Hey Phungus420, I appreciate your sentiments that parts of an EULA, etc. may be difficult to enforce or unenforceable as they generally seek to place conditions on use that go beyond the law. However, if you look at Aforess's link to a Wikipedia article about EULA's, it seems that the courts have upheld some provisions while not others and no general ruling on EULA's in their entirety has happened yet.
In reality, though...if you click that link and agree to the EULA you are bound by it unless a court determines otherwise. If you do not agree with any part of it and decline, installation of the software terminates. (In effect, that would be one example of a non-judicial enforcement.)
Do not believe a EULA is non-binding or unenforceable! Firaxis has implied consent to modify CivIV and thus voluntarily relaxed some of the provisions of its EULA.
As I've said earlier, I dislike things going the way of Steam. (No intent meant to offend the Steam fans out there.) I do not mind sticking a disk in a drive for a few seconds to start any game or ordering a new game on-line. Waiting two or three days for it to arrive in the mail is no great hardship.
Don't any of you guys/gals get the point of my argument? Steam is a third party software and it's main purpose is to tether you to their site to buy more products. It is not optional, but conditional to the use of my purchased hard copy DVD game (software). It is not limited just to games you purchase and download from Steam. That's my main objection in that I'm being leveraged to do business with them by their control of access to a purchase I made from another business entity without giving me the option to choose to be a Steam customer or not. (i.e., I cannot play the game I bought unless I become a Steam Subscriber under their terms.) All of that is not simply just a matter of digital rights management.
It is interesting to note that, from a business prespective, every person in the world who is playing or will play (for example) DOW II, Empire/Napolean Total War, etc., will become a customer of Steam. (Unless they are a software pirate or own pirated software. lol!)
I don't think my concerns towards Steam are that unreasonable?