Hy,

how does Steam work?
Do you have to pay for Steam for downloading the patch?

Steam is free. Completely.

The only time you pay is for games themselves. You purchase the game as you would with an digital distribution service and download it. Steam is essentially a launchpad for the games, it's needed in order to run them, but you can download the games onto multiple computers as long as Steam is installed on them (But can't play at the same time, since it's on the one account)

It also provides up to date patches. Though you can disable the automatic updating too.

In addition, Steam also has some of the best sales and offers (Example: Preorder Portal 2 and get Portal free). Especially around the holidays.

You can also remove the game from your system (Say for a reformat or just to free up space) and redownload at a later date for no extra charge. You only pay once for each game (Except for monthy fee MMOs obviously)

It's an excellant service for purchasing games, launching them and keeping them organised (Though if you have dial up it's a pain when you're waiting several hours on a download)


Edit: How does it work? It's witchcraft (Best said in a Brummie (Birmingham) accent)

Seriously though, once you have it set up and the game installed/downloaded, it's a pretty smooth operation. Launch the game via the shortcut icon and the game will pretty much launch as normal.
Generally a constant connection is best, but it can be set to offline mod if you can't have 'always on' Note: Going offline does stop the auto-updating and you won't be able to play some games if you go offline and they are midupdate.

I want only the Fallout: New Vegas patch

Thank god its free.

If you have downloaded the patch, can you remove Steam then?

You can only download the patch through steam if you own the game on steam. Where did you buy the game from?

Edit: If you bought a hard copy of the game then you should be able to register it on steam to download the patch.

Just in a Dutch gamestore

Actually you cannot play a (legal) hard copy of the game without activating it on steam first.

I see,
ty for explaining:)

Do you know why they did that?

One reason is that they don't need to maintain two different PC-versions of the game (disc check for physical copies and authentication for digital copies) Once the game is installed you can put the DVD back into the box, you no longer need it; and after activating the game you also don't need to be online or logged into Steam to play the game.

The downside of that DRM scheme for the user (and for the publisher another reason to use it) is that your game's CD-key is forever linked to your steam account, and you can't sell the game on ebay. (Unless you sell the steam account as well)