Poll: Educational debate about Steam

[veloper]

Just buy discounted stuff on their steam sales only, like everyone else.

Every game goes on sale after a while and then every christmas and a bunch of other events.
Do that and Steam is very cheap.

 

[khiliani]

i live in australia, so steam is usualy cheaper than the retail prices here, especialy with the strong dollar. And as other people have said, th overlay allowing you to tak to people while playoing is great

 

[infinity_turtles]

I feel I have a fairly legitimate reason to hate steam. They stole my games. Let me explain. I bought a steam copy of a game I already owned to gift to a friend. I got charged twice for it. Contacted customer support, and they were adamant about the fact that since I had gifted one copy and had a current one, that I had received and used two. They weren't willing to check how long I'd had a copy attached, so they stood by the error that charged me twice. Called my bank and had them cancel the second charge. Now my steam account doesn't work and my steam games with a heavy focus on multiplayer are worthless.

Seriously, fucking hate steam after that. Sure, what happened to me is probably extremely rare, but this isn't even a possible problem with Impulse. Because they don't tie the function of any of their products with the god-damn store.

 

[Vault101]

at first I hated steam because it prevented me from playing a game I brought if I didnt have enough internet to update the thing (I still cant play left 4 dead untill I find 1900mb of data)

but Ive learned to live with it and its not bad other than that

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

It's even worse in the UK.

No it isn't, a new game in the UK is usually £40 which works out at around $60 USD. I'm not sure how that makes it worse over here.

OT: Steam? I love Steam, not once have I been ripped off and I don't understand the hate. Okay, so you have to play a game through Steam as part of the DRM, so what? It's just a bit of DRM and it's through Steam. If you play games through Steam then that shouldn't be a problem.

The only thing I have with Steam is that I bought TF2 with Gary's Mod and KotOR for £13.99 and £6.00, respectively. A week after buying the games they were on sale. I don't hold it against them, but it happens often and I get a bit peeved at myself for not waiting. I still love all the sales though.

 

[jackpipsam]

OMFG FIRST POST AS SUBER

anyway I like Steam but I think games for windows LIVE is much better.

 

[Corpse XxX]

The only bad thing about Steam is that their full/normal prizes on games are not competitive with other shops/downloadables..

If i want a game that is not on sale, i always check out CDON.COM first.. They have a download section where you just buy a code, then download the game in Steam as if you bought it on Steam..
And the good part is that i usually get it 20-50 % cheaper by doing so..

This i recommend..

 

[Meestor Pickle]

I love steam! Granted it does screw up some of the time but its brilliant mostly

 

[Dr. Win]

Good:
I'm an Aussie, so games are rarely more expensive on steam than retail.
I prefer the hub base in steam over putting all the shortcuts on my desktop.
The steam tab is awesome in game.
Bad:
However awesome the steam tab is it crashes waaaaaaay too much.
Only a handful of retail games can be upgraded to official steam games.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I like it because of the sales, the convenience, and that it's a good form of digital distribution.

Really the only thing I don't like about it is that barring TF2 I generally think valve games are extremely boring so I'm not thrilled that they get a cut of the revenue because I have somewhat of a grudge against the developer.

 

[MassiveGeek]

Steam is usually cheaper or as expensive as stores here, from what I've seen anyway.

For me it's more about the practicality of not having to keep track of a disk or something like that. Also the disk won't get ruined, and I can reinstall anytime I want, anywhere I want. -Shrug-

 

[StormShaun]

Only reason I hate steam (Still awesome) but why do you get banned for nothing?

 

[Zaik]

I like the sales and demos on steam, the only thing I hate is i can rarely get it to work in offline mode when the internet is down. It's probably user error but I haven't been able to figure out how to get it reliably working. I click the "Offline Mode" button, it waits a moment, then tells me I can't connect. I'm like, "Really? I wonder why."

Edit: figured this out now, you aren't allowed to run offline until you've connected. That's about damned stupid, what exactly is the point? Yeah, if my internet WAS fine but went down for a few minutes i'm okay, but what if it goes out for a week?

 

[Woodsey]

Cheap, great sales, great community tools, removes need for drawers of fucking disc boxes, based around what's best for the customer as much as possible.

Only reason I hate steam (Still awesome) but why do you get banned for nothing?

Are you referring to this:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.264401-Steam-banning-players-for-being-generous ?

If not, then I very rarely hear stories of people being wrongly banned.

 

[Thedayrecker]

Love Steam sales, and it's a good source for all those old games I love

 

[octafish]

OMFG FIRST POST AS SUBER

anyway I like Steam but I think games for windows LIVE is much better.

Oh sir you truly are the limit. What a card.

I hated Steam for a long time, I got Half Life 2 retail in the first week it released, then I couldn't play it for a month. Obviously those were teething problems, but I was still saddled with a dial-up internet connection that could take weeks to download updates. It really annoyed me when single player games downloaded patches when they worked on my machine. Now I have an un-metered broadband account and I can download to my hearts content. I'll still buy my games from GOG if I can, (They have Psychonauts! DRM free!), but I'm more and more willing to make purchases through Steam.

Oh, and I hate disk checks, what a pain in the arse. I'll often just load up something from my Steam library because I can't be bothered finding the disks.

 

[Something Amyss]

Steam is bad? It's not a monopoly so you can't really complain

Steam dominates the market. Whether it is literally a monopoly or not, you certainly can complain. It's ridiculous to say otherwise.

Additionally, monopolies don't really start as monopolies.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I love Steam, but nowadays I prefer Good Old Games. I like the pointless but neat extras that come with the game downloads.

 

[JoshGod]

The only problem i had with steam was on friday when my internet was so bad i could not sign into steam. However considering the mental steam sales i'll forgive them. And what you can get in a big steam sale will hold you over until the next one.

 

[Harlemura]

I don't like PC gaming since my PC's crap and I can't be bothered to upgrade it so it'll play anything made past 2007, but the few games I have I got them off Steam.
Having to wait for 'em to install can get a bit annoying, but that might just be my internet. Either way, it's a small price to pay for how cheap the games I got were.