Like PC Gaming? Don't buy from Steam.

[Neverhoodian]

I really don't think one flub-up warrants boycotting Steam in its entirety. I seriously doubt it was intentional, as deliberate false advertising would likely result in legal repercussions.

Also...c'mon man, it's $2.50. I spend more than that getting lunch from Taco Bell. And you got Fallout 2 from it, a title widely regarded as one of the best RPGs of all time. Yes it sucks you didn't get the whole deal, but try to keep things in perspective here.

Having said that, I've learned the hard way to be very careful when purchasing older games on Steam. Some of them are no longer compatible with new operating systems. As such, my game library has a few titles from my youth that I spent money on, yet can't play. They just sit there, cruelly taunting me. Why must you randomly crash to desktop, Delta Force 2? Whyyyyy?!

 

[BaddoSpirito]

A $2.50 bug isn't anywhere near enough of a reason stop buying from Steam dude.

 

[The White Hunter]

unfortunately I don't think you can escape steam

unless its EA or Ubisoft a lot of physical PC games come with steam

This is true and it really annoys me.

OT: Steam customer service is wank, that is why I buy steam keys from GMG or Amazon, at least they actually have a customer service department.

 

[Battenberg]

Brother and sisters of the internet heed Veral42's warnings, beware the false prophet Steam and its lies claiming quality offers! We must band together to fight this great and terrible evil and refuse to spend a single penny more on funding their deceitful ways. We must bring them to justice by banding together and destroying the whole corrupt organisation, as the prophet Andrew Wilson commands us. And we will strike down upon Steam with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know our name is Origin when we lay our vengeance upon thee.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

The title of the thread and what your argument are, are 2 completely different things. Just because there was a mistake with pricing does not mean I am questioning my Steam usage. Especially when there are plenty of reasons Steam might be damaging to PC gaming. If you had gotten the game you wanted, for the price you wanted, you would not have posted this thread.

Hit the road Jack!

 

[leberkaese]

I remember that, confused me somehow, too

On sale:
Fallout 2 - 2,50$
Fallout collection - 5$ (or something similar)

Problem: they've shown the price for Fallout 2 on the title page, but the picture of the entire collection.

Solution: go to the actual sales page, where everything is shown correctly. Look at what you're buying before you purchase it.


This was a small mistake made by Steam. Steam has A LOT of problems that should make you think about using it for all of your games. Making a small mistake that leads to unintentional false advertising is none of them.
Try to get refunds for that game, Valve grants you that once. (that's a much bigger point to question in Steam's business strategy, btw)

Should've bought Fallout on gog, anyway. They gave Fallout 1+2 away for free at some point

 

[Maximum Bert]

Im not a fan of steam or valve as a company although I dont particularly hate them either. Their customer service in my experience is pretty poor and they dont provide enough support for older games they basically sell you a busted game and you have to fix it or rather others fix it and you have to patch it in and do al the workabouts to get it to run.

Dont know about the fallout collection I got it on GOG for free a while ago. I do buy from steam occasionally though sometimes its just buy it there or go without so think I have about 15 games now but a fair few are from humble bundle but really Steam is one of the last stops I make for getting a game I just dont like supporting that bloatware and the sales arent any better than many others now.

 

[SmugFrog]

And to back up this back up of the claim, I also clicked on it, thinking I'd get the bundle in my cart. What I got however, was Fallout 2 for £2.50ish, instead of the bundle as advertised for £2.50ish. I had to go to the actual bundle page and add it to cart there to get the whole deal. So yeah, Steam was buggy on that front.

Oh no! Steam had a bug! Let's all stop using it! Seriously though, I hope they resolve your ticket quickly and realize their error. Keep us informed about how it goes.

 

[William Ossiss]

I find it extremely funny that most, if not all, of you were up in arms and extremely angry over the Xbox One always online DRM thing.... While Steam does this (though they offer that offline mode for more than 24 hours) and you all laugh and let them continue it. Steam can Take Games directly from your steam library. They've done so in the past.

People tend to praise Steam as this great thing. I call it the Great Steam DRM Machine. There have always been reasons to not use steam... but what happened was a bug and isn't one of those reasons.

 

[gigastar]

Seems to me that you should have actually checked your cart before you payed up.

And in more up to date news, the storefront just got revamped, and theres now a community driven curators service that will most certainly be used to warn people of shitty PC releases and Straegy First titles.

 

[happyninja42]

Out of curiosity... Do you happen to have any proof to back up your claims?

For whatever anecdotal proof may be worth, I did actually see the Fallout Collection appear as a daily deal for $2.50 a few days ago. It was definitely the collection, and not just a single game, because I remember thinking to myself that it was a freakin' amazing deal.

I didn't buy it though because I already have physical copies of all three, and I've picked up (free) digital copies of each of them from Good Old Games over the past couple years... so I've got no idea if the actual purchase on Steam was botched.

And to back up this back up of the claim, I also clicked on it, thinking I'd get the bundle in my cart. What I got however, was Fallout 2 for £2.50ish, instead of the bundle as advertised for £2.50ish. I had to go to the actual bundle page and add it to cart there to get the whole deal. So yeah, Steam was buggy on that front.

So was the bundle actually sold at the advertised price when you went to the bundle page? If so, then it seems like there was simply a technical error with the advertisement and what it actually linked you to in the store. Quite possibly instead of linking you to the bundle offer, it just sent you to a link for the singular game itself? Which was not on sale on that page? *shrugs* Please confirm if you were actually able to buy the bundle of all 3 games at the advertised price, or if it still came out more expensive than promoted. Thanks.

 

[MJpoland]

Wow, lots of angry steam fanboys here. Even though I agree that's ridiculous to demand to stop buying games from steam after a 2,50$ bug, its even more stupid to call the OP an idiot if it clearly steam at fault here. I also saw the deal so I can confirm its true, and if Steam won't refund you they certainly deserve some bashing...

 

[Stats ^1]

Sounds more like a bug.

Really, Valve aren't conspiring against you.

 

[Snotnarok]

I find it extremely funny that most, if not all, of you were up in arms and extremely angry over the Xbox One always online DRM thing.... While Steam does this (though they offer that offline mode for more than 24 hours) and you all laugh and let them continue it. Steam can Take Games directly from your steam library. They've done so in the past.

People tend to praise Steam as this great thing. I call it the Great Steam DRM Machine. There have always been reasons to not use steam... but what happened was a bug and isn't one of those reasons.

Uh, what? Steam is not always online and you just stated this in your own post. Always online means you cannot play a game unless your connection is ...always online. Machines can be off steam for quite a while before there's any kind of check in required, and that's all it is, a check in. I've had my Surface off steams network for over a month and I was able to access the games installed on there.

Steam also has that amazing game share feature that Xbox One was saying required the 100% always online for. That's right, authorize a friend/family member on your account and they can install and play any game on your library as long as you are not playing that specific game. This is without always online and if you decide to launch the game while a friend is playing your copy? It give them 5 minutes to save and drop out before shutting the game down.

When has steam taken a game from someones account? I've got at least 3 games that have been removed from Steam and they were all always accessible from my library at any given point; as in even if they weren't installed I could download them easily and play. The games are now back, but you can find articles online of their removal: Crysis 2, Gattling Gears, Blade Kitten.

That however is contrasted with XBL, PSN and VC who actually have removed games & DLC from their service for one reason or another and you cannot download them ever again, you would have to have made sure you downloaded the content prior to the removal.

The only cases of steam removing games from a users library is if they suspect foul play with credit card/gifting which makes sense.

 

[Sassafrass]

Out of curiosity... Do you happen to have any proof to back up your claims?

For whatever anecdotal proof may be worth, I did actually see the Fallout Collection appear as a daily deal for $2.50 a few days ago. It was definitely the collection, and not just a single game, because I remember thinking to myself that it was a freakin' amazing deal.

I didn't buy it though because I already have physical copies of all three, and I've picked up (free) digital copies of each of them from Good Old Games over the past couple years... so I've got no idea if the actual purchase on Steam was botched.

And to back up this back up of the claim, I also clicked on it, thinking I'd get the bundle in my cart. What I got however, was Fallout 2 for £2.50ish, instead of the bundle as advertised for £2.50ish. I had to go to the actual bundle page and add it to cart there to get the whole deal. So yeah, Steam was buggy on that front.

So was the bundle actually sold at the advertised price when you went to the bundle page? If so, then it seems like there was simply a technical error with the advertisement and what it actually linked you to in the store. Quite possibly instead of linking you to the bundle offer, it just sent you to a link for the singular game itself? Which was not on sale on that page? *shrugs* Please confirm if you were actually able to buy the bundle of all 3 games at the advertised price, or if it still came out more expensive than promoted. Thanks.

The bundle did sell at the advertised price.
There was a technical error with the "Daily Deal" link, as I clicked it and it only added Fallout 2 to my cart, not 1 or Tactics.
And yes, I was able to buy Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics for the advertised bundle price of £3.49 here in the UK

 

[Atmos Duality]

I see no proof for this claim.
Until such proof is provided, I'm assuming this is just fear mongering bullshit.

 

[linwolf]

I see no proof for this claim.
Until such proof is provided, I'm assuming this is just fear mongering bullshit.

Two things that regularly happens on steam is pricing errors and slow useless support, is it that hard to imagine both happening at the same time.

 

[William Ossiss]

Uh, what? Steam is not always online and you just stated this in your own post. Always online means you cannot play a game unless your connection is ...always online. Machines can be off steam for quite a while before there's any kind of check in required, and that's all it is, a check in. I've had my Surface off steams network for over a month and I was able to access the games installed on there.

and then you had to log into the steam network to verify that you owned these games. Time windows aside, that is the same exact thing. Steam has a month-ish for a time window, and Xone had 24 hours. If you ignore the times, it is exactly the same.

Steam also has that amazing game share feature that Xbox One was saying required the 100% always online for. That's right, authorize a friend/family member on your account and they can install and play any game on your library as long as you are not playing that specific game. This is without always online and if you decide to launch the game while a friend is playing your copy? It give them 5 minutes to save and drop out before shutting the game down.

That could be because it is way easier to trick consoles into running/downloading games from discs. I am not defending the Xone, but merely drawing contrasts between the two.

When has steam taken a game from someones account? I've got at least 3 games that have been removed from Steam and they were all always accessible from my library at any given point; as in even if they weren't installed I could download them easily and play. The games are now back, but you can find articles online of their removal: Crysis 2, Gattling Gears, Blade Kitten.

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/
See, they have no qualms about taking games from your user library even IF you have purchased that game.

That however is contrasted with XBL, PSN and VC who actually have removed games & DLC from their service for one reason or another and you cannot download them ever again, you would have to have made sure you downloaded the content prior to the removal.

The only cases of steam removing games from a users library is if they suspect foul play with credit card/gifting which makes sense.

I, once, bought Marble Blast Ultra from Xbox Live. They have since removed that game... Yet, I can still go into my purchase history and redownload it at any time that I want. I can do this with any game that I have purchased in the past.

 

[Something Amyss]

It was a mistake, but that doesn't mean I'm going to never shop at WalMart again.

And if Steam was a retailer, that would be a fair analogy. Wal-Mart has a returns/customer care policy. Valve has a "fuck you, it's our money now" policy until and unless someone makes a huge stink.

Yes, Wal-Mart has a better service policy than Steam. But that's okay because freemarketbuyerbewarelol or whatever.

unfortunately I don't think you can escape steam

unless its EA or Ubisoft a lot of physical PC games come with steam

Yeah, if only somebody had said something about the dangers of a monopoly before now or something.