Aynone else hate this Steam obsession?

I don't like Steam. I have a couple of games (HL-2, DoW II) but basically I hate the platform. You need to run the game + Steam + sometimes Steam works which means that the chances of problems in online gameplay are X3. THis, and the fact that I'm not interested in Valve games at all makes me avoid Steam at any cost. I drop the buy of Shattered Horizon, Chaos Rising, Metro 2033, Trine, Limbo, Black Ops, Brink and some other games due Steam was mandatory.

I also hate than isntead of a single thread about Steam and other DD services and their offerings almost any day we have a thread about a couple of Steam offerings. Is like a huge, constant, free viral marketing campaign. I'm fine if people likes Steam, but my point is: PC gaming is still > than Steam.

[QUOTE="zahyr"]yes it should be using less but its not that big of a deal. and i just checked and mine is only using 40-50MB while idling.d10sfan

I have only one complaint about Steam. You have to load all Steam related games to the same harddrive. I'm about out of room on my 320 gig. Now on tuesday I'm going to install a new 2TB drive as a slave and shuffleing stuff around is going to be a mess when if Steam would use multiple drives I could just roll on. Just sayin'.

Rickylee

[QUOTE="mkaliaz"]

Also, if you have to dig out a DVD and put it in the computer to play a fully installed game in order to satisfy the game's anti-piracy checks, is that any different then Steam "asking for permission?"

...which isnt even true about steam anyways (as many people have already stated on this thread) because you do NOT need an active internet connection to start steam or play 99% of the games on it.

RECON64bit

Putting in a DVD is the norm, I mean really it can't get anymore simple than that. Steam is a third party that is FORCED upon you.

99% percent of games? You are obviously a blind supporter of Steam so it's a waste of time to even argue with you, lol. Just enjoy your Steam, man really.

I haven't put in a CD or DVD in years but rarely use steam, so it isn't the norm. Get most of my games DRM-free from indie developers by the way.

Never used Steam, and prolly never will...

Sales sounds great, but could you pay for lets say 5 older games, install them, then remove steam completely off yer rig and keep playing with them games?

I got about 30 games on the last holiday sale for under $100. Its hard not to love steam. I havent had a single technical issue that prevented me from playing a game either. I think if Steam didnt have their sales, they wouldnt be near as popular as they are. Not sure whats with the steam haters here. The only people that have a valid reason for hating steam is the people from the countries that get screwed on the prices (AU and Euro currency countries).

The only thing I don't like is being charged the same for a digital download as I am for a physical game. Steam has no storefront costs, no cashiers to pay, no merchandise to have in supply, why aren't we getting a break in prices compared to box?

Other than that I haven't had any real issues with it. You do know you can use offline mode right?

vfibsux

I love the sales!

[QUOTE="Rickylee"]

I have only one complaint about Steam. You have to load all Steam related games to the same harddrive. I'm about out of room on my 320 gig. Now on tuesday I'm going to install a new 2TB drive as a slave and shuffleing stuff around is going to be a mess when if Steam would use multiple drives I could just roll on. Just sayin'.

MyopicCanadian

Never used Steam, and prolly never will...

Sales sounds great, but could you pay for lets say 5 older games, install them, then remove steam completely off yer rig and keep playing with them games?

Greyfoo-t

I like Steam for many reasons. Well, their sales are awesome, there are always good games in a great price to buy, because of their "Midweek Madness" and weekends sales. Also, I like the automatic game updates via Steam. About having to play with it running, for me it's no problem, since it doesn't affect performance or anything.

The only thing I don't like is being charged the same for a digital download as I am for a physical game. Steam has no storefront costs, no cashiers to pay, no merchandise to have in supply, why aren't we getting a break in prices compared to box?

Other than that I haven't had any real issues with it. You do know you can use offline mode right?

[QUOTE="vfibsux"]

The only thing I don't like is being charged the same for a digital download as I am for a physical game. Steam has no storefront costs, no cashiers to pay, no merchandise to have in supply, why aren't we getting a break in prices compared to box?

Other than that I haven't had any real issues with it. You do know you can use offline mode right?

With Empire Total War I had to be online to use offline mode. It made no sense. If I were to travel to a rural area I would not be able to play my game on my laptop because of Steam.

I love Steam. It updates games automatically, you don't have to worry about losing discs or cd-keys, and you never have to leave your home to buy a game. Their weekend sales are awesome.

I'm guessing the people who complain are on dial-up or are little kids who are too young to have a credit card.

I love Steam. It updates games automatically, you don't have to worry about losing discs or cd-keys, and you never have to leave your home to buy a game. Their weekend sales are awesome.

I'm guessing the people who complain are on dial-up or are little kids who are too young to have a credit card.

FleeceJohnson

You love also when a popular game comes to Steam and the first days the multiplayer is almost unplayable due Steam itself is overflowed? I'm guessing if the people that bows to Steam never used the Blizzard Store or Battle.net services...

I love steam and I have no problems with it.

+ No CDs or have to worry about keys to keep up with.

+Keeps games updated

+Uses pretty much no resources(come on 150mbs out of 4gigs is bloody nothing. Even with 2gigs For alot of games it will not effect them and ones it does, you should have 3gigs+ anyways. Such as Civ4 with Rise of Mankind mod gigantic map with lots of civilizations :) ).

+I can play single player games in offline mode without any problem.

+Friend list and easier to jump in games with friends.

+Steam Sales

+Able to bring up steam display when in game.

-Sometimes retail can be cheaper when steam doesn't have a sale for particular game you want.

-Sometimes for new release games, players on steam and players using retail version can't play MP together. Patches sometimes break this as well. However, steam useually fixes it quickly.

I don't see how steam crashes games. I think that will be more of a game problem. Such as, barely meeting requirements, faulty mods, or just the game has errors which is develpers fault, not steam.

^ Yup, same here.

I like steam because I often lose cd keys and such.

I do not like anything about steam, in fact I hate it and everything it stands for. Basically it is a program that you need to have to be able to play your games that YOU PAID for. Why do I need to ask for permission to play a game.

I am angry with my whole experience with Empire Total war, I essentially gave up playing it because of steam and it's updates and it's servers, and the fact that I could not play my game offline somewhere else. Now I hear Civilization 5 will be a steam game. This made me upset because I really like Civ 4 a game I can uninstall, and install freel whenever I want. Now I need to have steam's consent before I do anything with that game.

I HATE steam so much right now. It's unfortunate that Steam is becoming the future of PC gaming and I have not been playing many PC games because of Steam. I miss the days when I paid for a game it would be mine COMPLETELY and all I needed to input was the CD key, and I could play it whenever I wanted to. It looks like I will be strictly a console gamer now. I mean I have always been a Pc gamer and a Console gamer, I have always been both and it was great. Especially during the Gamecube's dry spells, I knew I could always turn to PC games, now Steam is taking over. I hate you steam I hope you die.

RECON64bit

Steam is a digital locker. You "need" it because it holds all of your games, automatically updates them, and keeps them safe under your account. You don't need to ask for permission to play your game, I don't know where that came from. So, you gave up Empire Total War because steam updated it, and provided servers for it? LOL. The game is responsible for the updates and the servers, steam is just there as a framework. Also, you CAN play your games offline anywhere as logn as the computer has steam and cache of your account, assuming you're talking about your main computer (which would have cache of your account) you should have no problem going into offline steam and starting up your game. I don't understand your point on installations; you can uninstall and reinstall games using steam whenever you want, there is nothign stopping you. It's as simple is clicking "delete local content" and bam it's gone. The only consent you need to have with steam to play that game is to login, that's it. Does that trouble you? Aw, poor you.

You're kidding me, right? You DO infact insert a CD key and that copy of the game is yours. The CD key is yours, too. That's what makes your copy yours.

Either you don't know how to use a computer correctly, or you're trolling.

I don't think Steam cares about you, nor does anyone here. Blog it? There's plenty of Steam hate threads already. There's nothing to discuss based on your topic either.Vfanek

Funny you say there's nothing to discuss, when the topic is one that hits home for most PC gamers - some love the service, others hate it - and it's excellent grounds for debate. More than ten pages in this thread alone, too, that prove you wrong. The issue of Steam and how it affects PC gamers (I'm of those who enjoy it) is one with much potential for discussion.

I do not like anything about steam, in fact I hate it and everything it stands for. Basically it is a program that you need to have to be able to play your games that YOU PAID for. Why do I need to ask for permission to play a game.

I am angry with my whole experience with Empire Total war, I essentially gave up playing it because of steam and it's updates and it's servers, and the fact that I could not play my game offline somewhere else. Now I hear Civilization 5 will be a steam game. This made me upset because I really like Civ 4 a game I can uninstall, and install freel whenever I want. Now I need to have steam's consent before I do anything with that game.

I HATE steam so much right now. It's unfortunate that Steam is becoming the future of PC gaming and I have not been playing many PC games because of Steam. I miss the days when I paid for a game it would be mine COMPLETELY and all I needed to input was the CD key, and I could play it whenever I wanted to. It looks like I will be strictly a console gamer now. I mean I have always been a Pc gamer and a Console gamer, I have always been both and it was great. Especially during the Gamecube's dry spells, I knew I could always turn to PC games, now Steam is taking over. I hate you steam I hope you die.

If it has not been said I will say it now. You never, ever own a game, ever. Unless you own the rights to that intellectual property the game belongs to the holder of said IP. Regardless if you got it from Steam, Impulse, Gamestop, or Wal-Mart. If you have a physical copy you own that disk, but not what is on that disk. When you buy a game you buy a license to use their intellectual property, but you do not own it.Im_single

[QUOTE="Im_single"]If it has not been said I will say it now. You never, ever own a game, ever. Unless you own the rights to that intellectual property the game belongs to the holder of said IP. Regardless if you got it from Steam, Impulse, Gamestop, or Wal-Mart. If you have a physical copy you own that disk, but not what is on that disk. When you buy a game you buy a license to use their intellectual property, but you do not own it.sillaris

love Steam.....no problems here.

i don't understand the hate, makes no sense to me.

[QUOTE="Im_single"]If it has not been said I will say it now. You never, ever own a game, ever. Unless you own the rights to that intellectual property the game belongs to the holder of said IP. Regardless if you got it from Steam, Impulse, Gamestop, or Wal-Mart. If you have a physical copy you own that disk, but not what is on that disk. When you buy a game you buy a license to use their intellectual property, but you do not own it.sillaris

[QUOTE="Vfanek"]I don't think Steam cares about you, nor does anyone here. Blog it? There's plenty of Steam hate threads already. There's nothing to discuss based on your topic either.RECON64bit

I know Steam does not care about me. It also does not care about you or any of it's customers. How can you enjoy having to get permission to play a game you paid for? I don't understand this Steam obsession.

And what Gamespot cares for you? All retail stores have turned their back on PC gaming; Steam stays true and loyal has done more for PC gaming than these chains

In all honesty I love Steam it has great deals and the service is reliable, so far I have never had a problem with it. All PC games now days are starting to have some sort of DRM or another if a game has to have DRM I would prefer it was steam. Its better than having 10 DRM programs on your PC. I also use Steam as a tool to communicate with friends, set up games etc. Also all the retails stores in my area barely have any PC games just WOW or Starcraft its really sad. TC I am sorry for your problems with steam but you are a minority, I personally have Empire TW which I bought on Steam and never had a problem with it that was Steam's fault.

I hate you steam I hope you die.

RECON64bit

I hate the fanboy and the anti-fanboy aspects of it. People blame it for everything from their mouse not working to the games disconnecting in the middle of multiplayer when Steam has nothing to do with either of those problems and the user is just ignorant of that. People also praise it like it's the second coming of PC Christ and achievements are infiltrating my precious pc games.guynamedbilly

[QUOTE="Im_single"]If it has not been said I will say it now. You never, ever own a game, ever. Unless you own the rights to that intellectual property the game belongs to the holder of said IP. Regardless if you got it from Steam, Impulse, Gamestop, or Wal-Mart. If you have a physical copy you own that disk, but not what is on that disk. When you buy a game you buy a license to use their intellectual property, but you do not own it.sillaris

ive notice a lot more steam hate posts/threads laterly. i dont understand it. I have 2 doven or so games with steam and have never had a problem caused by steam. these game i have are offline like fallout and halflife and online like cod. the biggest issue i have had is with cod but thats cause cod doesnt have server and isnt a steam issue.

some of the reasons i have seen for steam hate is that they live in a country with bad internet like australia and it takes for ever to download stuff. That isnt a steam issue thats a bad internet problem. Im from australia and it can take between 5-15 hours to download a game but thats what sleep is for. to take up time while steam downloads things for you.

I love the convienience of steam. no worrying about patches or pre orders, just buy it and it will down load the game when its avaliable.

When you're playing games like TF2, another 100 ram stolen is a lot.megamagition

In what world do you live in where 100MB of RAM is a lot? Do you play on a netbook or something?

6GB is pretty standard for new machines these days. 100MB is less than 2% of that 6GB :|

Besides, that "100MB" I quoted is ONLY when the Steam interface is shown. Minimized to the tray it only uses ~20MB. I think it's time to give up on the resource usage criticism. Find another one.

Eh, Steam offers a lot. Sure, there's something - hm, and this is nostalgia speaking - "magical" about having a physical copy, displaying the pack on your shelf, reading through physical instruction booklets (back in the day when they actually had content worth reading). These days it's about ease of access. Pay fo your game, update it, play it anytime anywhere (most people have access to internet, not that that's always needed anyway).

I like it. What it lacks in physical content it makes up for in customer/technical support, digital rights of ownership, ease of access, etc etc.

[QUOTE="Renevent42"]I wish these cavemen would go hide under a rock with their 14.4 baud modems and their huge over sized boxes. I've been gaming for over 20 years and steam, impulse, gamersgate, direct2drive, and all the others are part of one of the greatest things that ever happened to PC gaming. In my opinion digital distribution has ushered in a new renaissance for the PC platform. Not only is the PC relevant again, it's back in force! Anyways, cry and whine all you want, but DD (and more specifically STEAM) isn't going anywhere. In fact, it's only going to get bigger and bigger. testfactor888

Like wise I don't mind people who simply prefer boxed copies (enjoy them while you can though)...it's the people who come in crying and whining using blatant lies and exaggerations who I take exception too. It doesn't matter really...these people are irrelevant. He was also wrong about telling that other person STEAM doesn't care about them...wrong. Those people are customers and to steam they absolutely matter. They are spending their dough with steam (and others services) in masses and they will be the ones who will shape the future of PC games and distribution.

I use to use steam as well as store bought games but now when ever possible i use steam. its just so easy.

the only thing im concerned about(so little concern that i havent bothered looking into it yet) is what happens in 5 even 10 years time when i want to play a steam game? if steam is still around then, will these old games still be avaliable. cause i have with other games gone back to them 5-10 years after release and played them again. mainly things like cnc and starcraft. what happens if in 10 years time i fell like visiting the capital waste lands again. will i be able to?

I use to use steam as well as store bought games but now when ever possible i use steam. its just so easy.

the only thing im concerned about(so little concern that i havent bothered looking into it yet) is what happens in 5 even 10 years time when i want to play a steam game? if steam is still around then, will these old games still be avaliable. cause i have with other games gone back to them 5-10 years after release and played them again. mainly things like cnc and starcraft. what happens if in 10 years time i fell like visiting the capital waste lands again. will i be able to?

maccaaccam

[QUOTE="maccaaccam"]

I use to use steam as well as store bought games but now when ever possible i use steam. its just so easy.

the only thing im concerned about(so little concern that i havent bothered looking into it yet) is what happens in 5 even 10 years time when i want to play a steam game? if steam is still around then, will these old games still be avaliable. cause i have with other games gone back to them 5-10 years after release and played them again. mainly things like cnc and starcraft. what happens if in 10 years time i fell like visiting the capital waste lands again. will i be able to?

agpickle

yeah ok i sign in and re download it from where? assuming steam exists in 10 years will they still have all of their games avaliable in the cloud some where?

[QUOTE="agpickle"]

[QUOTE="maccaaccam"]

I use to use steam as well as store bought games but now when ever possible i use steam. its just so easy.

the only thing im concerned about(so little concern that i havent bothered looking into it yet) is what happens in 5 even 10 years time when i want to play a steam game? if steam is still around then, will these old games still be avaliable. cause i have with other games gone back to them 5-10 years after release and played them again. mainly things like cnc and starcraft. what happens if in 10 years time i fell like visiting the capital waste lands again. will i be able to?

maccaaccam

yeah ok i sign in and re download it from where? assuming steam exists in 10 years will they still have all of their games avaliable in the cloud some where?

[QUOTE="testfactor888"][QUOTE="Renevent42"]I wish these cavemen would go hide under a rock with their 14.4 baud modems and their huge over sized boxes. I've been gaming for over 20 years and steam, impulse, gamersgate, direct2drive, and all the others are part of one of the greatest things that ever happened to PC gaming. In my opinion digital distribution has ushered in a new renaissance for the PC platform. Not only is the PC relevant again, it's back in force! Anyways, cry and whine all you want, but DD (and more specifically STEAM) isn't going anywhere. In fact, it's only going to get bigger and bigger. Renevent42

Like wise I don't mind people who simply prefer boxed copies (enjoy them while you can though)...it's the people who come in crying and whining using blatant lies and exaggerations who I take exception too. It doesn't matter really...these people are irrelevant. He was also wrong about telling that other person STEAM doesn't care about them...wrong. Those people are customers and to steam they absolutely matter. They are spending their dough with steam (and others services) in masses and they will be the ones who will shape the future of PC games and distribution.

I agree. Steam will work with its customers. I remember having to start a new Steam account because I neglected to keep a record of the old one. The problem was, my boxed copy of HL2 was tied to the old account. The folks at Steam worked with me to get that game transferred over to my new account. Although I had provide an image of the game cd key, they resolved my issue.

[QUOTE="testfactor888"][QUOTE="Renevent42"]I wish these cavemen would go hide under a rock with their 14.4 baud modems and their huge over sized boxes. I've been gaming for over 20 years and steam, impulse, gamersgate, direct2drive, and all the others are part of one of the greatest things that ever happened to PC gaming. In my opinion digital distribution has ushered in a new renaissance for the PC platform. Not only is the PC relevant again, it's back in force! Anyways, cry and whine all you want, but DD (and more specifically STEAM) isn't going anywhere. In fact, it's only going to get bigger and bigger. Renevent42

Like wise I don't mind people who simply prefer boxed copies (enjoy them while you can though)...it's the people who come in crying and whining using blatant lies and exaggerations who I take exception too. It doesn't matter really...these people are irrelevant. He was also wrong about telling that other person STEAM doesn't care about them...wrong. Those people are customers and to steam they absolutely matter. They are spending their dough with steam (and others services) in masses and they will be the ones who will shape the future of PC games and distribution.