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STEAM question - not software related - but philosophical . . .

episodic

episodic

Lifer
Ok, I've seen lots of adoration and lots of hatred for steam. . .

I use it to infrequently play the original counterstrike. . .


I'd like to know how everyone would react if every game publisher started to make you run an app in the backgroun to run their game?

We'd all have 10 different apps running to run various games. . .

What is the thoughts on that?
 
Originally posted by: episodic

We'd all have 10 different apps running to run various games. . .

What is the thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

Not if you just disable them from startup.

And nobody would play 10 games from 10 different groups at once.
 
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Originally posted by: episodic

We'd all have 10 different apps running to run various games. . .

What is the thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

Not if you just disable them from startup.

And nobody would play 10 games from 10 different groups at once.
Click to expand...

Ok - look at it from joe user's perspective, whom you'd loose at the mere mention of disable and startup in the same sentence. . .
 
Originally posted by: episodic
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Originally posted by: episodic

We'd all have 10 different apps running to run various games. . .

What is the thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

Not if you just disable them from startup.

And nobody would play 10 games from 10 different groups at once.
Click to expand...

Ok - look at it from joe user's perspective, whom you'd loose at the mere mention of disable and startup in the same sentence. . .
Click to expand...

Also - my son activly plays Rise of Nations, Civ III - I actively play Pirates! and GTA Auto VC and NFSU Underground, and my wife activly plays Hoyle Card Games and SIMS II. . .

So I think you are a little misguided from a family point of view. . .
 
Originally posted by: Lonyo
Then average Joe should not be using a computer.
Click to expand...

Correct me if im wrong, but arent games aimed at average Joe in the first place?

To the OP , I'd imagine if a steam equivalent breaks out, no-cd patches and the likes would start to become more popular.
 
Well I for one like Steam. It was rough at first, but by the time HL2 came out it worked fine. I unlocked and was able to play right away.

Freshman here cannot have cars, so it's quite a hassel for me to go out to a store. I'm looking at an hour trip plus $3.50 in MARTA fares.

A lot more people would've pirated around here if they had to do what I've said above to go out and buy the game at a store. I like to support high quality games, so I paid legally with Steam.
 
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Well I for one like Steam. It was rough at first, but by the time HL2 came out it worked fine. I unlocked and was able to play right away.

Freshman here cannot have cars, so it's quite a hassel for me to go out to a store. I'm looking at an hour trip plus $3.50 in MARTA fares.

A lot more people would've pirated around here if they had to do what I've said above to go out and buy the game at a store. I like to support high quality games, so I paid legally with Steam.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt call HL2 high quality now, even thou I paid £33 for it. For a start, it didnt consider people who suffered from motion sickness. Wonderful beta testing , valve.
 
Originally posted by: episodic
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Originally posted by: episodic

We'd all have 10 different apps running to run various games. . .

What is the thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

Not if you just disable them from startup.

And nobody would play 10 games from 10 different groups at once.
Click to expand...

Ok - look at it from joe user's perspective, whom you'd loose at the mere mention of disable and startup in the same sentence. . .
Click to expand...


It takes 5 clicks to disable steam from the windows desktop.

I like steam. Potentially, it can lead to cheaper & better games.
 
Originally posted by: istallion
Potentially, it can lead to cheaper & better games.
Click to expand...

So far it hasnt. Valve cut out the publisher in delivering HL2 to consumes - and still charged retail like prices.
If anything, its a great way to increase your margins, and release software with major bugs.

 
Originally posted by: txxxx
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Well I for one like Steam. It was rough at first, but by the time HL2 came out it worked fine. I unlocked and was able to play right away.

Freshman here cannot have cars, so it's quite a hassel for me to go out to a store. I'm looking at an hour trip plus $3.50 in MARTA fares.

A lot more people would've pirated around here if they had to do what I've said above to go out and buy the game at a store. I like to support high quality games, so I paid legally with Steam.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt call HL2 high quality now, even thou I paid £33 for it. For a start, it didnt consider people who suffered from motion sickness. Wonderful beta testing , valve.
Click to expand...
And you didn't know that FPSers gave you motion sickness? That's hardly their fault.
 
Originally posted by: Howard
Originally posted by: txxxx
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Well I for one like Steam. It was rough at first, but by the time HL2 came out it worked fine. I unlocked and was able to play right away.

Freshman here cannot have cars, so it's quite a hassel for me to go out to a store. I'm looking at an hour trip plus $3.50 in MARTA fares.

A lot more people would've pirated around here if they had to do what I've said above to go out and buy the game at a store. I like to support high quality games, so I paid legally with Steam.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt call HL2 high quality now, even thou I paid £33 for it. For a start, it didnt consider people who suffered from motion sickness. Wonderful beta testing , valve.
Click to expand...
And you didn't know that FPSers gave you motion sickness? That's hardly their fault.
Click to expand...

Yeah, hasn't this been a complain since the original Doom or even earlier? It's not really the game, it's the player.
 
My problem isn't with running a program in the background. My problem is that with steam, my ability to play the games I bought is now controlled by them.
 
Originally posted by: txxxx
Originally posted by: istallion
Potentially, it can lead to cheaper & better games.
Click to expand...

So far it hasnt. Valve cut out the publisher in delivering HL2 to consumes - and still charged retail like prices.
If anything, its a great way to increase your margins, and release software with major bugs.
Click to expand...

Thats cuz as long has valave sells retail thru a publisher like Vivendi, it cant break the contract and underprice
 
Half Life 2 causes motion sickness, much worse than other games. It has to do with the framerate, bobbing, and the wrong angle of preception built into the game.

It was unplayable for me, and a lot of others.
 
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Originally posted by: Howard
Originally posted by: txxxx
Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
Well I for one like Steam. It was rough at first, but by the time HL2 came out it worked fine. I unlocked and was able to play right away.

Freshman here cannot have cars, so it's quite a hassel for me to go out to a store. I'm looking at an hour trip plus $3.50 in MARTA fares.

A lot more people would've pirated around here if they had to do what I've said above to go out and buy the game at a store. I like to support high quality games, so I paid legally with Steam.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt call HL2 high quality now, even thou I paid £33 for it. For a start, it didnt consider people who suffered from motion sickness. Wonderful beta testing , valve.
Click to expand...
And you didn't know that FPSers gave you motion sickness? That's hardly their fault.
Click to expand...

Yeah, hasn't this been a complain since the original Doom or even earlier? It's not really the game, it's the player.
Click to expand...

Not true. I am a huge FPS fan, and have been playing just about every FPS under the sun since Wolf3D came out. I have never before gotten motion sickness from an FPS but the early parts of HL2 (mostly the Fanboat levels) made me sick. I got used to it after a while and then I was fine, but I had to lay down after the first few hours. Even Valve admits that during early beta one of their testers got so sick, he threw up.
 
Back to the original question, what if every game company does this? Is that good or bad? What happens when game companies go bankrupt or stop 'supporting' games from being unlocked? I mean what if 5 years from now a game company thought that well, it is time to stop supporting version 1 of a game, only to 'force' version 2's adoption, etc. . .
 
Originally posted by: episodic
Back to the original question, what if every game company does this? Is that good or bad? What happens when game companies go bankrupt or stop 'supporting' games from being unlocked? I mean what if 5 years from now a game company thought that well, it is time to stop supporting version 1 of a game, only to 'force' version 2's adoption, etc. . .
Click to expand...

I agree that it's a bad thing, simply for the reasons you mentioned. That said, Steam is about as well done as you could hope something like this would be.
 
I wouldn't like it.

I want a physical manual and a physical disk with a program that will run on my computer now and on the same computer 30 years from now if I so desire. Nothing on my system should be using the internet unless I specifically tell it to.
 
I'm not buying HL2 and I won't buy any game that offers its product in a similar manner.

Edit: I might buy the game if there were a crack available to circumvent this online activation, but I'm still not buying HL2.
 
Originally posted by: episodic
Back to the original question, what if every game company does this? Is that good or bad? What happens when game companies go bankrupt or stop 'supporting' games from being unlocked? I mean what if 5 years from now a game company thought that well, it is time to stop supporting version 1 of a game, only to 'force' version 2's adoption, etc. . .
Click to expand...

I doubt that every game company would do this. If steam-style verification systems ever became that popular, I would imagine a seperate company would arise that specializes in online verification, and that company would sell it's security service to video game manufacturers, effectively meaning that in order to play different games, gamers would just have to go through that single steam-style verification service to gain access to all the games that they bought. It would be a new industy altogether.
 
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