Auron said:
...Steam was critical in a moment when everyone was talking about the death of computer gaming,...
A lot of people are still talking about the "death of computer gaming", it was nonsense then, it's nonsense now. Consoles are always limited by their generation-based hardware constraints.
Valve was always there since 2003 slowly building up, they gave us in the third world a chance at fair prices and severely wounded our over priced retail markets that charged three times as much. I'm very thankful to Valve.
Interesting, I wasn't aware of the aspect of the third world involvement (also, isn't Brazil considered second world or whatever?). Interestingly, the prices being the same everywhere - a good feature of GOG - would be a disadvantage for a lot of places, even though it's an advantage for people like me. That said, it's not the initial stages that I have the largest issues with. Used to be that Steam was somewhat optional. I own a number of games that
can be added to your Steam library should you so desire - like Dawn of War: Soulstorm, for instance - but that don't have the Steam activation
requirement, that lack the DRM-features. This setup, of course, I would be completely fine with. Having additional options is nice, if you want to have the community aspects or to have your games in one place. What isn't fine, though, is their transition from optional to requirement, the exclusivity of numerous new titles to their DRM-platform. That's where they went too far in my opinion and it's been like that for several years now.
I don't mind the "drm" that Steam enforces as it's always open for me and I already put everything sans Origin games on steam shortcuts so I don't have to litter the desktop with icons or unnecessarily open Win explorer.
I had issues with Steam connectivity a lot of times, but it's also an issue of principle. Consumer protections groups in Germany are trying to force Valve to comply with regulations - as they should - but some of the responses have been far from helpful. Someone even suggested that Steam may cease operating in Germany if a lawsuit goes through successfully. Well, what happens to the games I bought... I'm sorry, the games I got a subscription to, then? I value consumer rights quite highly and the willingness with which many people seem to give them up is astounding to me. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some people would start blaming the consumer protections groups if something like that ended up happening, for trying to get Valve to follow the law. Not to mention the fact that they piss me off with their region-bound sales. I couldn't buy the original BioShock, only the censored version. I had to look for blood patches and texture mods to restore some of its original look, but couldn't even fix all the things they changed. Why? I'm an adult, I can import games from the UK or elsewhere freely. It's not illegal to own imports if you're above 18. Why do these guys feel they have the right to babysit me and restrict my options? Having to play censored versions/having to look for workarounds is patently annoying.
As for cluttering up your desktop, I just have a folder on there called "Games" where I put the shortcuts. And starting a game from there is much faster than starting the Steam client and picking it from the library.
So if I'm going to buy a game to run it through Steam I might as well save 5 dollars and get it there supporting a platform that I like to support.
The savings aren't really an argument in my view. Plenty of distributors, including GOG, have quite extensive price reductions, weekly, on weekends, on special dates etc.. The only flaw with GOG is the - certainly in comparison to Steam - small library of games they have to offer. But they're working to remedy that.
Again nothing against gog but I'm not baffled by the notion that someone chooses gog over steam or the contrary and I find weird that someone is, if it was something generally controversial like Origin I'd at least understand.
It's mostly the DRM, it's the region-bound sales of censored games, it's the fact that it's basically a giant advertisement platform and it's freely giving up consumer rights in favour of a subscription system rather than buying a product. Now, maybe you don't care about these issues, maybe they don't affect you, but they are certainly a large enough hinderance for me to like Steam. As I said earlier, I only buy from Steam when it's absolutely necessary because no other legal way of acquiring a game I really, really want to play exists.
fenrizz said:
Because I rather like Steam.
I have most my PC games there, it's cheaper (one 5th off at worst) and Steam has a lot of neat features.
Never cared for GOG anyway.
But it's DRM free I hear you say, and to that I have only one reply:
So what?
I doubt it's necessarily cheaper. GOG has sales of up to 80% price reduction under special circumstances. The "normal" price reduction for Monday and Wednesday sales is 60%.
Eh, whatever. Maybe some of the other issues I mentioned above explain my dislike for Steam better. I obviously can't "convert" anybody, but I'm still astounded by the loyalty some people seem to give this service, considering the consumer rights violations. We should move away from the "subscription-mentality" and return to viewing games as we view other media like DVDs, books, music etc..
