Poll: Steam, how do you feel about it?

[joshuaayt]

Steam? I'm willing to go as far as to suggest that it is the best thing the Internet has to offer, at least from the standpoint of a politically apathetic gamer.

A week or so ago, I realised The Sacrifice was coming out for both Left 4 Dead games, and I said to myself, I said, "Well, that's good, Steam'll probably throw a ridiculous sale", and so it did.

Frequent low prices, automatic patching, easy source of Valve news, that impulse-buy approach to video games (Torchlight? Only X dollars! Heck, why not) all add up to one seductive package.

Sure, it's useless if you have severely limited download allowances (We used to be allotted 2 GB a month, which left precious little for schoolwork, let alone 1+ GB games), but for those who can take advantage of it, it is a smoothly functioning fun machine.

I've personally never encountered any bugs, but I can imagine the frustration of losing access to
the games you have purchased. If I could alter one aspect of Steam, I suppose it would be the fact that it can prevent you from playing games at all- surely only online play should have to go through it. Not like it stops pirates, if they are willing to only play single player they've probably downloaded it already.

EDIT: Oh, right, speeds. Well, I'll admit that a big game can take a while to download, but it's usually faster than organising myself to go out and buy it from EB anyway.

 

[SentryGun]

great great program... if you've got at least (and this is the bare minimum) 50gb data a month, other than that its an excellent place to buy games, check out trailers and chat with friends

 

[cainstwin]

Digital distribution is the enemy.
Valve is the enemy.
Therefore Steam is one of the biggest enemies of gaming.

Explain.

You really need someone to? You don't own the game, you are renting it. You can never resell it so if you dislike it you are just screwed. The prices will never go down because shelf space and retailer competition is not a factor. You will be paying $50 for a game 5 years after it's release. Ever notice how prices of download only games (like VC, WiiWare, 360 Arcade) never decrease in price? Know why?

Yeah, lack of competition on the format. Oh wait, there's half a dozen DD services of PC, each competiting with each other. Even if consoles go DD-only, I'd imagine most publishers will reduce the price after a while to squeeze out the last bit of profit. As for the rest of your comments, it all boils down to something that you can argue already happens (e.g. disc breaks, loss of CD key). Resale has been something that's pretty much non-existent for PCs anyway, and if publishers get their way it may turn true for consoles as well.

Ironically, the only format capable of going DD-only at the moment, the PC, is the one least likely to go completely (someone will always print a special-edition disc).

Agree with delusibeta, just wanted to add that where I live its illegal to resale PC games, therfore the inability to resale isn't much of an issue. You can't even have a refund if you've opened the box.

I guess where you live the corporations have a great advantage. Here, it isn't illegal to sell PC games but you can't do it anyway thanks to DRM schemes and you also can't return it if you opened it unless you are exchanging for the exact same item.

The scam of it is, you can't even view the EULA until you open it. Once opened though, you can't return it if you disagree with the EULA. It's a scam, why can't most people see that?

Here too, the corporations have a huge advantage, I just don't think it's ok.

What part of it is an advantage to them? All they want to do is earn a living. Games can cost millions of pounds to produce and if half the users didnt pay to play then you have to make hundreds of people redundant, just because some people are too pig headed to feel that a corporation has actual people working in it. It isnt about restricting freedom its about making sure people earn what they deserve to get for 2 years of hard work. Its not as if games are overpriced to begin with either, compared to other media like films, in terms of hours you get 3 to 4 times as much entertainment per pound, and in terms of quality of entertainment for those hours i think games beat films in that respect too. Is it too much to ask then that the people who helped make that game a reality get paid for doing so? If we have it ur way there might not even be a games industry as we know it

They are only entitled to get paid one time for each copy of the game. That they found ways to circumvent the First Sale Doctrine doesn't make them right.

Do you feel the same about reselling other products?

What you are buying is software, something that to reproduce costs virtually nothing but to make the original costs millions. If you were to sell a second hand car it would have dropped in price due to the ageing of the materials used, and the fact that it is no longer as good as it once was relative to itself. For the company that made it, they made a physical machine that has already paid for itself in terms of materials after 1 sale, so reselling the car does not hurt the company in any way. When you buy software, the actual physical side of it costs so little you aren't really paying for it at all, if there is a physical side to it. If you resell it for half the price you paid for it, then the company has effectively had 2 products bought at half price, and have therefore had a large cut into the profit margin. These companies need to sell an amazingly large number of games just to break even, and every time a game is resold instead of bought new again you are costing them money. I do feel the same way for similar media, cds in particular are bad to resell because you probably still have a usable version of the album saved on the computer, so 1 albums been paid for but 2 now exist. When you buy any software or cd or any form of digital entertainment you aren't paying to own it you are paying for the right to use it, and each household should have to pay for that right to use it. You haven't paid for the right to distribute it, that is still owned by the publisher or whatever.

 

[Kenko]

Steam is a love/hate relationship for me tbh. Its great the same time that its the worst thing ever.

 

[Woodsey]

What do you think will happen if Steam and Valve ever have to shut down?

We will all continue to use steam offline, like it was prepared to do in the case it does fail.

Yes, I know.

I just wanted to see how uninformed he was.

Uninformed?

You don't know what would happen if Steam went under any more than I do. You hope that the DRM (the online check) will be removed but it may not work out that way. It didn't work out that way for people who bought music from Microsoft.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think Microsoft didn't remove the DRM?

We have been told that the patch is ready should Valve fall off of the face of the Earth. It is then perfectly reasonable to assume that Valve (of all people) would put that patch online.

And I have no idea what you're talking about, so I can't comment. Comparing MS and Valve never really works though, and I'm assuming MS never promised to release such a patch beforehand.

 

[Delusibeta]

They are only entitled to get paid one time for each copy of the game. That they found ways to circumvent the First Sale Doctrine doesn't make them right.

The small fact that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to at least 98% of the world's population may have something to do with it.

 

[Hoplon]

In the steam group I chat with on a regular basis, we have an expression. GSB.

General Steam Bullshit.

This sums up steam nicely, it's a useful tool and by far the best DRM solution I have yet had to put up with but some times it's fucking annoying (like password recovery for instance)

But having used stuff like EA's download manager, the various MMO updaters, Direct to drive and the like, steam wins by like a 100 km in a 100m race, they are by far the least worse solution.

 

[Megacherv]

Aaaaaand what evidence do you have for this point? Being that the hats released that you get from other games (Max's Severed Head, Lumbricus Lid, Ellis' hat, Bill's hat) haven't affected gameplay, and the weapons released the same way (Lugermorph, Big Kill, Frying Pan) have only been replacement models for the weapons and have had no new stats added gives no evidence for this whatsoever.

Just look at the way the game-economy is evolving now. Less content, bugs on release, overpriced DLC's usually with content that should have been in the release, content cut from the 'normal' version so they can sell a deluxe version, few or no demo's,...

The game industry seems to be trying hard to fck itself over and i'm pessimistic about steam not joining in.

Ooooh, right, you were on about the industry in general, I thought you were on about Steam and TF2.

Oh god yeah, it's totally Effed-in-the-A

I highly doubt Valve will do that. With their trac-record, they seem to be doing very well without resorting to this. Remember that for most of the time, Valve don't have any other publishers or distributors whose rules they have to abide by, since they do it all themselves.

The only time they have to listen to a publisher/distributor is on the console releases. vale only charge for DLC on Left 4 Dead because Microsoft says that have to, and EA seem to just let Valve get on with their own thing.

 

[Delusibeta]

They are only entitled to get paid one time for each copy of the game. That they found ways to circumvent the First Sale Doctrine doesn't make them right.

The small fact that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to at least 98% of the world's population may have something to do with it.

It applies to the US so I would suggest that any game released in the US should respect it. Do you agree?

It's not a question on if I agree, it's a question if the publishers agree, and judging by pretty much all the evidence (DRM, anti-used sale schemes, etc.) it seems that it's a resounding "no" from them.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

I even use Steam to organize my non-Steam games. It's a good jumping-point to playing games.

Not perfect, but it's a good start.

 

[SuperNashwan]

I love steam. Never had any problems with it plus sometimes you pick up bargains - like when I got Fallout 3 GOTY (thats with all DLC) for £6.99 ($11.00). Borderlands I got for £6.99 as well.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I don't have any major issues with Steam, but there have been some irritations with it.
For example, Dawn of War II. I bought the game in a store, I own a physical copy of the disc. Why should I have to download the steam client in order to verify my purchase. It's just a bigger pain in the ass than it needs to be. Plus it's not the most stable of services, I can't tell you how many times I've tried to play a game I downloaded off of Steam only to tell me it couldn't connect.
I know there's an offline mode that I can mess with but I really shouldn't have to do that to begin with.

 

[Fragged_Templar]

love steam, I prefer to get my games as hard copy, but for all the games I download steam is my first and usually only choice.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Meh I've never liked Steam... the first time I ever came across it was when I was forced to install it to play Empire: Total War.

Before then I'd never had to put up with any digital distribution medium on the PC, and Steam glitched out on me for about a day, refusing to allow me to install the game, then trying to make me download it, then after managing to get it to start to install it tries to download it again.

Right there I decided Steam is not something I enjoy, the deals are good for people who buy from there, but I don't therefore Steam is useless to me and just serves to get in my way... also oddly enough, it feels oppressive, I select Empire and a little pop up box informs me it's connecting to my account, which it proceeds to do for the best part of a minute before my game actually runs.

I prefer GFWL on pretty much all fronts, they just need a larger selection of games and I'll be set.

 

[botobeno]

We have been told that the patch is ready should Valve fall off of the face of the Earth. It is then perfectly reasonable to assume that Valve (of all people) would put that patch online.

And I have no idea what you're talking about, so I can't comment. Comparing MS and Valve never really works though, and I'm assuming MS never promised to release such a patch beforehand.

I wish i could be as optimist as you, but we live in a world were goverments delay payment for the services companies do for them to make their budgetreview look better, bankrupting several companies that were stupid enough to sell things to their own goverment. And then they say the economy isnt going that well. Meanwhile continuing to cash their own paychecks while we havent even had a goverment in place for weeks because the previous elected idiots couldnt get along and we had to go revote and now the newly elected idiots are even worse at getting along. (Belgium)

Steam will not go bankrupt soon. We can all agree on that. But if it does go down, there is absolutely no garantuee that that fix will be implemented. And you cant do anything about it if they dont.

 

[Cousin_IT]

Steam = good.
Steamworks + regional distribution system = f'king pain in the arse.

I'm still bitter that I had to wait for Civ 5 to unlock on Steam despite having the disc in my hand (well, in the DVD drive)! & woe betide if I ever dared try to order a game using Steamworks that had not been released in the EU at all.