I'm sorry. Did you just use Steam, a system created and maintained by Valve, as a justification for voting for Valve over Bethesda?

I must have misread that. I really must have.

Go Valve !

i've got oblivion all DLC's with shivering 1.2 patch (last) and fallout 3 all DLC's with WL1.7 patch played and past both zillions of times and i've yet to find a single bug or quest breaking bug (not counting misplaced rocks)

maybe im just lucky in both? but in skyrim... i've had so many bugs and my FIRST and many quest breaking bugs EVEN with the 1.5 patch, i feel like i need to call a pest controller to clean out my pc!




yes you misread.. i'd never vote valve good as i would never vote steam good hence my "valve + steam for me are the same villain or the same family of villains" line

I'll bet that hurt! Did it leave a mark?

I wish I could vote twice for Bethesda. Thank you, Bethesda; having a blast.

Your loss. Valve and Steam are one of the best things that happened to PC gaming, and one of the biggest reasons why it's resurgent again. If Bethesda had half the craftsmanship that goes into every valve game, then this forum would be a much quieter place, as everyone would be enjoying a nice, bug-free Skyrim that was actually finished upon release. Anyways, here- let me hold the door for you, so it don't hit you in the ***. Ooops....

This. Companies like Valve, Bethesda, Blizzard, EA, etc. revolutionized the industry. Bashing them is one of the most pointless exercises I can think of.

I will always vote for Counter Strike. Doesn't matter how [censored] Valve gets, their support for CS freed the competitive scene from Quake's domination.

If Beth sent three hokers to my house, I'd still vote for Valve. Not that I like Gabe "Omnomnom" Newell, it's just about CS for me.

not really my loss.. if you think steam/valve are gods then thats your thing, i dont its my opinion as much as yours is yours.. but that still doesnt excuse you acting like an ass towards me.

Spoken like a true steambaby.

Guys, calm down. No need to throw poo at each other, everybody has different opinions. Some people hate Steam for good reasons, some like it because its features for multiplayer titles, some other crazy people just see that without digital retailers like Steam and GoG, PC gaming would be dead since 3 years.

It's not just about that. I'm guessing some posters here are too young to remember the original Half-Life, and all the mods that came from it.

It's really easy to bash the big companies, because they're huge targets. It's harder to actually look at the totality of the company, including all their achievements. PC gaming would not be where it is today without companies like Valve.

(I still voted for Bethesda, though.)

It's not really about the games, it's about Steam itself. Without CS we wouldn't have such a competetive gaming scene, but without Steam, we wouldn't even have sales for PC games anymore.

I played the original Half-Life and I love Valve. I HATE STEAM. Steam is a virus, as it does nothing that I can't do myself other than security checks and treating me like a criminal.

As someone has already stated, the PC sales for Skyrim would have been much more if not for Steam. I would have to say that the sales might have doubled without Steam being forced onto the ones buying retail copies. I personally would have bought both the XBox version and the PC version. I would have bought the PC versions of Half Life 2 and espisodes 1 & 2 for the PC if not for Steam. I ended up buying them for the XBox, as I will the Episode 3.

Are you sure about the doubled sales? There are people, like myself, who only buy Steamworks games. The other problem is that without Steam, most publishers wouldn't care for PC ports anymore. And don't forget about indygames which have a way bigger audience thanks to Steam.
I can see why people hate on Steam for different reasons, but don't blame everything on it and especially do not make up numbers like doubled sales. I am pretty positive that Ubisoft has a way worse DRM method and is still able to sell enough Assassin's Creed games to make a fortune.

I said it was my opinion, and I stand by that opinion. I think there is enough people who dislike anything Steam that it's pretty close. Again, I have no numbers but it's my opinion.

As far as UbiSoft, I don't buy their games for the PC either. I bought the Assassin's Creed series for the XBox and will continue to do so.

DRM is useless, in any way it's done. Until companies realize that they will continue to alienate PC users, as they have done me.

DRM methods will be this brutal until publishers and gamers realize that there is no black and white in this whole mess. Publishers have to see that they can't prevent piracy as a whole, but gamers have to see that not every protecting measure publishers have to take is meant to destroy the free market. Gamers tend to be over-protective and start whining like the world will end as soon as someone says or does something stupid. But services like Steam will be the future, no matter what people think. Publishers fear digital distribution because the smaller contestants can reach the same audience as they, but they have to rely on it because the used game market screws the game industry over more than pirates.

If you like it or not, retail distribution will be gone in the long run, even for consoles.

I don't really understand how DRM is such an assault on your freedoms. It doesn't force you to do anything, and it's made patch delivery and application a ton more efficient.

Edit: Also, I only ever see complaints about it on internet forums, and sales numbers don't support the idea that DRM is killing the PC gamer population.

Well when I did have a gaming computer any game that has steam or valve required. Sorry put back and on to the next game. Sorry will not buy any program that requires me to have a third party software on my system.

Let me ask you people who love **** like this, what happens if the system like steam cashes for what ever reason. All the games you bought are gone. After a few weeks steam comes back online yet your games are still gone. Steam says all there customer data was lost and have no way of knowing who had what. To get your games you had back you have to send a list of the games, DLC, mods or what ever to steam with proof that you had purchased them in the first place. Do you have any way to prove you had those game? Nope.

Or

Lets say Steam goes under for what ever reason and there is no longer steam. Then you lost all of those games and will never get them back. The game disks that you do have will not work do to you cant connect to steam or will work for about two weeks then your steam component on your computer will tell you to connect to steam to update, yet do to steam is gone your cant making you game disk worthless.

This shows a remarkable lack of understanding of how Steam works.

Once you download a game on Steam, it's on your hard drive. You don't need to even be connected to Steam to play any single-player games.

Furthermore, if Steam lost user data like that (which is highly unlikely), then presumably they'd lose their records of which activation codes for games had been used. So if you had a disc, it would still be valid on their system after such a cataclysmic event.

You're just engaging in worst-case end-of-the-world scenarios, which are really very unlikely. It's like saying "What if the internet dies?" It's a question, but not a very good one.

Don’t try to BS me, I had a Empire total war steam was required to install it onto my computer. That’s how I learned not to purchase games with Steam or other third party BS on them. I put steam to don’t connect to steam after installing the game, yet ever two weeks had to reconnect to steam or my game would not work. Try it, unplug your computer from your internet, make sure your not sending a single out by wireless for two weeks. It will prompt you to connect to steam and if you don’t your game will never start.

Furthermore, if Steam lost user data like that (which is highly unlikely), then presumably they'd lose their records of which activation codes for games had been used. So if you had a disc. That’s only if you had a disk and not just downloaded the game from the net after paying steam for it or does not cover DLC or other stuff you can download. By the way the engaging in worst-case end-of-the-world scenarios with systems crashing every day do to natural disasters or hackers its a very likely scenario.
Again do you have any proof you purchased the games from steam or any DLC's? Did not think so. Good luck I hope that scenario never happens, but by the off chances it does. Don’t say you were not warned.

Playing offline with Steam-downloaded games is totally feasible, so I'm not sure why you were having a problem. There have been multiple threads in these forums about how to play in Offline Mode. Feel free to look them up.

And I only responded to the issue of Steam crashing when you have a disc because that's the scenario you brought up. You said that discs would be useless in the event of some system-melting crash. That's patently false.

And yes, people in security/data-backup are paid to predict worst-case scenarios, and that's why they build in safeguards to prevent it. Your scenario would not only require that the main Steam servers were somehow melted down, but that every single back-up server, every system with consumer data and every backup system for their consumer data melted down, along with the cloud servers and their backups mysteriously imploding. It's a silly scenario, and it's about as likely as Google accidentally deleting everyone's GMail account.

I used to live in Eastern Europe before I moved to the western part and if you bought games on disc and the disc was damaged, whcih can happen since no storage media lasts forever, you were pretty much screwed. No publisher really gave a sh*t about that if it didn't happen withing the first two years or so. Digital distribution hasn't got that problem. Besides, it is pretty normal that you can't expect much support after two years, in Switzerland, where I live now, this is normal for almost every product and I'm sure it's the same in many countries.

If Steam "goes" down, and if you have some experience with it you know that this won't happen so fast, there are still means to play your games. First off, there are the no CD cracks which are still pretty easy to come by, even though they are technically illegal. Then there are still the publishers of the games who are concerned that their customers can play their stuff. Believe me, bringing Steam "down" financially is pretty unlikely.

And what about older games from Sierra on disc? I loved myself some Zeus, but where do you get support if you bought it doesn't work anymore? Yep, you're screwed, so digital distribution and retail sales. can have the same problems. But they're old and sometimes old stuff is not supported anymore. No company is legally responsible for entertainment products after such a long time, it wouldn't make sense.

There are basically two systems I completely trust these days.The first is Steam, because I'm using it since CS 1.6 forced me to, and I have experience with their support staff and know how the whole system works. It is sometimes a pain, but less than anything I had to go through with retail sales. The second one is GoG, because theose old games don't cost a fortune and I don't really give a flying f*** if it doesn't work anymore.

Steam offers me to get my game in different languages, which is practical since I speak more than one and sometimes enjoy something else than German or English. Steam offers me an easy way to establish a contact list and keep in touch with my fellow gamers in different multiplayer titles. Steam offers me the possibility to store some of my progress in the Cloud so I don't have to make backups everytime I use a different system. Steam offers me cheaper prices than any retailer in my country. Steam offers me a way to purchase older titles I loved, seriously, try to find KotoR 1 in a store nowadays. Steam offers me a way to compare my stats with my friends on many multiplayer titles, which is pretty neat for competetive players. Steam offers an anti-cheat solution which doesn't perma-ban me if I'm recording with FRAPS like Punkbuster used to. Steam offers me an easy access to DLC without forcing me to register with any single f'ing publisher. Steam allows me to install my games on any PC without restrictions, I can evan play my games on PC and iMac if I finally killed my brain and decided to buy an Apple computer. Steam offers me a single point of contact for first level support for any game.
These are all things that make me happy with Steam and not give a sh*t about retailers anymore. The only down right now is that every game has to be stored in the same directory as Steam, but I've got a 1 TB hard drive now, so I don't care. If EA's Origin will be nearly as good at some point, maybe I will start buying EA titles again. But retailers can die off as far as I'm converned.

I suppose, but consoles would have this too if it Microsoft and Sony would let them and if the hardware has better.
And we don't have everything, Skyrim on PC is clunky as hell and it's often quite clear that it's not designed for the PC, and the UI is horrible and from what I've heard also hard to mod.
First off, they make great games with high quality, and they design them in a way that doesn't make them clunky as hell on the PC.
Steam isn't all that bad, I have offline mode and it's a great way to get old games that you don't find in stores anymore (Morrowind and Arx Fatalis somes to mind).
And steam have also been good for indie developers.

Playing offline with Steam-downloaded games is totally feasible, yes it is. Except that after two weeks it will force you to reconnect to steam even when you prompt it to play offline. Now that could have been a bug back in the day and they fix it since. Yet I still come across posts on other game forms about the same thing. Game will not start with out connecting to steam first, then going to offline again. So I can only assume since I don’t game on my gaming pc do to my wife broke it, that its still there.