Steam being open.

[Pyro Paul]

It seems to me that a major complaint with steam is that it must be open to run steam games.

I just can't understand why this is such a bad thing. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Limits your bandwidth. Adds to your ping. adds to your cpu.

however, the people that complain about it are in the extreams and take the rather insuggnificant acctual effect it has on a computer and compound it several times over to make it seem like the program consumes bandwidth, quadruples your ping, and is so taxing on your cpu that it melts your processor...

 

[No_Remainders]

the offline mode only works if you start it when your online

I decided to check this, and I'd like to point out that you, sir, are wrong.

I just turned the wireless on my laptop off, and booted up steam. It said "You have no internet connection." with a great big button that said "Retry", and another which said "Start in Offline Mode".

So no. You don't need to start it online.

 

[thelastmccabe]

I don't use steam at all for the reasons people are listing. I don't want to deal with the resources overhead (I've got a laptop), or having to login, or any other headaches to play games. I'm not saying I boycott it or anything like that. If there's a game I really, really want to play that's only on Steam then I'll get it, but that hasn't really happened yet. I did have it in the past to play HL2 a long time ago. It's funny because it seems like Valve was the first to employ always on DRM (just guessing here), but they seem to get a free pass.

I try to get boxed copies unless they are too expensive. I also use Direct 2 Drive a lot because I like their DRM better--you enter a code one time after you install the game and that's it. D2D has some pretty good sales too--I think I got KOTOR and VTMB for like $5 or $10 each. I also use GOG a lot (obviously). There are games I'd probably own if I didn't have to mess with Steam to get them--Portal 1 for example.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

where are these sites people are using that are cheaper than Steam?
I'm quite new to PC gaming so it'd be good to know as Steam and GOG are the only sites i really know

 

[Sandernista]

Never saw this as an annoyance, in fact steam let's me get to my games faster, and keep them updated. I realize that it may use some resources, but I got a high end PC, it really doesn't bother me at all. In fact I use it to launch non-steam games as well.

I do the same thing!

In fact, I play very few games through steam that I actually bought on steam. I just use the client to start all my games. (Or almost all of them.)

 

[V8 Ninja]

People Who Like Steam: "It's the best thing ever! Stop making up excuses for not liking it, whether legitimate or not!"

People Who Don't Like Steam: "It's horrible! It's stupid and just another version of the terrible DRM that's been plaguing PC gaming!"

So I suppose there's no middle ground, eh?

OT: I like Steam because of it's dirt-cheap prices for on-sale games. I can understand some people who don't like Steam, mostly because the restrictions involved ("Suspended account? Nope, you don't get to play the games you paid money for."). However, I do know that there are some games that don't require Steam to play (Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV, Borderlands [surprisingly enough], etc.), so it's not completely bad for those that seem to have hardware issues with the client.

 

[Varrdy]

Maybe I missed something but complaining about Steam being open to run Steam games sounds like complaining that you have to have your car's engine running in order to drive it!

Wardy

 

[barash]

I never buy full-price games on Steam since they started that damn 1? == 1$ bullshit. I wait for sales and buy whatever I want then. On the rare occasion a real gem of a game is released, I buy Steampowered releases from other digital distributors and register them on Steam - usually for close to half the price of Steam.


But other than their retarded pricing system, the Steam client is great. Small footprint (48mb used atm, while running DnD Online(on my laptop..)) and very convenient extras.

 

[Asehujiko]

... I hate games I don't have on Steam because I'll usually end up missing the overlay

I know it works on added shortcuts, but I always forget to add them.

Hell, I have Steam running even if I'm in a non-Steam game. Then I'll still hear the bloop of incoming messages (which is probably the most pleasant you-have-a-msg-sound ever).

My friend's brother hates Steam and barely plays anything on it (he's a dirty raging pirate) but is nevertheless online on Steam all the time.

People hating on Steam just want to feel special because they can come up with fancy-sounding reasons not to use something practical and popular. I'm so impressed by your superiorness (they're too cool for common superiority). Look at me, this is my impressed face, you self-absorbed tech-hipster.

There are good reasons to dislike steam, like the fact that they are among the worst priced providers but not enough people bother shopping around to notice. They also restrict access to your property and make it harder to actually make use of it.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/17/deus-ex-human-revolution-is-region-locked/

Also stuff like that which valve have taken no issue with in direct contadiction to them being all about the consumer.

That's because "fair trade" laws made by retail lobbyists require them to put up shit prices and stuff like that. Not something Valve can do anything about.

 

[manythings]

... I hate games I don't have on Steam because I'll usually end up missing the overlay

I know it works on added shortcuts, but I always forget to add them.

Hell, I have Steam running even if I'm in a non-Steam game. Then I'll still hear the bloop of incoming messages (which is probably the most pleasant you-have-a-msg-sound ever).

My friend's brother hates Steam and barely plays anything on it (he's a dirty raging pirate) but is nevertheless online on Steam all the time.

People hating on Steam just want to feel special because they can come up with fancy-sounding reasons not to use something practical and popular. I'm so impressed by your superiorness (they're too cool for common superiority). Look at me, this is my impressed face, you self-absorbed tech-hipster.

There are good reasons to dislike steam, like the fact that they are among the worst priced providers but not enough people bother shopping around to notice. They also restrict access to your property and make it harder to actually make use of it.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/17/deus-ex-human-revolution-is-region-locked/

Also stuff like that which valve have taken no issue with in direct contadiction to them being all about the consumer.

That's because "fair trade" laws made by retail lobbyists require them to put up shit prices and stuff like that. Not something Valve can do anything about.

Consumer choice trumps fair trde. Any action, beyond providing the best choice, is forcing consumers to purchase with artificial barricades. It's nothing short of price fixing.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

I didn't realize some people hated having to run Steam while playing their games.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it basically the same as being connected to Xbox Live while playing your Games on Demand? Doesn't sound that bad to me.

 

[Farther than stars]

Steam best buy game stop
Modern Warfare 2: $29.99 $29.99 $29.99
Bioshock $19.99 unlisted $19.99
Dawn of war II: retribution $29.99 $29.99 $29.99
Fallout New Vegas $19.99 $19.99 $19.99
Civilization V $49.99 $49.99 $49.99

Edit: Crap, formatting for the chart didn't carry over, sorry. First number is steam, second is Best buy, and third is game stop.

Yeah, except Best Buy and GameStop aren't the only places you can buy hard copies of games. Sure, I admit that Steam has some pretty good sales on, but whenever I want a specific game, I've always been able to find it cheaper somewhere else, usually on Amazon.

Like I said in my post, Amazon can have better prices than steam, but not really consistently. Besides, when you take into account that you also have to pay shipping amazon is usually more expensive than steam. Then you have to wait at least 3 days for the game to get to you (unless you pay even more to get it in 2). Very inconvenient.

Well, yes, that's true. It does depend a little on where you live, since Amazon will often deliver free of charge nationally, but I suppose there probably is usually a shipping charge for people overseas.

 

[Farther than stars]

And everyone else is just being petty about a mild inconvenience.

Mild inconvience my arse! I once had to wait a full day for all the patches to upload. A day! That's right, it only takes a few minutes to install any other game on my PC and then I get to play it straight away, but some games that I buy in the store, force you onto Steam and all the excitement you had about playing them slowly drains away as you go to bed, sleep, wake up, have breakfast, go out, have lunch, come back home, have a meal, watch some TV and THEN sit down to play your game.
I miss the days that I could just buy a game, slip it into whatever machine/console and just start playing it. In fact, these days I'll even consider buying a game just because it's not on Steam. That's right, Steam is so pedantic that a game with no connections to it, actually gives that game a recommendation.
So there's why Steam is so bad, Amishdemon.

You should try playing games on a console. Skips that whole installing process, unless you do it because you feel like it.

To be fair, I prefere PC-gaming for all of its other advantages. It's just Steam I have gripes with.

 

[thiosk]

Steam has never so much as inconvenienced me. Its been nothing but a positive (returning games for free via download that i'd lost the disks for).

Compare to Games for windows live. What the hell was that anyway? Talk about driving people to sign on with Captain Bootleg and his hearty crew of ruffigans.

However, I've choses a browser-- steam-- and i use it. I have impulse for 2 games. I don't intend to purchase origin software because i don't want yet ANOTHER browser.

 

[SnipErlite]

Well, a lot of people don't seem to realize Steam has an offline mode and assume it's always-on DRM.

There is offline mode

Many people , including me, can't use offline mode. It just tries to connect again, fails, and asks you which mode you'd like to use. It's a pretty commmon bug with (at the last search) no solution. This understandably ticks some people off, especially those who have a patchy internet connection.

Personally I love Steam, but that does annoy me slightly.

 

[Frankster]

Well, a lot of people don't seem to realize Steam has an offline mode and assume it's always-on DRM.

Offline mode doesn't work as advertised. My internet was cut for a week and to get offline mode to work it still had to be connected to the internet first for some reason ¬¬

 

[Canadamus Prime]

It doesn't bother me. The only thing that does kinda bother me is when I get Steam notifications when I'm in the middle of playing a game.

 

[Fishyash]

Meh. I have to wait long enough to run my street fighter, and then log onto GFWL (seriosly, who the hell thought it was a good idea to use that?). I don't like waiting the extra time for steam to boot up.

 

[Aircross]

Keeping Steam open never bothered me, even on my old toaster that had one gigabyte memory and a 1.6 single core processor.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Never saw this as an annoyance, in fact steam let's me get to my games faster, and keep them updated. I realize that it may use some resources, but I got a high end PC, it really doesn't bother me at all. In fact I use it to launch non-steam games as well.

Ditto. all nearly 200 games on my steam are there, no CD, no physical mess, no hassle. Besides, if I really wanted to overreact at it being some kind of DRM, I could just, you know, burn physical copies of the games, which Steam lets you, and write the CD key on it and call it a day.