I dont get why people hate steam so much, its the best thing thats ever happend to me.
I like Steam for the things it does well - digital distribution (especially of old and/or indie games). And sales.
But there's plenty of parts that I don't like. And ones that I just don't care about (and therefore aren't worth the negatives.)
For example:
Auto-updates, some games is really enoying to get patches for'need to be member of an shady site to get an mirror for download'
Personally, I hate auto-update. I much prefer to have some measure of control over my patching (I don't, in general, play online multiplayer games that need to constantly be kept up to date in order to access servers). Perfect example of this - Skyrim auto-updated to 1.2 (even though I checked the "don't auto update!" box) and broke the game.
I can easy see what games my friends are playing, and when!
I don't do "social media", and I certainly have never liked the whole "big brother" aspect of having people constantly alerted to when I'm online/playing games. Again, I don't generally do multiplayer. And the MMOs I've played, I've played "solo" - none of my IRL friends play them, and I've no interest in joining groups of Random Morons for dungeon runs.
I dont have to have a lot of dvd's laying around.
Its easy to see what games i have on the list.
Never had any problems with these things. But, I'm organized. I've never destroyed or lost a disc, and I know where all my manuals/boxes/DVDs are. This is one of those "don't care" things.
What is this forced patching and connection poppyock?
If you don't want Steam to update anything, simply block the Steam client at the firewall. It will happily let you in assuming it is on a laptop off the net. When you are wanting to patch simply open the firewall and let it run.
And if all I'm doing is running Skyrim, that's fine. If I want to take advantage of any of the other good features of Steam (like sales, or "try this game for free weekend!" things) I have to go back online and have auto-updated screw up my installs.
It's a nice system for the things it does well. But the things it does badly......
