Steam ? More good than evil?

[RedShirt]

I know several people HATE steam, but I had just had an experience that made me do a complete 180% spin in my opinion of the service.

I pre-ordered Tomb Raider: Anniversary at Amazon (selected Amazon because I have a prime account). My ship date has changed 2 times now, and today I learn I will have to wait another 8-9 days to get my game.

The game is on Steam. I quickly cancel my order on Amazon, pay for the game with PayPal on Steam and begin downloading it. I?ll have my game by tomorrow.

Sure, I could have driven around town tomorrow to find a store that carries the PC release of this game (for some reason BestBuy.com doesn?t list it for the PC), come home, install it, etc, but this just seems so much better. I don't have to make a trip to get the game, I get the game sooner, and I don't have to insert a CD to play.

Anywho, figured I?d share my experience. While this post may be a big "DUH" to some of you, I believe Steam was met with such hostility upon release that many people are are unwilling to give it a go.

 

[wahoyaho]

ya, i find it pretty easy to use as well, just that i'd rather have a hard copy of the game just in case

 

[RedShirt]

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
ya, i find it pretty easy to use as well, just that i'd rather have a hard copy of the game just in case

Yeah, that is a good point.

Prior to making the decision to use Steam to get the game, a friend pointed out that you can always re-download any game that has been associated with your account.

Also, I believe you can make hard backups on DVD, but not 100% sure on that.

But nothing will be faster than popping in the official game discs and installing after a reformat, computer crash, etc.

 

[shortylickens]

You had a 180% spin!??!?
Thats pretty impressive.

As for me, Steam started off to be a big pain, but its better know and I actually dont mind it too much.
I'd still rather get rid of it entirely, but Half-Life 2 is so much fun I cant yet.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
ya, i find it pretty easy to use as well, just that i'd rather have a hard copy of the game just in case

Well, considering any game you've ever purchased or activated on Steam is always available for you to download, hard copies are irrelevant now.

Originally posted by: RedShirt

Also, I believe you can make hard backups on DVD, but not 100% sure on that.

You can hard-backup the game folders in Steam - but why?

But nothing will be faster than popping in the official game discs and installing after a reformat, computer crash, etc.

That depends. It may be a little faster (if you have slow internets), but it certainly is a hundred times easier. Simply install Steam, choose your games to download, and wait a few hours.

 

[TheVrolok]

I've never had a problem with Steam and I actually like it quite a bit.

 

[Compnewbie01]

Steam has been great for me lately. I definately like buying games and being able to quickly download them at any time especially with the older ones like CS and TFC. I remember hating the HL2/CSS installation because of the 5(?) disks whenever I reformatted. It is so much easier to select all 10+ games on your account and let it download for 2-3 hours. Also it allowed me to play Deus Ex finally (CD would not work on my computer for some reason).

 

[sandorski]

Steam good, no evil.

 

[Bateluer]

I like steam myself. And yes, you can make DVD backup copies of games you've purchased through Steam.

 

[MikeyLSU]

yes it is great...When you format, all you do is download steam, and then it will download all the games you own on your account overnight, so you don't have to constantly sit at your computer switching out discs to install all your games. You don't need to keep up with the cd key. all you need is your ID and password, it is really nice to have.

I also bought C&C 3 the same way through EA link and it works similarly.

 

[pontifex]

i'm a big fan of things like STEAM and D2D. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to a store that sells PC games, then another 45 minutes to get back home.

It may take longer than that to download, but at least I can do other stuff while its downloading and I'm not using expensive gas.

The only problems I have with these services are selection (not that great), price (usually more than a store, and takes longer for them to lower the price), and patches (with D2D anyway, you have to use their patch, not the official patch, and it can take a week or so for them to get the patch).

 

[Fenixgoon]

i don't actually hate steam that much, just the inconsistencies in it (friends list not always working, server history/favorites disappearing, etc.). otherwise, i think it's a great centralization/distribution platform now that they've worked most of the kinks out

 

[Schadenfroh]

I would rather have steam that goes away when I uninstall it than Sony's SecuROM DRM that creates these undeletable (by normal means) registry keys, hidden folder, etc. that not that stay on your system even after you remove the game. Plus, I do not have to worry about losing or scratching CDs with steam games, it allows me to download fresh copies or back them up whenever needed, another advantage it has over other DRM schemes.

But, SecuROM is no starforce, at least I do not have to worry about it killing my drives.

 

[honkydory]

The older steam was great (when it was a boxy green GUI by defualt) but i dont like where is is going now. Pop-up ads for games, and the addition of Ad's to CS:1.6, and the inability of it defualting to the old style games menu (a slim panel instead of a huge waste of space). I mean i like how all my games are kept up to date without me having to keep up on patches manually, and being able to download games instead of hoping i have the CD laying around somewhere is awesome but i dont like the direction they seem to be heading.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
I've never had a problem with Steam and I actually like it quite a bit.

Same here! :thumbsup:

KT

 

[gorcorps]

I really like steam. The only problem I have with it is how slow games get downloaded. I never get above 200kbps... which isn't terrible but I feel they could do better for how big they are.

 

[KeithP]

Steam has always worked well for me. However, not being able to resell a game is a problem. Essentially, this raises the cost of the games so for Steam games I now usually wait for sales/price drops before buying (if I buy at all).

-KeithP

 

[lxskllr]

I kind of feel the same way as you. When I was on 56k Steam really pissed me off. I bought a hard copy of the game, then I had to get online to go through a painful decryption process, and mandatory updating. That's bs. Sometimes I don't like to patch my software, unless it fixes an actual problem I'm having. If nothing else I want to patch it when I want to patch it, so I can play my game then download the patch overnight.

I'm on cable now, so the update process is much better than on 56k. I was able to transfer my Steam games to my Vista installation without having to deal with CDs, which was very nice :thumbsup:

I still don't agree with the mandatory patches, and if I buy a hard copy of the game I expect to be able to play it within minutes after installation. Not have some complex decrypting scheme that adds a bunch of time to the installation process.

I'm ok with Steam now, but I don't agree with all of their practices.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

I still don't agree with the mandatory patches, and if I buy a hard copy of the game I expect to be able to play it within minutes after installation.

I think you can actually turn off auto patching for almost every game on Steam.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

The only problem I've ever had with Steam is the frontpage not loading up.

 

[Skacer]

Steam rocks, most people know Steam rocks (It has been bringing a lot of small time developers into the light, something that is looked upon very positively). There are just a few complainers here who like to bitch about it a lot which gives a warped perception of the product on a regular basis.

 

[Bateluer]

Steam did go through some growing pains in its early days, but today its a fairly polished product.

Apps link Steam are the future as they allow developers to side step publishers like EA and Activision entirely. I hope to see more developers using Steam and online distribution devices.
What I don't particularly want to see is every single developer and publisher having their own client program. There is a enough crap on the internet to let users bog down their machines.

 

[Goosemaster]

The autopatching is worth it.

*remebers installing and then trying to play any EA or Sierra Studies title and not being able to get on a server bceause 30000000000 pathces needed to be isntall, indicidvually, in consecutive order*

*cringes*


BF2: 700MB patches and clogged public servers my ass.....:|

 

[0roo0roo]

i'd only tolerate steam from valve because they haven't screwed customers over yet. they have a certain amount of good will. much different from say ea and such where i wouldn't put up with it at all.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
i'd only tolerate steam from valve because they haven't screwed customers over yet. they have a certain amount of good will. much different from say ea and such where i wouldn't put up with it at all.

aye. the whole not being able to sell stuff sucks but I've never sold any games anyways (give them away for free once I am done with them)