Is Steam okay for you?

[BodomBeachChild]

I only gets ads from Steam when I load it after I restart my computer. Yeah, DRM blows but the deals and ease of use for Steam is bar-none. Have you tried using Origin or GFWL? Blah

 

[Vern]

I like Steam in general, but it took awhile. I signed up when it first came out to play Half-Life 2 and it was a completely unstable mess, but they've fixed that. And I was ok with the fact that I had to use it to play a Valve game. Their amazing sales mean that I've played quite a few games I never would have played.

But goddammit, I bought Saints Row the Third retail, and it took Steam a good six fucking hours to download, install, and update it, after I had already installed from the disc. I'd like to think it was a glitch, but I see no reason why I should have to go through Steam and have it do a ridiculously long download to play a game that was bought retail, which I have the damn disc for, and which I have a valid DVD key for. That pissed me off, so I'm all for Steam being a digital store with awesome sales, and I'll accept having to use Steam for Valve games since Steam was created by Valve, but having to use it for third party games bought retail crosses the line. I know it's designed to prevent piracy, but pirates will just bypass all the security and run the game in an offline mode without Steam activation, and it will be far less time consuming than getting it to run when bought in a damn store.

And lastly, games that require both Steam and Games for Windows Live are complete bullshit. There's no reason for it, at all.

 

[Maleval]

It's the best place to get games that are not burned on cheap DVD-Rs or cost half of the average monthly pay in my area.

 

[Phishfood]

The only real issue I have with steam is that the program in itself is a form of DRM and that I never actually own the stuff I buy. Otherwise, aside from the privacy breach, it's good.

I wholly agree, DRM sucks no matter the form. On the other hand, compared to install limits and having to have an always on internet connection, steam is a pretty friendly method of DRM and all the bad parts of steam are entirely countered by the ability to download the game as many times as I want on as many PCs as I want, the cloud thing is handy, free space to store and share screenshots? name any other service that does that.

As for the whole offline mode - I have to say, I picked up my laptop, took it on holiday and got on steam offline mode no problem with no preparation whatsoever. So I don't know what troubles other people are having.

 

[FarleShadow]

Steam is good because:
A: I'm never without internet
and
B: All my Steam bought games are accessable, never have problems downloading them and keep themselves updated.

I wouldnt say Steam is perfect, but instead of feeling its a piece of crap software designed to rape my wallet, I feel its more something that acouple of computer science guys threw together to HELP me with keeping my games together (And offers me sweet deals on single-player games).

Actually, if companies would just offer me Steam-esque services online, I'd probably buy more stuff.

 

[Epona]

What's with all these people saying you have to be online to go into offline mode? My internet had a little hiccup when I turned the computer on and then Steam popped up with a failed to connect message and gave me the option of either retrying the connection or starting in offline mode.

Did you actually go into offline mode and then try to play your games?

 

[Epona]

So, instead of having every game you've ever purchased ready to go and always available to redownload if your computer gets fried, you'd prefer to keep your anonymity and rely on breakable plastic discs?

That's a bit silly to me, but then again, I'm biased as a huge Valve fan.

Seriously? Maybe you can't keep your cd's and dvd's from getting broken but most people aren't so careless.

 

[Yopaz]

I agree with you. Steam is definitely the best form of DRM out there, but it's still DRM. The store is good, I guess... but then you compare to, say, GOG.com - which has no DRM - and it starts to falter again.

And no, it doesn't have an offline mode. It does not count if you have to be online first.

You can connect in offline mode if you have some connection problems. Thus there is an offline mode. I have used this a lot and I have played numerous games form Steam on my laptop while not having an internet connection.

OT: Steam doesn't offer me any problems, it lets me play games without thinking about inserting a disc or getting a no CD crack in order to do so. I also get good download speed (11mb/s on record), decent deals though I can usually get games cheaper from online retailers. However Steam let's me communicate, play games, buy games, authenticate games, auto-install games let me copy paste product registration codes. It does what I like thus I like it.

 

[Silvianoshei]

Only problem I ever had was back when I bought Mass Effect and found out I couldn't run it. I bought a new laptop later on and problem solved.

I would like to see if people have any REAL complaints. The Offline mode and Ads things are resolved, so what else is there that is bad about Steam? I can't think of a single damn thing.

 

[Da Orky Man]

snip

Steam has an offline mode. I have internet that is usually about 3mbps, but goes as low as 30kbps. Yet, downloading a game from Steam takes a much shorter amount of time then ordering one online, and there aren't any gaming stores nearby.

 

[scw55]

Very good discounts on games occasionally during sales.
Able to socialise with your friends whilst playing an anti-social one-player game.
Large range of cheapo games.
Demos are available and most demos let you carry on when you get the full game.
Games are kept up to date with the latest official patches, even old ones.

Downside is customer support I found to be very unhelpful.
Technical difficulties with older games, though not much of an issue if you bought it cheap. The forum users on the support section of Steam's forums are very helpful where Valve lacks it.
You must download the games (but that's more of a downside for digital distrubution in general) meaning with a poor internet connection, leaving it downloading overnight.
When you start a game through Steam all downloads taking place in the Steam client is paused for the duration of the game being open. Useful for games that uses internet connection, but rather crabby if you only want to play 1-player games whilst you wait for the downloads to finish. Ironic.

It's going to take a lot to take Steam's place or to compete equally with it. I strongly dislike Origin's stance of if you don't play a game you acquired through Origin in a certain window of time, you lose access to the title. - wtf?

 

[Epona]

Been a user for a long while now, and have never come across ads popping up... closest thing is a window announcing newly released titles, others that are available for pre-purchasing, new dlc packs and the like.

Wouldn't you call that an ad.

 

[Maze1125]

Try saying that when you lost access to the internet for a week or more unexpectedly and can't access your games because you have to be able to go online to go into offline mode. I think it's a bit of backwards logic there. "You can play offline. But you have to go online first then set it so your computer is in this special mode that lets you play offline."

That's not true at all. If Steam can't find a connection when it expects to, it automatically asks if you'd like you use off-line mode instead or keep trying the connection. Yes, you can set it while on-line, but you're in no way required to.

 

[Kapol]

Try saying that when you lost access to the internet for a week or more unexpectedly and can't access your games because you have to be able to go online to go into offline mode. I think it's a bit of backwards logic there. "You can play offline. But you have to go online first then set it so your computer is in this special mode that lets you play offline."

That's not true at all. If Steam can't find a connection when it expects to, it automatically asks if you'd like you use off-line mode instead or keep trying the connection. Yes, you can set it while on-line, but you're in no way required to.

Yes, it does ask you if you want to start in offline mode when you try to connect without internet. But it then attempts to connect to the internet in order to start it in offline mode. If it can't connect to the internet to start in offline mode, then it won't let you connect. I'm guessing this is for the times the servers may be down or something along those lines. At least that's how it worked last time I tried it a month or so ago.

 

[Weslebear]

All my games in one neat collection, easy to use and unless you have something wrong with your PC, or it needs a serious update, no effect whatsoever on performance.

It has tons of communities, and is a huge social network for purely gamers, 90% of the best times I've had on PC gaming are through Steam friends, communities and the games it offers.

Also the sales mean that the lack of a used game market for PC is a non-issue when prices get so low it's crazy.

 

[Reyalsfeihc]

I think Steam's greatest downfall is for those with an unstable/slow internet connection.

I myself only have access to a USB broadband card at home that has a 5gb limit, after which it can slow down anywhere from 100kb/s to 2 (unfortunately it tends to be the latter). As such my offline mode won't even work because Steam improperly registers user information when I go online, causing it to give me a network access error whenever I try to start it up.
I guess my major gripe with Steam is that it requires you to update games (yes, I know you can deactivate automatic updates, but you can only do so once the game has finished installing and has already begun to download). I don't mind hopping on Steam and being online for installations, but the fact that it automatically starts updates causes my games to be rendered unplayable in offline mode, meaning I can either sit and suffer and let a game update for a full year, or just simply uninstall.

Otherwise, I've had very good experiences with Steam. Back when I still had fiberoptic it was beautiful, with moderately fast download speeds (Although I've found Origin's to be better on more than one occasion), an excellent in-game overlay UI, tons of features to help make gaming with friends easier and more enjoyable, and a solid userbase.

 

[Maze1125]

Try saying that when you lost access to the internet for a week or more unexpectedly and can't access your games because you have to be able to go online to go into offline mode. I think it's a bit of backwards logic there. "You can play offline. But you have to go online first then set it so your computer is in this special mode that lets you play offline."

That's not true at all. If Steam can't find a connection when it expects to, it automatically asks if you'd like you use off-line mode instead or keep trying the connection. Yes, you can set it while on-line, but you're in no way required to.

Yes, it does ask you if you want to start in offline mode when you try to connect without internet. But it then attempts to connect to the internet in order to start it in offline mode. If it can't connect to the internet to start in offline mode, then it won't let you connect. I'm guessing this is for the times the servers may be down or something along those lines. At least that's how it worked last time I tried it a month or so ago.

Well, I tried it literally 10 minutes ago, just before I made that post, and it let me start Steam and play my games, all without any kind of internet connection to my computer.

 

[Weslebear]

SNIP

Yes, it does ask you if you want to start in offline mode when you try to connect without internet. But it then attempts to connect to the internet in order to start it in offline mode. If it can't connect to the internet to start in offline mode, then it won't let you connect. I'm guessing this is for the times the servers may be down or something along those lines. At least that's how it worked last time I tried it a month or so ago.

For the sake of science I just ripped out my USB wireless antenna, and I have no other way of connecting to the internet, restarted Steam and booted straight into offline mode and then straight into actually playing my games. Without any internet connection whatsoever.

It gives you a blank screen saying that to go online restart Steam, not TO PLAY GAMES, you just click library and there they are.

So finally can we all please stop mentioning this shit.

EDIT: Fuck ninja'd, point still valid though.

 

[Ickorus]

Why do I need a stable high speed internet connection, forced registration and membership to a site that I don't want, in order to play an offline SINGLE-PLAYER game

YOU. FUCKING. DON'T.

Jesus christ how many times do we have to say this before it gets through to you Steam naysayers?

Anyway, for me on all the other points, it's my personal preference, Valve have a track history of releasing decent to great games, they treat their customers with a bit of dignity and respect and they run ridiculously good sales and events and the developers who put their products on Steam get a better cut on the profits than they would with anyone else.

 

[Kapol]

Try saying that when you lost access to the internet for a week or more unexpectedly and can't access your games because you have to be able to go online to go into offline mode. I think it's a bit of backwards logic there. "You can play offline. But you have to go online first then set it so your computer is in this special mode that lets you play offline."

That's not true at all. If Steam can't find a connection when it expects to, it automatically asks if you'd like you use off-line mode instead or keep trying the connection. Yes, you can set it while on-line, but you're in no way required to.

Yes, it does ask you if you want to start in offline mode when you try to connect without internet. But it then attempts to connect to the internet in order to start it in offline mode. If it can't connect to the internet to start in offline mode, then it won't let you connect. I'm guessing this is for the times the servers may be down or something along those lines. At least that's how it worked last time I tried it a month or so ago.

Well, I tried it literally 10 minutes ago, just before I made that post, and it let me start Steam and play my games, all without any kind of internet connection to my computer.

I tried just now myself and it didn't allow me to. Did you have the computer up and running when you undid your internet connection? Because if it loses internet while you're online, it will still run. But when you boot up your computer without internet, it won't let you.

SNIP

Yes, it does ask you if you want to start in offline mode when you try to connect without internet. But it then attempts to connect to the internet in order to start it in offline mode. If it can't connect to the internet to start in offline mode, then it won't let you connect. I'm guessing this is for the times the servers may be down or something along those lines. At least that's how it worked last time I tried it a month or so ago.

For the sake of science I just ripped out my USB wireless antenna, and I have no other way of connecting to the internet, restarted Steam and booted straight into offline mode and then straight into actually playing my games. Without any internet connection whatsoever.

It gives you a blank screen saying that to go online restart Steam, not TO PLAY GAMES, you just click library and there they are.

So finally can we all please stop mentioning this shit.

EDIT: Fuck ninja'd, point still valid though.

I'll ask you the same thing I asked the other guy, did your restart the computer or just try going into offline mode without internet. Because Steam will still work if you lost internet while you have it running, but from past experiences I've had and seen from others, you can't boot up your computer and access your Steam library if you don't have internet connection and have it set to offline mode.