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

[cyber_andyy]

As far as I'm concerned it's shit.

Care to give us an explanation or are we just taking the minority opinion to look edgy?

 

[xXGeckoXx]

Looks like 15 people are mad because they want to play before their games are up-to-date

Hey I do love steam but when a game update breaks a game for you (and it recently did making many peoples portals i portal black not see thru, they fixed it 2 days later but still) it's annoying.

I personally don't think thats too bad. I can live without a single game for a few days until they fix whatever or until the patch downloads.

 

[Billion Backs]

Steam power is cooler then electricity because steampunk is as awesome as anything gets... Cyberpunk comes close, sure, but nothing gets first over victorian gentlemen wearing monocles and living in a steam-powered household with unlikely steam-powered inventions including but not limited to steam-powered robots capable of more advanced, well, anything then today's technology.

Woah, I'm totally on topic here.

Steam's okay. Discounts are cool, being able to download any of your collection of games on any computer can be handy, sharing one's steam account with friends to allow them check out games you already bought for a few hours/days through the already described function is just awesome.

It's deifnitely better then lugging around CDs, in my opinion. Although as someone who sticks to Steam games, MMOs, and old cracked pre-21st century games...

 

[Moriarty]

I never go to the site to check for updates, and Steam has never updated "in the background". It only ever updates when I wish to play, which is only when I turn steam on because Why in the world would I run it otherwise?

I think you pretty much answered your question yourself there.


geez, by the time I posted this, the thread had only 2 pages Oo escapist having server trouble again?

 

[JEBWrench]

I think it's really good. Without a reliable store with PC games anywhere near here (save for Kansas City, and like Hell I'm going to that place to get games), should I choose to buy something, it's extremely convenient.

Plus, it launches Myst Online better than the official launcher.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Steam is alright in my book, as it's not only just game distribution, but it is also a community thing.

 

[tinkyyy]

I think steam is a good service. Especially now that its on Mac I can stop going through bootcamp to play any pc games I had (admittedly just the orange box) but now I can seriously consider gaming on my mac rather than just consoles. It seems like steam might be a good platform for getting more games on macs, but I also think they have some great offers on games on there anyway and it seems to make updating any games simple, from what I understand.

Not gods gift to the world but it is certainly good in my opinion.

 

[jpoon]

As far as I'm concerned it's shit.

Care to give us an explanation or are we just taking the minority opinion to look edgy?

Steam revoked my membership stating that I had used something that amounted to cheating online. The thing is I never even play online, I basically only used it for Portal, Halflife 2 and the episodes. Now I can't use any of them. I contacted them about this but they needed information that I don't even have any more (credit card from 4 years ago and/or a receipt) so basically I'm boned because of it.

Thus steam is shit and I refuse to give them a dime more...

 

[Thedutchjelle]

It's pretty good. I'm not using the Store part of it, as I can't pay by directly dumping money from my account into theirs and I refuse Pay-Pal or creditcards. But the rest is cool AFAIC, I can see which one of my TF2 buddies is online and then instantly join the server by clicking in my friendlist And ofcourse Steam for Mac , easy redownloads, automatic patch stuff etc. Only real downside for me would be if they pull the plug. It won't happen soon but it will happen eventually.

 

[Petromir]

It is only impossible on steam, every other platform manages patches with a more reasonably system. This whole issue is the thing many people (especially people with poor connections) hate most about steam.

Its in part to do with the fact that steam updates as it goes along, installing can make you take a big performance hit, especially if using patchers other than steam. (plus there are ways to persuade steam to d/l while you're playing games other than the one its downloading).

Even with the number of games i own this is an issue so rarely, the fact it keeps everything autoupdated is far more useful to me.

Well, it's an issue that irritates me no end and frequently gets between me and the game I want to play. Installing patches is not a performance hit on any computer capable of playing any game with regular updates on steam, so I don't buy that for a second (the game had to be installed initially at some point, nobody cried about it being a performance whore then). It's poor design, plain and simple, if they must insist on deliberately including such a stupid system, it should be easily disables, much like the windows update, with an option of "download but don't install without first asking" or somesuch.

It's also infuriating when that backups need updating (I know this is a separate topic to that we're arguing, but it's still annoying). I got a new laptop about 3 weeks ago, and to install my fully up to date steam games from my PC using the backup tool, I was required to download 18gb of patches....despite those patches being installed already on the computer where the updates were sourced...stupid system.

A patch these days, using an install shield install like many do, can kill my pcs performance, and thats hard to do to quad core pc.....

 

[Petromir]

As far as I'm concerned it's shit.

Care to give us an explanation or are we just taking the minority opinion to look edgy?

Steam revoked my membership stating that I had used something that amounted to cheating online. The thing is I never even play online, I basically only used it for Portal, Halflife 2 and the episodes. Now I can't use any of them. I contacted them about this but they needed information that I don't even have any more (credit card from 4 years ago and/or a receipt) so basically I'm boned because of it.

Thus steam is shit and I refuse to give them a dime more...

So becuase of your own poor bookeeping steam is shit? If they didnt use such precations it would be childsplay to permantly steal peoples accounts. Thats a problem with digital distribution not steam itself.

 

[jpoon]

As far as I'm concerned it's shit.

Care to give us an explanation or are we just taking the minority opinion to look edgy?

Steam revoked my membership stating that I had used something that amounted to cheating online. The thing is I never even play online, I basically only used it for Portal, Halflife 2 and the episodes. Now I can't use any of them. I contacted them about this but they needed information that I don't even have any more (credit card from 4 years ago and/or a receipt) so basically I'm boned because of it.

Thus steam is shit and I refuse to give them a dime more...

So becuase of your own poor bookeeping steam is shit? If they didnt use such precations it would be childsplay to permantly steal peoples accounts. Thats a problem with digital distribution not steam itself.

HA! Yeah, I tend to not keep receipts for games that are 6 years old and I usually destroy credit cards that are expired so... I guess I should contact an accountant for my game receipts maybe? It's just stupid being that there are many other ways to verify who I am and prove that I owned the game, they are unwilling to do it, so fuck them I'll just keep my money.

 

[Sephychu]

I really like it. Convenient, looks nice, plus it offers some pretty good deals.

 

[Rauten]

I don't quite get what the issue with steam updates and crappy connections is. My connection is rather crappy, too (3Mbits download, 320Kbits upload, DSL, Inter-freaking-leaving enabled, crappy ass ISP with piss poor quality lines, and a latency that makes me look like I'm a foreigner when I join game servers in my country) and I've never had an issue with the updates.

They do tend to clog up the line, but if it's that troublesome, I just temporarily stop them.

 

[Petromir]

As far as I'm concerned it's shit.

Care to give us an explanation or are we just taking the minority opinion to look edgy?

Steam revoked my membership stating that I had used something that amounted to cheating online. The thing is I never even play online, I basically only used it for Portal, Halflife 2 and the episodes. Now I can't use any of them. I contacted them about this but they needed information that I don't even have any more (credit card from 4 years ago and/or a receipt) so basically I'm boned because of it.

Thus steam is shit and I refuse to give them a dime more...

So becuase of your own poor bookeeping steam is shit? If they didnt use such precations it would be childsplay to permantly steal peoples accounts. Thats a problem with digital distribution not steam itself.

HA! Yeah, I tend to not keep receipts for games that are 6 years old and I usually destroy credit cards that are expired so... I guess I should contact an accountant for my game receipts maybe? It's just stupid being that there are many other ways to verify who I am and prove that I owned the game, they are unwilling to do it, so fuck them I'll just keep my money.

Pray tell me how? The ONLY verefiable details that they have are your credit card details or reciept numbers, everything else can be changed, or falsified easially.

I know pleanty of people who keep details around for such lengths of time ESPECIALLY when they remain a valid way of proving ownership of something intangiable like a user licensce for a piece of software. Not taking such precautions is frankly foolish.

On a side note most card numbers only change when lost or stolen, otherwise they just update the expirey and security number. So yes I can tell you what my card numbers from 6 years ago are.....

 

[thejdcole]

i think that steam is the only DRM management system that actually works! (and without people complaining about it... that much).

The whole community aspect is awesome too, in my opinion it's much better than windows/Xbox Live.

The deals they give you are amazing and the way that you'll never be able to lose a CD again is nice.

If they manage to make it bug free (or near enough) then i could see this becoming the PC gaming platform of the future. I've already noticed that it runs alot smoother than it did before.

I'd like to see alot more games use steam in the future, I think that it would turn steam into somthing epic.

On another note the only downside I can think of would be if your internet is rubbish, then you'd have a problem with downloading and stuff but other than that it's awesome.

 

[jpoon]

As far as I'm concerned it's shit.

Care to give us an explanation or are we just taking the minority opinion to look edgy?

Steam revoked my membership stating that I had used something that amounted to cheating online. The thing is I never even play online, I basically only used it for Portal, Halflife 2 and the episodes. Now I can't use any of them. I contacted them about this but they needed information that I don't even have any more (credit card from 4 years ago and/or a receipt) so basically I'm boned because of it.

Thus steam is shit and I refuse to give them a dime more...

So becuase of your own poor bookeeping steam is shit? If they didnt use such precations it would be childsplay to permantly steal peoples accounts. Thats a problem with digital distribution not steam itself.

HA! Yeah, I tend to not keep receipts for games that are 6 years old and I usually destroy credit cards that are expired so... I guess I should contact an accountant for my game receipts maybe? It's just stupid being that there are many other ways to verify who I am and prove that I owned the game, they are unwilling to do it, so fuck them I'll just keep my money.

Pray tell me how? The ONLY verefiable details that they have are your credit card details or reciept numbers, everything else can be changed, or falsified easially.

I know pleanty of people who keep details around for such lengths of time ESPECIALLY when they remain a valid way of proving ownership of something intangiable like a user licensce for a piece of software. Not taking such precautions is frankly foolish.

On a side note most card numbers only change when lost or stolen, otherwise they just update the expirey and security number. So yes I can tell you what my card numbers from 6 years ago are.....

I can tell how to completely avoid steam and still play any steam game, that's all I really need to know when it comes down to it. I still say Steam is shitware, you're argument just isn't influencing the way I feel. On top of that it's just a few frigging video games and a distribution program man, you're a little overly protective of it methinks.

Sidenote: Credit card numbers do/can change, my latest CC has a different number than the previous one. I can tell you that because I just got a new one a few days ago.