its not needed in my family...but i love it and hate going a year without it..thats why normally the first legal deer i see goes down for the freezer...i never had a "gamey" taste..i think its all in your head...if i gave you a steak and told you it was beef i bet you wouldnt notice it..i gave my sister squirrell and told her it was chicken she had no idea...then i told her and now she loves it...i love venison and never tasted a gamey tase of any kind...i like it more than beef...beef needs spices and sauces to make it good...i eat my deer steaks plain usually...maybe i add some seasonings and once in a while some sauce but plain beef gags me....plain deer steaks are fine by me...and i think its cheaper...a basic cut of a deer is about 50 bucks here...you get about 40-60lbs lbs of steaks and chops from a normal deer i believe...and we also get suasage bolgna and kabosi and some ground for spagetti or chilli...i doubt you can get beef steak for about 1$ a pound....