Should I use Steam?

[Mariakko]

Steam is pretty good on game selection and game price, but I have had it crashing my computer a couple of times. I would recommend getting it, but still be careful if you have low bandwidth or an old laptop.

EDIT: Oh balls I walked straight into a necro, well played.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Wait, what exactly is it you're afraid of?


You're wondering if Steam is made by bad people who wish to give you viruses and steal all your money, or something?

It has yet to steal my money or give me a virus. Thanks, computer paranoia!
I buy ALL of my games from the store, including games that go on Steam.

Well it does steal all our money because of its damn discount sales.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

I'll just quote this guy who recently installed it.

Steam sucks. I hate Steam.
I rate Steam 1/10. I give Steam 0 stars out of 5. I do not like Steam. I dislike Steam. Steam is shite. Steam stinks. Steam is crap.

There. That ought to have got the attention of anything browsing LJ, looking for opinions.

What does "Ready to play" mean to you? If you've bought a game online and you've just finished downloading it and you see "Ready to play" come up, what do you take that to mean? That the game is ready to be played? Hah! Fool! As if! No, it means you need to verify the files. The official way to do this is to restart Steam so that it will automatically verify the files. You don't actually have to restart Steam. In one of about a dozen display modes, you can right-click the game and click "properties," then click "Local Files" and find a "verify local game file cache" button, which sometimes works. Sometimes it does nothing, and sometimes it seems to be working but actually does nothing, but sometimes it works.

It's a good job it's there, because restarting Steam isn't as easy as you might think. To restart it, first you have to STOP it. One way to do this begins with ctrl-alt-delete and the Task Manager. If you're lucky, ending the process will allow you to restart Steam. All the other ways to stop Steam are the first half of rebooting your computer. "Windows has almost finished updating your system, which now needs to be restarted," I can stand. At least it's telling you you need to reboot. Steam says: "Ready to play."

Then the game crashes to desktop.

That or I get kicked because the server's running a different version of a file and Steam can't tell until I get three-quarters of the way through a campaign.

That or I get kicked mid-game because Steam suddenly can't verify my identity as a Steam user.

I got into a voice chat today and stuff started locking up, so I thought I'd end the voice chat. Yeah, right. You? A client? End a telephone call? You'll end that call when Steam tells you it's over, you piffling client. What do you think you are, a paying customer?

I had so much trouble with it before that I removed it all and reinstalled it. When I removed it all, I lost my OS product key. Partway through reinstalling stuff, my computer either rebooted or logged me off and I got the product key back.

Today I tried to play a game and crashed to desktop, possibly because I was downloading add-on support for it at the time. I tried to play another game and it said it couldn't launch it because it was already launching something else. It was verifying something else, not launching anything.

Francis has not yet expressed a low enough opinion of Steam. Come back, sail power. All is forgiven.

Edit to add: right now, Firefox is trying to download three videos (of Cheryl Cerri, for the curious) and Steam is not, officially, trying to do anything. Steam's using more bandwidth just sitting there than Firefox is getting for its videos.

Edit again to add: L4D2 is suddenly "not installed" again. WTF?

Edit again (*sigh*): restarted Steam and it said "Ready to play" so I tried it and it said: "could not load the launcher .dll as the specified module could not be found," so I tried "validate" and it says: "82 files failed to validate and will be reacquired."

Seriously. 82.

Is something screwing with my hard drive or is Steam fucked up ... or is Steam fucked up and screwing with my hard drive?

 

[Andrewtheeviscerator]

You not only necromanced a 3 year old thread, but did it to promote piracy. A double whammy right there.

And yeah Steam is good, good sales and works so why not

 

[DoPo]

You not only necromanced a 3 year old thread, but did it to promote piracy. A double whammy right there.

And yeah Steam is good, good sales and works so why not

So-o-o, you decided to dig up a week old thread to say that? Maybe next time you shouldn't necro to call out the necros. Just a suggestion.

 

[LordFish]

Steam is great, although disable auto run, and if its an old laptop there should still be plenty of cheap indie games that will still run..

 

[Heronblade]

Great program, particularly for finding games that are simply not available in the store for a low price.

Only problem I have to report is that a small handful of older games don't work very well with the interface.

 

[Matthew Kjonaas]

Pro
1. It has many free or cheap games for you to play
2. You can receive gifts and give others gives after you get a premium account
3. Easy to play with friends online
4. Many sales including on weekends and special event (spring break, this includes a time where I bought a game for $2.50)
Also to make your account a premium account you just need to buy a single game.

 

[Rastien]

Anyone that says steam doesn't steal your money is lying.

Spoiler

THERE ARE JUST TO MANY REALLY GOOD DEALS AND SALES EVERY WEEK! curse you gabe... curse you i say.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Who dun necro'd this thread o.o

 

[DoPo]

Who dun necro'd this thread o.o

Two people. It is really beating a dead horse..., also, lol

Asking if you should use Steam is like asking if you should eat food. Yeah, you can do without, but it's just better if you do use it.

That's like asking if you should breath Oxygen. Damn straight you should get Steam if you want to game on PC.

I think it's safe to assume you are in favour of Steam.

People!

This is a twice necro'd thread. Please, leave it move on to the Other Side. The poor thing deserves some eternal rest.

I'm reporting this comment in hopes the mods lock the thread.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Me too, o user of a shootable avatar, me too. On checking back, it turns out to have been someone who just wanted to tell us all to steal all our games instead of buying them.

I'll just quote this guy who recently installed it.

Steam sucks.

To add to that:

Ha! I'm in!

First thing I tried was verify, of course. While I was doing that, Steam said it had downloaded an updated driver and asked me whether I wanted to restart it, and I said yes, and the failures were ongoing, so I used a Task Manager process-kill to restart Steam, and then it did the downloading and still couldn't launch but at least it was saying it has updated L4D each time before it failed. I just rebooted the computer, and it's working again! YAY!

..... and now, I invoke the dreaded copyright lawyer to get this locked, or I would if Order of the Stick hadn't already used him.