Pro's and Con's of Steam

[Sakash]

The only con i have are those damn sales they have. I always buy waaaay to much. And especially their Christmas sales. I think i bought around 15 games for under $100. Hell Dead Space was $3.75!!!

 

[Nikolaz72]

PROS: Walks the dog, does the dishes. Makes sandvich. Cleans your house. Washes your back, gets your newspapers in the morning.

CONS: Constantly asks for your attention.

 

[Wuggy]

It's a very good, fairly reliable service. All the pros you can read from the posters above: great sales, no drm hassle et cetera.

However, Steam has one potentially severe fault: they can run out of cd keys when there's too many people buying a game during a short span. What it practically means is that they will take your money for the game, you download it but are unable play it since they did not supply it with a cd key. This doesn't usually take long for them to fix, and I've only seen it happen once.

 

[Aphex Demon]

I remember, not so long ago, Steam used to do this.... All the fucking time.

It literally reverted back to the old platform, then updated itself again, every time you loaded it up.

Spoiler: So true

 

[NathLines]

Pros:
Easy to use(buying games, friends)
You can download and play games anywhere
Frequent sales(MAD SALES - 75% off 4 life)

Cons:
You need steam running to play your games(offline or not)
You'll want to have some decent internetz if you want to download all your games

I don't personally see any cons with Steam. I always have Steam on and I have high download speeds. Steam really made me happy that I took the big step and built a gaming rig. Now I can buy butt-load of games. I have bought most of my games for 75% off.

Also, Steam don't host servers. They do use the VAC(Valve Anti-Cheat) on their Valve games. I don't really know about other games, I'm pretty sure that other games uses it too. I'd have to say that they're very secure, as I've rarely stumbled upon hackers in CS and none in TF2.

 

[E-Penguin]

Safe to play on steam servers most of the time. Hackers are here like anywhere else and there is a delay in getting them banned, but they do get banned. No way to buy games off steam without a credit card, unless you have credit with steam? I think its some sort of new system they are using, don't know much about it. Pretty much anything you buy off steam that you find interesting you will be able to sink your time into without having to worry too much. Oh except CoD, God help you if you buy CoD. Rampant hacking all over the place for the most part. You are in good hands with steam.

You can still use credit cards on steam, the steam credit thingy is just an addon people can use if they please.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

I love steam

Pros

Wide selection of games (including farm simulator 2011)
Large community
Indie games as well as mainstream titles
Christmas sales had games upwards of 75% off
There is always a midweek madness sale as well as a weekend sale
There are sporadic themed sales (most recent one was a different EA franchise everyday for a week)
You can change your community avatar and name whenever you like
You can re-download any game you've purchased as many times as you like
You can fix corrupted or missing files without doing a full re-install
Valve anti cheat is nowhere near as bad as other cheat prevention software
It has achievments, if you're into that sort of thing
Has an offline mode after you activate a game
As a business it's doing very well and is in no danger of shutting down in the forseeable future
More and more games are offering steam specific pre-order DLC or extra features on the steam version

Cons

Doesn't have every game ever.
If you love having games on vinyl physical format there is none.
Some games have very large downloads (some are smaller than stated though)
Has the most expensive game in the world (Railworks 2)
Uses online purchasing only (if you can't find pre-paid cards)

 

[Saulkar]

Cons:
I can't play games without an internet connection

Yes, you can.

http://will.hughesfamily.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/yes-i-am-offline.jpg

http://www.heddly.com/flatout2/purple44//GRID/Steam-offline.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-PlGVmBxjZw/SZ0DYk9c6eI/AAAAAAAAECA/yKMsQtQcE2U/s1600/headdesk

WHY U NO UNDERSTAND, INTERNETS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Anyways, with that out of my system, I can't think of any cons. At all.

Steam arbitrarily prevents me from playing my games offline for absolutely no reason. Most of the time its stylin. The rest of the time I click play in offline mode and the damn thing tells me there is an error that it cannot connect online and the operation has been aborted. My personal guess is that it is waiting for an update and will not let me use it offline until I get it but the majority of the time after connecting online there is no update reported. I have multiple friends who all experience this across Canada but never at the same time.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Pros

- Big catalogue of games, both AAA and Indie titles
- Free updates
- Frequent sales (midweek madness, weekend sales etc.)
- Cheaper prices (£29.99 RRP compared to £39.99 in most cases)
- Cloud saves
- Unlimited copies. Once you've bought Left 4 Dead on Steam you can download it on any of your computers
- Secure purchases

Cons

- No 'modes' for chat. I'm either online and fully visibe or offline. I want to play without interruption sometimes.
- Only pay by card. It'd be nice if I could have a little Steam I could allocate a ceartain amount to.

The only other issue is that yes, it's all digital downloads. But that's no obstacle providing you have unlimited internet usage.

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

* The steam support isn't very good, because many games are 3rd party games you often have to contact the developers instead of them. They also often use standart responses and it can be tiring to get to a real solution

Steam support is therefor irrelevant when dealing with third party games. Just like if you'd bought the game from a shop, PC games aren't returnable where I live so any problems have to be resolved through the developers/publishers.

 

[Merkavar]

the only con i have with steam is no physical cd which arent a con for me

i guess my only real con is that i live in australia and it takes many many hours to download a game

 

[lapan]

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

You are assuming Valve won't ever be bought by another company who changes that policy.

* The steam support isn't very good, because many games are 3rd party games you often have to contact the developers instead of them. They also often use standart responses and it can be tiring to get to a real solution

Steam support is therefor irrelevant when dealing with third party games. Just like if you'd bought the game from a shop, PC games aren't returnable where I live so any problems have to be resolved through the developers/publishers.

If there is an issue that affects all users of the game like for example with the Dreamcast Pack which requires the Users to edit settings by hand and create a directory manually to even be able to save just redirecting them to the developers is a little weak.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

You are assuming Valve won't ever be bought by another company who changes that policy.

Then bring on the law suits. I do concede on the second part then. Either way that policy is currently safe as long as Valve is heading Steam.

 

[the-squid]

Why hasn't anyone gotten quoting people yet for reference? HE NEEDS ARBITRARY REFERENCES!

"Yeah, Steam is all right I guess." -- Francis, Left 4 Dead.

Personally, I don't do Steam! Why? Because Blizzard games no need it, and that's all I got.

*thinking of a merge of steam and blizzard* .....*drool*

 

[CommanderKirov]

Cons : It's a form of DRM... I guess? And if you have slow internet it may take like an hour to download a game...

Pros: Everything else.

 

[Indecipherable]

-

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

I just thought I'd highlight this at the bizarro logic applied. If Valve goes under so they have no money, what do you hope to get by suing them?

 

[DRSH1989]

It's EEEvil. It corrupts your soul. It destroys whatever you stand for. It messes with your head & makes you feel things you never felt before. BEWARE! BEWARE! UUUUUuuuu... BEWAREEEEEEEEEEeeeeee......

 

[Bloodastral]

Pro: Makes punks look good
Con: Not as good as a battery

 

[Azure-Supernova]

-

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

I just thought I'd highlight this at the bizarro logic applied. If Valve goes under so they have no money, what do you hope to get by suing them?

You're assuming my demands would be money...

 

[Indecipherable]

-

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

I just thought I'd highlight this at the bizarro logic applied. If Valve goes under so they have no money, what do you hope to get by suing them?

You're assuming my demands would be money...

And what would they be to a now defunct and non functioning organisation.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

-

* It's almost entirely digital downloads. You have to have a good connection and there is a risk that you won't be able to play anymore in the far future if steam goes under.

I'm pretty sure Valve have said they would deploy a patch for permenant offline mode. Let's face it, if Valve went under they'd have to let us play the games we bought or they'd face legal reprecussions.

I just thought I'd highlight this at the bizarro logic applied. If Valve goes under so they have no money, what do you hope to get by suing them?

You're assuming my demands would be money...

And what would they be to a now defunct and non functioning organisation.

I'd just want to play my games. Which should be something any digital distribution service should prepare for (and that Valve has).