have passed on buying games that are only available on Steam for just this reason.
Not going to pay for a game I may not get to play, I have backups of all my downloaded games on dvd and usb drives.
If I have a crash or don't like the changes I can reinstall my games.

Like many here doubtless, I have a range of Steam games too, but have always been concerned as indicated above whilst not entirely understanding the system. Can Steam games be downloaded to an external drive, installed and played locally outside of the Steam network ?

Forgive a stupid question

[GMcClellan]

You *can* but it's going to depend a bit on a the game. There are some that require the connection (even aside of obvious things like online games.) Others you can play in "offline" mode. I know I played a fair bit of Panzer Corps that way back in the day. I'm not sure how that meshes with the whole cloud-save mess Steam does now.

ETA: I don't think that you can do it in quite the way you state. You'll need to install the steam program on each machine you want to put the game on (and not do it from an external drive), but you can have steam accounts on more than one machine. I do that with my desktop and laptop.

More ETA: In any case, from what Rich said earlier in the thread if it ever does happen, it will be much like the system Matrix has. You could still get the games directly from WDS, but Steam would be an option, possibly with a download key for Steam for purchases direct from WDS. (Note, this is just me summarizing what has been said in this thread. I have -zero- inside knowledge on the issue.)