steam hate, why?

[Doom-Slayer]

Out of curiosity, what was wrong with each game? Vampire is a universally acclaimed game and Sniper Ghost Warrior looks like ti got meh reviews, but nothing saying it was literally unplayable.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I dont hate Steam but I strongly dislike it and will buy games from GOG, on console or another DRM free place such as maybe the devs homepage if possible.

I dont like it because I just hate having to install a client on my comp its another thing between me and the games and I also strongly oppose DRM on PC. Lastly I do not like the precedent they set now every big publisher wants their own client.

I am glad they are finally getting some competition but they still have a bit to strong a hold on PC gaming for my liking.

I just prefer other services on PC. I feel GOG has one of the best services DRM free universal pricing (mostly) and no friggin client just an account page with my games simple and effective hopefully they continue to grow.

 

[Abulurd_H]

snip

Please don't assume this is a personal attack! I don't normaly internet like this but I am compelled to respond to your
"obvious reasons"

1. I can't knock a person for being concerned about credit information online but seriously, you are more likely to have your email/own computer compromised

2. I can't recall buying any game in the last 14 years or so that hasn't required some form of authentication (key codes etc) and/or installation of shitty 1st/3rd party on or off disc DRM. The first major disappointment I recall in this regard was a Command & Conquer game (RA 2 I think) that forced me to make an account online with EA and tie my disc to it before I could play single player. Followed a couple years later by an ondisc starforce install that fucked my computer forcing me to reinstall Windows to get rid of it and me never actually being able to play that game or get my money back. Can't remember which game it was. Admittedly my experience with this could be because I dont tend to buy single use, 1 player games. I like multiplayer options
DRM is a thing. We have to live with it (barring GoG of course) there are worse options than Steam. I admit I am frustrated by the likes of Ubisoft, Kalipso, Rockstar etc that insist you have to use their DRM on top of Steam DRM. That shits just annoying. More websites and passwords that i cant be fucked remembering.

3. Resource hog? I have steam open at the moment. It is consuming approx 5.4MB of RAM. Assuming a worst case scenario of Windows 32bit istallation running 3 GiG RAM this is approx 2% RAM consumption. Quick search online reveals estimate of 3MB per hour data transfer when steam is idling. Assuming you had steam idling 24hours a day for 30 days your talking a total of approx 2GB a month. Hardly breaking the data cap bank. By comparison Firefox is currently using approx 41MB of RAM. Nearly 7 x the amount that Steam is using

4. You have NEVER owned your games. You have owned the disc media that the game was on but the game was always just a licence to use (again this is my own personal experience and could be a result of generaly only buying games that have multi-player online components)

5. Bricks and mortar stores also have quality control and refund issues. Admittedly quality control in a brick and mortar store can be a little better because shelves full of glitchy shit that doesn't sell only takes up physical space where you could be displaying something better. I dont know how things are in your country but you try and take an opened game back to a shop in New Zealand and see how far you get. *spoiler* It's not very far...

6. Personal preference that one. I dont mind the ads. I hear you can turn them off though

7. Are you talking Steam updates or game updates? If it is Steam updates that are taking hours then I would suggest your ISP is the one at fault. Most Steam updates take less than a minute to download and apply

8. The lazy attitude of devs regarding day one patches and game breaking bugs has nothing to do with Steam and everything to do with the internet being so universaly available and the greedy/lazy mindset of publishers pushing release dates with the attitude of get it on the shelves, we will patch it later if it sells well. EA is particulary guilty in this regard. BF3 launch week(s) issues and the follow up, game breaking *fixes* were a fucking joke. It's why i watched the Sim City debacle with a smug sense of satisfaction, secure in the knowledge that those cunts didn't get a cent from me and are unlikely to ever again BF4 issues didnt touch me either. When will people learn not to pre buy shit?

I agree that it is a pathetic and despicable practice but it's hardly attributable to Steam.
Day one patches are a thing now. I dont see them going away anytime soon. With Steam I dont have to trawl 50 different websites for 50 different games to keep tabs on patches and updates. Steam tells me there is an update. I download it. I am done.

Does no one remember the days of Halflife 1 mods? Keeping on top of Halflife itself, Teamfortress, Day of Defeat, Counter Strike, Firearms ( I am sure there were more) was a fucking nightmare! And that was just the mods for one game that all had their own seperate communities and websites and reams of community hosted servers all running different patch builds. Heaven help you if you had a bunch of other games that weren't halflife to keep track of as well. Often wound up spending more time trawling and patching than you did actually playing.

I am not a fanboy. Steam, like any other company, could do some things better but I think overall they offer a pretty reasonable service. The reams of crappy titles to avoid on Steam are a direct result of them responding to the critisisms of them playing gate keeper to what they did and didn't think was acceptable for it's customers to access. Id rather wade through oceans of shit to find those indie gems than never even hear of them in the first place because they couldn't get access to the large digital game distribution customerbase that Steam has to offer. Hopefully the Steam tags service will ameliorate this problem. They are hardly perfect but they try a lot harder than EA/Origin or Microsoft ever have

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

First and foremost, why are you asking us why we hate steam if all you are going to do is try to convert us to Valveboyism?

Anyway, I am well aware of the video as I watched it the day after it went live and I disagree with him too.

because many of your arguments are either inconsistent or flat out lies

So take a step back and ask yourself, "Who else do I sound like right now?" It's better because of the cloud! Trust us! Look at all these services we provide; TV, Football, achievements for TV, achievements for watching ads, DA CLOUDZZZZZZZ!

It might surprise you but I don't give a flying fuck about "the cloud". Much like I prefer hard copies of games I also prefer to own the thing my data is being stored on. As for your point about updating, I didn't realize steam could magically make all of the OS code identical. Damn guyz, did ju hear? Just code for steam and ittle work on mac, pc, Linux, and all the rest! Wait a sec... If that's the case why is there a push to get more steam games Linux compatible? Doesn't just being on steam make that all work?

did i say anything even remotely similar? im a programmer id never dare say anything so stupid

but take for instance, what about games that use steamworks for matchmaking and/or hacking protection? some devs arent willing to support 2 versions of a game

theres other stuff like the achivements that i mentioned, and believe some people care about those, and some people do care about cloud saving, i find it very helpful that every time i install my games on a new PC my old saves are there as well, some devs want all the versions of their game to have the exact same features, its THEIR problem to include steamworks or not, nobody is forcing them, they could support 2 versions of the game like some indie devs do

you seem to be so lost in your own defensiveness you didnt realize I DID NOT DEFEND THIS PRACTICE

"i can understand how this can be problematic, theres no real reason for devs to do this"

how about you stop your ridiculous flammatory speech and make an actual argument or atleast put yourself in the shoes of the people who enjoy steam's features, just like i can understand someone who is agaisnt DRM because of principles

I don't own the things I bought with my money. That's enough to oppose it on principle. However, this might cause you to back peddle a little.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/

you do realize that game was pulled off because of its always online requirement right? steam had little to do with that

or maybe you think every single form of DRM is the same, and stuff like, say securom, which allows your game to be installed only on a limited number of machines is equal to steam which allows you to install your games in as many machines as you damn well please

Did steam not require you to call home the entire time you played at one point? Last I heard the offline mode was chinchy at best, didn't include all games with single player, and only worked for 30 days at a time.

nope, it works almost flawlessly, maybe yiou should do some research before speaking agaisnt something

So Xbox live doesn't offer cloud saving, achievements, sales, family sharing, or in-home streaming? Damn, that's news to me. OH, WAIT! No it's not, because I can turn on my Xbox right now and see these things. /credibility

i have a question for you, do you actually read my posts before commenting? did you by any chance miss the "free" part? or stuff like, the workshop, big picture, community features, etc

the reason i also mentioned standard stuff like achivements and cloud saving, is because DRM free services like GOG.com dont offer that

steam manages to be free, relatively non-instrusive and feature-rich

You might be able to opt out but there are still reports of data mining, intentional or not, afterwards.

such as?

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how wrong you are.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2914901
http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1wyu01/castleminer_z_developer_yes_actual_developer_is/

oh hohoh i NEVER said the forums werent modded by the devs, but the REVIEWS, the stuff YOU complained about, cant be censored by the devs, and those have much more visibility than the forums, those are in the actual store page

Pro consumer...? *insert gif again* Have you tried to get a refund from Valve, ever? The horror stories are endless, the lack of QC in their store is sickening, and the DRM is lazy.

wait, you complain about QC, right after you complained about valve removing a non-functional game from steam?

and no i have never asked for a refund on steam, not that i dont acknowledge that is an area that could be improved, but when i look at my 100+ legal game collection i couldnt have gotten otherwise, and the 200+ dollars ive made thanks to trading and the steam market i say, thanks valve, hell i even bought a part to fix the family van with the money i made via trading, so much for not owning my games haha

Except for the fact that they are required by law to provide compensation for a product they are buying into with the intent to sell.

errm no they are not, the spit is up to the content creators, so even if they used a tool made by developer X, they can choose to not give developer X a cent, this system also was not in place in the many years TF2 allowed for user created content to be sold on the store, and all the money comes from valve's split, not the content creator's

I can't understand being a valveite so why don't you try becoming informed at least.

you didnt even know how the offline mode worked for christ's sake

 

[Nimzabaat]

1) Required for hard copies- Not too hard to understand that if I have physically bought a disk then why the fuck do I have to download a third party DRM service to play it?

2) The issue of ownership- You don't own anything you buy through steam or use steam to run (see above). They can take everything away if you get banned, if the servers were to crash, or if Valve went out of business.

3) The fucking hypocrisy- You'll see PC gamers be the first ones to rub DRM practices in console users faces (mostly the pre-180 Xbone) but steam does many of the things the pre-180 Xbone wanted to do. They will ***** incessantly about Origin/UPlay/GFWL/ and then go on to rant and rave about how good steam is. Steam is DRM like the rest.

4) Steam is resource sucking spyware- Steam has to be task managered to death and is used to data mine all types of information from your rig, peripherals, and programs you have running.

5) Steam has no respect for their customers- Just look at the broken shit they sell or better yet, how much power they give to developers on the game's steam page. Remember when the devs went through and were deleting bad reviews for what ever the latest shit game was?

While I don't hate steam as such, I definetly agree with all your points. Point number 3 is especially notable here on the escapist. I don't think there is such a thing as DRM-free on any console. Though it's funny that Steam wants to take some ideas from MS, they're planning on implementing the "family sharing" program that was supposed to be on the XB1.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

I could give as many reasons for hating Steam as I do for liking it, but I'll only list my most egregious one here: the fact that Valve can permanently lock your account at any time and for any reason, and they're not required to give any kind of explanation. Even worse, they will lock your account if you choose not to agree to their ToS updates -- once they do that, you lose access to any previous purchases made on that account, and I can't begin to tell you how fucking offensive and anti-consumer I find that to be.

i could argue steam is pro customer with this
-allowing customers to post their own reviews on the store page which get much more visibility than the forums
-allowing cancellations of pre-orders
-constant improvement and additions of features such as big picture, steam workshop, community features (you know, the same forums you complain are being censored), etc
-giving out free games (Portal, Left 4 Dead 2), which crashed their own site and made em lose sales
-supporting content creators and working closely with them

there are 2 sides to this coin pal

You're absolutely right about 2 sides:

-Steam may allow customers to post reviews, but it also allows devs and publishers to flag reviews for "offensive" material. While that can be beneficial in theory for everyone involved, in practice it can lead to episodes like this [http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/9uZDg/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-the-developer-of-this-game].
-Cancel pre-orders? That's great and all, but have you ever tried to get a refund from Steam for a broken-at-release game? It's a long, arduous process that forces customers to fight tooth and nail with Steam reps to even get an acknowledgement of any existing issues, even when armed with mountains of evidence.
-For every improvement Valve adds to Steam, they break something else. They also have a habit of ignoring serious issues for years (remember how terrible offline mode used to be?) until the public outcry becomes too loud to ignore.
-Valve's free giveaways crashed Steam because Valve couldn't be bothered to prepare for the overloaded bandwidth they knew would result if they started giving away free copies of some of the most renowned PC games in the world. They also pull the same crap with each and every seasonal sale they hold, the results being massive downtime, client crashes and server bottlenecks.

also stop lying, you are the second person saying devs can censor reviews on steam, thats a flat out lie, you can check the FAQ of steam reviews and see for yourself, or check the store page of bad games

Not only does Valve allow devs to flag reviews and tags (with the end result potentially being deletion, collapse or alteration, i.e. censorship) , but they also give devs free reign to edit, hide, delete, lock, and outright disappear Community forums associated with whatever particular title those publishers may be selling on Steam.

If I were you, I'd do a little homework before accusing others of being liars.

i agree with most of your stuff, like i said, 2 sides, but im not wrong with reviews, last time i checked train simulator is still full of negative reviews, i never said the forums werent modded to the devs discretion for better or worse (often worse), but im not agaisnt the flagging of tags, for 2 reasons

- a lot of people tried to use tags to critize the game, you dont have to play a game to tag it, unlike user reviews, so this could be easily abused, you have games like DmC, with more or less positive user reviews (is more like 50/50, positive reviews have 60% or so of approval ratings while negative ones 50%) and tags like "edgy", "donte", "fuck you", etc

- some people used tags simply to mess aroung, tags like "kawaii", "more desu", "gotta go fast", "diva dev" arent really helpful


also id like to inform you steam no longer locks your games away if you get banned, as far as i know

 

[Spartan448]

1) i think this is overly paranoid, steam has existed for 10 years, we've heard the same "if valve goes out of business your games are gone" argument for 10 years now, thats probably more than a physical copy of my 140 games on steam wouldve lasted, also steam does not restrict access to your library if you ever get banned. plus Gabe Newell has given his word he would disable Steam's DRM if Valve ever went backrupt, and i trust the man

I don't own the things I bought with my money. That's enough to oppose it on principle. However, this might cause you to back peddle a little.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/

2) its not hypocrisy, you cant possibly compare a ridiculous DRM box that required you to call microsoft every single day so it wouldnt fucking unplug your console, i can set steam to offline mode from now until the heat death of the universe and i will still be able to play my games, oh and heres the real kicker, microsoft wanted to CHARGE YOU 60 BUCKS FOR THE FUCKING PRIVILEDGE.

Did steam not require you to call home the entire time you played at one point? Last I heard the offline mode was chinchy at best, didn't include all games with single player, and only worked for 30 days at a time.

Valve is in my opinion one of the most pro-customer developers around, providing DRM that instead of making the customer jump through hoops adds value to their games, it has allowed people with extremly limited budget like me, acquire games legally, theyve given out free games in the past and keep updating steam with new features regularly, they also allow content creators profit off their effort

Pro consumer...? *insert gif again* Have you tried to get a refund from Valve, ever? The horror stories are endless, the lack of QC in their store is sickening, and the DRM is lazy.

I like how you talk about being "truly informed", and don't bother to check up on your facts.

In response to the first point:

Your article on Forbes actually doesn't prove anything. The game was shut down by Square Enix, and as it was always-online (thanks Square!) that meant that with no servers, the game literally could not function at all, hence the decision to remove it. This was botched, and in other instances where games were removed from libraries, users were given refunds in the form of store credit (This was for The WarZ).

In addition, you DO in fact own the things that you bought with your money. You do not run Steam games from an external server - you have to download them to your hard-drive first. All of the games I have bought on Steam are either on my hard drive backed up on an external hard drive, or on their own in an external hard drive. And whether or not Valve is willing to admit it, Steam has REALLY shit DRM, and some games can be run without a Steam installation or connection just by using some simple admin account commands.

As to the credibility of Gabe Newell, I would say that given that the man turned down a $2,000,000,000 purchase offer from EA, I would say his credentials are solid.


In response to the second point:

As a current user of Steam with internet that tends to cut out every other day, the offline component of Steam is solid. I can still play all my games (well, not multiplayer-only ones, though I can still do bots offline) without any problems at all.


In response to the third point:

Someone can still be the best at something if everyone else is shit at it. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, no online games retailer currently offers refunds, nor would they be crazy enough to give away money they don't have to, given that currently online games retailers are not obligated to refund consumers. Second, their actual customer support is friendlier and better than any other company's support staff.

As for Steam's seeming lack of "Quality Control", this was intentional, but not due to sloth. Steam bills itself, and the PC platform, as the ultimate platform for indie developers. It is a platform where you can release your product with no prior history and without too much trouble, and hopefully make money off it. When any kind of quality control is implemented, your game development history is like your credit history; people are immediately wary and suspicious if you have no history in the field. Therefore, Steam has a very light vetting process. Complaints about quality control led to the introduction of Greenlight. Because letting the community decides what games go on steam is the ultimate in QC, right? Wrong, dead wrong. Greenlight made things SUBSTANTIALLY worse, and games that never would have gotten in before were now appearing on Steam, hence why Greenlight is rightfully being phased out.

As for the DRM being lazy, you're right, it is. Steam's DRM can barely be called a security measure, as it barely works at best. Many of my friends pirated FTL, and then added the game to their Steam libraries, and no bells or alarm klaxons have gone off, no-one has received phantom charges, and no-one has had the game removed from their library. It is literally a non-factor.

Plus, consider all of the things that Steam and Valve do better than everyone else. For one thing, games in general. Valve has consistently put out numerous games much beloved by the gaming community as a whole, one of the most popular of which is Free to Play. Their release schedule could use a bit of work, but given the quality of the games they have released, I really can't complain. Their multiplayer monitoring system, Valve Anti-Cheat, is one of the best in the business, and has been shutting down wall-hackers and aim-botters consistently for many years now.

 

[Vareoth]

As others have said: lack of quality control is probably the most annoying thing wrong with Steam. The whole dollar=euro thing is quite annoying as well, but at least there are ways to get around that in most cases.

And while Steam isn't a monopoly in the purest sense of the word, estimates show Steam controls somewhere around 50-75% of the digital PC market. An exact percentage is difficult to pinpoint because Valve refuses to release sales numbers and affiliated devs are banned from sharing any information on that subject by an NDA. Steam absolutely controls the majority of the market. Not really their fault, though, since there are very few true competitors. And they seem to handle being in a top dog position reasonably well.

[I don't own the things I bought with my money. That's enough to oppose it on principle. However, this might cause you to back peddle a little.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/

Actually, I still have that game. And I can still buy it. Did they add it back or something?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

3) its not hypocrisy, you cant possibly compare a ridiculous DRM box that required you to call microsoft every single day so it wouldnt fucking unplug your console, i can set steam to offline mode from now until the heat death of the universe and i will still be able to play my games, oh and heres the real kicker, microsoft wanted to CHARGE YOU 60 BUCKS FOR THE FUCKING PRIVILEDGE.

Where are you getting this from?

Microsoft doesn't charge $60 to connect your console to the Internet or Xbox Live, and they never have done (they even supply you with either a free Ethernet cable or built in wireless so you don't have to pay extra to connect your console to Xbox Live).

Do you have some proof that Microsoft's 24 hour check in for the Xbox One also included a $60 charge for pinging a couple of hundred KB of data to Microsoft's servers once a day (or once every time you switched it on if you don't use it daily)?

no of course not, i was talking about xbox live, my point was that, despite asking much more out of the customer than steam, microsoft couldnt even offer the same amount of features steam offers for free, you have to pay 60 for that

in fact i personally find insulting that microsoft wanted you to phone home every single day but you couldnt even PLAY YOUR GAMES ONLINE for free, your games, they hold a critical part of it hostage, just sickening

and dont get me started on the damn ads


but well, some people like to pay for xbox live, their problem

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Refund policy and I guess the somewhat shady anti-ownership practices.

But other then that I'm pretty fine with Steam. I've never had a problem with the quality control because it's really easy to tell a bad game out if you just know what to look for (and if you know how to operate google), although I understand the argument it takes marketing space from indie devs.

 

[Signa]

as we all know steam is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming

Wait, what? Surely you're taking the piss.

To be fair, name one thing that is better than Steam in the history of PC gaming. Direct X is the closest I can think of. I agree that it does read like hyperbole though.

 

[Lictor Face]

you could at the very least acknowledge steam's features

Why? I am not paid to do marketing for steam. Why should I talk about 'features' that don't interest or benefit me?

Because doing so is bias. Not sure how you intend to conduct a proper debate/discussion while being biased, never mind knowingly biased.

Yes, Stream does have many dubious points, its not perfect. There are plenty of things that can be done better.

But all in all, Steam is still one of the best things to ever happen for PC gaming as it pretty much mainstreamed and streamlined digital purchases and distribution (Especially since I live in Singapore, a tiny slip of a nation, and have to wait weeks for the latest release), which is far more convenient than going out to buy a disc and finding out you have to wait three weeks for the shipment to come in and then realising it then sold out and you have to wait another week. Bleah.

I daresay GoG was inspired at least in part by Steam.

Yes its not perfect, but than really, very few things are. And as someone had said, haters will always find things to hate. Kind of like the relationship between the American public and the American presidents.

 

[Abulurd_H]

You made more than one point and I refuted most of them (i think) reasonably well =)

DRM isn't all negative. Most of it is but not all. Steam DRM gives me some rights as well as the devs. For instance, I can hop on a computer pretty much anywhere in the world (please don't take that 100% litteraly and tell me "not in Afghanistan lol") that has an internet connection, prove my credentials via an email and a couple of clicks and then proceed to download and play any title in my Steam collection. Someone above mentioned a marketplace for trading also , but I dont know how that works as I havent looked into it.

Granted I could also do this with titles from GoG and that is also a form of DRM that is slanted in favour of the consumer as opposed to the developers. GoG simply does not have the amount of modern titles available to it that steam does at the moment. This could change but at present this is the case.

You could argue that DRM does in fact achieve what it sets out to do in regards to piracy. I dont believe that anyone thinks that piracy can be stopped all together. However, strong DRM at launch means that it's going to take considerable time for hacking groups to break your security which results in increased early sales as people who reeaaaallly want the game and just cant wait are forced to buy. By the time your DRM is cracked the people who pirate your game were unlikely to buy in the first place so you haven't lost sales. I have no proof for this argument but it is something I have seen mentioned many times on the internet and it makes logical sense to me.

One question for you.

If everyone is already eating shit, that tastes like shit and then someone came along and said "I have a shit that tastes like chocolate and gives you muscles like popeye" Which shit would you chose to eat?

Dammit, I have just realised that I am arguing with someone on the internet, trying to change their mind when I know I won't succeed. This is why I don't do forums

Have a nice day

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Some people don't like it simply because it's drm and Steam completely controls your games. DRM is like having a bouncer ask you everyday to see your ID and let you into your own house. No matter how nice the bouncer is, they can fuck right off and let me use my stuff.

I don't a have a problem using Steam though because they're so cheap and it's relatively quick to get games running and social features aren't half bad. But at the end of day, if had to choose between buying a game off GoG or for console for full price or a game off Steam at 75%, I'll take consoles and GoG. Plus I sometimes like supporting devs for good work rather than throw pennies at them

maybe im not so bothered over the idea of my games one day becoming unplayable because:

1) steam has already existed for 10 years
2) Gabe himself has said hed disable steam's DRM if valve ever went down

I take some issues with this

1) I have 3 copies of the game Soul Reaver that came out in 1997 just shy of 20 years ago. One original ps1 disk, a psn digital copy, and a Steam copy. Guess which ones work? I'll give you a hint, the 17 year old disk and the Sony version. Games can last pretty long for a lot of people. And I can probably rip most disk games and play them on pc emulators. And I didn't realize that a company existing for 10 instantly means they're immortal. Moreover, our lord and savior Gabe Newell won't be around forever. How do you know you'll even want to associate with Steam in the next 10 years? They could be the next EA for all you know

2) does Gabe Newell literally own the rights to every single game sold on Steam? No he doesn't. How can he just give away what he doesn't own? To quote one guys in charge of GoG, "Gabe Newell can't make your games magically drm free. If the servers shut down your games will be magically gone"

 

[OpticalJunction]

Unnecessary DRM that overcharges Australians. In addition, don't like that a lot of the competition is forced out because of Steam's predominance, it is monopolizing the digital games market and we all know monopolization does not benefit the consumer.

 

[Eddie the head]

And fuck that gaben the Tyrant.

Haha! Tyrant. It's so cute when people misuse words.

It's called a hyperbole.

As it has been explained, you can turn this off. It is an option. It has always been an option.

I think the point is it's on be default.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Granted I could also do this with titles from GoG and that is also a form of DRM that is slanted in favour of the consumer as opposed to the developers. GoG simply does not have the amount of modern titles available to it that steam does at the moment. This could change but at present this is the case.

I'm sorry but you're just throwing around the word "DRM" like you don't know what it means. Digital Rights Management software. What it does at its most basic form is prevent you from using software. It is never for the consumer. Imagine if you will, drm is like getting kicked in balls. Valve's drm places a nice fluffy pillow on your crotch while they kick you, then they give you some cake or something. The bottom line, I would liked to skip the cake and not get kicked in the balls. GoG gives a nice piece of cake by letting you download your games whenver you want for good prices and not include drm in their installers thus skipping the balls kicking

You could argue that DRM does in fact achieve what it sets out to do in regards to piracy. I dont believe that anyone thinks that piracy can be stopped all together. However, strong DRM at launch means that it's going to take considerable time for hacking groups to break your security which results in increased early sales as people who reeaaaallly want the game and just cant wait are forced to buy. By the time your DRM is cracked the people who pirate your game were unlikely to buy in the first place so you haven't lost sales. I have no proof for this argument but it is something I have seen mentioned many times on the internet and it makes logical sense to me.

Kinda. To see the effects of piracy, all you have to do is look at how the MPAA broke another record for movie ticket sales. Similarly, look at the profits of any entertainment medium since the age of the Internet and piracy became popular. What you'll find is that sales of movies, music, tv shows, whatever have increased since the Internet became a thing despite bittorrent traffic (mostly piracy) being the number one source of Internet traffic for like 10 years.

In short, drm does nothing. It only harms the people who actually pay for stuff, because while the pirates eventually get what they want, the customer is stuck with drm. If anything, shitty drm and services convinces people to pirate in the first place. Bittorrent traffic has been dethroned by Netflix traffic because now people finally have a service that gives them what they want. Shows and movies on demand without cable for a few bucks a month

 

[Bocaj2000]

I have never had legitimate trouble with steam. The only major difficulty that is consistent is using account on my bootcamped Mac which involves their painfully slow emails that have taken up to half an hour to be sent. Other than that, I don't see many crippling issues.

DRM- The last time I had an issue with 'Offline Mode' was in 2006. In recent memory, I haven't have any trouble with taking my games offline. Even if I did... I'm using a computer that is online 99% of the time. If you are a PC gamer that isn't connected to the internet on your main computer at least once a month, then Steam might not be the issue here. But if it still really pisses you off, then GOG and HB are better alternatives.

QC- Some of the games suck. So what? That's not really an issue. It just means that you have to read the reviews on the bottom of the same page to see whether it's good or not.
If the game simply doesn't work, something that I have experienced, a little bit of research will fix that. This is a valid criticism of Steam, but at least it's fixable. Even GOG is a victim of this flaw.

Required for hard copies - Yes, this pisses me off. I had to do this in one instance, and it annoyed the piss out of me. "I have the DVD right here! Why are you downloading from the internet?!?" There is no excuse. But is this enough to damn an entire service? Not really.

Refund - Agreed. GOG already has better service if this is the case. With that said, I have never refunded a single game that I have ever owned, and I have over 200 of them.

Sales - I'm not a Valve fanboy, but Steam has single-handedly gotten me to quit piracy due to their fantastic sales. Along with them, GOG and HB has delivered a better service than Skidrow ever will at amazingly low prices. I haven't payed more than $5 for a PC game in years, and that is a standard set by Steam. For me this is what matters. Their amazing sales easily outweigh their minor flaws without a doubt.

Until I see evidence that they are doing evil corporation stuff and ruining the entire industry, I can't bring myself to see them as 'bad'. Yes, they are flawed, but that's a universal characteristic. It takes more than flaws to hate something. Hatred is a strong emotion that takes a lot out of you. If Valve genuinely causes reactions this strong, then I respect that. I believe that they do far more good than evil, but you may have a different experience than me. With all things said and done, when Steam works correctly, it is an amazing asset to the PC gaming community without dispute, and that is why it dominates the PC gaming market.