Poll: Steam: God's Gift or Piece of S**t

[V8 Ninja]

I personally love Steam, but I'm not willing to call it "Perfect" or "The Best" due to some things that I just don't like for some odd reason.

 

[Pyotr Romanov]

Hey, just wondering how the gamers at escapist feel about steam. Personally I dislike it because it does not allow me the simple act of installing my game and playing it when I want.

Ok, what exactly do you mean by that? You do realise you have to download your game files right?
Anyways, I can sense a huge flamewar starting, so im just going to get right to the point. If you know how to use steam right, Its great. If you dont, well I can imagine it being a bit challeging, but it does not take awhile to get use to, once you understand it, you will love it.

Um.... I thought I was clear, what I mean is this:
I want to buy my game, pop the CD into my laptop, Install the game, and play it within the same half-hour.

Har har har, any game that I know of that will install in less than half an hour is so old that you can only get it On Steam. ...or used.

...or maybe my laptop's just that much crap.

Ze power of ASUS allows me to do zeese things.

Ze power of a fast internet connection allows me to do zeese very same zings with Steam. It also slows my computer down less than a actual installation, meaning I can browse the Escapist while downloading.

But really, it's just a matter of liking digital distribution or not, I like it, you don't, judging from your earlier posts. No problem with that.

 

[Joe1897]

its great, excellent even.
but as said before, it does have disadvantages - such as a reliance on the internet for content; sometimes, i just want to pop the disc in, install and jump in, not go through the tar pit that is my internet connection.

 

[Ledan]

Hey, just wondering how the gamers at escapist feel about steam. Personally I dislike it because it does not allow me the simple act of installing my game and playing it when I want.

Ok, what exactly do you mean by that? You do realise you have to download your game files right?
Anyways, I can sense a huge flamewar starting, so im just going to get right to the point. If you know how to use steam right, Its great. If you dont, well I can imagine it being a bit challeging, but it does not take awhile to get use to, once you understand it, you will love it.

Um.... I thought I was clear, what I mean is this:
I want to buy my game, pop the CD into my laptop, Install the game, and play it within the same half-hour.

Har har har, any game that I know of that will install in less than half an hour is so old that you can only get it On Steam. ...or used.

...or maybe my laptop's just that much crap.

Ze power of ASUS allows me to do zeese things.

Ze power of a fast internet connection allows me to do zeese very same zings with Steam. It also slows my computer down less than a actual installation, meaning I can browse the Escapist while downloading.

But really, it's just a matter of liking digital distribution or not, I like it, you don't, judging from your earlier posts. No problem with that.

Yay for difference of opinion + freedom of speech.

 

[Marter]

I don't really have all that much an opinion on Steam. I' just now got it, and getting Portal for free was great, but I don't really like the Downloadable era that we are in. I much prefer to have a hard copy of a game as opposed to downloading it.

 

[TheGameXXVII]

i think Steam is great.

for me, it's easy to use, cheaper than a few console alternatives (it would depend on the game/update, naturally) and the deals they give out are just awesome. i mean, name one other system that gives out Portal, GTA, TF2 and other games for dirt cheap prices.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

I love it.
It's DRM, but it's a billion times better than the DRM that comes with retail.
It also works great with me and is the cheapest way I can get games.

 

[adderseal]

Hey, free Portal until the end of May! That's got to be worth something!

 

[Jesus Phish]

Well I just got Portal for free and every GTA game for £4.25 so I love it.

Me too! How can you hate such a thing when they give you such great deals? I can't even find those GTAs in a shop now days.

 

[rokkolpo]

it's aight

nothing special

 

[The Hairminator]

A few years ago I'd have said God's Gift to Gamers, but now I'm not so sure.

EDIT; no, God's Gift to Gamers. I just realized they made steam available for mac and linux as well. GO VALVE

 

[Rensenhito]

I get the feeling that Steam kinda makes me lag more than I would otherwise. It's okay, though. I mean, it is a pretty cool community overall.

 

[shotgunbob]

Its good and bad

You can get great deals on games

But Steam likes to Disconnect me from MW2 for no reaosn alot of the time

 

[Blimey]

f they didn't force me to use Steam, it would be significantly more awesome than it is.


That being said, I think its a pretty solid content distribution system. However the community aspect can take a flying leap, cause its freakin' weak sauce.

 

[the_tramp]

- The whole "you don't need CD's", can be achieved by downloading legal 'NoCD' patches and cracks.

As far as I was aware very few games out there had legal no CD patches, why would they bother putting it on the disc if it could easily be taken off? DooM 3 is the only game that springs to mind that released a no-CD patch.

I'm very much in favour of Steam, absolutely love the on-demand capabilities of the games so that I don't have to bring a pile of games with me to University. Also, the weekly up to 75% off offers allow me to try games that I wouldn't pay full price for and/or "back up" games that I currently own.

That being said I can sympathise with people such as the Civilisation fans who are now looking at the prospect of having to install something that they don't want. Incidentally however, people really need to research it before prematurely slagging it off such as this Mac user

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCEQZ_4V7NY&feature=player_embedded

He complains how Steam is 'adware' because it automatically runs when he turns on the Mac (something that is a setting that can easily be disabled).

 

[Kouen]

Love steam, Great offers hassle free installing and patching 'nuff said

 

[Chrissyluky]

The installing increments of updates before the game is finished annoys me, as does the offline mode that regularly breaks.

I know right? how dare they give you free updates and content! Who do they think they are? Also my offline mode has never broken and I would much rather use steam than xfire(ew).

 

[Joshimodo]

5) What's cooler?

Spoiler: Steampunk?

[img=Steampunk?]http://sophiaparkwood.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/steampunk-lincoln.jpg[/img]

or

Spoiler: Electricity?

[img=Electricity?]http://www.rrsd.mb.ca/ResourcesandProjects/grade6/images/electricity.gif[/img]

Steam:

Spoiler

Electricity:

Spoiler