downloading games from steam

I am interested in the Total War games. I was wondering what are the pros and cons of buying and downloading from steam vs buying the games individually from the store. For example, what if I decided later to get a new computer in the future, would I be allowed to download these to the new computer without being charged from steam again?  Does the games from steam come with a players manual? I don't mean to sound like a noob but I am new to gaming. Any input would be appreciated.

Every game you buy is stored online in your personal steam library. Whenever you buy the game you have that game forever. If you need to change computers at any time, just install steam and log in and redownload all your games.

*Edit* The only cons I could think of for steam would be that you don't have the physical disks or boxes. If you don't care about stuff like that, steam all the way. 126 games and counting. Also, most don't come with a manual, but they have forums for questions on nearly every game. Plus you could easily find the manual online if needed. I've personally never had a problem where I needed one.

If you buy STEAM version of a game, you can download it to any and all PCs you want, any time you want, as often as you want.  You can only be logged into your steam account from one PC at a time, but you're not limited to how often you download.

It's rather convenient if you have lots of games compared to the olden days when you had to local boxes,and floppies and CDs and keys and passwords, etc.   With Steam, you just need your log in credentials.  Steam Guard highly recommended.

Steam games have a manual in the Steam client, as well as community resources if you're inclined to use them.

It is a form of DRM, and while lots of folks bristle at that, the convenience and the heavy discounts, along with the ability to play offline and share with family outweigh the restrictions.  It doesn't feel onerous like UBI or Blizzard always connected type DRM.

Best of luck!

One of the great pros of STEAM is that it also has free and f2p games. The free games are complete game with no need or possibility of purchase for it's content. The f2p (free 2 play) stuff is a free game that may have stuff you can buy but that you don't need to play the game.

I'd also add that except for the really old ones, pretty much any Total War games are going to require Steam anyway, even if you buy them in a box. So just buy them where ever you get a good deal and where it's convenient for you.

Also note the big Steam summer sale should be coming up either later this month or next month. Total War games always go on sale on one of the days as a daily featured deal.

As for Steam, I was a little apprehensive at first several years back before I started with it, but I have lots of games there now and I love it. It's very convenient. Everything is tied to your account and you have all your games in one place. You can download them as many times as you want from any computer you want so there are no limits other than needing to have an internet connection to do the initial download. Once you've done that there is an offline mode you can run in.

I played Total War: Shogun 2 today, game is still very awesome.