I'm a huge Steam fanboy. If it's not on Steam I'm not playing it. Kinda sucks because I'd like to play Starcraft II and Diablo 3. And Dragon Age 2. 🙁
To each his own. That is why there is variety and the individuals to enjoy it.
i think it is metaphysical. Some people love Nvidia and have great success with their HW but awful experiences with AMD and their drivers; others think Nvidia is Evil and only have good things to say about AMD. i lucked out with both companies and love their HW and ended up working for a tech site with good things to say about both of them (while not hiding their faults).
Much of our perception depends on our life experiences. In the early days of Steam, i was stuck on 56K and it was an awful service. When i migrated to broadband, it was still weak but my connection's faster speed compensated somewhat.
Then Steam started "collecting data" and doing the surveys. They found out what their customers wanted - and since they are very active gamers, they know about forums and communities and how to build a fan base through viral marketing. And they are quite strong in partnering up with other smart indie publishers while still having decent ties with big publishers.
Steam is Smart (not K-mart smart!). But it's still DRM to the max and loved by publishers. OtH, MS simply doesn't give a crap about PC gamers as they cater to the consoles. Steam is PC-originated.
--PC gamers demand better service than consolers evidently (and reward the companies handsomely that cater to their niche - us).
😛
/end analysis
:whiste:
However, in running a tech site, i have to compromise and play games by UbiSoft (for example) with an 'always on' connection even though i *hate* it on principle and would never buy any SP game that demands this. Actually, i don't buy ANY games any longer; they are all supplied by the publisher or Nvidia or AMD.
And of course, my PoV ends up in every game i review (and benchmark) and i single out the worst DRM offenders. It gets back to the publisher and so we can provide a feedback service to them, to ease up on the inconvenience to their paying customers.
The sad thing is that the last release I used in GFWL disabled/removed off line mode 🙂 I guess they found that not enough folks where having issues so they had to do some work in that area.
Btw are you suggesting they have added offline mode back in ? (last game I played with GFWL was around 3 months ago).
which game? The only way to be sure that GFWL is really in offline mode is to pull the Internet cable; it really tries to connect. At that point you may be able to just cancel the loading screen and play the game offline.
Well, i need to get back to work .. writing.
😀
