Should I buy games or get them off of steam?

[Throckmorton]

BTW, when you reinstall Windows, you don't have to redownload any games (unless you format the partition of course). Just open up Steam and run the games normally. Steam effectively makes every game portable aside from certain games that store the saves in your My Documents folder.

You can even keep your entire Steam folder on a USB hard drive and swap it between computers. That's what I do, because my laptop HD doesn't have room for all my games.

 

[zinfamous]

I believe thats whats known as a straw man argument.


As for the OP, I think he should try it for a handful of casual games and see if he likes dealing with Steam. If so, then it wont be too tough to start into 40 dollar premium titles.

no, that's over-generalization.

 

[lord_emperor]

I see Steam as a central point of failure. Steam may have improved but there is still a possibility Steam can go down, in which case no games for you.

In instance of an internet outage, unless you had the foresight to activate "offine mode", well, no games for you.

There is the possibility of account compromise (note: I have never had an online account of my own compromised, but it happens), if they get your account banned well good luck dealing with Steam customer service to unban it.

Oh and if you think you're being treated unfairly and chargeback Steam, well enjoy losing access to all your games.

Decide for yourself if the above possibilities outweigh the "hassle" of using and storing physical media or ISOs + no CD patches, and manually maintaining updates.

 

[SniperWulf]

Like many here, I hardly ever buy retail. I used to be a collector too. Wanting the disks, etc. But it's become a huge PITA to deal with it. Actually I do collect, but in a different way. Just watching my game list grow is pretty satisfying.

For me, its much more convenient to just download a game and make a backup. Most manuals are in PDF form.

As far as price is concerned, most new games cost exactly the same as if you did manage to find it in a store. The kicker is the sales Steam has. Every Christmas and Summer, there is usually a huge sale where you can get titles for huge savings (think 10-90% off). For everything that I don't "have to play on launch day", I usually pick up around those times for a discount.

 

[Yoshi629]

I always buy all my games retail if I can. I guess I'm just paranoid that someday Steam might go out of business and I would lose all my games :$. Something similar happened to one of online distributors of Prey a few years ago I believe (though the parent company sent those users retail discs to compensate them if I remember correctly).

 

[paperfist]

I misread the tiles as, "Should I buy my games or rent them off of Steam"

hmmm so why can't we rent games off of Steam?

 

[shortylickens]

I misread the tiles as, "Should I buy my games or rent them off of Steam"

hmmm so why can't we rent games off of Steam?

Somebody would figure out how to copy them to another drive and delete whatever code tell the game to expire.
Similar to the reason renting PC games on disc never panned out. Each game would be rented exactly one time and then the whole town would be playing it free for eternity.

 

[BFG10K]

Steam’s only redeeming feature is the dirt cheap sales it has. But any games I buy off there I crack as fast as possible.

 

[WildW]

I misread the tiles as, "Should I buy my games or rent them off of Steam"

hmmm so why can't we rent games off of Steam?

Some might argue that you ONLY rent games from Steam. Unlike a retail sale of physical media you lose a bunch of rights like resale. You just have a licence to play it, and potentially since Steam can disable all your games for a breach of the terms of service your games aren't yours forever either.

This haven't stopped me basically exclusively using Steam for the last couple of years. I like Steam, I like their sales, I like the way the system works.

I did lose access to everything for about 5 days a couple of months ago. Tried to log into Steam and got "This account has been disabled - contact customer services." The only way to contact them is to set up a support account. It took them 48 hours to respond to my initial question, and then 24 hours for each additional post.

Turns out my account security was breached - although the first I knew of it was suddenly my Steam account didn't work. Never did find out what really happened. I've always been a Steam advocator, and I still am I suppose, but I am wary. They were friendly enough and sorted the problem with no issues, but it shouldn't take 2 days to respond to customers. From what I read this is about average.

 

[Arg Clin]

For me Steam is quite a bit more expensive than retail,- even though shipping might even it out a bit, I still fail to see why steam is priced around a solid +33%

Doesn't make one bit of sense - how can games become more expensive by cutting away cd + box production, physical distribution and possibly VAT (I very much doubt Steam pays Danish VAT of 25% - most business would place themselves in an EC country with a much lower VAT)

So retail games for me all the way.

 

[AstroManLuca]

For me Steam is quite a bit more expensive than retail,- even though shipping might even it out a bit, I still fail to see why steam is priced around a solid +33%

Doesn't make one bit of sense - how can games become more expensive by cutting away cd + box production, physical distribution and possibly VAT (I very much doubt Steam pays Danish VAT of 25% - most business would place themselves in an EC country with a much lower VAT)

So retail games for me all the way.

I just get whichever is cheapest.

Steam sales are usually cheaper than physical copies from Amazon or wherever, but full priced games on Steam are usually overpriced. So I either get a game on sale through Steam or I buy it from a store (online or otherwise) if it's not on sale and I really want it. I can usually wait until it goes on sale through Steam though.

 

[mikeossur]

Sorry people, the convenience is nice but the major downside is that you never own the game. What if Steam goes belly up?

I happen to enjoy my collection of games I have kept over the years. My original Monkey Island and other games are collectible. A complete box with all the papers is a nice collectors item.

Sorry, but I am not willing to buy into the online thing alone. If I buy a game, (and I am willing to pay a little more) I want the box with the graphics on it, a CD and a instruction pamphlet or something in this form.

 

[Dankk]

Sorry people, the convenience is nice but the major downside is that you never own the game. What if Steam goes belly up?

This question has been asked a million times, and has been answered a million times.

Valve has officially stated that, if Steam has to shut down for some reason (which, judging by their success, I'm not sure why they would... thermonuclear war maybe?) All of your games will become unlocked and no longer tied to the Steam service. And before anyone starts questioning Valve's capacity to fulfill this promise: Gabe Newell is actually a pretty decent guy, and is the kind of person who would be reliable enough to ensure this happens. Sorry if I sound rude, but people bring this up in every Steam thread.

I can understand wanting to own a physical copy on disc as opposed to using Steam though.

 

[shortylickens]

Diamond Dan is a fun Lode Runner clone, but in 3D. Recommend game pad.
Demo and full game are on Steam right now.

 

[jacktesterson]

Steam is awesome, I love it. I use it an EA store for occasional deal on there stuff ( same idea as steam)

Often box just contain installation files with a steam key.

I never buy box games anymore for pc, steam works too well and orgazies stuff. My 640gb drive in my gamer is my "steam drive"

 

[damocles]

1) Install Steam
2) Check credit card balance
3) Wait for Steam Christmas sale
4) Download more games than you can play in a year

 

[Ross Ridge]

Valve has officially stated that, if Steam has to shut down for some reason (which, judging by their success, I'm not sure why they would... thermonuclear war maybe?) All of your games will become unlocked and no longer tied to the Steam service. And before anyone starts questioning Valve's capacity to fulfill this promise: Gabe Newell is actually a pretty decent guy, and is the kind of person who would be reliable enough to ensure this happens. Sorry if I sound rude, but people bring this up in every Steam thread.

And in every Steam thread this response is made. Sure Gabe Newell is great guy, the problem is that if Valve goes bankrupt, it won't be up to him. It'll be up to the copyright holders and in the case of Valve's own games, a court appointed receiver, neither of which are likely to want devalue their intellectual property and allow Gabe to release what amounts to cracks to their games.

Sure you can beleive that will never happen. That Valve is somehow just too big and successful to ever fail. But that's your only real guarantee. That so long as Valve is financially stable and Gabe Newell is in charge, you'll still be able to play the games you've subscribed to through Steam. If that ever changes, then Gabe's promise will be irrelevent, and all that will matter is the Steam Subscriber Agreement which says that your subscriptions can be terminated at any time, without reason.

 

[coloumb]

In ye old days - I'd definitely want the boxed copies as I could resell the game on ebay. However - most games today are linked to an online account so it's really not as important [to me] anymore. The only reasons I'd buy a boxed copy if it was cheaper than the digital version or if I could resell it on ebay to recoup some costs.

Worrying about STEAM going belly up and losing access to all of my games is pointless really - STEAM isn't some fly by night scam artist so I trust they'll do the right thing if the service does shut down.

 

[lord_emperor]

This question has been asked a million times, and has been answered a million times.

Valve has officially stated that, if Steam has to shut down for some reason (which, judging by their success, I'm not sure why they would... thermonuclear war maybe?) All of your games will become unlocked and no longer tied to the Steam service. And before anyone starts questioning Valve's capacity to fulfill this promise: Gabe Newell is actually a pretty decent guy, and is the kind of person who would be reliable enough to ensure this happens. Sorry if I sound rude, but people bring this up in every Steam thread.

I can understand wanting to own a physical copy on disc as opposed to using Steam though.

Steam is unlikely to go bankrupt.

A more likely scenario is Actiblizzard / Microsoft / <insert very wealthy company here> decides to buy out Steam and converts every single game to a subscription based cloud service.

Or, in a few years Gabe retires and some huge d-bag exec is promoted to CEO with the same result.

At that point Gabe Newell will have no say over anything.

 

[mikeossur]

I am not actually apposed to Steam in anyway. I just downloaded some games. Steam really is not so much the issue as is having some physical ownership and value. I would like to buy the games in a box too. I would be more then happy to spend the $50.00 or so if I valued the game and thought it might have some lasting power. Probably why I still own copies of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones... I would just like the additional option. Having the game on my hard drive is fine. I can burn it to CD too but it is just not the same.

 

[shortylickens]

WELCOME NEWB!
Stay the hell out of P&N if you know whats good for you!!

I am not actually apposed to Steam in anyway. I just downloaded some games. Steam really is not so much the issue as is having some physical ownership and value. I would like to buy the games in a box too. I would be more then happy to spend the $50.00 or so if I valued the game and thought it might have some lasting power. Probably why I still own copies of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones... I would just like the additional option. Having the game on my hard drive is fine. I can burn it to CD too but it is just not the same.

I have plenty of DOS and Win95 games I still play.

 

[manimal]

1) Install Steam
2) Check credit card balance
3) Wait for Steam Christmas sale
4) Download more games than you can play in a year

their sales have been a tad less spectacular this year but more often..

 

[sandorski]

And in every Steam thread this response is made. Sure Gabe Newell is great guy, the problem is that if Valve goes bankrupt, it won't be up to him. It'll be up to the copyright holders and in the case of Valve's own games, a court appointed receiver, neither of which are likely to want devalue their intellectual property and allow Gabe to release what amounts to cracks to their games.

Sure you can beleive that will never happen. That Valve is somehow just too big and successful to ever fail. But that's your only real guarantee. That so long as Valve is financially stable and Gabe Newell is in charge, you'll still be able to play the games you've subscribed to through Steam. If that ever changes, then Gabe's promise will be irrelevent, and all that will matter is the Steam Subscriber Agreement which says that your subscriptions can be terminated at any time, without reason.

Wut? Only Steam would need to be "Cracked". They'd just remove Code from Steam that does a Check or add a Null Server that returns an OK back.

 

[Dankk]

their sales have been a tad less spectacular this year but more often..

Just wait for the holiday sale, man. That's still the end-all be-all sale.

 

[Powermoloch]

as long steam gets <$5 games going...they'll probably convert me LAWLS