What if Steam just... stopped.

[Dessembrae]

i don't like steam, and i avoid it like the plague so i doubt i will even notice it.

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

... Then I'd buy the games on disc, and play them that way.

 

[Skizle]

Eh, looks like we'll have to buy games the old fashioned way. Not a big deal because I only own TF2, STALKER, and Civ3 on Steam so no big deal. Also if Steam just cesed to exist then I'm sure someone will develop a way to play without it...and I pray for that day every day.

 

[orangebandguy]

I wouldn't play TF2 anymore I suppose.

 

[DuplicateValue]

Thanks for the contribution guys. Maybe you could assume, as this forum clearly has nothing to do with you, that you needn't post anything. Why don't you go post "I don't care" on all the forum games?

You were asking the community in general what they would do if Steam stopped.
If you had said "What would Steam users do if Steam stopped?", then you could complain all you like.

So, until then, I'd like to add that I don't use steam, and wouldn't care if it stopped.

I'll be off to post "I don't care" on all the other threads now, if you'll excuse me.

 

[Geamo]

I'd be pretty sad. Steam is a fantastic service, especially since it's free and offers a lot of ease of use.
However, I ususally just get demos/relativly cheap games on Steam anyway. I'd be pissed off that I couldn't play any of the Orange Box, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies or Mass Effect.

I've got games on disk though. I'd play them.

 

[zidine100]

Someone would just come up with a "no-steam" hack to continue playing games normally but without steam.

The world would suck a little more without steam though.

ehm ive got to add people are way ahead of you, in the sence that its arleady there.

mind you the legality of such things, i would not like to talk about.

 

[sov68n]

I think if the world is in such shitty shape that Valve goes bankrupt or otherwise loses control of their servers, then we would all have bigger issues than simply losing our video games.

 

[Xanadu84]

Wow. I didn't even know what steam was until people started bitching about it on these forums. I think there would be no appreciable difference except that instead of 'OMG no Dedicated servor for MW2' the cries would change to 'OMG no Steam.'

Then, after about a month of not having it, people would remember that they used to buy games by leaving the house, instead of vegetating.

We also used to consistently die in childbirth, die of easily treated illnesses, and throw our feces into the street. Then something far, far better came along, and we started living like civilized individuals.

Im now ending this little instance of wildly blowing things out of proportion.

Driving to a store, waiting in line for a disc, and stopping by a food court, or getting a package delivered to you while you play some TF2, is still vegetative. If you want to not be vegetative in your buying of games, go for a run while downloading the game through Steam.

If Steam magically disappeared, that would be pretty terrible. First and foremost is because I would lose a lot of games. If it was a matter of Steam being down for a while (and my offline mode magically not working), obviously there's no real problem. If I wanted to play a video game, I would play DDO for a while. Failing that, I think I could scrounge up my old discs for a few games...FEAR and Ago of Empires 3 I think, maybe Raven Shield. If Steam was down for good, well, I would hopefully download my massive games collection to my hard drive first, go buy an overflow hard drive, and guard the gaming hard drive with my life. If everything was lost somehow, well, I would switch to the DD system that fills the massive vacuum, and pirate games I had already bought. That might even technically be legal, since I remember hearing about how a lot of pirated versions of games are technically legal, if used by a person who already owns the game as a backup,

 

[Flying-Emu]

Baptism by fire...

 

[j0z]

I would set in stunned silence in front of my computer for a few hours, then I would go out and get my crowbar, and then buy a plane ticket to Seattle.

 

[Hazy]

Cry at the loss of TF2.
Rejoice at not ever having to hear confusing insults in CS:S again.

 

[DazZ.]

Steam have already said when it first came out they have a system for when steam ends, and all games just won't require it any more. It has been tested with their internal things and that is the plan.

So basically nothing will happen. Can't believe no-one has pointed that out yet.

 

[SultanP]

I wouldn't notice. I detest steam and the way it works. I want to be able to play my single player games without waiting for a quarter of an hour while steam boots up, and I don't want to rely on the internet for it either.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

I really could care less....I don't use steam....though I AM sort of thinking of checking it out so...it could be a bummer. Sounds like a great system...I'm just so lazy XD;

 

[Left4Meds]

Then Garry Newman just lost 150 games.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/garry

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

POINTLESS BACK-STORY PARAGRAPH: I moved to uni this year and I've had the joys of their retarded network to deal with. The first problem was changing my NOD32 awesomesauce antivirus to shitty AVG because apparently NOD isn't compatible. The second problem I discovered was that it wouldn't let me get on steam. I tried ceaselessly for about a day to get it to work to no avail. After about a month my friend says that when he took his laptop home he allowed steam to update and since then it's worked. So after totally reinstalling steam (twice) I managed to get it up and running again. Until today when it said it couldn't connect to the network... I then shat a brick. I then did something constructive by trying to start it again and thankfully it worked.

Then I wondered... so much of my games are reliant on steam... what would I do if at some point in the future for some unknown reason, Steam just stopped. For everyone. What'd we do? What would YOU do?

I've pondered this before and come to the conclusion that this the biggest possible problem with downloadable games.
Essentially, One day all of the the DLC services we hold so near and dear will be obsolete and will shut down. And when that day comes, You. Are. Fucked.

This is why discs and other tangible things are superior to DLC.