15 Million People Use Steam.

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: JBT
I like Steam, I just wish the prices of some of their games were a bit more competitive...

If you buy them in packages you get good deals on them. If you buy them individually, not so much.

 

[Jules]

I like steam alot. I wish every game was on it

 

[BassBomb]

Steam is a great idea. I love messaging friends while we are both playing HL2 through same areas giving each other tips.

The single thing I wish is, being able to play games without a connection. I've got my Orange Box installed on a machine that doesn't always have a connection, so it sucks when I cant play

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: Aflac
I swear when Steam came out everyone was bitchin about how bad it was. I swear.

it had issues in the beginning. it's great now

it had a LOT of MASSIVE issues. it took valve YEARS to get it together. i remember hearing about steam in 2001 or 2002.

it still has some really stupid issues. it can be a bit of a resource pig. it can make other apps stop working properly. it constantly forgets your settings in the server browser.

at least they fixed it so it remembers your favourite servers... it used to forget those once a week.

Pretty much. It had a lot of problems at the outset, but now that Valve (and credit to them - they were great pioneers in this regard) has gotten things together with that service, it's definitely the future.

I wonder how many sales of HL2 and it's offspring were sold on Steam that NPD never talked about?

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Steam is a great idea. I love messaging friends while we are both playing HL2 through same areas giving each other tips.

The single thing I wish is, being able to play games without a connection. I've got my Orange Box installed on a machine that doesn't always have a connection, so it sucks when I cant play

You're supposed to be able to play offline.. according to Valve

 

[watek]

At first steam was horrible, old CS players would know. Now it's fine.

 

[OhSnap688]

WoW I'm actually one of 15 million. Hope they decide to fix the many errors now

 

[HannibalX]

Steam sucks. I hate it. I will never purchase another product from that shitty service.

Not only has Valve compromised my credit card info which took me a while to clear up, each time I try to re-download my content the speeds get slower and slower. Not to mention the fact that periodically the program will just fuck up and crash.

POS.

 

[Noema]

I love Steam. I dream of the day in which every single game ever made is available through Steam.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I really like steam, just wish the prices dropped as quick as the retail equivalents.

QFT. same with Direct2Drive also. The prices just do not scale with retail stores at all. You'd think a direct download would be a little cheaper to begin with too, since there is no cd or packaging either.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I really like steam, just wish the prices dropped as quick as the retail equivalents.

QFT. same with Direct2Drive also. The prices just do not scale with retail stores at all. You'd think a direct download would be a little cheaper to begin with too, since there is no cd or packaging either.

Gotta think of the business issues.

Digital is a growing distribution method, but for the moment, developers and publishers still need retail outlets. Retail knows they can't stop the digital revolution, but they can try to delay it as long as possible, and they will.

Eventually, we'll reach a critical mass somewhere when developers/publishers have enough digital support that they can pretty much dictate terms to EB or GameStop or whatever upscale games pawn shop you care to name because they won't need them any more. At the moment, digital is young enough that it's the other way around, and games retailers are not going to allow their demise to be hastened by a pricing advantage for digital distribution.

I still buy everything I can digitally even though the prices are the same because then at least I know more of the money is going to the developers rather than the publisher to package it or buy shelf space in Best Buy.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
Steam sucks. I hate it. I will never purchase another product from that shitty service.

Not only has Valve compromised my credit card info which took me a while to clear up, each time I try to re-download my content the speeds get slower and slower. Not to mention the fact that periodically the program will just fuck up and crash.

POS.

Sounds like your installation is all kinds of FUBAR.

How did your card details get compromised?

 

[the unknown]

Originally posted by: Juno
i actually have two steam accounts.

make that to 14,999,999 users.

Yeah? Well, my bro and I share an account, so I guess we're back up to 15,000,000

 

[HannibalX]

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
Steam sucks. I hate it. I will never purchase another product from that shitty service.

Not only has Valve compromised my credit card info which took me a while to clear up, each time I try to re-download my content the speeds get slower and slower. Not to mention the fact that periodically the program will just fuck up and crash.

POS.

Sounds like your installation is all kinds of FUBAR.

How did your card details get compromised?

My install isn't fubar'd whatsoever.

Steam got hacked about a year ago - LOTS of peoples CC info was compromised.

 

[the unknown]

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper

Originally posted by: vhx
I remember when Steam was hacked and some CC#'s were exposed to the public. That was fun.

Except it wasn't hacked:

"There has been no security breach of Steam," Valve director of marketing Doug Lombardi told 1UP. "The alleged hacker gained access to a third-party site that Valve uses to manage the commercial partners in its Cyber Cafe program. This Cyber Cafe billing system is not connected to Steam.

Also, I had the same problems with steam, until I used HijackThis with instructions on how to use it.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
My install isn't fubar'd whatsoever.

I meant your Steam install.

Steam got hacked about a year ago - LOTS of peoples CC info was compromised.

Steam wasn't hacked. I posted this earlier:

"There has been no security breach of Steam," Valve director of marketing Doug Lombardi told 1UP. "The alleged hacker gained access to a third-party site that Valve uses to manage the commercial partners in its Cyber Cafe program. This Cyber Cafe billing system is not connected to Steam.

I hadn't read of any Steam members being affected. How do you know Steam are to blame? It could easily be a B&M retailer you made a purchase at, or any other online retailer.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: the unknown
Also, I had the same problems with steam, until I used HijackThis with instructions on how to use it.

Do you mean you were having the same issues running Steam as PaleRider, until you removed spyware?

 

[skace]

Steam was crap when it came out, because WON was a much simpler system for a single game, and back then it didn't make sense to need a whole nother product just to play CS. But times have changed and Steam is a much better product, the icing on the cake was the in game UI overlay (shift+tab) which has been the most amazing thing. I don't know how many people have used shift-tab to quickly switch servers with a bunch of friends, but it is incredible in that respect.

 

[Genx87]

I like steam and prefer it to buying physical discs from a store. Just wish more games were released on it.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Another person that loves steam... no problems on XP or Vista 64 for me.

I wish every game was steamed... no CD's, no going to the store to buy retail, no dl'ing and installing patches, etc.

And u can play stema games offline...just check out your steam ticket.

Only negative is the prices are not as good as can be had elsewhere... but sometimes there are some really good deals.

 

[mordantmonkey]

fuck non-transferable licensing for games. what next? term licensing for movies? boooooo.

that said, steam was was big brown pile when it first came out. now it's actually pretty pleasant. but wtf, they control the servers, is it too much to ask to allow me to transfer my games.
though i suppose then all manner of asshats would get phished and have their games stolen.

 

[videogames101]

Valve is the greatest game dev alive, all of their games are polished to actually be AMAZING, unlike the crap EA and others put out.

It took them 10 years to make a single game, TF2, (LoL)
and it owns

Portal! (They win best dev just for that)

Steam also rocks, best game/communication client out there, and their in-game overlay is so smooth, insta-voice chat and im'ing, built-in join game, steam and valve OWN

 

[calyco]

Agreed, steam is nice. I would rather not have to run a separate app while gaming but at least it works. Purchasing games and auto patching is great. They have some pretty good games too, overall much better than EA.

 

[sswingle]

I have always been able to play online...

I think you need to set your client to remember your username and password or something along those lines to get offline to work.