Steam - stairway to heaven or highway to hell for PC gaming?

[Lemmy]

Since this is a big forum with people from all around the world, I want to have a little discussion about Steam, Steamworks or whatever you end up calling it. You all know what I mean. You go to the store, buy a PC game you really want, go home, install it... and here comes Steam.

What I want to discuss is if this is a good or bad thing? Most people I talk to say Steam is really good for any number of reasons. You have all your games in one place online and can download them as much as you want if you loose the discs, you have a friendslist, you get easy patches and so on. And sure, I can agree that's a good thing. But even so, I really, really hate Steam. It's gone so far that if I know a game uses Steam in any way, I won't buy it. It doesn't matter if it's a small indie-game or a triple-A game I've been looking forward to for years. If Steam is involved, I won't buy it. Period.

The reason is quite simple: Steam isn't optional. If a game requires Steam in any way, there isn't anything you can do about it. Interestingly, Games for Windows Live tried to be required for some games, but it was so unpopular that it had to be removed. Steam does the exact same thing, only worse. And it's popular? Why?

Let's take one example. I loved Supreme Commander, so naturally I went and bought SupCom 2 in a store. I went home, installed it and was asked to activate it on Steam. Why I had to is beyond me. I already had the disc, after all. But sure, I'll activate it once. I'll just have to install Steam and update it first. Once that was done, I thought I could play. But no. First, I had to patch it. Again, why I had to patch it is beyond me. All I wanted was to play the single-player campaign. But I let it sit there patching itself - until the patch crashed. So I tried again. And failed. So I tried again. And failed. To this day I have yet to be able to play it thanks to Steam. When I got Half-Life 2, it took me six months to be able to start it. Thanks to Steam. Magicka? I searched for other places to buy it than Steam and eventually got it form GamersGate, a service very much like Steam. But nope, Steam was involved for some idiotic reason. As a result, I've played Magicka once, but that's it.

I could give you a lot of examples, but you get the idea. Steam isn't optional, but a requirement. But why? There are other services just like Steam, and all of them are optional. Why aren't they required too? What can be done to make Steam optional? I used to love Valve after Half-Life 1, but now I hate them even more than I hate my ex-girlfriend. And that says a bit. Let's just say I dated her for two years and almost ended up marrying her, then she admit she had lied to me since day one and never meant a word she said. And that's the good thing.

Anyway, what do you think? Should Steam remain a requirement and pretend it's the best thing since color TV's, or is it an abomination that should be optional?

 

[Menion]

Abomination! *grabs flaming torch and pitchfork* Kill it!

 

[DMZ]

Abomination! *grabs flaming torch and pitchfork* Kill it!

Steam is a good gaming service it helps make it harder for people to steal games (witch is hurting the pc gaming industry) witch helps us in the end. You get patches sent directly to your game no hassle (it used to be so hard patching sometimes), community is huge and there is bunch of INDIE (independent game developers) games. And there is really good deals every now and then that you can get like a pack of games for 19$ that would be 30$ each. Sorry to say but Steam is the way of the Future!



And not trying to be a ****** but if your PC really sucks or if you have bad internet (56 kbps) some times steam client can lag and then it fs up.

 

[CyBeR]

I agree with DMZ. Steam has to be the first good thing done FOR PC gaming in the last couple of decades. With the rampant piracy plaguing the platform, and the wholly incoherent and abnormal behavior of publishers all over the world, the fact that one studio can release its game safely on a platform, without the need for endless intermediates is a God sent I'd say.

I've never used Steam. I mainly game on consoles so I don't really care all that much for PC gaming. But I remember when Steam was first announced and when it finally came out. If you look at sales of games in the past years, you'd see how low the numbers are on physical format. And that was even before the PS3 and 360 turned the gaming world upside down. But since Steam hit the net, PC games have found a second wind, not to mention a second chance to be wholly relevant in the industry. The constant trickle of Indie games and AAA titles at great prices, unhindered by the middle-men, have really helped bring this platform back to real life (it was struggling at one point, no matter what anyone says).

Steam is one of the many reasons I cringe when I hear some armchair analyst label the PC as being "dead".

 

[DMZ]

Yes I agree with you completely, and there is so many games on steam that they would never get a spot on a shelf. I could even make a game and sell it on steam its thats easy for INDIE Developers. Theres this game called Star Ruler that a INDIE and I never would of played it any where but on steam because a friend gave it to me for free because he wanted to get rep up for the game. Its so cool how you can gift games to people. Make Groups like on Facebook and add friends and each games has a forum online, so if you need help or there is a bug you can always ask other players.

 

[Rahl Windsong]

I like Steam because no matter what happens I still have my games available to me on Steam. I don't have to find my CD keys because if they are needed they are stored on my Steam account, manuals are all online, everything I need is there ready to download. If I buy a new PC all my games are there in one place and I can install or uninstall at my discretion.

It really is a good service the only thing that I can see which might some day cause concern is things like antiques, because you have no physical media to sell there is no way for it to become something coveted as an antique item, like on antiques roadshow.

I can imagine that Valve could some day sell out to another company and of course I would have to hope at that time things would remain the same as they are now, however I am not so blind as to think that things could change and I loose the abilities I have now with Steam owned by Valve. I have used Steam for several years and several PC upgrades in that process and it has been a godsend when installing my favorite games from my gaming past...

 

[DMZ]

It really is a good service the only thing that I can see which might some day cause concern is things like antiques, because you have no physical media to sell there is no way for it to become something coveted as an antique item, like on antiques roadshow.

Well only physical stuff can be antique like old nes games that are unopened. I dont see a way this would ever effect steam.

I like Steam because no matter what happens I still have my games available to me on Steam. I don't have to find my CD keys because if they are needed.

And my cd keys always get lost that anothere reason I like steam.

 

[Caledfwlch]

How does Steam stop piracy?

In the place I lived in till last July, the sunday market had a pirated pc game stall, everything was there, including Steam games.

As I understand it certain games my take longer to get cracked than others - Empire Total War was one, but pirates were quite happily selling copies of E:TW a couple of months after release, rather than the same week.

My experience of Steam is pretty much the same as the OP, random endless, endless, extremely slow downloading patches for Steam, for any steam using games you have - no choice that I remember, all automated with no "switch off I want to play the damn game without waiting a week for the patch to download" option.

Worst of all, at the moment, my internet is supplied via a Mobile Broadband dongle plugged into my PC with only 3 gig monthly usage allowance. And it means I cannot go to a shop and purchase games that involve steam. My brother got a 3 for 1 deal on some PC games in Game, and gave me the third game, Kane and Lynch 2. Never been able to play it. The game, bought brand new, and only just released in the shops for some bizzare reason needed to install Steam, which was not the problem, what WAS the problem was the 1 or 2 gigs worth of Steam patches for itself it then tried to install, despite the game being hot of the press, and surely up to date.

Not to mention, when on a tight broadband usage limit, having something like Steam in constant contact with its servers, just so you can play the single player game is going to chew your usage to shreds.

As an anti piracy tool, Steam is almost ineffective, it simply delays some releases into the pirate world, others it doesnt affect at all. Nothing is particular effective in this day and age, when many pirate crews are just as skilled, if not more, than the coders designing the anti piracy methods.

Wasn't Windows 7 supposed to be skull and cross bones proof? I know plenty of people using iffy copies of 7, and getting all the updates. The sunday market with the dodgy PC games stall, it also had others selling hundreds of games for every single modern Console/portable gameing device, another stall was doing a tidy line in modding/chipping/tweaking to allow homebrow consoles and portable devices.

Its obviously not an argument to stop trying to combat piracy, but when your method of doing so has failed to actually do the job spec, and protect the games from piracy, and your methods are in fact alienating plenty of honest people who have just wasted 30 quid in Game, or another gaming store, or making the game they have bought unplayable, then its maybe time for a rethink.

And aye, its wonderful having 200 gigabytes worth of purchased games always available for re-download, but many UK ISP's are cracking down on bandwith, some altering the deals so new customers get a duff deal in terms of monthly allowance, or putting some hefty increases on the higher and "Unlimited" packages.

And of course, when they say "unlimited usage" very few ISP's mean anything of the sort these days. They are basically falsely advertising an unlimited package, and then hiding the fact it actually isnt behind the "fair usage" clauses, and I am appalled trading standards lets them get away with it. Mobile phone operators are the same, every month, I buy for £5 "unlimited SMS Texts" that lasts for 30 days, but when you read the terms, by unlimited texts they mean 3000, so not in fact, unlimited by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Chaoticheart]

Yeah, steam does nothing to stop piracy, it's just as easy to crack a steam game as it was to crack a game with disc protection. In fact, if you compare the difficulty to how it was when games only used disc protection it's actually easier now. Back then you had to wait weeks for some 'major' games to be cracked, these days something goes up on steam and its cracked and uploaded within 24 hours.

And @DMZ, that potential slowdown has nothing to do with internet connection or PC specs. Its one of the major bugs in the update system, its been around for almost a year now and there has been no evidence to suggest it will ever be fixed.

The only good aspect to steam is that it allows indie developers to reach a wider audience with ease.

 

[Caledfwlch]

Yeah, steam does nothing to stop piracy, it's just as easy to crack a steam game as it was to crack a game with disc protection. In fact, if you compare the difficulty to how it was when games only used disc protection it's actually easier now. Back then you had to wait weeks for some 'major' games to be cracked, these days something goes up on steam and its cracked and uploaded within 24 hours.

And @DMZ, that potential slowdown has nothing to do with internet connection of PC specs. Its one of the major bugs in the update system, its been around for almost a year now and there has been no evidence to suggest it will ever be fixed.

The only good aspect to steam is that it allows indie developers to reach a wider audience with ease.

Well, my main brush with Steam came all the way back with Half Life 2, and the ridiculous amounts of patches just for steam alone, at ludicrously slow download speeds have haunted every single flirt with it since, on different systems and ISP providers.

 

[Lemmy]

Steam is a good gaming service it helps make it harder for people to steal games (witch is hurting the pc gaming industry) witch helps us in the end.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you're wrong. People get piracy copies of World of Warcraft and play it on private servers (aka piracy servers). If they can get illegal copies of online-games, Steam doesn't stand a chance at all. All you have to do is trick the game to think it's been activated, and there you go.

You get patches sent directly to your game no hassle (it used to be so hard patching sometimes),

Um... no, you don't. Steam wants you to think you get patches easily, but what if the servers are down? What if the patch isn't compatible with your current version? What if Steams simply decides to f*** you over and refuse to let you get the patch? All of that has happened to me on countless times, and all of those games were games I bought in a store.

community is huge and there is bunch of INDIE (independent game developers) games.

So? There's a huge community for most games, and indie-games were huge even before Steam came around. The indie-community on Steam is just a microscopic part of the whole picture. Or do you really think Steam has the biggest indie-community?

And there is really good deals every now and then that you can get like a pack of games for 19$ that would be 30$ each. Sorry to say but Steam is the way of the Future!

So we never got discounts other places before or after Steam? Really? My inbox on all three of my e-mail adresses fills up with discount-offers from various stores every day. I can agree that services like Steam is the future, but they should be optional. Steam is a requirement. We might as well have it as part of windows and ban all competitors. That's what they are trying to do anyway.

And not trying to be a ****** but if your PC really sucks or if you have bad internet (56 kbps) some times steam client can lag and then it fs up.

I have a broadband that's fast enough to do anything I want. That's not the issue. The issue is bying a physical copy of a game in a store, installing without problem, uninstalling it three months later without having been able to play it even once because Steam refuse to download a patch or let me start it without patching even though it's an offline single-player game is. None of that would have been an issue with any of the identical services.

I like Steam because no matter what happens I still have my games available to me on Steam.

You get the exact same thing with GamersGate, Impulse, Direct2Drive and god knows what they are all called, but they are optional. You can get music and movies the same way and download them as many times as you want, too. All of those are optional. Steam is a requirement. How come no one dares to admit that's bad?

 

[Caledfwlch]

I also know people, who buy legitimate copies of a game, but then download cracks, or a cracked online version to play, because they don't want to use Steam.

Much the same way as they, and I, will download the copy protection/No DVD cracks for games we buy, so we don't have a DVD stuck in the drive, and at risk of damage.

 

[Lemmy]

I don't mind cracks usually, but it can be a problem. I remember my Diablo 2-disc was getting faulty, so I got a piracy copy instead. It worked fine, but every time a new patch was released, I had to uninstall the game, reinstall from the original discs, patch it and then look for an updated crack. It got a bit tiresome after a while.

(big note: Of course I had a legal copy. I just didn't want to use the original discs. I have had discs literally explode in my cd-drive.)

 

[Caledfwlch]

I don't mind cracks usually, but it can be a problem. I remember my Diablo 2-disc was getting faulty, so I got a piracy copy instead. It worked fine, but every time a new patch was released, I had to uninstall the game, reinstall from the original discs, patch it and then look for an updated crack. It got a bit tiresome after a while.

(big note: Of course I had a legal copy. I just didn't want to use the original discs. I have had discs literally explode in my cd-drive.)

Aye. Most cracks cause no problems at all, sometimes, the noDVD exe itself may need updating after a patch.

What really cracked me up over Empire Total War, is the reasons for the massive delay to pirated copies, where not because of Steam, or anti piracy technologies, but because the vanilla game was so poorly designed/coded on release that even legal copies didnt work half the time. The crackers were having to effectively build patches for the game to work in the first place, before they could crack it to run

Grand Theft Auto 5 was another supposed shot across the bows at pirates with uncrackable anti piracy methods, using the Rockstar Social Network etc, cracked at the usual lightening speed.

I would rather they spend money on the games, in keeping them as replayable, and as many quests, etc as possible to extend a start to finish session, instead of wasting thousands if not millions or anti piracy methods that will fail, and will be cracked.

 

[Lemmy]

Grand Theft Auto 5? Are you sure about that?

This thread is about Steam, so we should discuss piracy other places. But the problem with piracy is it can't be stopped. Take the latest thing the console games do, for instance. If you buy a new copy of the game, you get free DLC. It could be anything from extra missions to a nudity patch (hi, the saboteur) to more weapons to whatever. It sounds like a nice way to make people buy new games, and it should certainly be a kick in the face to pirates. Except what happens is people who buys a used copy has to spend money to get the DLC other people got for free, and the pirates simply get a piracy version of the DLC as well. Pirates get all DLC for free. People who buy a new game get one DLC for free, and people who buys used games don't get anything for free. Either way pirates win and people who can't afford every new game they want loose.

 

[Caledfwlch]

Grand Theft Auto 5? Are you sure about that?

This thread is about Steam, so we should discuss piracy other places. But the problem with piracy is it can't be stopped. Take the latest thing the console games do, for instance. If you buy a new copy of the game, you get free DLC. It could be anything from extra missions to a nudity patch (hi, the saboteur) to more weapons to whatever. It sounds like a nice way to make people buy new games, and it should certainly be a kick in the face to pirates. Except what happens is people who buys a used copy has to spend money to get the DLC other people got for free, and the pirates simply get a piracy version of the DLC as well. Pirates get all DLC for free. People who buy a new game get one DLC for free, and people who buys used games don't get anything for free. Either way pirates win and people who can't afford every new game they want loose.

Tell you what, I want to have a good whine about DLC I will start a new thread