steam hate, why?

[NuclearKangaroo]

First and foremost, why are you asking us why we hate steam if all you are going to do is try to convert us to Valveboyism?

Anyway, I am well aware of the video as I watched it the day after it went live and I disagree with him too.

because many of your arguments are either inconsistent or flat out lies

So take a step back and ask yourself, "Who else do I sound like right now?" It's better because of the cloud! Trust us! Look at all these services we provide; TV, Football, achievements for TV, achievements for watching ads, DA CLOUDZZZZZZZ!

It might surprise you but I don't give a flying fuck about "the cloud". Much like I prefer hard copies of games I also prefer to own the thing my data is being stored on. As for your point about updating, I didn't realize steam could magically make all of the OS code identical. Damn guyz, did ju hear? Just code for steam and ittle work on mac, pc, Linux, and all the rest! Wait a sec... If that's the case why is there a push to get more steam games Linux compatible? Doesn't just being on steam make that all work?

did i say anything even remotely similar? im a programmer id never dare say anything so stupid

but take for instance, what about games that use steamworks for matchmaking and/or hacking protection? some devs arent willing to support 2 versions of a game

theres other stuff like the achivements that i mentioned, and believe some people care about those, and some people do care about cloud saving, i find it very helpful that every time i install my games on a new PC my old saves are there as well, some devs want all the versions of their game to have the exact same features, its THEIR problem to include steamworks or not, nobody is forcing them, they could support 2 versions of the game like some indie devs do

you seem to be so lost in your own defensiveness you didnt realize I DID NOT DEFEND THIS PRACTICE

"i can understand how this can be problematic, theres no real reason for devs to do this"

how about you stop your ridiculous flammatory speech and make an actual argument or atleast put yourself in the shoes of the people who enjoy steam's features, just like i can understand someone who is agaisnt DRM because of principles

I don't own the things I bought with my money. That's enough to oppose it on principle. However, this might cause you to back peddle a little.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/

you do realize that game was pulled off because of its always online requirement right? steam had little to do with that

or maybe you think every single form of DRM is the same, and stuff like, say securom, which allows your game to be installed only on a limited number of machines is equal to steam which allows you to install your games in as many machines as you damn well please

Did steam not require you to call home the entire time you played at one point? Last I heard the offline mode was chinchy at best, didn't include all games with single player, and only worked for 30 days at a time.

nope, it works almost flawlessly, maybe yiou should do some research before speaking agaisnt something

So Xbox live doesn't offer cloud saving, achievements, sales, family sharing, or in-home streaming? Damn, that's news to me. OH, WAIT! No it's not, because I can turn on my Xbox right now and see these things. /credibility

i have a question for you, do you actually read my posts before commenting? did you by any chance miss the "free" part? or stuff like, the workshop, big picture, community features, etc

the reason i also mentioned standard stuff like achivements and cloud saving, is because DRM free services like GOG.com dont offer that

steam manages to be free, relatively non-instrusive and feature-rich

You might be able to opt out but there are still reports of data mining, intentional or not, afterwards.

such as?

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how wrong you are.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2914901
http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1wyu01/castleminer_z_developer_yes_actual_developer_is/

oh hohoh i NEVER said the forums werent modded by the devs, but the REVIEWS, the stuff YOU complained about, cant be censored by the devs, and those have much more visibility than the forums, those are in the actual store page

Pro consumer...? *insert gif again* Have you tried to get a refund from Valve, ever? The horror stories are endless, the lack of QC in their store is sickening, and the DRM is lazy.

wait, you complain about QC, right after you complained about valve removing a non-functional game from steam?

and no i have never asked for a refund on steam, not that i dont acknowledge that is an area that could be improved, but when i look at my 100+ legal game collection i couldnt have gotten otherwise, and the 200+ dollars ive made thanks to trading and the steam market i say, thanks valve, hell i even bought a part to fix the family van with the money i made via trading, so much for not owning my games haha

Except for the fact that they are required by law to provide compensation for a product they are buying into with the intent to sell.

errm no they are not, the spit is up to the content creators, so even if they used a tool made by developer X, they can choose to not give developer X a cent, this system also was not in place in the many years TF2 allowed for user created content to be sold on the store, and all the money comes from valve's split, not the content creator's

I can't understand being a valveite so why don't you try becoming informed at least.

you didnt even know how the offline mode worked for christ's sake

 

[Nimzabaat]

1) Required for hard copies- Not too hard to understand that if I have physically bought a disk then why the fuck do I have to download a third party DRM service to play it?

2) The issue of ownership- You don't own anything you buy through steam or use steam to run (see above). They can take everything away if you get banned, if the servers were to crash, or if Valve went out of business.

3) The fucking hypocrisy- You'll see PC gamers be the first ones to rub DRM practices in console users faces (mostly the pre-180 Xbone) but steam does many of the things the pre-180 Xbone wanted to do. They will ***** incessantly about Origin/UPlay/GFWL/ and then go on to rant and rave about how good steam is. Steam is DRM like the rest.

4) Steam is resource sucking spyware- Steam has to be task managered to death and is used to data mine all types of information from your rig, peripherals, and programs you have running.

5) Steam has no respect for their customers- Just look at the broken shit they sell or better yet, how much power they give to developers on the game's steam page. Remember when the devs went through and were deleting bad reviews for what ever the latest shit game was?

While I don't hate steam as such, I definetly agree with all your points. Point number 3 is especially notable here on the escapist. I don't think there is such a thing as DRM-free on any console. Though it's funny that Steam wants to take some ideas from MS, they're planning on implementing the "family sharing" program that was supposed to be on the XB1.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

I could give as many reasons for hating Steam as I do for liking it, but I'll only list my most egregious one here: the fact that Valve can permanently lock your account at any time and for any reason, and they're not required to give any kind of explanation. Even worse, they will lock your account if you choose not to agree to their ToS updates -- once they do that, you lose access to any previous purchases made on that account, and I can't begin to tell you how fucking offensive and anti-consumer I find that to be.

i could argue steam is pro customer with this
-allowing customers to post their own reviews on the store page which get much more visibility than the forums
-allowing cancellations of pre-orders
-constant improvement and additions of features such as big picture, steam workshop, community features (you know, the same forums you complain are being censored), etc
-giving out free games (Portal, Left 4 Dead 2), which crashed their own site and made em lose sales
-supporting content creators and working closely with them

there are 2 sides to this coin pal

You're absolutely right about 2 sides:

-Steam may allow customers to post reviews, but it also allows devs and publishers to flag reviews for "offensive" material. While that can be beneficial in theory for everyone involved, in practice it can lead to episodes like this [http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/9uZDg/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-the-developer-of-this-game].
-Cancel pre-orders? That's great and all, but have you ever tried to get a refund from Steam for a broken-at-release game? It's a long, arduous process that forces customers to fight tooth and nail with Steam reps to even get an acknowledgement of any existing issues, even when armed with mountains of evidence.
-For every improvement Valve adds to Steam, they break something else. They also have a habit of ignoring serious issues for years (remember how terrible offline mode used to be?) until the public outcry becomes too loud to ignore.
-Valve's free giveaways crashed Steam because Valve couldn't be bothered to prepare for the overloaded bandwidth they knew would result if they started giving away free copies of some of the most renowned PC games in the world. They also pull the same crap with each and every seasonal sale they hold, the results being massive downtime, client crashes and server bottlenecks.

also stop lying, you are the second person saying devs can censor reviews on steam, thats a flat out lie, you can check the FAQ of steam reviews and see for yourself, or check the store page of bad games

Not only does Valve allow devs to flag reviews and tags (with the end result potentially being deletion, collapse or alteration, i.e. censorship) , but they also give devs free reign to edit, hide, delete, lock, and outright disappear Community forums associated with whatever particular title those publishers may be selling on Steam.

If I were you, I'd do a little homework before accusing others of being liars.

i agree with most of your stuff, like i said, 2 sides, but im not wrong with reviews, last time i checked train simulator is still full of negative reviews, i never said the forums werent modded to the devs discretion for better or worse (often worse), but im not agaisnt the flagging of tags, for 2 reasons

- a lot of people tried to use tags to critize the game, you dont have to play a game to tag it, unlike user reviews, so this could be easily abused, you have games like DmC, with more or less positive user reviews (is more like 50/50, positive reviews have 60% or so of approval ratings while negative ones 50%) and tags like "edgy", "donte", "fuck you", etc

- some people used tags simply to mess aroung, tags like "kawaii", "more desu", "gotta go fast", "diva dev" arent really helpful


also id like to inform you steam no longer locks your games away if you get banned, as far as i know

 

[Spartan448]

1) i think this is overly paranoid, steam has existed for 10 years, we've heard the same "if valve goes out of business your games are gone" argument for 10 years now, thats probably more than a physical copy of my 140 games on steam wouldve lasted, also steam does not restrict access to your library if you ever get banned. plus Gabe Newell has given his word he would disable Steam's DRM if Valve ever went backrupt, and i trust the man

I don't own the things I bought with my money. That's enough to oppose it on principle. However, this might cause you to back peddle a little.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/

2) its not hypocrisy, you cant possibly compare a ridiculous DRM box that required you to call microsoft every single day so it wouldnt fucking unplug your console, i can set steam to offline mode from now until the heat death of the universe and i will still be able to play my games, oh and heres the real kicker, microsoft wanted to CHARGE YOU 60 BUCKS FOR THE FUCKING PRIVILEDGE.

Did steam not require you to call home the entire time you played at one point? Last I heard the offline mode was chinchy at best, didn't include all games with single player, and only worked for 30 days at a time.

Valve is in my opinion one of the most pro-customer developers around, providing DRM that instead of making the customer jump through hoops adds value to their games, it has allowed people with extremly limited budget like me, acquire games legally, theyve given out free games in the past and keep updating steam with new features regularly, they also allow content creators profit off their effort

Pro consumer...? *insert gif again* Have you tried to get a refund from Valve, ever? The horror stories are endless, the lack of QC in their store is sickening, and the DRM is lazy.

I like how you talk about being "truly informed", and don't bother to check up on your facts.

In response to the first point:

Your article on Forbes actually doesn't prove anything. The game was shut down by Square Enix, and as it was always-online (thanks Square!) that meant that with no servers, the game literally could not function at all, hence the decision to remove it. This was botched, and in other instances where games were removed from libraries, users were given refunds in the form of store credit (This was for The WarZ).

In addition, you DO in fact own the things that you bought with your money. You do not run Steam games from an external server - you have to download them to your hard-drive first. All of the games I have bought on Steam are either on my hard drive backed up on an external hard drive, or on their own in an external hard drive. And whether or not Valve is willing to admit it, Steam has REALLY shit DRM, and some games can be run without a Steam installation or connection just by using some simple admin account commands.

As to the credibility of Gabe Newell, I would say that given that the man turned down a $2,000,000,000 purchase offer from EA, I would say his credentials are solid.


In response to the second point:

As a current user of Steam with internet that tends to cut out every other day, the offline component of Steam is solid. I can still play all my games (well, not multiplayer-only ones, though I can still do bots offline) without any problems at all.


In response to the third point:

Someone can still be the best at something if everyone else is shit at it. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, no online games retailer currently offers refunds, nor would they be crazy enough to give away money they don't have to, given that currently online games retailers are not obligated to refund consumers. Second, their actual customer support is friendlier and better than any other company's support staff.

As for Steam's seeming lack of "Quality Control", this was intentional, but not due to sloth. Steam bills itself, and the PC platform, as the ultimate platform for indie developers. It is a platform where you can release your product with no prior history and without too much trouble, and hopefully make money off it. When any kind of quality control is implemented, your game development history is like your credit history; people are immediately wary and suspicious if you have no history in the field. Therefore, Steam has a very light vetting process. Complaints about quality control led to the introduction of Greenlight. Because letting the community decides what games go on steam is the ultimate in QC, right? Wrong, dead wrong. Greenlight made things SUBSTANTIALLY worse, and games that never would have gotten in before were now appearing on Steam, hence why Greenlight is rightfully being phased out.

As for the DRM being lazy, you're right, it is. Steam's DRM can barely be called a security measure, as it barely works at best. Many of my friends pirated FTL, and then added the game to their Steam libraries, and no bells or alarm klaxons have gone off, no-one has received phantom charges, and no-one has had the game removed from their library. It is literally a non-factor.

Plus, consider all of the things that Steam and Valve do better than everyone else. For one thing, games in general. Valve has consistently put out numerous games much beloved by the gaming community as a whole, one of the most popular of which is Free to Play. Their release schedule could use a bit of work, but given the quality of the games they have released, I really can't complain. Their multiplayer monitoring system, Valve Anti-Cheat, is one of the best in the business, and has been shutting down wall-hackers and aim-botters consistently for many years now.

 

[Vareoth]

As others have said: lack of quality control is probably the most annoying thing wrong with Steam. The whole dollar=euro thing is quite annoying as well, but at least there are ways to get around that in most cases.

And while Steam isn't a monopoly in the purest sense of the word, estimates show Steam controls somewhere around 50-75% of the digital PC market. An exact percentage is difficult to pinpoint because Valve refuses to release sales numbers and affiliated devs are banned from sharing any information on that subject by an NDA. Steam absolutely controls the majority of the market. Not really their fault, though, since there are very few true competitors. And they seem to handle being in a top dog position reasonably well.

[I don't own the things I bought with my money. That's enough to oppose it on principle. However, this might cause you to back peddle a little.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/

Actually, I still have that game. And I can still buy it. Did they add it back or something?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

3) its not hypocrisy, you cant possibly compare a ridiculous DRM box that required you to call microsoft every single day so it wouldnt fucking unplug your console, i can set steam to offline mode from now until the heat death of the universe and i will still be able to play my games, oh and heres the real kicker, microsoft wanted to CHARGE YOU 60 BUCKS FOR THE FUCKING PRIVILEDGE.

Where are you getting this from?

Microsoft doesn't charge $60 to connect your console to the Internet or Xbox Live, and they never have done (they even supply you with either a free Ethernet cable or built in wireless so you don't have to pay extra to connect your console to Xbox Live).

Do you have some proof that Microsoft's 24 hour check in for the Xbox One also included a $60 charge for pinging a couple of hundred KB of data to Microsoft's servers once a day (or once every time you switched it on if you don't use it daily)?

no of course not, i was talking about xbox live, my point was that, despite asking much more out of the customer than steam, microsoft couldnt even offer the same amount of features steam offers for free, you have to pay 60 for that

in fact i personally find insulting that microsoft wanted you to phone home every single day but you couldnt even PLAY YOUR GAMES ONLINE for free, your games, they hold a critical part of it hostage, just sickening

and dont get me started on the damn ads


but well, some people like to pay for xbox live, their problem

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Refund policy and I guess the somewhat shady anti-ownership practices.

But other then that I'm pretty fine with Steam. I've never had a problem with the quality control because it's really easy to tell a bad game out if you just know what to look for (and if you know how to operate google), although I understand the argument it takes marketing space from indie devs.

 

[Signa]

as we all know steam is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming

Wait, what? Surely you're taking the piss.

To be fair, name one thing that is better than Steam in the history of PC gaming. Direct X is the closest I can think of. I agree that it does read like hyperbole though.

 

[Lictor Face]

you could at the very least acknowledge steam's features

Why? I am not paid to do marketing for steam. Why should I talk about 'features' that don't interest or benefit me?

Because doing so is bias. Not sure how you intend to conduct a proper debate/discussion while being biased, never mind knowingly biased.

Yes, Stream does have many dubious points, its not perfect. There are plenty of things that can be done better.

But all in all, Steam is still one of the best things to ever happen for PC gaming as it pretty much mainstreamed and streamlined digital purchases and distribution (Especially since I live in Singapore, a tiny slip of a nation, and have to wait weeks for the latest release), which is far more convenient than going out to buy a disc and finding out you have to wait three weeks for the shipment to come in and then realising it then sold out and you have to wait another week. Bleah.

I daresay GoG was inspired at least in part by Steam.

Yes its not perfect, but than really, very few things are. And as someone had said, haters will always find things to hate. Kind of like the relationship between the American public and the American presidents.

 

[Abulurd_H]

You made more than one point and I refuted most of them (i think) reasonably well =)

DRM isn't all negative. Most of it is but not all. Steam DRM gives me some rights as well as the devs. For instance, I can hop on a computer pretty much anywhere in the world (please don't take that 100% litteraly and tell me "not in Afghanistan lol") that has an internet connection, prove my credentials via an email and a couple of clicks and then proceed to download and play any title in my Steam collection. Someone above mentioned a marketplace for trading also , but I dont know how that works as I havent looked into it.

Granted I could also do this with titles from GoG and that is also a form of DRM that is slanted in favour of the consumer as opposed to the developers. GoG simply does not have the amount of modern titles available to it that steam does at the moment. This could change but at present this is the case.

You could argue that DRM does in fact achieve what it sets out to do in regards to piracy. I dont believe that anyone thinks that piracy can be stopped all together. However, strong DRM at launch means that it's going to take considerable time for hacking groups to break your security which results in increased early sales as people who reeaaaallly want the game and just cant wait are forced to buy. By the time your DRM is cracked the people who pirate your game were unlikely to buy in the first place so you haven't lost sales. I have no proof for this argument but it is something I have seen mentioned many times on the internet and it makes logical sense to me.

One question for you.

If everyone is already eating shit, that tastes like shit and then someone came along and said "I have a shit that tastes like chocolate and gives you muscles like popeye" Which shit would you chose to eat?

Dammit, I have just realised that I am arguing with someone on the internet, trying to change their mind when I know I won't succeed. This is why I don't do forums

Have a nice day

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Some people don't like it simply because it's drm and Steam completely controls your games. DRM is like having a bouncer ask you everyday to see your ID and let you into your own house. No matter how nice the bouncer is, they can fuck right off and let me use my stuff.

I don't a have a problem using Steam though because they're so cheap and it's relatively quick to get games running and social features aren't half bad. But at the end of day, if had to choose between buying a game off GoG or for console for full price or a game off Steam at 75%, I'll take consoles and GoG. Plus I sometimes like supporting devs for good work rather than throw pennies at them

maybe im not so bothered over the idea of my games one day becoming unplayable because:

1) steam has already existed for 10 years
2) Gabe himself has said hed disable steam's DRM if valve ever went down

I take some issues with this

1) I have 3 copies of the game Soul Reaver that came out in 1997 just shy of 20 years ago. One original ps1 disk, a psn digital copy, and a Steam copy. Guess which ones work? I'll give you a hint, the 17 year old disk and the Sony version. Games can last pretty long for a lot of people. And I can probably rip most disk games and play them on pc emulators. And I didn't realize that a company existing for 10 instantly means they're immortal. Moreover, our lord and savior Gabe Newell won't be around forever. How do you know you'll even want to associate with Steam in the next 10 years? They could be the next EA for all you know

2) does Gabe Newell literally own the rights to every single game sold on Steam? No he doesn't. How can he just give away what he doesn't own? To quote one guys in charge of GoG, "Gabe Newell can't make your games magically drm free. If the servers shut down your games will be magically gone"

 

[OpticalJunction]

Unnecessary DRM that overcharges Australians. In addition, don't like that a lot of the competition is forced out because of Steam's predominance, it is monopolizing the digital games market and we all know monopolization does not benefit the consumer.

 

[Eddie the head]

And fuck that gaben the Tyrant.

Haha! Tyrant. It's so cute when people misuse words.

It's called a hyperbole.

As it has been explained, you can turn this off. It is an option. It has always been an option.

I think the point is it's on be default.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Granted I could also do this with titles from GoG and that is also a form of DRM that is slanted in favour of the consumer as opposed to the developers. GoG simply does not have the amount of modern titles available to it that steam does at the moment. This could change but at present this is the case.

I'm sorry but you're just throwing around the word "DRM" like you don't know what it means. Digital Rights Management software. What it does at its most basic form is prevent you from using software. It is never for the consumer. Imagine if you will, drm is like getting kicked in balls. Valve's drm places a nice fluffy pillow on your crotch while they kick you, then they give you some cake or something. The bottom line, I would liked to skip the cake and not get kicked in the balls. GoG gives a nice piece of cake by letting you download your games whenver you want for good prices and not include drm in their installers thus skipping the balls kicking

You could argue that DRM does in fact achieve what it sets out to do in regards to piracy. I dont believe that anyone thinks that piracy can be stopped all together. However, strong DRM at launch means that it's going to take considerable time for hacking groups to break your security which results in increased early sales as people who reeaaaallly want the game and just cant wait are forced to buy. By the time your DRM is cracked the people who pirate your game were unlikely to buy in the first place so you haven't lost sales. I have no proof for this argument but it is something I have seen mentioned many times on the internet and it makes logical sense to me.

Kinda. To see the effects of piracy, all you have to do is look at how the MPAA broke another record for movie ticket sales. Similarly, look at the profits of any entertainment medium since the age of the Internet and piracy became popular. What you'll find is that sales of movies, music, tv shows, whatever have increased since the Internet became a thing despite bittorrent traffic (mostly piracy) being the number one source of Internet traffic for like 10 years.

In short, drm does nothing. It only harms the people who actually pay for stuff, because while the pirates eventually get what they want, the customer is stuck with drm. If anything, shitty drm and services convinces people to pirate in the first place. Bittorrent traffic has been dethroned by Netflix traffic because now people finally have a service that gives them what they want. Shows and movies on demand without cable for a few bucks a month

 

[Bocaj2000]

I have never had legitimate trouble with steam. The only major difficulty that is consistent is using account on my bootcamped Mac which involves their painfully slow emails that have taken up to half an hour to be sent. Other than that, I don't see many crippling issues.

DRM- The last time I had an issue with 'Offline Mode' was in 2006. In recent memory, I haven't have any trouble with taking my games offline. Even if I did... I'm using a computer that is online 99% of the time. If you are a PC gamer that isn't connected to the internet on your main computer at least once a month, then Steam might not be the issue here. But if it still really pisses you off, then GOG and HB are better alternatives.

QC- Some of the games suck. So what? That's not really an issue. It just means that you have to read the reviews on the bottom of the same page to see whether it's good or not.
If the game simply doesn't work, something that I have experienced, a little bit of research will fix that. This is a valid criticism of Steam, but at least it's fixable. Even GOG is a victim of this flaw.

Required for hard copies - Yes, this pisses me off. I had to do this in one instance, and it annoyed the piss out of me. "I have the DVD right here! Why are you downloading from the internet?!?" There is no excuse. But is this enough to damn an entire service? Not really.

Refund - Agreed. GOG already has better service if this is the case. With that said, I have never refunded a single game that I have ever owned, and I have over 200 of them.

Sales - I'm not a Valve fanboy, but Steam has single-handedly gotten me to quit piracy due to their fantastic sales. Along with them, GOG and HB has delivered a better service than Skidrow ever will at amazingly low prices. I haven't payed more than $5 for a PC game in years, and that is a standard set by Steam. For me this is what matters. Their amazing sales easily outweigh their minor flaws without a doubt.

Until I see evidence that they are doing evil corporation stuff and ruining the entire industry, I can't bring myself to see them as 'bad'. Yes, they are flawed, but that's a universal characteristic. It takes more than flaws to hate something. Hatred is a strong emotion that takes a lot out of you. If Valve genuinely causes reactions this strong, then I respect that. I believe that they do far more good than evil, but you may have a different experience than me. With all things said and done, when Steam works correctly, it is an amazing asset to the PC gaming community without dispute, and that is why it dominates the PC gaming market.

 

[shintakie10]

Someone can still be the best at something if everyone else is shit at it. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, no online games retailer currently offers refunds, nor would they be crazy enough to give away money they don't have to, given that currently online games retailers are not obligated to refund consumers. Second, their actual customer support is friendlier and better than any other company's support staff.

Absolutely wrong, on every level. The only digital distribution platforms that don't offer refunds are Uplay (which I didnt even know was a DD platform) and Steam. Origin has a fairly generous refund policy. GoG has a good refund policy. GmG has a refund policy. Amazon's digital platform has a amazin as fuck return policy even goin so far as to publicly announce they'd be giving refunds to games like Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, both games that worked perfectly fine but people just didn't like for whatever reason.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

3. Download speeds are slow and inconsistent (this is likely a regional problem)

Maybe, but I've notice on my computer both Origin and Uplay download faster and with less lag. Could be where I live as well though.

I have noticed the same, download speeds on Origin are usually twice as fast for me.

 

[DoPo]

It's called a hyperbole.

As it has been explained, you can turn this off. It is an option. It has always been an option.

I think the point is it's on be default.

So? It's still literally 3 clicks away from being disabled (or maybe 4 depending on how you count them). Also no - I think the focus actually was on misinformation - the complaint was not about that it could be disabled but it's on by default - no the complaint not only did omit the part about it being optional, it completely obfuscated it by being about "it's there all the time" which I would classify as a lie, given that it does not need to be there all the time unless you choose so. And if you choose so, it should not be a complaint. In its current form it's a strawman argument.

[DRM] doesn't achieve what it sets out to do, which is stopping piracy.

As is this.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Some people don't like it simply because it's drm and Steam completely controls your games. DRM is like having a bouncer ask you everyday to see your ID and let you into your own house. No matter how nice the bouncer is, they can fuck right off and let me use my stuff.

I don't a have a problem using Steam though because they're so cheap and it's relatively quick to get games running and social features aren't half bad. But at the end of day, if had to choose between buying a game off GoG or for console for full price or a game off Steam at 75%, I'll take consoles and GoG. Plus I sometimes like supporting devs for good work rather than throw pennies at them

maybe im not so bothered over the idea of my games one day becoming unplayable because:

1) steam has already existed for 10 years
2) Gabe himself has said hed disable steam's DRM if valve ever went down

I take some issues with this

1) I have 3 copies of the game Soul Reaver that came out in 1997 just shy of 20 years ago. One original ps1 disk, a psn digital copy, and a Steam copy. Guess which ones work? I'll give you a hint, the 17 year old disk and the Sony version. Games can last pretty long for a lot of people. And I can probably rip most disk games and play them on pc emulators. And I didn't realize that a company existing for 10 instantly means they're immortal. Moreover, our lord and savior Gabe Newell won't be around forever. How do you know you'll even want to associate with Steam in the next 10 years? They could be the next EA for all you know

2) does Gabe Newell literally own the rights to every single game sold on Steam? No he doesn't. How can he just give away what he doesn't own? To quote one guys in charge of GoG, "Gabe Newell can't make your games magically drm free. If the servers shut down your games will be magically gone"

point taken, there isnt much i can argue agaisnt this, just saying what the great one said

i will said tough that my ps1 is busted and in the past i havent taken good care of my games, so steam works for me, not necessarily for everyone else, plus if it wasnt for steam i wouldnt "own" (for a lack of a better word) as many games as i do today

plus even when a drm-free version is avaliable i usually take the steam version of a game for the extra features i feel steam adds, for instance, on more than 1 ocassion ive gotten my money back, or most of it, when i sell the trading cards that come with the games i buy in the humble bundle

 

[bug_of_war]

Out of curiosity, what was wrong with each game? Vampire is a universally acclaimed game and Sniper Ghost Warrior looks like ti got meh reviews, but nothing saying it was literally unplayable.

I never said either game was good or bad, how could I seeing as how both did not go further than a black screen. That's literally what happened. Ghost Warrior basically just did not work at all on my computer and no matter how many times I reinstalled and checked the files the game just refused to launch. Same thing for Vampire, I downloaded it, clicked the play button and it just went to a black screen for a few seconds before returning to the desktop. When I found out I had to download a mod to make it work I felt completely ripped off.