Okay, first off I'd like to start off by pointing out what the main point of this topic is.

The increasing lack of control and/or choices given to gamers. At first this may seem like a very barren explanation, but don't worry I'm sure everyone will understand at the end.

Okay, now do you all remember a time, when you walked into a store a brought a game, you went home, installed it, It asks if you want to join this community or such and you said yes or no and that was it, no constant nagging or reminders. Well now in the 21st century, things are a little different. Now you buy a game, and you have to register it online, okay fine, I understand this part may be to prevent piracy but that isn't what this is about, Now you MUST join the online community (even if you can use your product offline afterwards) and go through that process. What happened to it being an optional thing to join it at all? The most common example and getting to the source of my rant, is steam.

Steam; it has come a long way. But what does this mean for us? Well to install your game you MUST install their client and you MUST be connected to the internet. Why? so you can verify your CD-Key to your account. But here's my first problem, I like my freedom to chose which has been robbed by this new-age online community story, for folks who want it, its great! But not everyone want to be a part of it. So I can play offline, fine, but I still in some way have to be part of their community and acknowledge them. What's more is I like to choose where I install my game. Sorry you can't do that, not with steam, because the files are encoded or encrypted or whatever, and has a system to follow.

So, as I am a major gamer, I grin and bear it. Until now...

Here is what happened to me, today:

The creation kit for Skyrim is here, so I follow steams instructions, which turned out to be the worst decision although if I wanted the creation kit, I don't have much of a choice yet again. So I went to the tools section of the library, as it told me to, and I selected the creation kit, so far so good, I selected install, the only option I get is if I want a desktop and/or start menu shortcut. Then it proceeds to install. When it's completed I decided before I try it out, I downloaded a mod, which looked good to me, and Installed it (The mod had its own installer) Now time to test it and have a look, I try to run my game (Just for interest my game *was* fully updated at the time and I run on online mode) steam tells me it unavailable, now, how can a game that I paid good money for, and installed on my hard-drive be "unavailable"? Oh, quite simply really, the game isn't there, it was, but now it isn't. How did that happen?

Well, when I installed the creation kit (Which is downloaded and installed via steam, of course) It had deleted/over-written my base game completely! Now I have to re-install it and update it again! This shows steam's incompetence.

I think that game manufactures should leave the steam community, after all, if steam messes up, the game manufactures are the ones who will have to take the sting. But if the game-makers stop supporting or using steam and make their own (preferably optional) social community, Like U-Play or a more enjoyable reference, Rockstar's Social Club, which I don't have to join to play at all. In fact in that case all I had to do was a release-date check and online key registration which has unlimited uses by the way, and then just simply play. Now that's what all of them should do!

If anyone else has anymore horror stories like this, please feel free to share them or just voice your opinion on my rant.

Trust me, Steam is the lesser of two evils here, do you now own any recent Ubisoft games?

if this mod your speaking of is the high resolution DLC then you have to wait for it to finish downloading before you can play the game, as it has always been when downloading content that updates a particular game

If that was actually the case, I'm sure we would have heard about it a lot more in the Skyrim forums. Or even in the Creation Kit section. I've been pretty active in both, and I've never seen anyone complain about this.

Of course, what you say could in fact be happening, but a more likely scenario is that this "mod" you downloaded (which had its own installer?) was likely the 3GB Skyrim HD textures patch, which takes a good hour or two to download on a good connection. Now, it stands to reason that you, possibly, did something wrong when installing the "mod" or patch or whatever, then something going that wonky with Steam.

As to the whole "joining the online community" thing, you can always just make your Steam profile private. I know that's not the answer you are looking for, but the vast majority of users enjoy and like Steam for what it is, and companies like to play to the vast majority because then they get the majority of the money.

yes, Steam Steam has issues that make it unsuitable for everyone but it does have it's place but the industry needs more of a balance
between the rights of the customers & the needs of the gamemakers but this is prety much covered in the unofficial steam/DRM threads (currently in thread #26 & linked in my sig)



comes to mind...

& I haven't got any UBI games in a loong time

Unfortunately the industry isn't going to side with the "rights" of the customer - they are going to side with whoever gives them the most money. There simply isn't a large enough group of people who are making a coordinated effort to derail Steam / DRM systems.

I still think the steam love is over-estimated by those who like the service

prior to Skyrim being confirmed as "Steamworked" there was that one surveymonkey poll (results @

https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=52FxqPN7HmUfNEnqCAfQcVqzrUlN_2bmfbS4sqisBg_2fLA_3d )

that show that a significant group didn't want Steam

Here is the Steam discussion, OP:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1331715-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-26/

Yes, let's please keep this discussion in one place.