should steam rule the gaming world?

[Jester00]

i think most of the gamers today have a steam account. me too, and i really love steam. but there's one thing that i hate: i have 2 or 3 games which are not on steam. and i thought, why are there games which aren't on steam? it would be awesome if you can see really every game from your friends in their steam lists. in my opinion, steam should be standard, it installs itself when you install your OS or whatever. what do you think about that?

 

[EllEzDee]

Not everyone enjoys steam. I hate that it takes like 5 minutes to startup sometimes, and a lot of people hate having to be online to play their games.
And i'd hate to give Gaben a monopoly on the market, since it just means more money to spend on delaying EP3.

 

[GWarface]

Not everyone enjoys steam. I hate that it takes like 5 minutes to startup sometimes, and a lot of people hate having to be online to play their games.
And i'd hate to give Gaben a monopoly on the markey, since it just means more money to spend on delaying EP3.

You dont have to be online to play.... Theres an offline mode..

I think it should be standard... It already is for me anyway...

 

[Olikunmissile]

NO. If any company ever got a monopoly on anything it would wipe the market clean by being able to price whatever they wanted at whatever they wanted.

The idea of monopolising the video games market is bad and you should feel bad too.

 

[omicron1]

As long as they keep feeding me deals, I for one welcome our Combine overlords.

 

[Souplex]

Let's look at the facts shall we?
Valve = Evil.
Digital Distribution = Evil.
A digital distribution platform that Valve runs and profits from = The greatest threat to gaming there is.
It must be stopped.

 

[Mechsoap]

Its a good concept but executing it would be hard, and with so much power someone has to become corrupt, and many don't like steam infact... i know its weird... also the fact that you to have internet to play the games and download it instead of lets say....installing it from a disc?

 

[EllEzDee]

Not everyone enjoys steam. I hate that it takes like 5 minutes to startup sometimes, and a lot of people hate having to be online to play their games.
And i'd hate to give Gaben a monopoly on the markey, since it just means more money to spend on delaying EP3.

You dont have to be online to play.... Theres an offline mode..

I think it should be standard... It already is for me anyway...

Let's say you bought New Vegas retail, and don't have an internet connection. You just want to play the game you bought, but you have to be online to register for offline mode first.

 

[Zorg Machine]

I'm worried that more stuff would be put on valve time.

 

[hermes]

NO.

No single company should rule any world, ever. If that were the case, they could do pretty much whatever they want and people would have to deal with it.

Of course, Steam is the de facto standard for PC gaming, but that is mostly because they do a pretty good job compared to the competition. If they were the only providers (remove amazon, gamestop and any other retailer, online or offline), they would have zero motivation to do things right.

 

[TaboriHK]

We're headed out of the era of physical media. Everything is eventually going to be like Steam in one way or another.

 

[TenaciousTom]

I personally have a love/hate relationship with steam. Sometimes it takes hours to connect,and lots of games are unavailable at steam. I do like to have my own game boxes, so I'm not a big fan of digital distribution.
On the other hand, the web service, chat system and community service is great. Sometimes they have nice sales which for me is a reason to buy games.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

No... no... no... no, no, no, no... no.

Yes I'm biased against Steam as it is anyway but dear god if they started encompassing every game ever I'd start learning how to mod Steam out of the equation.

Thankfully I only put up with it for about 6 games right now...

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

You dont have to be online to play.... Theres an offline mode..

Which barely works at the best of times...

 

[GWarface]

Not everyone enjoys steam. I hate that it takes like 5 minutes to startup sometimes, and a lot of people hate having to be online to play their games.
And i'd hate to give Gaben a monopoly on the markey, since it just means more money to spend on delaying EP3.

You dont have to be online to play.... Theres an offline mode..

I think it should be standard... It already is for me anyway...

Let's say you bought New Vegas retail, and don't have an internet connection. You just want to play the game you bought, but you have to be online to register for offline mode first.

Then you check the game requirements before you buy a game and dont buy it if you dont meet those requirements... Easy as that... Thats almost as saying that the game developers should give you a new graphics card because the one you have is outdated...

Unless the game wants you to hook it up with Steam and cant be played wihout that... And if so, Theres propably a big, fat sign on the back that says that... If then, read section above...

 

[ViaticalTarsier]

I hate steam do to the fact that a few years ago I bought half-life + 2? expansions from the store, and stuck in the CD and instead of being able to download if from the CD it had me download it from steam itself...... On a dial up connection that takes days...... I'm not a fan of the digital download and prefer to just have an actual copy. Plus when you don't use steam for a long time and forget your password and login name and can't access the games that you've actually purchased......

 

[Sky Captanio]

I think it's a really good system but seeing as my PC can only run really old games (And Half Life 2 for some reason} I get most of my games on my Xbox.

 

[GWarface]

You dont have to be online to play.... Theres an offline mode..

Which barely works at the best of times...

Dont think i ever had a problem... And i have been using it since it came out... And damn it sucked at that point... But for me it has just got better and better...

 

[Byere]

Its a good concept but executing it would be hard, and with so much power someone has to become corrupt, and many don't like steam infact... i know its weird... also the fact that you to have internet to play the games and download it instead of lets say....installing it from a disc?

I have to concur that there IS an offline mode, but I totally agree with you Mechsoap. While it is mostly commonplace, there are still people that don't have high-speed internet accent. Downloading a 7gb game is just out of the question for the most part.
What irritates me most though is when a game that you buy from the shop... on a disc... forces you to install have have Steam operating in order to play it. This has been the case for 2 games for me. The Last Remnant and Fallout: New Vegas.
Even more irritating, whatever the legal charges may be, is that in the case of F:NV I was sent my copy a day early because I pre-ordered. I got it, was eager to play all day (had to wait till the evening because of work) and then Steam wouldn't even let me install it because "it hadn't been released yet". Now I can understand how that can be helpful, but if I have the official hardware in my hand (or, in my computer's disc-drive, as the case was), I expect to be able to play it.

As a game developer in-training, I shouldn't ***** about something that is useful to the games industry like Steam... but the damn thing irritates me.

 

[subject_87]

Steam is popular because it's really good (All hail playing as a headcrab in Super Meat Boy!). All the hand-wringing about it becoming a 'monopoly' has a simple answer: make something better than Steam. However, it seems like one of the main potential rivals, Games for Windows Live, is more of an elaborate griefing scheme than an actual digital distribution platform.