PC gaming VS STEAM gaming.

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[thedosbox]

Another straw man argument that you just pulled out of your arse. I've made countless posts detailing the many reasons why I dislike steam, and I've detailed one of them in this very thread, although you seem to be conveniently ignoring it.

Yes, because it's irrelevant to most users, some of whom are represented in this thread - a detail that you seem to be conveniently ignoring.

Not everyone has OCD about their systems, most just want to play games.

 

[Bateluer]

If you have decent internet connection there's nothing really wrong with Steam, if your speed isn't very good then you are going to have a bad time of it.

Install a new game from DVD, then Steam will make you dl the patch the first time you try and run it, that could take a while when your connection is < 50kB/s

Same weakness with any modern gaming. Even patches these days are measured in hundreds of MBs. You basically won't be any modern gaming with a shoddy Internet connection.

 

[frozentundra123456]

As usual, we seem to have the two extremes represented with no middle ground. Steam is just like most other businesses, it has pluses and negatives. I have had technical problems with logging in and found customer service to be awful. My internet connection is only fair, so games and patches do take a fair amount of time to download, and I do wish one had the option to decline updates. However, overall Steam has been a great boon to PC gaming, offering a unified platform and unbelievably cheap games. I only play single player games, and actually play most of the time in offline mode, which eliminates the hassle of having to wait for an update to start the game.

 

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[frozentundra123456]

"Offline Mode allows you to play games through Steam without reconnecting to the Steam Network every time you wish to play - this is particularly useful if you do not plan on playing over the internet and would prefer not to download new updates for your single-player games."

A direct quote from the Steam Forums. Granted, the game must be up to date to go to offline mode, but once in offline mode, as long as you stay in offline mode, your games will not update. Hell, if you are that desperate to not update your games, go into offline mode and disconnect your internet. Granted, if you play on-line your games will update, but most online games will not allow you to play without the latest updates, whether you use steam or not. I suppose you could argue for only updating the games you actually play online, instead of the whole library of installed games, but in the final analysis, if you want to blame an update for borking some feature of the game that appeals to you, you should be angry at the publisher more than Steam.

 

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[KMFJD]

Same weakness with any modern gaming. Even patches these days are measured in hundreds of MBs. You basically won't be any modern gaming with a shoddy Internet connection.

I totally understand the need to patch games, but when it's a brand new release, and i have the disc and am still forced to download 100's of mb's on day 0 it's a bit annoying for a single player game.

 

[Bateluer]

As usual, we seem to have the two extremes represented with no middle ground. Steam is just like most other businesses, it has pluses and negatives. I have had technical problems with logging in and found customer service to be awful. My internet connection is only fair, so games and patches do take a fair amount of time to download, and I do wish one had the option to decline updates. However, overall Steam has been a great boon to PC gaming, offering a unified platform and unbelievably cheap games. I only play single player games, and actually play most of the time in offline mode, which eliminates the hassle of having to wait for an update to start the game.

A user's Internet connection is not Valve's fault. Steam's servers and pipes are clearly able to handle some massive loads. During their Summer and Fall sales, they become the largest bandwidth user on the entire Internet.

Offline mode doesn't prevent updates. You have to actually firewall the damned thing in to prevent those hassles. This was the reason for a thread I made recently about firewalling steam.

Uh, yes, it does.

I totally understand the need to patch games, but when it's a brand new release, and i have the disc and am still forced to download 100's of mb's on day 0 it's a bit annoying for a single player game.

I agree, its irritating to have Zero Day updates and patches . . . but again, not Steam's fault. Thats the dev/publisher's faulty for shipping the game before it was ready. If there's a zero day patch, it usually means there's some serious bugs that were found and you should update before playing anyway.

 

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[Bateluer]

Read the above post.

. . . so your entire argument is that Steam wants to update itself? Do you get annoyed when Windows says there's updates available?

 

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[Bateluer]

If there was a Windows Update equivalent of steam's system, you might turn on your PC to be greeted with a "Windows is Updating" screen, which would proceed to download and install all the available updates while locking you out of the desktop and all your programs until it's done.

Hardly. Steam client updates are done in a couple minutes and don't actually lock you out of any of your games. Windows updates could leave you twiddling your thumbs for a good while if you have a slow Internet connection and a mechanical drive.

Incidentally, Microsoft is slowly removing the manual updates function from Windows. Notice that during the initial setup of W8 only gives you the option to turn them on or off? You have open the Control Panel, which is buried and hidden in Metro UI, to enable the 'Notify whether there are updates and whether to install them.'

I think I should just stop posting now, because you seem to be doing a fine job of making my own arguments for me.

You're doing a fairly effective job of that on your own by inventing fake problems and over blowing some that barely exist; mountains out of mole hills.

Bottom line is this; if you want to game on PC in the modern era, you need Steam. Steam is how you get your PC games, even if you buy the boxed copy from Amazon, you'll need to activate it on Steam. If you want to be a console gamer, you have to deal with a far worse and inferior ecosystem.

 

[Father Torque]

Steam saved Valve,not PC gaming. Its one of the worst things to happen to PC gaming.

 

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[frozentundra123456]

Seriously, you are talking about Steam client updates? I agree they are mildly annoying, but I have never had a client update take more than a few seconds or a minute or two. Compared to having the ability to buy hundreds of cheap games with a simple click of my mouse, it seems like a trivial annoyance at most.

As regards windows updates, I find them much more annoying than Steam client updates. My IT department controls the updating process, so I cannot turn it off. It is extremely annoying to go to shut down my computer at the end of the day and have to stay extra time because the computer starts installing updates, which usually take much longer than steam client updates.

 

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[ImpulsE69]

And maybe I'd feel the same way if I wanted to purchase games digitally from steam. But I don't. I have no interest in steam as a store (or anything else). I never had a problem paying retail for games, and these days I'd happily pay above retail for games if it meant that they weren't bound to steam (I would consider that short term pain for long term gain). In my case steam is an inconvenience, and offers me nothing in return. You people seem utterly incapable of wrapping your heads around this concept.

What do you mean you people?

 

[Bateluer]

Another salient point that bore mentioning in my last post is that my attitude toward Windows updates is going to be quite different to my atitude towards steam client updates, because, as I'be previously stated, the latter is entirely useless to me and I'd rather I didn't have to install it at all. I see far more justification for any inconvenience caused by Windows updates (not that any inconvenience exists), than for a freeloading piece of bloatware that serves (me personally) no useful function. I don't see why you find this so difficult to understand.

Freeloading piece of bloatware? For what Steam is and does, its probably the least bloated piece of software on your PC. Useless? It consolidates all your games into a single place, keeps them all up to date with the most current patches, gives you a single store to purchase games, often at steep discounts, and integrates a social network and mod infrastructure. Its an incredibly useful platform, and something if PC gaming didn't have, it probably would wither and you'd be stuck playing 30fps console games.

You will continue to try and trivialize and pick apart each point I make, but you fail to see that all the minor annoyances together make steam represent a substantial, unjustified inconvenience for those that do not want any of it's features.

Because your points are so flimsy they're blown apart when my rats sneeze.

And maybe I'd feel the same way if I wanted to purchase games digitally from steam. But I don't. I have no interest in steam as a store (or anything else). I never had a problem paying retail for games, and these days I'd happily pay above retail for games if it meant that they weren't bound to steam (I would consider that short term pain for long term gain). In my case steam is an inconvenience, and offers me nothing in return. You people seem utterly incapable of wrapping your heads around this concept.

So, now you'd want to trade the convenience of Steam for constant pain with a retail boxed copy; that you'd have to manually update every time you want to play, that you'd have to deal with different multiplayer lobbies/servers, that you'd have to drive to the B&M store to purchase days after all your friends already bought them, downloaded them, and have been playing them on Steam?

Dude. Steam is the reason why PC gaming is clobbering console gaming right now, why its growth outstrips the Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo consoles combined.

 

[nsafreak]

Freeloading piece of bloatware? For what Steam is and does, its probably the least bloated piece of software on your PC. Useless? It consolidates all your games into a single place, keeps them all up to date with the most current patches, gives you a single store to purchase games, often at steep discounts, and integrates a social network and mod infrastructure. Its an incredibly useful platform, and something if PC gaming didn't have, it probably would wither and you'd be stuck playing 30fps console games.



Because your points are so flimsy they're blown apart when my rats sneeze.




So, now you'd want to trade the convenience of Steam for constant pain with a retail boxed copy; that you'd have to manually update every time you want to play, that you'd have to deal with different multiplayer lobbies/servers, that you'd have to drive to the B&M store to purchase days after all your friends already bought them, downloaded them, and have been playing them on Steam?

Dude. Steam is the reason why PC gaming is clobbering console gaming right now, why its growth outstrips the Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo consoles combined.

I pretty much agree with all of the points in the above post. It used to be PC gaming was a major pain in the ass, especially in the bad old days of PC gaming where you had to make specific autoexec.bat files in order for certain games to run correctly or at all in some cases. It didn't get a whole lot better with the advent of Windows gaming where you still sometimes had to use specific drivers to get games to work properly or make other changes sometimes to Windows itself.

It got a bit better before Steam with Windows XP but you still had to deal with patches for games from various websites and other things that sometimes had to be done to update a game or get it to work. Nowadays I don't have to worry about that baloney and I simply let Steam download the game and automatically keep it updated for me. Sure, it stinks for the folks with pokey internet connections that it may take a while to download a game but I would say that they're likely in the minority. I will gladly take all of the advances that Steam has brought to PC gaming even if it does mean my PC needs to stay online which really isn't that hard for lots of folks.

 

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[DaveSimmons]

just to allow me to launch a handful of games that would be perfectly capable of launching by themselves if steam didn't have it's hooks in them.

Except that without Steam (and Origin) we'd be back a bunch of different DRM schemes fighting each other to destabilize your PC. Or disc checks. Or malware-infested no-CD cracks.

Publishers demand DRM. Steam gives them enough DRM to keep most happy, in a form that doesn't impact users that way old DRM used to.

For the publishers that don't demand DRM, you can always buy the titles on GOG.

 

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[EDUSAN]

the steam client sucks, steam rocks

specially the games with steamworks. To be able to play with friends is so easy, 2 clicks, ready, you are playing. Chat, forums, groups, notifications, its all the cool things that steam adds that, to me, adds to the experience of playing.
i only have to endure a bit of drm... oh well

 

[Dannar26]

You people seem utterly incapable of wrapping your heads around this concept.

No, I get it. Some people just hate awesome things. Like ice cream, or bacon.