As it says above, whats wrong with Steam? I see alot of hate towards it, its not just Steam though its things like Origin also. Granted I have only used Steam and have loved using it, I find it handy, I can buy all my games and also have them updated no problem, also I can also chat with people, and also amazing sales. But why do people hate Steam? It seems a good and solid platform.
Can anyone tell me whats wrong with Steam?
- Thread starter Azaez
- Start date
Wait, hate for Steam? Huh, I haven't really seen much of that. I personally enjoy Steam; Valve's set up a pretty handy system there.
But damn them and their incessant sales! Taking all my money with their great deals on games I want to play. Grrrrr...
But damn them and their incessant sales! Taking all my money with their great deals on games I want to play. Grrrrr...
It's a good and solid platform for people who have access to decent, unlimited broadband. To those who have metered connections, or unstable ones, some of Steam's can be a downright hassle to deal with. The biggest one I can think of is not letting you play the game until it's fully patched. Those patches can take a while to download on slower connections, and the game may have been running fine.
Mandatory patches is another complaint many have. Some patches break the game for some people, and they want the ability to roll back to an earlier patch so they can still play their game, instead of needing to wait for the next patch. The ability to choose whether or not to update would be nice, too.
While neither issue has been a problem for me(I love Steam, it's incredibly convenient), I can understand others having problems with both.
Another issue I've heard is people complaining about the fact that Steam IS DRM. In my opinion, this is a weaker argument than those above simply because Steam is one of the least restrictive forms of DRM around. You can install and play your games on all the computers you want, you just need to log in.
Another complaint I heard was the fact that you don't "own" any games on Steam, you own a "license" to use that game. Unfortunately, that argument is blown out of the water by any EULA on ANY piece of proprietary software released, which states much the same thing(regardless of how effectively someone could actually enforce that, or the legality of it).
An additional complaint I've heard is the fact that Steam games (usually) require Steam to be running in order to function, and won't if you don't. Now, considering Steam is running on my PC right now, and it's barely using ~30MB of memory, I'd say this is a non-issue as well. If you don't have 30MB of memory to spare, you've got more serious problems than needing to run Steam to play a game.
A side complaint connected to the above one, and also to the internet thing, is Steam's offline mode. Yes, you can play your single-player games in offline mode, and even start Steam without an internet connection, and usually be able to enter offline mode and play. The problem is the "usually". I myself have seen Steam glitch and not be able to enter offline mode, necessitating a reconnect. For me, this hasn't been a problem, but if you're trying to play your games somewhere where you don't have internet access, it's obviously quite a huge problem.
In my opinion, if Steam could make offline mode more stable, and introduce a better patching system, it would make quite a huge difference in the perception of the platform.
Mandatory patches is another complaint many have. Some patches break the game for some people, and they want the ability to roll back to an earlier patch so they can still play their game, instead of needing to wait for the next patch. The ability to choose whether or not to update would be nice, too.
While neither issue has been a problem for me(I love Steam, it's incredibly convenient), I can understand others having problems with both.
Another issue I've heard is people complaining about the fact that Steam IS DRM. In my opinion, this is a weaker argument than those above simply because Steam is one of the least restrictive forms of DRM around. You can install and play your games on all the computers you want, you just need to log in.
Another complaint I heard was the fact that you don't "own" any games on Steam, you own a "license" to use that game. Unfortunately, that argument is blown out of the water by any EULA on ANY piece of proprietary software released, which states much the same thing(regardless of how effectively someone could actually enforce that, or the legality of it).
An additional complaint I've heard is the fact that Steam games (usually) require Steam to be running in order to function, and won't if you don't. Now, considering Steam is running on my PC right now, and it's barely using ~30MB of memory, I'd say this is a non-issue as well. If you don't have 30MB of memory to spare, you've got more serious problems than needing to run Steam to play a game.
A side complaint connected to the above one, and also to the internet thing, is Steam's offline mode. Yes, you can play your single-player games in offline mode, and even start Steam without an internet connection, and usually be able to enter offline mode and play. The problem is the "usually". I myself have seen Steam glitch and not be able to enter offline mode, necessitating a reconnect. For me, this hasn't been a problem, but if you're trying to play your games somewhere where you don't have internet access, it's obviously quite a huge problem.
In my opinion, if Steam could make offline mode more stable, and introduce a better patching system, it would make quite a huge difference in the perception of the platform.
The hate has to do with the inability to resell and rather than being sold a product you are basically buying a voucher that says let me download this from steam without having real physical ownership.
Its a tough situation, i like steam myself but i wouldn't mind a better alternative.
Its a tough situation, i like steam myself but i wouldn't mind a better alternative.
One of my friends is adamantly against Steam, but that is only because he is a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay for the games that he plays. He hasn't paid for a game since Noone Lives Forever, and we have had heated arguments about it, but besides that he's not a dick at all.
But I can understand some of the complaints about not wanting to be tied down to a platform and all that, but I feel that the service I'm given kind of outweighs the negatives for the games that I buy through the service.
But I can understand some of the complaints about not wanting to be tied down to a platform and all that, but I feel that the service I'm given kind of outweighs the negatives for the games that I buy through the service.
If the service goes down permanently there's legally nothing you can do to get access to your games. Valve has double-dog swore that should such an event occur they'd release a patch that would free all their games from steamworks, but that isn't worth much to some people.
You MUST log in once a month even when using offline mode, or your games will not launch.
Most games require steam to be running in the background while you play it, eating up system resources.
Another password/account name to remember.
You don't really own your games, you're just renting them.
Steam snoops at your system specs and installed programs.
Their prices are pretty terrible, except for their holiday sales.
Its not as good as DRM free.
^^That's all I got.
You MUST log in once a month even when using offline mode, or your games will not launch.
Most games require steam to be running in the background while you play it, eating up system resources.
Another password/account name to remember.
You don't really own your games, you're just renting them.
Steam snoops at your system specs and installed programs.
Their prices are pretty terrible, except for their holiday sales.
Its not as good as DRM free.
^^That's all I got.
I don't think there is anything wrong with steam. It is pretty damn awesome! This is coming from someone who once lost access to half their games on Steam for like 6 months and I STILL think its awesome.
I love Steam personally, but it certainly doesn't feel the same towards me. It just stops for about 20-30 seconds after leaving most games and the offline system is a turd in a cardboard box. Otherwise it's great.
Is this true? I had never heard that. How would you fix that and get your games back if you, say, went on vacation? Or got sent off for work? Or completely lost internet for a month, say, moving or something? I mean, I know its pretty hard to fully imagine a situation where you cant log in at least once in a month, but still, not being able to launch any games? I know people with well over 100 games on their steam accounts, this would really suck for them.MisterShine said:
I enjoy it I just hate the fact that if you activate a game on steam you then cannot sell that game unless you give away your whole account with it.
Other than that I find steam not too bad, I just wish it wasn't a compulsory piece of softwear for many games.
Other than that I find steam not too bad, I just wish it wasn't a compulsory piece of softwear for many games.
Steam annoyed me when it first came out. Seemed insidious, like spyware... and it was horrifically unstable. The first Blue Screen Of Death I ever saw under Windows XP was caused by Steam, upon closing Portal (the only Steam game I had for the first few years... yes, I bought it separate from the Orange Box on purpose)...
That said, I don't mind it now. Its memory footprint is smaller, it only rarely locks up on me, and there are quite a few games on it that I can't easily find elsewhere. It's still a very self-important little program, though. Every operation likes to pop up in front of other windows, and it really doesn't like shutting down. Still, it's the best of the "online content delivery systems"... I'm really not sold on the merit of them as a concept, though.
That said, I don't mind it now. Its memory footprint is smaller, it only rarely locks up on me, and there are quite a few games on it that I can't easily find elsewhere. It's still a very self-important little program, though. Every operation likes to pop up in front of other windows, and it really doesn't like shutting down. Still, it's the best of the "online content delivery systems"... I'm really not sold on the merit of them as a concept, though.
News to me. I have 250+ and it still works fine.platinawolf said:Whats wrong with steam? Once you have above 200 games it starts being a tad unstable
I am lucky enough to have 2.5Mb broadband though (not steaming I know, but a lot better than many).
One thing I would like is the ability to split Steam across multiple drives without RAID'ing them.
But damn those sales.
Listen i've been dating, er uhm, USING steam for years now and she's... ITS never done anything that wasn't perfect.
Isn't that right sweetie? Whats that? 8 bucks for borderlands? Why, that sounds like a fantastic date! Put on something naughty and bring me a beer while I play, thanks!
Isn't that right sweetie? Whats that? 8 bucks for borderlands? Why, that sounds like a fantastic date! Put on something naughty and bring me a beer while I play, thanks!
My biggest problem with steam is the region locking that valve/steam does.
I traveled for a good three years back and forth between the states and Poland. A couple of games I bought wouldn't work when I came back to stay in the states, try to get in contact with valve, tough cookies, we can remove the games for you (btw they will only do this once) and you can buy US copies all over again.
Also Steam is a fairly large business and all they have is e-mail support? And it is supper slow to boot, if you're lucky it is a 24 hour turn around, I've had to wait 3-4 days for some tickets. Which gets extremely aggravating, especially if you're having very short back and forth replies.
For example I bought a copy of Portal 2 in Europe, came to the states, didn't work it took them 2 and a half weeks for me to get the message across that I wanted it removed from my account so I could get a US copy.
I mean common Valve, you have no online support or telephone and you're the biggest competitor? Your freaking competitors have better support than you.
I traveled for a good three years back and forth between the states and Poland. A couple of games I bought wouldn't work when I came back to stay in the states, try to get in contact with valve, tough cookies, we can remove the games for you (btw they will only do this once) and you can buy US copies all over again.
Also Steam is a fairly large business and all they have is e-mail support? And it is supper slow to boot, if you're lucky it is a 24 hour turn around, I've had to wait 3-4 days for some tickets. Which gets extremely aggravating, especially if you're having very short back and forth replies.
For example I bought a copy of Portal 2 in Europe, came to the states, didn't work it took them 2 and a half weeks for me to get the message across that I wanted it removed from my account so I could get a US copy.
I mean common Valve, you have no online support or telephone and you're the biggest competitor? Your freaking competitors have better support than you.
That sounds pretty bad for sure, but at that point wouldn't it have been easier just to make a second steam account on a new email? If you were traveling back and forth all the time, why not have 1 account for when in Poland and 1 for when in the states, that way your not dealing with steam support all the time. Especially since you were having to buy them twice anyway. Then you have them for both regions. Just an idea for if you ever have to travel again like that. Although I have to say I'm not entirely sure how their region locking works, so that might not be possible. It was just an idea, sorry if you already thought of it.Rednog said: