Any time you have to load a game through third party management control like Steam you end up adding a layer of problems you would not run into normally.

I realize there are many pluses for developers to do this not the least is copyright protection and keeping the game up to date as it patches automatically.

But (and it is a BIG BUT) I am willing to bet that at least half of the tech issues cropping up are due to running the game through Steam.

Why can't the developers just use the old tried and true method?

Dozens of other mass market, big budget games release fine on Steam and other Steam-like (Direct2Drive) utilities without issue. Hundreds of games with much lower development costs also are released on Steam (see Alien Swarm for example) and see no such issues.

Obsidian and Bethesda have both previously released their games without Steam. Was Steam the reason Fallout 3 had problems? Was Steam the reason Alpha Protocol had problems?

Is Steam, a PC only utility, the reason these bugs on F:NV are also a problem for XBox and Playstation 3?

You seem to have failed to think this theory through at all. Stop trying to shift blame on to Valve. Steam has nothing to do with this.

I ain't trying to shift the blame on vALVE. As a matter of fact I like Gabe. But you must admit that using a third party management cut-out must complicate things a tad... in a game as massive as FONV you are going to add problems not lessen them, just common sense.

Kind of the opposite of Ocam's Razor.

Times have changed!

The bugs are getting worse!

They won't get fixed or squashed, they make us scream and curse!

Should we blame developers?

Or blame the PS3?

Or should we blame DLC Exclusiviteeeeee?

NOI Blame Valve & Steam! BLAME VALVE & STEAM! With their beady little eyes and flappin' heads so full of lies

BLAME VALVE & STEAM! BLAME VALVE & STEAM! We need to form a full assault, IT'S VALVE'N'STEAM'S FAULT!!!

/quick 'n dirty, went mainly for rhyming in later parts, so sue me

You'd probably be surprised how many tech support problems game companies deal with are caused by people not having installed the latest patch.

Auto-patching alone probably saves many companies a ton of money in tech support. Not necessarily Bethesda since patches seem to be an issue with them.

Pretty dang funny... and pretty dang good.

Not true. Steam only takes up a teeny bit of RAM and doesn't do a whole lot except load the normal .exe file. If you turn off the steam play and cloud stuff then steam isn't even running on top of NV

It's a tough argument for any side of it because all three of the following statements are possible to be true simultaneously and I would wage that they are.

On a per user basis, Steam is extremely unlikely to cause an individual user any problems with the game.

-and-

On a an up-to-date install of the game, requiring steam to be present increases the statistical likely-hood that a user will have problems running the game than they would without its presence.

-and-

Overall and in the long run users will experience a lower cumulative total of problems running the game because of Steam's autoupdate feature than would likely be experienced without it.

I pretty much don't have a crash problem unless I am playing "online". I know that is anecdotal rather than evidence, but I have not found the game particularly buggy at all.
What I have found is that Steam appears to have major issues with my internet connection, switching it to "off-line" usually resolves any crash issues I am experiencing.

Of course, right now I can't even get Steam to open so that I can put it in Off-line mode.
That is the sort of problem that really does my head in. :brokencomputer: :sadvaultboy:

You seemed to lack common sense when you came up with your theory.

I guess you have absolutely no idea how Steam works, do you? Valve does not at all touch the Source code to the game... they just distribute it. There is no way Valve could induce "tech issues" into a game they are distributing other then when Steam happens to go down or something like that.

The fact of the matter is Obsidian is just a flat out terrible developer when it comes to game quality, as they have shown with every single game they have ever made. Sure New Vegas is a good game story wise, but any half competant developer should be able to make a solid game (mod) with Fallout 3 as a foundation. But on the tech saide of things, this is just par for the course when it comes to Obsidian. In fact, they even have a history of taking a fairly stable game/engine and making a technically faulty sequel in Knights of the Old Republic 2. So don't try to blame someone other then the people responsible. Steam might have its issues, but they have nothing to do with Fallout New Vegas being a technical mess.

Oh, and developers don't use the "tried and true" method because more people buy PC games from Steam these days then they do from the store.