Calling all steam haters!!

[Bat Vader]

I love Steam but I dislike how they only use pay-pal and credit cards as payment. I wish Valve would produce Steam point/cash cards that I could buy at a retail store to put funds onto my Steam account.

 

[Morti]

I don't hate steam, so long as I'm not forced to use it.

For instance, I recently purchased Civ5 from Game (main UK chain store), once I got home I started cursing the developers and Steam to hell and back. It should not require a visit to a tech support forum to figure out how to get it to install from the DVD rather than spending all evening downloading the game from Steam.

 

[slipknot4]

People hate steam? o_0
I just don't like digital copies of games. Blu-ray is the way to go imo.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

While I do like Steam, their customer support is abominable. They work through a checklist and ask you to do insanely lengthy checks before they'll even look at what possible conflicts you might have.

While missing out simple fixes like Verifying files on disk.

Luckily I don't need it much, but their support is god-awful. I still can't play L4D - The Crossing without insane ear-blistering sound effects - and they have no idea why.

 

[boholikeu]

Most of the complaints against Steam are either general complaints about DRM (and therefore not technically about Valve), or complaints that Steam isn't as amazing in their region as it is elsewhere ("Steam isn't cheap! Nothing goes on sale in my region!").

I don't hate Steam, I distrust Valve. Steam DRM is the most intrusive I've ever seen, and they charge you full price for a game and then have the ability to cut you off from the game and force you to purchase it a second time through a new account. Even though the first copy is still installed on your computer.

I've said these things before and it always brings a hostile reaction from people telling me what they're doing is legal. Apparently they feel I don't have any right to complain about it. That's true that it's legal, questionably legal though. EULAs have still not been legally determined to be binding contracts. It is, however, quite underhanded, and I don't see how someone can argue otherwise.

Although I am aware that Valve fanboys are second only to Nintendrones in terms of rabid loyalty and vicious attacks against perceived slights. Makes me wonder why we haven't given them an appropriate title yet.

While the situation you outlined above is certainly possible, has it ever happened to you or anyone you know? The only times I've heard of people losing access to their account (and therefore their games library) is after being hacked, and even in those cases they were eventually able to regain control of it.

Plus, the above is also possible for nearly every game with modern "needs to dial home to authenticate" DRM, and it's certainly true of any MMO. As such, it seems like your complaint isn't against Steam so much as it is against DRM in general. Well, I dislike DRM as much as the next gamer, but if I have to have it I would much rather it be like Steam's than, say, Ubisoft's.

 

[steamweedlegoblin]

The more people that use Steam, even if they're forced to as in your case, the faster that digital distribution will be accepted and eventually overtake or even replace the retail marketplace.

And that's not really a good thing. While I do love Steam, I also love getting a fresh game disc into my hand, seeing the disc tray open up ever so seductively, and that nice sounds of the disc reader going off is like the screeching howl of the most intense orgasm ever created by man.

I hear what you're saying, I do. I just don't agree with that viewpoint anymore. Physical discs are absolutely worthless. The discs have no value, only the information stored on the discs do. That's what you're really paying for. That's why I haven't bought a physical music album in over 5 years. iTunes has everything I could ever want. The video game industry has been slower to embrace this, but it will eventually get there. People who can't accept this are like those little old ladies who still pay for everything with cash or checks instead of embracing technological advancement and using a debit card. You don't want to be one of them do you?

 

[Radelaide]

*snip*

Because you're insulting a large number of people with ridiculous generalisations. If you resort to insulting my intelligence because I've somehow pissed you off, you're as bad as the people you're calling idiots in your original post. Why should I back down when you lump me in with the other idiots you know?

And in fact, the world does revolve around me. It's the great thing about being popular, smart and pretty. People like me better. Or don't you understand that simple concept?

/end discussion.

People who can't accept this are like those little old ladies who still pay for everything with cash or checks instead of embracing technological advancement and using a debit card. You don't want to be one of them do you?

Cash comes in handy. Ever had an EFTPOS machine ever go down on you? Or try to buy a drink at a bar with your debit card? IM-FRIGGIN'-POSSIBLE.

 

[Silver Patriot]

My only problem with Steam is that when I use it to launch Steam games they crash at higher settings. Without Steam I can run Crysis at High settings. With it, maybe medium.

Also I have a problem with DD in general, but that's a differnt story.

 

[RanD00M]

. The video game industry has been slower to embrace this, but it will eventually get there. People who can't accept this are like those little old ladies who still pay for everything with cash or checks instead of embracing technological advancement and using a debit card. You don't want to be one of them do you?

You know who also uses money? The mafia. And face it, any mafia, except the Eastern European ones are awesome.
And I've been using cash all year, although that's because of laziness. I accidentally broke my card earlier this year and was too busy working, and too lazy after work to apply for a new one.

And I just like discs overall because of my slow ass internet. And my PS3 isn't going have a store that sells new games in digital format anytime soon. Sure, the PSN store has some good stuff on, I'm not denying that. But the PS3 is not going to be selling new 10gb+ big games anytime soon.
And buying the bigger 10gb+ games on Steam can take up to anywhere to 3 days to download. While buying them on disc would take me and installing them would take 30 minutes, tops.

 

[Azulito]

I dislike Steam, partially.

The things I do not like about Steam is that newer games are more expensive than store bought, I also don't feel comfotable with them having control over all my games, I have 100+ games on there and they have the power to suspend access for all of them o.e

Other than that; it's efficient and offers some great deals.

 

[oreopizza47]

Great frontend, great prices and deals, the DRM is an acceptable compromise between preventing piracy and creating a good customer experience for the paying consumer.

I've got 34 Steam games as of right now.

I have 30 actual games that were either in the Valve Complete pack, or free, and then I've got 11 mods. I love the modding community so much on Steam.

 

[Woodsey]

I wouldn't call it hate. But I do own physical copies of Half-Life, as well as the Half-Life Anthology, which is basically Half-Life and the expansions bundled together.

I would love to give my copy of Half-Life to a friend, but Steam won't let me. But that's just a pet peeve. In reality, I just hate DRMs and I am one who thinks if I'm spending money on something I want to get something physical in return. Not something aetherial.

If you have two copies of HL on Steam then you should be able to gift one across Steam (right click on the game icon in steam).

The more people that use Steam, even if they're forced to as in your case, the faster that digital distribution will be accepted and eventually overtake or even replace the retail marketplace.

And that's not really a good thing. While I do love Steam, I also love getting a fresh game disc into my hand, seeing the disc tray open up ever so seductively, and that nice sounds of the disc reader going off is like the screeching howl of the most intense orgasm ever created by man.

When you're buying 20 games for £35 you'll tell the orgasmic disc drawer to go fuck itself.

I don't know if I count because I don't hate Steam. I just won't use it.

I guess my peeves would be:

It's a draconian form of DRM. Even if you buy the disc, you have to install Steam.

If it ends, so does my access to the games that I bought. Yes, I know Gabe Newell said that, if Steam ever goes under, that they will release a patch that will free the games that you purchased. To date, this claim has not been proven. Being former IT, I can guarantee that people will be too busy looking for jobs to bother writing that patch.

It's already been written. They'd just need like 5 minutes to post it online

OT: No one hates Steam you senile old fool!

 

[Keava]

I don;'t hate it. I just dislike it for several reasons.

1 - It's more expensive for me than buying a physical copy. Hurray for local PLN - euro conversion that makes games about 15 euro more expensive . ( 1 euro = ~4 PLN, 50 euro per game = 200 PLN, hard copy here costs 100-140 PLN)

2 - It was forced on me with Dawn of War2 and again with Civ5. I don't like being forced to use any third-party distribution software just to play games i have discs for. Monopolizing games distribution is bad.

3 - As far as discounts go, my local games distributor offers me better deals on physical copies, and further more rewards me with loyalty points i can then use on GOG.com products to get them for free.

4 - It's an evil DRM pretending to be friendly while it sucks your blood out!

 

[gummydrop]

I love all the people throwing the word "monopoly" around. What exactly do they have a monopoly on?

 

[Keava]

I love all the people throwing the word "monopoly" around. What exactly do they have a monopoly on?

Games that force you to install Steam even if you have a physical disc. The more of such games will be released the less choice you, as end-user, will have.

 

[Dr_Steve_Brule]

I think that the main problem is that people sometimes think of steam as purely DRM, when in reality, it much more then that. It lets you buy games online without a hassle, keeps your games backed up in a remote server (enabling you to download and play it from any computer), has AMAZING deals (85% discount? fuck yes), provides you with a community and the ability to create one, has the steam cloud which saves your personal preferences and mods even when you log in from a different machine (and can do much more then that-did you see the new steam cloud based tobox in garry's mod?) and much more. It tries to sweeten DRM as much as it can, and even in the extraordinary case that Valve will ever go out of business, removing this DRM from all of the accounts is relatively easy-all they have to do is decrypt the files via an update and we're done.