steam hate, why?

[Iwata]

My problem with Steam is simple, and something I've mentioned in this forum before: as bad as other things are, as good as Steam might generally be, it holds the particular distinction of being the sole program to ever rob me of my video games.

Here's what happened: a few years ago, I was a hardcore PC gamer. I'd been gaming on the PC since the early 90's, and nothing seemed like it was going to change that. When Steam came along, it was heaven sent. I raved about it to my friends, and instantly fell in love with it. But I kept buying physical copies of games, as I like having the discs on my shelves. I am also staunchly anti-piracy.

One day, I moved from my home to a new location. It took me a couple of weeks to sign back into Steam, and when I did, I got a warning saying my account had been 'suspended'. What followed was a story of incompetence and corporate vagueness so bad it literally drove me off PC gaming for years!

I sent tech support an email asking why my account had been suspended. They told me nothing useful; the account had been suspended. That was quite literally it. I insisted on the matter, and got copy/pasted replies from previous vague e-mails and in a couple of cases, I even got blank e-mails with just the signature that usually goes at the bottom and nothing else. The only noticeable difference was that at one stage they stopped saying 'suspended' and switched to 'deactivated'.

I offered to take photos of my games and CD keys, in case that was the issue, but nothing came of it. I even contacted the developers of a couple of the games directly to see if they could help (Relic and Creative Assembly), but even they told me there was nothing they could do.

After a few months of this, I just gave up. Not just Steam, but PC gaming altogether. I bought a PS3 shortly afterwards, and I have only recently (a couple of weeks ago, in fact) returned to the PC for my games. I never found out why my account was suspended. I recently found the ticket for my issue and decided to check it out out of curiosity, but it's not even valid any more.

I understand why people love Steam. It's convenient. It has awesome sales. But to me, the reality is, Steam robbed me of hundreds of ??? of legally-bought games as surely as if they had come into my home and took them off the shelf. As bad as EA, Activision and other companies are, Steam (and Valve) are the only ones that hold that dubious distinction. And although I have to use it these days (I quite literally have no choice on the matter), I'm always paranoid that my games simply aren't safe anymore and might be arbitrarily taken away at a moment's notice.

Again.

And you might say 'oh, but that's extremely rare and you were just unlucky', and that might be the case. But I'd argue that also gives me some unique perspective into the matter.

 

[Unknown Warrior]

I hate Steam partially because it promotes a culture of indefinite lending rather than total ownership, along with software like iTunes, Playstation Network and XBLA, wherein you buy software, are forced to play it through a single platform and have absolutely no ability to sell it to others. Furthermore, if any of these services ever go down (temporarily or permanently) you are effectively prohibited from enjoying content you paid for.
So yeah, there's that.

Then there's Steam's disservice of enforcing regional pricing, not refunding games unless you explicitly e-mail them and imply you're gonna take them to court all under the banner of "it's in the TOS" even though that holds no legal binding in most of the world. Even excusing illegal actions on their part too.

Finally we have the obnoxious fucking Valve fanboys who, not unlike MLP and Apple fanboys, have made me hate the source material because they bring up Valve in every fucking thread as if it was a company designed by God himself; solution to every mistake, creator of everything good and righteous and beacon of light of all wayward games even though they only made a single fucking game in half a decade even with 2Bn+ net worth, their games are really just okay and their service is effectively inferior to a lot of services on the market but they get away with it 'cause they have pretty much monopolised the whole thing.

So yeah.

 

[DrOswald]

Just wait until Steam randomly breaks one of your games with an update. Then you get to do the fun dance of submitting a ticket, being told to contact the developer because it's not Steam's fault (includes developers who are now defunct, wahey), venting your frustrations with other people on the forums who all have the exact same problem, keeping the ticket open because the issue isn't solved, being told to do things you've already done like verifying game files and restarting Steam etc.

On balance I find Steam has worked well enough, but their customer support is pathetic.

Say what? I have about 200 games in my library and I've never experienced what you talk about.

Like I said, wait until it happens to you...

666 games here, happened once, community fixed it before Steam Support would ever respond to a ticket. Who sends tickets to Steam for a broken game anyway? Wow...

You know what my question always is? What the hell is Steam supposed to do about a game that the developer messes up? Are they supposed to maintain a massive and comprehensive technical support network for every single game on their service? Back in the day when a PC game didn't work immediately I didn't go bitching to Software Etc. I don't see why I should be bitching to Steam now.

 

[Strelok]

Just wait until Steam randomly breaks one of your games with an update. Then you get to do the fun dance of submitting a ticket, being told to contact the developer because it's not Steam's fault (includes developers who are now defunct, wahey), venting your frustrations with other people on the forums who all have the exact same problem, keeping the ticket open because the issue isn't solved, being told to do things you've already done like verifying game files and restarting Steam etc.

On balance I find Steam has worked well enough, but their customer support is pathetic.

Say what? I have about 200 games in my library and I've never experienced what you talk about.

Like I said, wait until it happens to you...

666 games here, happened once, community fixed it before Steam Support would ever respond to a ticket. Who sends tickets to Steam for a broken game anyway? Wow...

You know what my question always is? What the hell is Steam supposed to do about a game that the developer messes up? Are they supposed to maintain a massive and comprehensive technical support network for every single game on their service? Back in the day when a PC game didn't work immediately I didn't go bitching to Software Etc. I don't see why I should be bitching to Steam now.

This is it exactly, I understand to bring an issue to their attention, perhaps they could pull the game till the developer fixes it, if they still exist. Or place a warning on the store page (see the Kings Quest games), but to expect them to fix it is absurd.

 

[DrOswald]

Nearly 500 games in my library, been using steam since 2007. Never had a game broken by a Steam update. The problem you describe is extremely rare. You might as well be saying "Just wait until your left front car wheel suddenly sheers off the bolts and causes you to crash" as evidence that cars suck (this is something that actually happened to my brother.) Statistically unlikely negative events do happen, but they are rarely a good reason to stop using an overall beneficial product. And, frankly, the problem is probably the result of poor maintenance of the PC, like the vast majority of computer problems.

In my experience (7 years full time professional IT work) people treat their computers like shit and then get mad at the software publisher or distributor when things don't work right. 95% of the time it is user error or their computer is so screwed up that it is a miracle windows manages to boot. And gamers are the worst.

There is a certain band of users that most gamers fall into. They know just enough about computers to think they are experts. In reality they know just enough to really screw up their machine horribly. They never perform maintenance, they often never bother to even learn how. They visit all sorts of strange sites and click every link, they run strange executables, they generally mess everything up and then think everything is going to be ok because they have a free antivirus.

So tell me, when you display this same condescending attitude towards your clients, do you get returning business?

This isn't me being condescending, this is me telling you how it is. The worst users are not the ones who are computer illiterate. They know they have room for improvement, you can teach them. I can teach a man how to open his email or to never click on links in IM. No, By far the worst are the "experts", who know just enough to ruin everything and then blame it on anything and everything else when things don't work. Steam is a really convenient target because it is highly visible. And gamers are almost always "experts".

And for the record, I never said that my example proved that Steam sucks. On balance I like Steam, but the thread is about why some people hate it. That's just one example of how it can be annoying.

Fair enough.

 

[franticfarken]

Basically about 50% of the games I purchase on steam don't work on their own. I have to spend anywhere between ten minutes to two hours getting them to work.
When I point this out others say, "I don't have that problem, must just be your PC's fault and not the games". WELL IF I'M HAVING THIS PROBLEM AND WHEN I SEARCH AROUND I SEE OTHERS HAVING THIS PROBLEM IT'S A DAMN PROBLEM.

Although getting this perfect is near impossible, other than that I love steam. For specific kinds of games, so when I see the games I want on GOG or the HumbleBundle, hell I don't even mind Uplay. I head for there, because so far anything i've gotten from those sites has instantly worked (other than one Uplay occasion).

 

[Magmarock]

I have hated Steam for a very long time. It's difficult to go into all the details as to why though. Steam has done great things yes but it has also done bad things. Since a big part of why people like or dislike something all I can offer you is my personal reasons for disliking it.


1. Regional pricing. I live in Australia and there for have to pay more for games. It wasn't always this way though. When Steam was new we were paying the standard $50 fee for games and then the price suddenly spiked to $100 for no good reason. Steam was supposed to bring death to the retail age now retailers and actually cheaper then steam.

2. Quality control. Steams quality controls has certainly taken a nose dive but it's never been great to be honest. For Valve games and most AAA games it was fine but now and then you'd find a slightly older game that simply wouldn't work.

3. Poor customer service, I'm going to retroactively use the previous two uses as an example for this one. When I complained about my games not working that I paid for Steam admins weren't even prepared to take a look at it or forward my complainant to the publishers. They simply said to check out the forums or take it up the publisher directly. Doing so got very little response.

as with regional pricing I bought that up with the admins too. They said take it up with the publisher while the publishers said take it up with Steam. I decided that neither group was going to see my money again. I also bought up the issue of regional pricing on the forums and I never felt so ignored in my life. The community simply didn't care and didn't want to care. The admins moved to the thread to another section of the forums where it would get less views. I got furious and posted a comment that got me banned.

4. Finely DRM. By the end of the day Steam is steal DRM and still has the power to inconvenience people that that. When I first got the orange Box I had to take my whole computer to a friends house and use their internet to install the game and sign in offline. This was a massive pain especially since I didn't have a car. To top it off sometimes offline mode doesn't work or stops working after a while preventing you from accessing your game.


So those are just some of the reasons why I personally hate Steam, I hope people who like Steam and read this posting will under stand the prospective.

 

[alj]

Problems i see with steam at the moment

1) The ui is slow and unclear (its got worse in the past year or so)
2) No quality control, no checking if the game runs correctly on modern systems.
3) utter trash from years ago littering the new games section.
4) No refunds

Overall i think steam is good for the industry and i have picked up some superb bargains but there are problems that need to be addressed.

Oh and who buys disk for PC games nowadays? I don't even have a disk drive in my system, its slow and you have the risk of the disk getting damaged or lost and its usually more expensive. I just don't get why anyone would bother, next you will be telling me Microsoft should still do a floppy disk version of windows.

 

[Orks da best]

When its comes to steam there are logical, emotional, and strange feelings people have the thing.

I for one, tolerate it at best, while hating the side effect of it.

1: lack of QC; need I say more when there are so many recent cases of broken games on purpose being put for sale.

2: Early access boom; when most of the first games seen for selection as well as being top sellers are early access games. There a problem since it teaches game companies that they can sell incomplete games if they cross out complete with early access. What would happen if this spread to the mobile market?

3: Effective monopoly; Monopolies are never good for the customer because once it has taken hold and grown enough, the monopoly can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. Since its completion is so weak and small compare to it. It has little to worry about. When that happens, they can set the prices, functions, options, that consumers can have. And they have little to no say in the matter. If you are banned. Tough cookies. Buy a game that will not work either due to developer incompetence, or is impossible to fix? Too bad. No refunds for games you ended up no liking? Sorry no can do.

4: The fans; Valvies I loathe for many reasons. They blindly praise steam, the seller, for pretty much anything it does. While ignoring most, if not all, justified reason to not like it. They are hypocrites for when a German consumer group tries to sue Valve for violating consumer rights, they see it as a injustice, yet turn on EA or any other group for doing similar things to Valve. Personally I would not be surprise if people dislike steam just because of them. They say bad fanbases can ruin someone's enjoyment of a thing, which for entertainment can be avoided, if your careful. But when the fanbase is of a seller, and is widespread of game websites like this one, avoiding it all but impossible, short of going off grid.

They are other reasons, but I think these are the most common most people have when it comes to steam.

 

[3ntropy775]

I used to hate it when it just started out and you had to download a lot just to get a game working. Since data has become cheaper, I don't mind so much anymore, although it would've been great if games didn't need it. Valve is one of the developers I still fully support, so power to them!

 

[Requia]

Firstly, because steam binds several parts of games to the steam service (community, multiplayer, achievements). That mean you potentially lose out of you buy from a non Steam source.

And secondly because Steam is *fucking dangerous*. We've already seen with EAs bid at Origin that people are willing to complain for no other reason than they can't buy EA games on Steam (Origin has had other problems yes, but I see this complaint constantly). Because of this sort of deranged loyalty, created in no small part by the above mentioned unnecessary integration with the store, Steam is on a path to be in a position where it'll be able to dictate terms to devs that want to sell to PC in ten years or so. We've already seen Amazon do this with the book market, and as a result both put a squeeze on the publisher (resulting in less money for author and publisher alike) and in a heavily homophobic implementation of its censorship policy.

Sadly, I don't see an alternative, MS has clearly signalled if it'll lock down the PC platform altogether if given the opportunity, Valve is the only company with both the position and inclination to challenge this (which is the real purpose of the Steambox, get more third party software on Linux and thus force MS to stay open for fear of real competition). Pick the master you want I guess :/

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

1) DRM fucking sucks

2) Needs some kind of QC badly

3) Buggy

4) Lacking certain features, for example it took until last year to add the in-client option to spread libraries across multiple disks.

5) People licking Gabe Newells arse and praising Valve as the bestest games company even though they barely ever actually make a game, even rarer they create one from scratch.

6) Customer service is fucking appalling, making me wait days for an answer when competitors barely even make me wait hours is a poor showing for the market leader. (GMG, GoG and even Origin have responded to me much faster, within a day, whereas it's 2-3 before I get anything from a steam support ticket, Uplay is substantially shittier inthis regard though)

Otherwise steam is functional and mostly does it's job without annoying me.

Valve has released atleast 1 game per year for the last decade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Games


thatd a pretty damn good record if you ask me, specially since they update their existing games constantly

We'll just quietly ignore that at least half of them are either expansions or mods then.

Also released =/= made.

See just how many EA has released: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games for comparison

It's not the same as actually making them. Valve makes some good software, sometimes, but mostly they seem to just pick up mods and fuck around with Half Life 3 trolling.

so? are you forgetting EA is one of the biggest publishers in the industry?

why doesnt firaxis get the same criticism as valve? they have released less games in the last decade than them, many of the games they released are expansions, and lets not even talk about blizzard


also whats the problem with mods? counter-strike, team fortress, dota, games based on mods and are some of the most popular and critically acclaimed games on PC

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

there are also games that are short but not really bad, noitu love devolution 2 comes to mind, as well as metal slug, i fear a refund policy could affect those devs negatively by people who could exploit the system

but yeah steam should add a clause for false advertisement or something like that, some kind of punishment that would really stop devs from doing that

That's certainly a concern. I don't know how many people would do that, but I'm sure that some would.

Though tons of people hate EA. Do you think EA's PC sales have fallen to any serious extent because people have tried to be sneaky with their refund policy? They certainly might have, but I doubt it. Chances are, I think, that if you're going to try and get something without paying, you would just pirate it anyway.[footnote]Not that I'm advocating it, of course. I really dislike piracy[/footnote]

There would be some ways to fight that. For example, once you get a refund on a game, you shouldn't be able to get it for that game again. Example: I buy Luftrausers, play it for 12 hours, then get a refund. If I buy Luftrausers a second time, I can't get a refund.

And there are probably other ways to protect against that sort of stuff too.

But sure, it is something you would need to think about.

man...

you are a GENIUS!

piracy of course, you are right, i no longer think a refund policy could significantly affect short games

i like your policy for refunds, i think it could work

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i know some might call me a valve fanboy, including myself

but really man, steam is VERY different from other DD clients, trading,

A fairly new feature if I am right and I am also right in saying that Valve accept no responsibility for people who get scammed during trades? Even Ebay accepts a measure of responsibility if the end user gets screwed over during trades but I guess that fits with Valves generally crap customer service.

big picture,

Utter pointless, clearly designed for their Steambox and actually makes searching big game libraries slower on a PC. Of course big game libraries ain't an issue for Steambox since Linux has next to no supported games anyway.

community features,

What would these features be exactly?

workshop,

Great idea in practice but since it requires you use the god awful slow Steam interface to navigate it it actually turns out to be pretty crap. In fact their isn't a game on Steam where the workshop is a better option to a dedicated community websites.

trading cards,

Another pointless feature, or clever marketing because it keeps the weak minded coming back to buy stuff on the off chance they will get a new trading card out of the deal. In the worse instance it is frankly pathetic because you HAVE to collect these cards to then craft them to do stuff to your Steam interface, stuff that should be included AS STANDARD. Collect cards, craft cards, increase your level, increase your friends list and get custom addons to your Steam profile interface, yeah sounds like Steam, a stupid slow ass long winded way of doing something that you should be able to do in 30 seconds. The whole trading card thing is just another achievements tree, achievements for playing Steam.

By all means if you really do love the amount of shite that is included with Steam, the massive amount of pointless nonsense and the side effect a slow, ugly, poorly laid out game management / launcher then go for Steam as it is but the fact that Valve haven't released a Steam lite, a cut down version with all the shit cut out, that runs quickly gives you access to your games, the auto update and access to the store and nothing else, well it amazes me to be honest.

steam does take responsability for scammed items, atleast stolen ones


also ive made well over 200 dollars via trading and the community market, and the vast mayority of my 136 game collection was acquired via trading

so allow me to respectfully disagree there, oh, also, steam trading is not a recent feature, it has existed for atleast 2 years



also community features such as forums for every single game, user reviews, community guides, screenshots hub, artwork hub, groups, etc


also id dare say i prefer to use the workshop on almost every game that supports it instead of a dedicated modding website, because i only have to press a button to download my mods and they are updated automatically, is an option, you can use the workshop or any number of modding websites, the workshop is a great features for those who like mods but want a hassle free experience when it comes to installing them


also if you dont like trading cards, just sell em on the market and make some extra cash, as simple as that

you might not like these features, but other people clearly do

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

as we all know steam is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming, and is almost universally loved for being an all around awesome digital distribution platform... and yet theres still people who hate it for some reason


id like to know why some people hate steam, if you hate steam post your reason(s) of why below, is the service subpar? you hate DRM on principle? let me know





also may the all powerful Gaben have mercy on your souls heretics

Though I'm sure some have genuine grievances towards the platform, I put it to you that some simply like to hate what is popular. For another example, see Halo. The original was a very important game and overall it has been a strong series. If a person doesn't like it or steam, they would ignore it. However, it seems to me, the hate involved suggests these people actively get involved with things they despise so they can moan about them.

I can't stand "evil" free to play games like Clash of Clans, but until this very post, I've never mentioned them once. I'd rather chat about things I am interested in.

i really liked the first halo on pc


some people here have some understandable reasons to dislike the service, but others simply let their hate get the best of them

 

[Laughing Man]

you might not like these features, but other people clearly do

and that's the crux, all these 'features' have had a noticeable effect on the client, it is now slower, bloated and less effective than at any point in the last ten years. The features have all been tacked on to a user interface and client that was clearly NEVER designed to handle these features and it shows.

I have no issue with people liking these features but I don't believe that I am the only person out there that would like to see either a cut down client that runs and navigates better and has all the nonsense (and I am sorry it IS nonsense) cut out.

 

[alceste007]

My problem with Steam is simple, and something I've mentioned in this forum before: as bad as other things are, as good as Steam might generally be, it holds the particular distinction of being the sole program to ever rob me of my video games.

Here's what happened: a few years ago, I was a hardcore PC gamer. I'd been gaming on the PC since the early 90's, and nothing seemed like it was going to change that. When Steam came along, it was heaven sent. I raved about it to my friends, and instantly fell in love with it. But I kept buying physical copies of games, as I like having the discs on my shelves. I am also staunchly anti-piracy.

One day, I moved from my home to a new location. It took me a couple of weeks to sign back into Steam, and when I did, I got a warning saying my account had been 'suspended'. What followed was a story of incompetence and corporate vagueness so bad it literally drove me off PC gaming for years!

I sent tech support an email asking why my account had been suspended. They told me nothing useful; the account had been suspended. That was quite literally it. I insisted on the matter, and got copy/pasted replies from previous vague e-mails and in a couple of cases, I even got blank e-mails with just the signature that usually goes at the bottom and nothing else. The only noticeable difference was that at one stage they stopped saying 'suspended' and switched to 'deactivated'.

I offered to take photos of my games and CD keys, in case that was the issue, but nothing came of it. I even contacted the developers of a couple of the games directly to see if they could help (Relic and Creative Assembly), but even they told me there was nothing they could do.

After a few months of this, I just gave up. Not just Steam, but PC gaming altogether. I bought a PS3 shortly afterwards, and I have only recently (a couple of weeks ago, in fact) returned to the PC for my games. I never found out why my account was suspended. I recently found the ticket for my issue and decided to check it out out of curiosity, but it's not even valid any more.

I understand why people love Steam. It's convenient. It has awesome sales. But to me, the reality is, Steam robbed me of hundreds of ??? of legally-bought games as surely as if they had come into my home and took them off the shelf. As bad as EA, Activision and other companies are, Steam (and Valve) are the only ones that hold that dubious distinction. And although I have to use it these days (I quite literally have no choice on the matter), I'm always paranoid that my games simply aren't safe anymore and might be arbitrarily taken away at a moment's notice.

Again.

And you might say 'oh, but that's extremely rare and you were just unlucky', and that might be the case. But I'd argue that also gives me some unique perspective into the matter.

So when you were suspended you lost access to your games? If so, then a Ban would be the same I'm guessing, though permanent. I'm also guessing tat t deactivated account is one that is dissolved essentially.

Steam is a service. When you are suspended or "banned", you loose access to all of your games. Valve explicitly has a policy not to tell the reasons behind a suspension or a "ban". Your only hope is the courts or arbitration.

 

[Whispering Cynic]

I thought about listing all the reasons why I'm not fond of Steam but then I thought about it harder and managed to find one single reason, standing above them all, which makes my hatred for Steam burn brighter than an O class star:

I'm forced to use it.

I'm not using Steam because I want to, not because I like its features or anything. I'm using it because some drooling, lobotimized ape decided that certain games (that have nothing to do with Valve), when bought as physical copies in retail, require me to install and use Steam to play them. Forcing me to run a completely redundant and unnecessary third party software along with a single player game is simply inexcusable.

As long as the aforementioned practice persists, Steam deserves nothing but disgust and contempt.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

you might not like these features, but other people clearly do

and that's the crux, all these 'features' have had a noticeable effect on the client, it is now slower, bloated and less effective than at any point in the last ten years. The features have all been tacked on to a user interface and client that was clearly NEVER designed to handle these features and it shows.

I have no issue with people liking these features but I don't believe that I am the only person out there that would like to see either a cut down client that runs and navigates better and has all the nonsense (and I am sorry it IS nonsense) cut out.

well i do agree the client is slow and long overdue an performace improvement, i obviously disagree about the features being tacked on, i wouldnt be agaisnt a lite client

I thought about listing all the reasons why I'm not fond of Steam but then I thought about it harder and managed to find one single reason, standing above them all, which makes my hatred for Steam burn brighter than an O class star:

I'm forced to use it.

I'm not using Steam because I want to, not because I like its features or anything. I'm using it because some drooling, lobotimized ape decided that certain games (that have nothing to do with Valve), when bought as physical copies in retail, require me to install and use Steam to play them. Forcing me to run a completely redundant and unnecessary third party software along with a single player game is simply inexcusable.

As long as the aforementioned practice persists, Steam deserves nothing but disgust and contempt.

maybe you should direct your hatred towards the publishers that do this and not steam, valve aparently tells the devs to release their games on as many platforms as possible, steamworks is not required for a game to be included on steam, in fact, many games on steam are DRM-free, particulary old ones

finally many indie devs have proven you can have 2 versions of the same game, with and without DRM, is possible, the publishers simply dont want for whatever reason


so even if steam didnt exist publishers would use other kinds of DRM on their game, lets just be grateful secuROM and other kinds of abusive DRM are right now practically dead