Steam: Invasive crap software

[Rifter]

You are obviously completly clueless.

1. You can still install off physical media with steam(i have done this myself)

2. You can go into offline mode, very easaly.

3. Logging in have never taken more than 2-4 seconds

4. It is CLEARLY LABLED that steam and a internet connection are needed both in the add you linked and on the retail box.

5. You can disable the news page.

 

[Sulaco]

I can sympathize in a way with the OP.

Back in 2004, I rushed out on the morning of November 4th to buy my copy of Half Life 2. Brought it home, installed STEAM for the first time, popped in all SIX CDs, and was ready to rock.

...and then, it told me the game had to update before I would be ready to play...in offline mode. At all.

Roughly 5-6 hours later, I realized I needed to start seriously looking into broadband. It sucks you're stuck in the boonies OP, but

This is the part that puzzles me though, and if the OP already answered this I'm sorry.
It sucks you're stuck in the boonies, OP, but Digital Distribution and, sadly, DRM have been the direction of this industry for well over 5 years now.


As for Skyrim's warning about needing Steam and an internet connection, I'm looking at the back of my box right now, and it's in a red bubble with white text, directly above the "Games for Windows" logo. And it says; " Requires internet connection and free Steam account to activate"

 

[Sulaco]

Oh, and just wondering:

The OP mentions being so disgruntled with STEAM and this DRM, namely because of his slow internet connection, that he is considering pirating games now.

How is that any more convenient or practical if your internet is so slow to begin with?

 

[Lonyo]

It's a matter of quality of service. Steam is unobtrusive for most. Loading steam takes all of 7 seconds on my PC and then it's off to the races. It also provides great deals on games that you can't get anywhere else (find me another source for Mass Effect 2 for 5$ with free shipping).

Other forms of DRM on the other hand offer none of the above and are far more intrusive. The OP's lack of decent internet is at fault for his issues, not steam. Anyone who says steam should work over 56k apparently hasn't downloaded a 10 GB+ game over 56k. Takes weeks, patches would take days or weeks. Almost defeats the purpose of buying the game in the first place.

Amazon.
Done.

And it's still about $15 now on Amazon, vs $20 on Steam.

 

[llee]

Regarding DRM...

Steam:Amazon::Origin:Barnes and Nobles

People said the same crap about ebooks. Just look at how far they've come.

 

[irishScott]

Amazon.
Done.

And it's still about $15 now on Amazon, vs $20 on Steam.

Touche, although there you have to use EA's system which is arguably far inferior. That or manually download patches, which, call me lazy, is kind of like changing your own oil IMO. I "can" do it but there are other people who can do it faster with specialized equipment. Given the amount of games I own, the time spent doing that is easily worth $5 or, in the case of black Friday, free.

Amazon doesn't provide half the service that steam does.

 

[imaheadcase]

I'm surprised someone who visits anandtech forums, knows about steam, would expect in this day and age that he would not have to have internet connection to play a game..

simply wow.

 

[TecHNooB]

You didn't purchase the game. You purchased a license to use the software that is the game. The license has restrictions, one of which is that steam is required to execute software. Get over it or don't play the game.

Download the game if you want, but its still piracy. You purchased a software license with restrictions. If the downloaded copy bypasses those restrictions, then the downloaded copy is not covered by the license you purchased. Thus, you own one license to the software, and downloaded an unauthorized derivative of the software that is not covered by the license.

Granted, I am in IP attorney so I take a fairly hard line view of these situations. But it never ceases to amaze me that many people do not, after 30+ years of consumer software, understand the basic elements of a software LICENSE.

Normally when this clause shows up, people are using it against EA or Activision. Now we resort to bashing fellow gamers with this? I guess whatever is convenient..

I think steam is perfectly fine and OP needs to get a better internet connection :|

 

[Schfifty Five]

Well - to be fair, the offline mode is not that simple. I had an outage a few months ago, tried to use the offline mode, and it didn't work. I posted about it here and (of course) got pilloried for it. The Steam defense force activates quickly on this forum.

Were you ranting like the OP was? If so, then of course you're going to get "pilloried".

If you had calmly and sensibly asked how to get into offline mode, then I highly doubt anyone would berate you or defend steam for not knowing.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Well I love steam, I never scratch the CD's anymore and it has gotten me 90% out of pirating. I probably bought a hundred games from Steam I haven't even played yet. Now I'm doing the same thing with books, got myself a kindle... wave of the future.

 

[Wyndru]

Normally when this clause shows up, people are using it against EA or Activision. Now we resort to bashing fellow gamers with this? I guess whatever is convenient..

It's because during the progression to this we all thought it was bullshit, and now we all just accept it. The benefits outweigh the negatives of this kind of system, at least as far as steam is concerned.

I'm more interested in what people will do if a service like steam ever ceased to exist. I'd be pissed if I lost all of my games because steam disabled their servers for any reason. Yes I am aware you can back them up and hack them so they play without steam, but it's a bit more work than just grabbing a disc. I would hope the publishers of the game would give you full steam-less games (via patches), but I'm doubting they would especially for old games.

 

[Pacman4]

Granted, I am in IP attorney so I take a fairly hard line view of these situations. But it never ceases to amaze me that many people do not, after 30+ years of consumer software, understand the basic elements of a software LICENSE.

Why is a software product of this nature so precious?
I don't have these type of ownership issues with cars, books, DVD players etc, I can buy and sell quite freely.
You seem to think that because it's a law, that's it's moral and/or reasonable.

 

[Pacman4]

I know that you believe you OWN the game, but you do not.

Why not though?....why can I own a book but not a video game?

 

[irishScott]

Why not though?....why can I own a book but not a video game?

Ever try to copy and paste a book? Let me know how that goes.

 

[Pacman4]

Ever try to copy and paste a book? Let me know how that goes.

What's that got to do with me?

 

[PrayForDeath]

Steam offline mode

More like shitty-broken mode. It works half the time, and the other half Steam gets stuck in "updating" mode and asks for internet.

Yeah, I'm another one of those people who hate Steam. I particularly hate it when it gets corrupted for absolutely no reason, and forces you to redownload/reinstall the whole client all over again.

Not to mention the fact that Valve doesn't let you download the complete setup file. You have to download a 1 meg file that proceeds to download the rest of the client in the background with absolutely no indication as to how long it will take to complete.

Oh, and when it finally runs and you set up everything, if your computer happens to freeze/crash, bye bye Steam and all your settings. Gotta redownload! /raaaaage

Don't get me wrong, Valve have a good thing going with the digital download service and deals and everything, it's just that the software they use to run this service on is utter crap.

 

[Anteaus]

Why not though?....why can I own a book but not a video game?

A book is intrinsic. You can hold in your hand and you can read it without any sort of intervention from a device. Software is not intrinsic. It doesn't exist in the real world. On a dvd the software exists as a series of pits that a laser reads and a computer converts it. An equivilant correlation can be made for any type of data storage device relative to the data it is actually storing.

The law protects your right to resale physical media because while you don't own the software (it's licensed), you do own the physical media that it is transported on. The law specifically deals with this. If you sell the media, the license must go with it because the software developer cannot forbid you to sell any object you own unless it is specifically forbidden by law (alcohal, cigs, etc.)

This is also exactly why first sale doctrine doesn't apply to digital sales. There is literally only a license to use data that is not intrinsic. It doesn't have a physical form, and therefore can't be traded as a commodity.

This is probably more than you asked to know, but it always amazes me when people compare selling games to selling used cars or toasters. Software only exists once decoded and processed by a computer.

I hope this helps some.

 

[Renob]

me loves me some Steam, sorry to hear you had issues...

 

[irishScott]

What's that got to do with me?

If you have half a brain you know damn well why.

The fact that given the prevalence of the internet, among other things, if one of your friends saw you playing a game and wanted a copy, assuming you're not an asshole you could simply burn them a copy of the disk, and the gaming industry loses that much money. Multiply that by millions and you get a lot of loss.

Now if someone sees you reading a book and wants one, it's so highly impractical to make a copy yourself the point is moot. eBooks, on the other hand, are licensed similar to video games.

 

[Texashiker]

Typical new steam user rage.

I have been using steam since November 2004, no other platform out there can even come close.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/old-school-player

Steam with its updates is not really good for dialup, I have to give you that OP.

 

[mb]

Steam is the greatest. Been using it since May 2004 and with the exception of some slow downloads upon new releases years ago when they didn't quite have enough bandwidth, I've never had a single issue with them. Even when they're busy I can still download at 4.1MB/sec now (and yes, that's megabytes, not megabits - <3 fios).

Regardless of his internet connection, the OP only has himself to blame for buying a product without doing any research.

 

[JimmiG]

Yesterday, Steam decided to no longer start, which also meant Skyrim and other games would not start. When clicking Steam, nothing happened. I tried several things, but nothing helped. The log file just read " ReconnectThread (####) Starting", no error messages or anything.

I was eventually forced to uninstall and re-install the client. Then I had to re-download every single game....
At least it's downloading at around 9MB/s now, vs just 300KB/s when I downloaded Skyrim at launch. They must have upgraded their servers.

 

[irishScott]

Yesterday, Steam decided to no longer start, which also meant Skyrim and other games would not start. When clicking Steam, nothing happened. I tried several things, but nothing helped. I was eventually forced to uninstall and re-install the client. Then I had to re-download every single game....

At least it's downloading at around 9MB/s now, vs just 300KB/s when I downloaded Skyrim at launch. They must have upgraded their servers.

That and the servers were being hammered at Skyrim launch.

 

[Pacman4]

A
Software only exists once decoded and processed by a computer.

Seems like a bizarre and redundant thing to say, but why can't I say that DVD content only exists when decoded and processed by a PC?

 

[Pacman4]

If you have half a brain you know damn well why.

Calm down Mr EMO.

Multiply that by millions and you get a lot of loss.

What "thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" fuck?....piracy already exists champ, so I want to know why I{the paying customer} must be inconvenienced?