Steam - A tale of Woe in abundance

[Zefar]

The 3-5 days is mainly for normal and not so serious issues. Yours and other issues that is about the account being Disabled, or cancel a pre order, getting hijacked and some other things. They have a higher priority than the others.

Getting disabled though, that can happen when you issue an drawback with the Bank against Steam. Or if you impersonate a Valve employee. Maybe your problems when you bought things could have caused this.

They did block your credit card after all.

 

[Xanadeas]

I love steam... it caters to my desire to never leave my house ever again. I've not once had a negative experience with steam that wasn't cause by my computer's faulty hardware. My only real problem is that I don't have any credit/debit cards or paypal. Baaaaaad experiences with paypal. So that leaves me unable to buy games myself.

 

[Threesan]

I had a similar experience on PSN. First time I tried to buy something from their store, it appeared to go OK, and I downloaded it OK and all, but the next day I tried to buy something else but found that my account was banned (but I only discovered this after I did a google search for error code 8002ad23, which was all they told me when I couldn't log in).

I was told that some "new security check" had raised some BS flag on my credit card info not matching my PSN info or something. That took longer than necessary to fix, with some miscommunications on their end in customer support. (On the upside, thanks to their crappy store/security implementation, I got to keep some RB music at no charge, though it doesn't sync properly with the store so I couldn't redownload it. I hope that doesn't make me a bad person, but, well, they screwed up costing me time and frustration, and they screwed up again costing themselves money, so.. eh. Not inclined to correct their mistake at my expense.)

Combined with the general UI hell that is the PSN or in-game store, my experience with Steam has been nearly incomparably better.

My only gripe with steam is that if my 'net goes down I lose all my games until its back up.

Well, Steam can run in offline mode, but it seems that it doesn't want to sometimes, it sits there for a couple minutes, and I kick it a few times, and then maybe it'll pop up a dialogue: "Can't connect to Steam. Restart in offline mode?" That's probably my biggest complaint against Steam. Overall, I like it well enough.

 

[Threesan]

I don't have a paypal account, But due to a bad experience using my mothers account i wont go near them.

My only real problem is that I don't have any credit/debit cards or paypal. Baaaaaad experiences with paypal.

What's the complaint against paypal? I've used it a bit with a credit(debit) card attached, and with my bank account attached without trouble (yet?)...

 

[Kaymish]

never had a problem with it except the one time i un-installed it and it un-installed all the games i bought with it and it did some thing silly when i put my game disk back in to reinstall empire total war but that was my fault

i use to hate the very idea of steam but i am now a convert

 

[Valiance]

I find it funny that people are complaining about DRM on Steam when Steam itself is DRM.

I use it, I appreciate the deals. I don't like the concept or implementation of it, and stories like yours nearly give me nightmares, and remind me why I try to not get things on Steam if I can avoid it.

 

[Xanadeas]

I don't have a paypal account, But due to a bad experience using my mothers account i wont go near them.

My only real problem is that I don't have any credit/debit cards or paypal. Baaaaaad experiences with paypal.

What's the complaint against paypal? I've used it a bit with a credit(debit) card attached, and with my bank account attached without trouble (yet?)...

They cornered me at one point in time and forced me to agree to something I wouldn't have agreed to normally. I couldn't access my account without agreeing to "upgrade" it to a business account.... At first I didn't know what it meant. Until they started draining my bank account and forcing me to pay the bank fees for overdrawing.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I hate that you have to have the steam client open to run games and that they can ban you, e.t.c. I don't play mutltiplayer on steam or use the community features so this part of it is just controlling "we do it because we can get away with it" nonsense to me.

Other services like Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate and Impulse don't do that. I think, in a way, that steam is just old fashioned but will not change until customers start making a fuss about it.

 

[Hiphophippo]

I think you might be the exception. I think it's a great service and I've never once had a problem with it aside the the rough period when it started.

 

[AlphaOmega]

Your problem is really odd, and absolutely not the norm
Sorry to hear bro, I love steam and exploiting price regions is fun and cheap.

 

[Dys]

Dear god have I had problems with steam? Look, so long as you have unlimited downloads and are constantly on the internet it usually works, for those of us with download limits and who like to lan it's the worst thing since secuROM...

 

[the fake]

i only have one game on my steam account the rest of mine i have on x box or without steam so Ive never had a problem so.......... hm-mm i wonder if this has anything to do with your affiliation with hate.

 

[Plinglebob]

I'm someone else who really doesn't like Steam as I had a problem about a year/18 months ago where I wasn't able to connect or log on to my games at all and their customer services where useless in trying to fix the problem. I only managed to get back on it after re-installing Windows.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Only issues I've had with Steam are interface related...I just don't like the way its all arranged.

 

[Gxas]

I've never liked Steam either. I haven't had many, if any, problems with it, I just don't trust it. I would much rather a CD than a digital copy of a game.

Sure, it saves production value, but tangibility makes me feel safe.

what so you can lose the cd?

Seeing as I take care of the things that I spend my money on, no, I've never lost a CD or game cartridge in my life. Now, if you gave me, say, the CD and a digital download of the game as a bundle for no extra charge, I would prefer that.

I like the way Blizzard has Battle.net set up; make an account, register the games you bought, and download the digital copies on other computers of yours. No need for a third-party interface arranging my games. No need for something extra to have updates and down-time and just be a general hassle.

But, as I said before, I take care of what I buy, so I don't need to worry about losing my CDs. Tangibility means safety because I can rely on myself to keep track of the game, rather than some server.