Steam vs Live

Steam is an extremely impressive service. You can defeantly tell that they were inspired by XBL with the community features.Wasdie

Steam is great..don't get me wrong but live has 2 things going for it in my minds eye.  The first is achievements.  Whilst I didn't really appreciate getting them until getting 1000G on cod4 since my subscription ran out I really miss the replay value they bring and the other aspect is the ease of communication. 

Steam in theory is just as easy but not everyone uses their mics and not everyone likes to chat or make friends etc but people seem to expect it more on Live.  It's not so much a criticism of steam more an appraisal of how Live is very successful at what it does.  Plus all my friends are on Live.

Steam has the potential to be just as good an experience though, if not better.

Steam loses though when it comes to ubiquity. It would be fantastic if all PC games used it, but unfortunately they don't.

You can add any game to steam

Noob question, what is steam?nuge004

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]Steam is an extremely impressive service. You can defeantly tell that they were inspired by XBL with the community features.Gta3-fan334

Huh? Please Clarify.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]Steam is an extremely impressive service. You can defeantly tell that they were inspired by XBL with the community features.Gta3-fan334

[QUOTE="nuge004"]Noob question, what is steam?Gta3-fan334

Thanks

Too bad Steam's non-existent support sucks. :|Gta3-fan334

What do you mean? I have great experience with the support team. A couple of months back keylogger got my account details ans I got locked out. Sent a support ticket, and 1 hour later I got my account back with all my games. They've been golden to me.

 

Steam loses though when it comes to ubiquity. It would be fantastic if all PC games used it, but unfortunately they don't.fethehl

You can add any game to steam

Steam is great..don't get me wrong but live has 2 things going for it in my minds eye. The first is achievements. Whilst I didn't really appreciate getting them until getting 1000G on cod4 since my subscription ran out I really miss the replay value they bring and the other aspect is the ease of communication.

Steam in theory is just as easy but not everyone uses their mics and not everyone likes to chat or make friends etc but people seem to expect it more on Live. It's not so much a criticism of steam more an appraisal of how Live is very successful at what it does. Plus all my friends are on Live.

Steam has the potential to be just as good an experience though, if not better.

DAZZER7

http://steamcommunity.com/id/pauler/stats/TF2?tab=achievements 

[QUOTE="DAZZER7"]

Steam is great..don't get me wrong but live has 2 things going for it in my minds eye. The first is achievements. Whilst I didn't really appreciate getting them until getting 1000G on cod4 since my subscription ran out I really miss the replay value they bring and the other aspect is the ease of communication.

Steam in theory is just as easy but not everyone uses their mics and not everyone likes to chat or make friends etc but people seem to expect it more on Live. It's not so much a criticism of steam more an appraisal of how Live is very successful at what it does. Plus all my friends are on Live.

Steam has the potential to be just as good an experience though, if not better.

Jamiemydearx3

Valve games have achievements.

All that does is add it to the game launcher.  I'm talking about having the full community features.

Nope, most games fully support it

[QUOTE="Gta3-fan334"][QUOTE="Wasdie"]Steam is an extremely impressive service. You can defeantly tell that they were inspired by XBL with the community features.Locke562

Huh? Please Clarify.

Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.fethehl

[QUOTE="fethehl"]Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.Jamex1987

 The witcher:

Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.fethehl

Steam doesn't have movies and TV series available for DL/stream and doesnt fully support as many games as live. Live also offers more than just minigames on the marketplace

[QUOTE="DAZZER7"]

Steam is great..don't get me wrong but live has 2 things going for it in my minds eye. The first is achievements. Whilst I didn't really appreciate getting them until getting 1000G on cod4 since my subscription ran out I really miss the replay value they bring and the other aspect is the ease of communication.

Steam in theory is just as easy but not everyone uses their mics and not everyone likes to chat or make friends etc but people seem to expect it more on Live. It's not so much a criticism of steam more an appraisal of how Live is very successful at what it does. Plus all my friends are on Live.

Steam has the potential to be just as good an experience though, if not better.

Jamiemydearx3

http://steamcommunity.com/id/pauler/stats/TF2?tab=achievements 

Yeah I know but I just wish they had such support for all games.

[QUOTE="fethehl"]Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.opex07

Steam doesn't have movies and TV series available for DL/stream

Steam doesn't have movies and TV series available for DL/stream and support as many games as live. Live also offers more than just minigames on the marketplace opex07

I'm not disputing this point, I'm just curious, how many games does live support?

[QUOTE="opex07"]

[QUOTE="fethehl"]Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.fethehl

Steam doesn't have movies and TV series available for DL/stream

Yeah through other services. 

[QUOTE="Locke562"]

[QUOTE="Gta3-fan334"]Too bad Steam's non-existent support sucks. :|Gta3-fan334

Huh? Please Clarify.

TECHNICALLY, valve is only responsible for VALVE games.

They aren't publishing these games and any issues related to the files are THQ's fault. They don't know the issue because they gave THQ the publishing tools. That is also why they only charge a minimalist server hosting fee...

THQ's support is supposed to handle it, but it is not Valve's fault if THQ insists that Valve did something wrong, because they didn't....

Valve merely hands publishers/developers the toolset to publish games through Steam...

Issues related the accounts and such get handled extremely quickly and painlessly. If it is not Valve's responsibility they are not going to spend resources on it....

Specifically when they don't even have a solution because it isn't their fault.

[QUOTE="opex07"]Steam doesn't have movies and TV series available for DL/stream and support as many games as live. Live also offers more than just minigames on the marketplace agentfred

I'm not disputing this point, I'm just curious, how many games does live support?

Every game avaliable on the 360 (over 500 games) through stat track tracking, and other various things.

I would love to see 1 unified standard for pc gaming.  Some kind of stat-tracking, in game community support, chat, friends lists hybrid of xfire and steam all with achievements, demo's etc.  We're almost there but some games get more support than others.  I think things will go some way towards this.  It needs to important enough that no game released on pc would want to be without it's features included.

 

I would love to see 1 unified standard for pc gaming.  Some kind of stat-tracking, in game community support, chat, friends lists hybrid of xfire and steam all with achievements, demo's etc.  We're almost there but some games get more support than others.  I think things will go some way towards this.  It needs to important enough that no game released on pc would want to be without it's features included.

DAZZER7

Let's just hope it's not Games for Windows Live. (I'm not worried because GFW is horrible :P)

Every game avaliable on the 360 (over 500 games) through stat track tracking, and other various things. opex07

Alright, I was just curious, because Steam supports a lot more games than most people think, and I just wanted to compare the two. Anyway, you were right, because Steam only supports 498, which would indeed make it less than live.  ;)

 

I would love to see 1 unified standard for pc gaming.  Some kind of stat-tracking, in game community support, chat, friends lists hybrid of xfire and steam all with achievements, demo's etc.  We're almost there but some games get more support than others.  I think things will go some way towards this.  It needs to important enough that no game released on pc would want to be without it's features included.

DAZZER7

Steam loses though when it comes to ubiquity. It would be fantastic if all PC games used it, but unfortunately they don't.Teufelhuhn

In a perfect world...

[QUOTE="opex07"]

[QUOTE="fethehl"]Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.fethehl

Steam doesn't have movies and TV series available for DL/stream

Also movies and tv series downloads will be added soon  though as said there are a lot of programs that can do that already

[QUOTE="DAZZER7"]

 

I would love to see 1 unified standard for pc gaming.  Some kind of stat-tracking, in game community support, chat, friends lists hybrid of xfire and steam all with achievements, demo's etc.  We're almost there but some games get more support than others.  I think things will go some way towards this.  It needs to important enough that no game released on pc would want to be without it's features included.

Vandalvideo

Yeah but i just want 1 app that will do it all.  I think steam could be it.

[QUOTE="Jamex1987"][QUOTE="fethehl"]Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.fethehl

The witcher:

I don't think you understand what full support mean. Adding the launcher for some games does not mean full support. When your friends are playing those games it says unknown game. If you check anyone profile all it has i svalve games.

[QUOTE="fethehl"]

[QUOTE="Jamex1987"] Too bad steam only fully works with the few Valve games.Jamex1987

The witcher:

I don't think you understand what full support mean. Adding the launcher for some games does not mean full support. When your friends are playing a those games it says unknown game.

Except that both Call of Duty 4 and the Witcher are supported :P

[QUOTE="Jamex1987"][QUOTE="fethehl"]CoD4:

The witcher:

Locke562

I don't think you understand what full support mean. Adding the launcher for some games does not mean full support. When your friends are playing a those games it says unknown game.

Except that both Call of Duty 4 and the Witcher are supported :P

They are not. You cannot join cod4 servers, friend servers, unvite friends to servers or anything using steam. It says in non-steam game when playing.

[QUOTE="Locke562"][QUOTE="Jamex1987"]

 

I don't think you understand what full support mean. Adding the launcher for some games does not mean full support. When your friends are playing a those games it says unknown game.

Jamex1987

Except that both Call of Duty 4 and the Witcher are supported :P

They are not. You cannot join cod4 servers, friend servers, unvite friends to servers or anything using steam. It says in non-steam game when playing.

My brother played CoD4 through Steam many times and it was able to do everything you said it can't do. Hell it even supports DMC4 which isn't even on the Steam marketplace.

[QUOTE="fethehl"]

[QUOTE="Jamex1987"] Too bad steam only fully works with the few Valve games.Jamex1987

The witcher:

I don't think you understand what full support mean. Adding the launcher for some games does not mean full support. When your friends are playing those games it says unknown game. If you check anyone profile all it has i svalve games.

Not anymore it seems,

an update must of made it where you can see what others are doing/playing even if they didnt buy it through steam, one on my friends list was trying out and It showed non-Steam game and under that showed Oblivion and you cant even buy that on Steam as far as I know. and We tried with other thing even photoshop and other programs shows on the friends list.

I'll get a Screen shot here in a few.

----------------------------------------

 Edit: heres the Screenshot. 

Baked was kind enough to take a Picture, But the point is that Games even Programs show up as Now Playing, even if you didnt buy it through Steam.

Kind of a worthless debate, Steam dominates in the PC domain and XBL dominates in the console domain.

Also, it seems some people have issues with steam and others don't have any. I would like to say I have been using steam for over 6+ years and not once have had any issues with it yet. 

Steam is clearly better. More customization, everything live has and more, always free, can buy games from it (not minigames), etc.fethehl

Yeah, it's too bad that STEAM has had serious problems in the past with people buying games and then not being able to play them immediately. I don't that that problem has happened with XBox Live.  The other problem is STEAM isn't compatible with EVERY game that's released on the PC. Every game released on XBox 360 can connect to XBox Live in some way, shape or form. Every game has achievements.

It would be fantastic if all PC games used it, but unfortunately they don't.Teufelhuhn

Steam easily.

It's more fun, and its free.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]It would be fantastic if all PC games used it, but unfortunately they don't.ZimpanX

Teuf, this point isn't even remotely valid.

Civ IV, the Doom series, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, the Quake series, the COD series, the Hitman series, Age of Conan, ArmA, Assassin's Creed, Popcap Games, Beyond Good and Evil, Bioshock....BLOODRAYNE, Brothers in Arms, Bully, Cabela's, Call of Juarez...Jericho....those are just the notable games from the first 5 pages out of 40. The list goes on and on.

Crysis and Far Cry are on there, too...

I'd like you to find me a PC game that ISN'T ON STEAM. One. Released in the last 2 years.

And to REALLY drive the point home, I'd like you to find me a HL2 mod that isn't supported by Steam.

Teuf, this point isn't even remotely valid.

Civ IV, the Doom series, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, the Quake series, the COD series, the Hitman series, Age of Conan, ArmA, Assassin's Creed, Popcap Games, Beyond Good and Evil, Bioshock....BLOODRAYNE, Brothers in Arms, Bully, Cabela's, Call of Juarez...Jericho....those are just the notable games from the first 5 pages out of 40. The list goes on and on.

Crysis and Far Cry are on there, too...

I'd like you to find me a PC game that ISN'T ON STEAM. One. Released in the last 2 years.

BobHipJames

You only want one?  Easy.  Sins of a Solar Empire.

;)