To all those who say "Steam is the future!"

not necessarily, Digi-distro has a good chance, but only after broadband becomes as common as the phone service is now. but the way Steam is going it IMO wont be around to enjoy it, at least not in it's current form.

people used to think that living in the 21st century would mean that there would be flying cars, jetpacks & humanoid robots to pamper us.

the point is that the future is never just what we think it will be.

EDIT: why is it that some Steamfans don't seem to like the idea of other options besides just Steam? if there were, this type of thread wouldn't exist.

Haven't logged into this forum in a year or two, but i had to toss my two cents in.

Like it or not, DRM schemes like steam are indeed the future, if you want to continue to enjoy PC gaming. I've been PC gaming since 1986, on an 8088 machine, and having been at it for a hobby for so long, i can practically cite first hand, how PC games have declined in recent years. Hell, it's quite obvious if you look at whats sold in stores.

- PC gaming used to be really big. It was infact, at one point, the only games section in electronic stores since consoles were floundering.

- Later on consoles caught on, but the PC gaming section was still the largest section in every store you went to. Including stores like EB games, and gamestop.

- sometime after that, it was an equal mix of PC games and consoles on the shelves.

- Nowadays, going into stores like EB games or gamestop (didn't one of them go chapter 11?), is a complete waste of time. They might have the latest releases, but by and large, they are a console store. The PC game section went from most of the store, to a one rack, to one shelf. Best buy used to have 2 or 3 isles devoted to PC games. Nowadays, you'll get one isle (and in some best buys, just one rack).. in the back of the store. Its like going into a video store and visiting that dark, back out of the way corner, where they'd keep the xxx videos out of site. Meanwhile, consoles occupy, something like six Isles at best buy.

As time goes on, what you can get on the shelf is getting smaller and smaller. Why? Software piracy, simply put. Developers are switching to consoles because its much harder to pirate. Xbox and Xbox 360, being PC based, made it MUCH easier for them to do so since they could continue to write games as they always have.

I used to hate steam too. Infact, when it came out, i avoided valve products because of it. At least the newer ones. At some point, i decided to investigate it more, and found that what I was no longer seeing in the stores, I was seeing on steam. If it means no PC games, or using steam, i'll use steam. It, at least has an offline mode. What's more, it's acutally, a damn good service. I've gone from being resentful, to being happy its there.

Now if there is a DRM scheme worthy of anger, it is ubisofts sceme of having to be teathered to their servers, ALL the time while playing their games. Lose internet connection on a singleplayer game, it stops working. Now THAT is ridculous. Steam is not like that at all.

Because then there'd have been even less time for bugtesting than there was, since Obsidian and Beth would have had to spend time creating two versions of the same game, one with steam features and one without.

Also because we think 90% of the people who want other options are just whining for its own sake and don't have an actual rational argument against steam.

Sorta like going to McDonalds and complaining that they don't have alligator burgers, and how it's terrible that you're "forced" to eat beef (or chicken or turkey or whatever) instead of all that plus alligator burgers.

I've been using Steam since Half-Life 2 game of the year edition
I must say that I felt used to with problem generated by it.

The true pain of it is...

-Offline mode doesn't always work
-Installing from disk is a real pain.

and Benefits?

-Auto-patch (for most game)
-Discount offers (With the record of 87.5% Discount! )
-Pre-Loading
-Game integrity verification (You won't appreciate this until your game corrupts)
-In game chat, internet browser
-Achievement system
and can even be use as part of your social networking!

Idk, at least IMO.

I am not a fan of steam, had it, hated it and will not buy a game that needs it. My argument against it is that I am not a software pirate and I do not want to feel like I am being treated like one. I want to be able to leave my gaming PC disconnected from the net as it has been. If I want to multi play then that is what my Xbox is there for. I do not play for achievements, I play to have fun.


Hey now, don't knock alligator burgers, they are not bad . Besides, you have a choice to go into McDonalds. But now that you brought it up I just might walk into the local McD's and order a gator burger just to see the look on the cashiers face ..

Everyone should also remember that steams pays the publish and devs more back directly than what they get off box sales... Cause there is no box, no cds no product cost. Which is why steam is the future of gaming once more people jump on it we should see games start coming down in price a bit because I mean... really if more and more devs come to steam we got better competition for games means people need to rethink marketing a bit.

Steam is the future there is no other options really.

Now this one made me really laugh ...two versions? That is some kind of Steam policy that Steam "version" have to be somehow special? There is like little "STEAM" written in small letters ower each character model or what?
Only thing which is different is installer. And even there is chance its provided by Steam, developer just supplies data.

You can go playing your Steam games without worry, they will not be more bugged just because they are published also somewhere else than Steam.


Well you were wrong, as you see people who dislike Steam have their valid reasons. At last as valid as your own.


Nobody is complaining that Bethesda does not sell non existing product ...say Fallout Alligator. We complain they sell their Fallout burger only via single distributor which have very specific habit of serving our lowed Fallout burger with some add-ons of their own. And we don't like those add-ons. We want Fallout without Steam packed in to it.

The problem here is you think Steam is just the installer. The game is using http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/. This provides a framework for things like DLC, achievements, remote saves, etc. It's similar to what Games for Windows Live provides for Fallout 3. No surprise people complained about GFWL too...so can't seem to make anyone happy.

To create a non Steam version Bethesda would need to use GFWL, some other alternative, or create a DLC/Achievement system for just this game (ie. Dragon Age). This only covers the feature portions as well. Then DRM solutions would need to be found.

The only and only way for PC gaming to survive is to create large games (for example 6 dual layer dvds or 2 bluerays) so that no one would bother downloading pirated versions. Steam, disc protection, etc are definitely useless against people with mediocre intelligence who choose to pirate games. The only way is to create large, quality games and sell the games for cheaper and open up to world markets where there is a huge potential market for computer games.

You don't need any of those things to run the game. Or does illegal copies need Steam? For sure not. There is probably just one single difference between your installed Steam version and some illegal out there: single cracked exe file. Everything else is probably the same. You don't need to create different versions of game for Steam and for some other distributor. That is just ridiculous. Yes, you would not have achievements. Those are however not part of Fallout and I would not miss them one bit. Since I need to use console from time to time because of various bugs I don't gone see them anyway. And DCL again can be distributed as stand alone installers on just any medium big enough to hold them, no need for Steam.

Not anymore. In fact there are whole sites now dedicated to showing you how to mod your console. I won't say where.




25mbps is available in my area and I know some areas have a faster connection. Assuming that bigger means less piracy is incorrect. Just look at the traffic in blueray movie rips. Assuming people pirate just because games are 'mediocre' is incorrect as well. People pirate because why should they pay for something when they can get it free.

I still like to play a lot of old games. Going through my collection of older games that I still play now and then, I can easily find a dozen of which the companies no longer exist. (All my bullfrog games for example). Yet I can still play these games. My only fear with things like steam is: it's owned by some company and companies come and go all the time. What happens when it gets discontinued? You still have your disks but you can no longer play because the "service" required to play no longer exists?

The having to install another piece of software and having to log on is something I can live with, even though I don't like it because of the principle.

That said, any company can make any additional demands they want and consumers retain the right of not buying a product.

Steam is operated by Valve, a big company that's not going anywhere anytime soon. Also they've stated that if Steam were to shut down, they would release a method to play the games without Steam.

People that like Steam are strange to me. I can see using something like that for online play. Singleplayer games should be off limits. Because their are people out there without broadband. Should they not be aloud to play the game. I myself have used steam for Half life 2. But it always gave me problems so i uninstalled it and never got to finish that game. I myself will never buy a game that requires me to use steam again.

What? Valve is a fairly small company (for a video game developer, anyway), and the way you said that it sounded like you look at them like some giant, faceless corporation like Microsoft. Valve makes some of the best games out there and actually cares about their customers.

Thanks for the reply. This puts my greatest fear at rest.

For people without broadband, physical media still exists which can be acquired with very minimal effort. Nothing against what you say personally, dig? but the amount of gamers who can't tie a knot never ceases to amaze me.

However, like video rental stores, the days of sales distribution of digital data of any kind on physical media are numbered. I'll make a leap and predict that BluRay v2 is the last disk media we will ever see: music, movies, games, books, etc will soon be available solely through data streams. Look at it this way: Amazon.com has been selling more copies of books on Kindle than on paper for about 5 months now. If book lovers - those freaks! - are now outbying digital THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO over book form 2:1, you know which way the river is flowing and should consider steering accordingly.

Think of previous eras: there were thousands and thousands of tankerfull of inks spilled to extol the beauty, reliability and general desirability of Vinyl over CDs, of negative film stock over CCDs, of VHS over DVDs - I'm old enough to have read vociferous rants on BBS against the evil of needing to buy a mouse to play ULTIMA 7: the first in the series which you couldn't play using only a keyboard. Just a few years ago gamers on this very board raved, foaming at the mouth, against distribution of games on DVDs instead of multiple CDs.

You have to keep up or time will grind you out.

In Canada, we have made such a glorious mess of things that unlimited bandwidth is now a thing of the past . . . or is it? Turns out there are many companies that offer it, at a fraction of the price asked by the TelCos and CableCos. You have to make a little effort and, in our case, be ready to fight for Net Neutrality, against DDPI, etc. Ain't no one gonna do for you or give it to you: you gotta do for yourself.

(and Broadband is probably available to you: you just haven't wanted it bad enough. It may not be the kind of broadband you would prefer but that's your fight. I have mine.)


I've never seen any Steam "problem" either in RL or online that couldn't be fixed with a little, indeed very little, PC maintenance. And not to be a [censored] about it but I'll leave you with this: the people I have met in my life who argued most were, to a man, always in the wrong. Here's a sample:

"I know how this works, I'm an engineer!" - "So you must have tried . . . this?" - "No. Wait! How did you do that?"

"I don't forget my rentals and I would never rent movies from that section, and I resent you suggesting I would ever do such a thing! How dare you?! . . . Yeah. They were in my glove compartment. My son must have rented those!"

"I have been gaming for 20 years and I know how to keep my computer working!" - "Did you verify service pack 2 was in fact installed by Microsoft? I've had it download and install only partially without any indication it had done so." - "Oh. Yeah. Well, that's not MY fault!"

"I have built my own PC! I'm certified A1!" - "How long ago did you clear the fans? You say you have cats? And your box is on the floor by your feet where your buds like to curl up from time to time?" - "What does that have to do with . . . oh."

And on and on. People who swear up and down and sideways are almost always dead wrong and the measure of their error is how unwilling they remain to consider they might be wrong. I've done it too! I thought FALLOUT3 was buggered but had forgotten a late-night, tired-out-of-my-wits install of PowerDVD. F.E.A.R. would only crash until I had all four memory sticks deep tested and found one to give a tiny error cycle under heat stress. Keep an open mind.

Mainly, because if the game has any value to me, I think that the designers/programmers/etc, deserve the recognition. IE, payment for services.

As stated above though, if you give me a crap product, I won't be happy if I'm charged a premium price.

And problem is, there are rarely enough demos that are deep enough to give someone a good taste of a game. It's like previews for movies. They find the best 30 seconds (or in game maybe 15-30 min) so you get to love the 'best'.. and then when you buy it, the 'best' part, is maybe 5% of the game or less.

If you know the product you're putting out is inferior, either don't charge a premium cost, or fix it so it is a good->premium quality product.

Well if Steam can do everything, why don't they make the OS as well? This way we don't even need Windows anymore. If they can replace, Facebook for social networks, and MSN or Yahoo or AIM for instant chat as well, why stop there? Make an operating system as well. So all we will ever need is Steam. Heck Steam can replace Google as well, since I already have a social network, instant chat services with Steam, why do I need Google then?

Not everyone cares for having the features that Steam proivde. I am perfectly happy with using MSN if I want to chat with anyone. If I need the social experiance, there is Facebook and others. Also Steam is not a good DRM at all. So why be forced to use it? Again, it's the legitimate consumer that gets treated like a criminal, while the people who pirate the game don't need to use Steam at all.

As for automatic updates? Who cares. Not like we all go online anyways to aske for them. Since we are online asking for them, we can easily download and install them easier without Steam. Again, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. You are a pirate unless Steam says you are not. Then you get to play.

I like how Stardock does it with Impulse. I use Impulse to install the game for me, (just wish I could tell it where to install the game though) and then never have it turned on, if I don't want to. It also tells me for updates and other stuff as well Stardock is perfectly fine having games without any DRM at all.

SirVincealot, I've also seen COUNTLESS threads and reviews for FO:NV, Civ5, etc. from gamers complaining about how even though they got the retail boxed copy, how it didn't install from the disk and still had to download the entire game through Steam. Hmm, maybe RTFM? Do they not know how to start the game's installer?

Now, on one hand, I can completely understand being a little upset about being forced to use Steam if you don't use it and never have; however, there are also tons of complaints that are completely exaggerated and over the top about how crap it is, all the while citing misinformation they heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone...yet often never actually tried it themselves. Steam wouldn't have gotten as big as it has or lasted nearly as long if it were really crap (or if they didn't fix all the issues it had when it was new.)

Or the complaints about how their game is forever tied to their account, and not being able to install it to all the computers in their house, and not realizing that you can login to the account from any PC and play it. Probably also the same people who have 1 copy of Windows (if it's even a legit copy) installed across several computers in their house.

/rant

Stop your whining. You don't have any rights to dictate how a developer protects their intellectual property rights. The only reason DRM should be an issue for you is if you are interested in avoiding paying for the game. If you don't like it, don't play it.

I've had the impression they were fairly big, guess i was wrong :blush: That second part i knew, once again they've helped the modding community in making the Script Extender possible :nod:

As a father of two little ones that like to explore and pick up things. I love steam.. I have no cd's to worry about wear and tear or the cvhance they could be dmged at all by the " [censored] happens " monster. All my games are auto updated, i can varafy everything.. i can mod them and do anything i want to the game, be that run a trainer, mod, etc.. I can play offline on another pc or online.. any pc, i just install the game with my account boom i have access. I cant do that without luggin a pack full of cd's around.


Ive never had any issue with steam and other titles. none at all since its been released. I have run many of the programs and games people have mentioned here, with none of the issues they have had. Im not seeing any downside to steam. I have 40 or 50 games, that ill always have handy at a click of a button. Its great for me.

Actually, I have Vista. Never had a problem with Steam and Vista playing nice together and I have 20 or so Steam games.

Switching gears to the Civ Series: Been a Civ player for years upon years. And Civ IV Vanilla was one of the buggiest games ever, including frequent crashing and a serious memory leak making the game unplayable after a certain number of turns (take a look at the support forums and the voluminous patch notes for that game, reads like a novel). Civ 4 was not a Steam game, so the shape that game was shipped in had nothing to do with it or autopatching. Civ 5 - which is a Steam game - is just as buggy, but the difference is instead of my frequently checking the forum for a patch, I will just let the game sit there while I play F:NV and other games and it self patches until it is in playable state.

While I'm a steam fan, I have to chime in to say this is wrong. DRM has a nasty tendency to inconvenience paying customers. Case in point: Bioshock 1 had install limits. If you upgraded your computer or formatted, you lost one of your "installs." Use up all your installs? Oop, you have to call 2k and send them an email with a photograph of your disk and receipt to prove you own the game.

Steam doesn't really do this, but it's entirely possible to be opposed to both DRM and piracy.



Sorta. In terms of digital distribution of software, they're a giant due to steam, but in terms of development, they're fairly small. At least that's been my understanding of it. I know that steam is a huge service which is pretty much a license to print money for Valve though.