steam hate, why?
- Thread starter NuclearKangaroo
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My biggest issue with Steam really is just the fanboys. I accept it for what it is and appreciate the selection of games (and, of course, the sales) but I don't dismiss the fact that it's really not all that different from it's competitors once you look beyond the game selection. Just because Steam has Valve and Gabe attached to it doesn't somehow magically mean that they are not a digital download service that includes DRM and has a near monopoly on the space.
I suppose my other issue with Steam is the question of quality control and promotion. Honest indie developers still have to fight to get on the service and are lucky to get any additional promotion at all while garbage mobile game ports and barebones ports of 10 year old garbage games get through without any issue and get listed on the front page? Yeah, nothing to complain about there...
I suppose my other issue with Steam is the question of quality control and promotion. Honest indie developers still have to fight to get on the service and are lucky to get any additional promotion at all while garbage mobile game ports and barebones ports of 10 year old garbage games get through without any issue and get listed on the front page? Yeah, nothing to complain about there...
i know some might call me a valve fanboy, including myselfStriderShinryu said:
but really man, steam is VERY different from other DD clients, trading, big picture, community features, workshop, community market, trading cards, etc
you might not use these features, thats fair, but they still exist
UI's slow and clunky and steam's also kinda bloated. Not really a problem on my tower but it does have issues on my laptop. I think a lot of peoples have issues with the pricing outside the US is all. Download speeds are actually pretty high. I have actually had speeds up to 50 megs on steam so a lot of the problems talk about are regional
As someone with over 200 games on Steam, I can't say that I hate it.
With that said, however, it has problems. The biggest one as of late is how much its been flooded with absolute tat. Good games are being buried under sub-par or ancient titles, which is terrible. Its the same problem the Xbox indie store had.
Also, terrible return policy. Pretty much doesn't exist. They really should give refunds for games that don't work at all. You know you've got problems when origin does it better.
Then there's the fact that its getting a monopoly. That isn't inherently Steam's fault, but that's never a good thing. Never.
And of course, it IS DRM, which sucks. Lose your account, lose all your games. Maybe its your fault, but what if its not?
With that said, however, it has problems. The biggest one as of late is how much its been flooded with absolute tat. Good games are being buried under sub-par or ancient titles, which is terrible. Its the same problem the Xbox indie store had.
Also, terrible return policy. Pretty much doesn't exist. They really should give refunds for games that don't work at all. You know you've got problems when origin does it better.
Then there's the fact that its getting a monopoly. That isn't inherently Steam's fault, but that's never a good thing. Never.
And of course, it IS DRM, which sucks. Lose your account, lose all your games. Maybe its your fault, but what if its not?
Or they could have legit gripes?Gent said:
The OP made no mention of consoles, why are you so mad about them?
Bull.NuclearKangaroo said:
Origin has a proper refund system. Steam doesn't. EA has a Customer Service phone number in which you can speak to real people. Valve has an email that takes days to respond.
EA wins in customer service.
More bull.
Refund system and quicker respond time for customer service.
The fact that Valve only gives you one refund is piss poor in terms of customer service.
Greenlight was never majorly criticized for letting too little games in. It was criticized for Greenlighting games while not releasing them. As has always been with Greenlight there are more games waiting to be release than have been. There are still dozens of games that were the first to be Greenlit and haven't been release. Greenlight has failed. Gabe admitted as such.
Insurgency is one of the few Early Access games to get finished. The majority are still incomplete and will be for a long time. There are more games being released through Early Acces than Greenlight. This isn't debatable.
Even more bull. One game's data does not an argument make. Also, SteamCharts is not a sales tracker so its unreliable in this debate.
DayZ and Rust have sold millions. Planet Explorers has thousands, as does Kerbal Space Program. There are many Early Access games that have outsold Insurgency by a large margin.
And I suggest you use more than one game's data to make an argument, as so far I've taken your point and dismantled it quite effectively.
There was much more QC on Steam before Greenlight. That can't be denied. Publishers couldn't just dump their back catalog of 10+ year old games that may not work on to the New Releases tab before. I'm aware that crap games have always been on Steam but Valve seems to have stopped all curation period. Games like The War Z lying on their Store Page didn't happen before.
Games developers that got bad impressions of their bad games didn't get away with censoring negative opinion, like in the cases of Day One Garry's Incident and Guise of the Wolf actively blocked people on the forums who said they didn't like the game. Or using the YouTube Copyright Claim system to illegally take down negative opinion videos.
Or in the case of Miner Wars banning people from their Steam Forums for calling the devs out for lying about secondary DRM.
This BS wasn't happening 3 years ago. Now it seems every other month a game on Steam is busted for lying or for devs abusing people's freedom to express their opinion. Valve would remove the forum admin abilities from devs for that nonsense. Now it takes a YouTube video from TotalBiscuit that reaches a million views or articles from Forbes pointing out potential for class action lawsuits in the case of the WarZ to get Valve to do something.
Valve needs to reinstate quality control. One way of doing this would be to have a tab for "Legacy" releases, releases of games from a decade ago, instead of filling the front page with Barbies Adventure 1 through 6 in the New Releases tab.
Greenlight not having a ranking system also allowed for many copy cat devs to release titles.
To say that a standard QC solution for Steam is a bad idea is nuts.
so steam has more features, steam accepts more user feedback, steam gives more liberty to its users, EA has apparently threatened people with a ban for asking for a refund, but since it offers a VERY limited refund program and an admitedly better support, it treats the customer better? i disagree, but well, maybe the only thing you care about is a refund of EA games within the first 24 hours of playing em and some good technical support, and under that perspective sure, Origin must seem like a more customer friendly serviceAzrealMaximillion said:
however in my 3 years using steam ive needed a refund exactly 0 times, and ive asked for support probably less than 5 times, considering i use all the other features on a daily basis i consider steam a much more customer friendly, but well, each on his own
again, if you care so much about refunds, sureAzrealMaximillion said:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/26/open-letter-criticizes-the-steam-greenlight-process-valve-responds/AzrealMaximillion said:
http://indiestatik.com/2013/07/21/valve-react-to-greenlight-criticism/
you do know its up to the developer to release the game once its greenlit right? i quote
Source: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=765§ion=faq
also check the wording of the open letter in the articles i sent you, it talks about greelighting games, not releasing them
will you do your homework?
you cant just critize something without even knowing a damn thing about it, again, thats just hate, not criticism
true i think, and your point is?AzrealMaximillion said:
does this affect you in any way? if you like a game on early access but you dont want to play an unfinished game, dont fucking buy it, wait until it gets released
so 5 times more concurrent players does not even suggest a significant increase in sales?AzrealMaximillion said:
since sales numbers are only known by valve and developers, i cant provide you with exact sales numbers, but it would be completely ridiculous to not even consider insurgency sold much more after release than it ever did during early access
im now saying they havent, im saying they will sell MUCH more after they get released, which is an incentive to finish their gamesAzrealMaximillion said:
funny you mention KSP, that game got its huge following thanks to the beta access provided by the early access program, expanding the scope of the game and the devs even got in touch with NASA, if that isnt a win for the early access program, i dont know what is
ok, heres anotherAzrealMaximillion said:
http://steamcharts.com/app/249650
blackguards, released on january
you havent dismantled a damn thing, your entire argument is that devs are willing to sacrifice their reputation, future earnings and success just to run away with the money they have already made, that is just insane
it would be like arguing for instance that nintendo could release a new console tomorrow, and kill off the wiiu and all its services, just so they can stop losing money with it. it makes no damn sense
lets check the score:
games abandoned while on early access: 0
games that left early access: atleast 2, there are more but i dont feel like checking
dont pay attention to whats on greenlight, pay attention to whats greenlit, even if a game gets enough votes valve still has to give it thumbs upAzrealMaximillion said:
im not agaisnt a legacy feature, ive proposed that before i think
what i dont think would work is to get valve to sit down and review every single game that wants to get into steam, thats what got steam in a bad situation with indie devs a few years ago, this will slow down the process in which new games get into steam, and steam is aiming towards being more open, not more closed
plus for the last time, user reviews, if you want to critize a game use that, your reviews gets shown on the store page which hurt the devs of bad games more than a forum post, as for the devs having admin powers on their own forums, im neutral about it, i think valve wants to give devs their own user forums and reach a bigger audience via steam than they could ever get via their own website, its only natural they also get some control over that, but agaisnt bad reviews, they have no more power than the standard user i believe
Just going to jump in, this is a bit of an urban legend (so not your fault, NuclearKangaroo). Assuming you're talking about the Simcity debacle. They threatened a customer with a ban when he threatened to go through his bank and get a chargeback. While not offering refunds for a clearly broken product was bad service, Valve would do the exact same thing if you tried to get a chargeback for one of their games.NuclearKangaroo said:
If they actually threatened to ban someone for asking for a refund, that would indeed be really, really bad. I don't think that has actually happened though.
oh ok, my bad, i take that badCaiphus said:
but honestly, the refund policy of EA is in my opinion, overrated, only applies to EA games and theres a 24 hour limit
of course a refund policy for steam would be nice, but ive never found myself in a situation where i need a refund
Well, that's fine. I've also never needed a refund because I'm usually rather careful with what I buy. And I would imagine that a lot of people are the same. Origin pretty much only sells EA games anyway, though. Third party stuff is usually horrendously overpriced (which is another, separate issue that EA needs to fix). Let me go onto Origin and check the price of The Witcher 2... $100. Yeah, that's laughable.NuclearKangaroo said:
Granted it is tougher for Valve to offer refunds because it would almost certainly require re-writing contracts with everyone, and having to deal with developers who really don't want people getting refunds on Steam. What happens if 2K (hypothetically) refuses? Do you take their games off Steam? Then everyone loses. There are probably ways to get around that though. They could start by offering refunds for Greenlit games only, for example.
But I still don't think it's really acceptable to say "it's just too tough for Valve to offer refunds" considering Valve really doesn't have to do anything when you ask for a refund, they just remove a game from your library. In brick and mortar stores, they have to replace packaging, manuals (although those don't really exist anymore, I guess), put stuff back on shelves, and have a staff member deal with you immediately. It's not much, you might argue. And you'd be right. But Valve doesn't have to do any of that. They could just untick a box next to your account whenever they get around to it.
And especially with shitty indie games, like Guise of the Wolf, for instance, Valve essentially has all the market power. Small developers are desperate enough to get on Steam that Steam should really be telling them that some things just aren't acceptable. If your game has falsely advertised, Steam can quite easily say "We're going to give out refunds of your game until you fix your store page." And most developers (apart from EA and Ubisoft, obviously), would have to deal with it. Because Steam is currently the key to selling your game on PC.
But I do understand that it can't happen overnight, there are too many separate parties for Valve to deal with.
Oh, and for Origin, it is technically 24 hours after you first launch a game, or 2* weeks after you buy it (whichever comes first). Which would stop people completing a game and then getting refunds, which you can kind of understand.
There we go. Sorry for that minor rant.
*Edit: I was incorrect. It is one week.
Caiphus, if you don't mind double checking, what is the price for it for you on Steam? I just got Witcher 2 off Origin for the identical price it is on Steam, so I'm curious as to why it'd be so much more expensive for you there then it is up here in the Most Glorious People's Republic of Canuckistan.Caiphus said:
Anyways, on-topic, I can see why people might not like Steam. I've had my own run ins myself with poor customer service. Steam has also had a funny habit of wanting me to completely redownload several games, all of which were several gigs large, and would have taken me days to completely redownload.
No problem. It's currently 20 USD. Which makes it roughly 23 NZD (The Origin price of 100 earlier was in NZD).theSovietConnection said:
Huh, so it might just be that EA gouges Australia/NZ to a silly degree. How lovely. High five.
And it's not that I don't like Steam, necessarily. Although you probably weren't referring to me. I actually do like it. It was, and still might be, one of the best things about PC gaming. For most people, anyway. I'm just personally annoyed that the ways in which it has evolved (trading cards, workshop, Greenlight, etc.) don't really affect me, while it's stayed stagnant or gone backwards in ways that do (general average quality of games offered, refunds). Some people are the opposite, that's fine. Though, it is frustrating to see consumers act in rather anti-consumer ways for no reason other than corporate favouritism (and I'm not referring to NuclearKangaroo - or anyone - he's mostly been civil).
And I am loving the Most Glorious People's Republic of Canuckistan. They should have you on some kind of committee.
I will weigh in here and tell you that it's actually, literally not Steam's job to ensure that the game you purchase works. (Either through current developer or something like Jade Empire or KoToR II, etc. All steam is is a sale page, a middleman. It's great when steam steps in and defends your customer rights when actual, literal theft is occurring, (The War Z v1) But the idea that a game built around windows 95//Fat32 should just plug and play is asinine, and to yell at steam about that is to go into Gamestop and buy a PS4 game, then come back in twenty minutes later and yell at the clerk for not telling you it was for the Xbone. Expect to do a bit of work. GoG doesn't modify the executables or provide pre-patched products ready to go either.
More refunds would be nice, but honestly I can understand their point of view. 99% of people's "customer service issues" are resolved by googling the problem for fifteen seconds anyway, and people who want a refund because they're dissatisfied should probably try to return a game to Gamestop because they didn't like it and see how it goes. Steam's responses are canned because they've got most of that information you need about getting the game to run on an older system stickied in their forums.
More refunds would be nice, but honestly I can understand their point of view. 99% of people's "customer service issues" are resolved by googling the problem for fifteen seconds anyway, and people who want a refund because they're dissatisfied should probably try to return a game to Gamestop because they didn't like it and see how it goes. Steam's responses are canned because they've got most of that information you need about getting the game to run on an older system stickied in their forums.
Say what? I have about 200 games in my library and I've never experienced what you talk about.Shamanic Rhythm said: