steam hate, why?
- Thread starter NuclearKangaroo
- Start date
Recommended Videos
That's certainly a concern. I don't know how many people would do that, but I'm sure that some would.NuclearKangaroo said:
Though tons of people hate EA. Do you think EA's PC sales have fallen to any serious extent because people have tried to be sneaky with their refund policy? They certainly might have, but I doubt it. Chances are, I think, that if you're going to try and get something without paying, you would just pirate it anyway.[footnote]Not that I'm advocating it, of course. I really dislike piracy[/footnote]
There would be some ways to fight that. For example, once you get a refund on a game, you shouldn't be able to get it for that game again. Example: I buy Luftrausers, play it for 12 hours, then get a refund. If I buy Luftrausers a second time, I can't get a refund.
And there are probably other ways to protect against that sort of stuff too.
But sure, it is something you would need to think about.
Nearly 500 games in my library, been using steam since 2007. Never had a game broken by a Steam update. The problem you describe is extremely rare. You might as well be saying "Just wait until your left front car wheel suddenly sheers off the bolts and causes you to crash" as evidence that cars suck (this is something that actually happened to my brother.) Statistically unlikely negative events do happen, but they are rarely a good reason to stop using an overall beneficial product. And, frankly, the problem is probably the result of poor maintenance of the PC, like the vast majority of computer problems.Shamanic Rhythm said:
In my experience (7 years full time professional IT work) people treat their computers like shit and then get mad at the software publisher or distributor when things don't work right. 95% of the time it is user error or their computer is so screwed up that it is a miracle windows manages to boot. And gamers are the worst.
There is a certain band of users that most gamers fall into. They know just enough about computers to think they are experts. In reality they know just enough to really screw up their machine horribly. They never perform maintenance, they often never bother to even learn how. They visit all sorts of strange sites and click every link, they run strange executables, they generally mess everything up and then think everything is going to be ok because they have a free antivirus.
So tell me, when you display this same condescending attitude towards your clients, do you get returning business?DrOswald said:
And for the record, I never said that my example proved that Steam sucks. On balance I like Steam, but the thread is about why some people hate it. That's just one example of how it can be annoying.
Though I'm sure some have genuine grievances towards the platform, I put it to you that some simply like to hate what is popular. For another example, see Halo. The original was a very important game and overall it has been a strong series. If a person doesn't like it or steam, they would ignore it. However, it seems to me, the hate involved suggests these people actively get involved with things they despise so they can moan about them.NuclearKangaroo said:
I can't stand "evil" free to play games like Clash of Clans, but until this very post, I've never mentioned them once. I'd rather chat about things I am interested in.
My problem with Steam is simple, and something I've mentioned in this forum before: as bad as other things are, as good as Steam might generally be, it holds the particular distinction of being the sole program to ever rob me of my video games.
Here's what happened: a few years ago, I was a hardcore PC gamer. I'd been gaming on the PC since the early 90's, and nothing seemed like it was going to change that. When Steam came along, it was heaven sent. I raved about it to my friends, and instantly fell in love with it. But I kept buying physical copies of games, as I like having the discs on my shelves. I am also staunchly anti-piracy.
One day, I moved from my home to a new location. It took me a couple of weeks to sign back into Steam, and when I did, I got a warning saying my account had been 'suspended'. What followed was a story of incompetence and corporate vagueness so bad it literally drove me off PC gaming for years!
I sent tech support an email asking why my account had been suspended. They told me nothing useful; the account had been suspended. That was quite literally it. I insisted on the matter, and got copy/pasted replies from previous vague e-mails and in a couple of cases, I even got blank e-mails with just the signature that usually goes at the bottom and nothing else. The only noticeable difference was that at one stage they stopped saying 'suspended' and switched to 'deactivated'.
I offered to take photos of my games and CD keys, in case that was the issue, but nothing came of it. I even contacted the developers of a couple of the games directly to see if they could help (Relic and Creative Assembly), but even they told me there was nothing they could do.
After a few months of this, I just gave up. Not just Steam, but PC gaming altogether. I bought a PS3 shortly afterwards, and I have only recently (a couple of weeks ago, in fact) returned to the PC for my games. I never found out why my account was suspended. I recently found the ticket for my issue and decided to check it out out of curiosity, but it's not even valid any more.
I understand why people love Steam. It's convenient. It has awesome sales. But to me, the reality is, Steam robbed me of hundreds of ??? of legally-bought games as surely as if they had come into my home and took them off the shelf. As bad as EA, Activision and other companies are, Steam (and Valve) are the only ones that hold that dubious distinction. And although I have to use it these days (I quite literally have no choice on the matter), I'm always paranoid that my games simply aren't safe anymore and might be arbitrarily taken away at a moment's notice.
Again.
And you might say 'oh, but that's extremely rare and you were just unlucky', and that might be the case. But I'd argue that also gives me some unique perspective into the matter.
Here's what happened: a few years ago, I was a hardcore PC gamer. I'd been gaming on the PC since the early 90's, and nothing seemed like it was going to change that. When Steam came along, it was heaven sent. I raved about it to my friends, and instantly fell in love with it. But I kept buying physical copies of games, as I like having the discs on my shelves. I am also staunchly anti-piracy.
One day, I moved from my home to a new location. It took me a couple of weeks to sign back into Steam, and when I did, I got a warning saying my account had been 'suspended'. What followed was a story of incompetence and corporate vagueness so bad it literally drove me off PC gaming for years!
I sent tech support an email asking why my account had been suspended. They told me nothing useful; the account had been suspended. That was quite literally it. I insisted on the matter, and got copy/pasted replies from previous vague e-mails and in a couple of cases, I even got blank e-mails with just the signature that usually goes at the bottom and nothing else. The only noticeable difference was that at one stage they stopped saying 'suspended' and switched to 'deactivated'.
I offered to take photos of my games and CD keys, in case that was the issue, but nothing came of it. I even contacted the developers of a couple of the games directly to see if they could help (Relic and Creative Assembly), but even they told me there was nothing they could do.
After a few months of this, I just gave up. Not just Steam, but PC gaming altogether. I bought a PS3 shortly afterwards, and I have only recently (a couple of weeks ago, in fact) returned to the PC for my games. I never found out why my account was suspended. I recently found the ticket for my issue and decided to check it out out of curiosity, but it's not even valid any more.
I understand why people love Steam. It's convenient. It has awesome sales. But to me, the reality is, Steam robbed me of hundreds of ??? of legally-bought games as surely as if they had come into my home and took them off the shelf. As bad as EA, Activision and other companies are, Steam (and Valve) are the only ones that hold that dubious distinction. And although I have to use it these days (I quite literally have no choice on the matter), I'm always paranoid that my games simply aren't safe anymore and might be arbitrarily taken away at a moment's notice.
Again.
And you might say 'oh, but that's extremely rare and you were just unlucky', and that might be the case. But I'd argue that also gives me some unique perspective into the matter.
I hate Steam partially because it promotes a culture of indefinite lending rather than total ownership, along with software like iTunes, Playstation Network and XBLA, wherein you buy software, are forced to play it through a single platform and have absolutely no ability to sell it to others. Furthermore, if any of these services ever go down (temporarily or permanently) you are effectively prohibited from enjoying content you paid for.
So yeah, there's that.
Then there's Steam's disservice of enforcing regional pricing, not refunding games unless you explicitly e-mail them and imply you're gonna take them to court all under the banner of "it's in the TOS" even though that holds no legal binding in most of the world. Even excusing illegal actions on their part too.
Finally we have the obnoxious fucking Valve fanboys who, not unlike MLP and Apple fanboys, have made me hate the source material because they bring up Valve in every fucking thread as if it was a company designed by God himself; solution to every mistake, creator of everything good and righteous and beacon of light of all wayward games even though they only made a single fucking game in half a decade even with 2Bn+ net worth, their games are really just okay and their service is effectively inferior to a lot of services on the market but they get away with it 'cause they have pretty much monopolised the whole thing.
So yeah.
So yeah, there's that.
Then there's Steam's disservice of enforcing regional pricing, not refunding games unless you explicitly e-mail them and imply you're gonna take them to court all under the banner of "it's in the TOS" even though that holds no legal binding in most of the world. Even excusing illegal actions on their part too.
Finally we have the obnoxious fucking Valve fanboys who, not unlike MLP and Apple fanboys, have made me hate the source material because they bring up Valve in every fucking thread as if it was a company designed by God himself; solution to every mistake, creator of everything good and righteous and beacon of light of all wayward games even though they only made a single fucking game in half a decade even with 2Bn+ net worth, their games are really just okay and their service is effectively inferior to a lot of services on the market but they get away with it 'cause they have pretty much monopolised the whole thing.
So yeah.
You know what my question always is? What the hell is Steam supposed to do about a game that the developer messes up? Are they supposed to maintain a massive and comprehensive technical support network for every single game on their service? Back in the day when a PC game didn't work immediately I didn't go bitching to Software Etc. I don't see why I should be bitching to Steam now.Strelok said:
This is it exactly, I understand to bring an issue to their attention, perhaps they could pull the game till the developer fixes it, if they still exist. Or place a warning on the store page (see the Kings Quest games), but to expect them to fix it is absurd.DrOswald said:
This isn't me being condescending, this is me telling you how it is. The worst users are not the ones who are computer illiterate. They know they have room for improvement, you can teach them. I can teach a man how to open his email or to never click on links in IM. No, By far the worst are the "experts", who know just enough to ruin everything and then blame it on anything and everything else when things don't work. Steam is a really convenient target because it is highly visible. And gamers are almost always "experts".Shamanic Rhythm said:
Fair enough.
Basically about 50% of the games I purchase on steam don't work on their own. I have to spend anywhere between ten minutes to two hours getting them to work.
When I point this out others say, "I don't have that problem, must just be your PC's fault and not the games". WELL IF I'M HAVING THIS PROBLEM AND WHEN I SEARCH AROUND I SEE OTHERS HAVING THIS PROBLEM IT'S A DAMN PROBLEM.
Although getting this perfect is near impossible, other than that I love steam. For specific kinds of games, so when I see the games I want on GOG or the HumbleBundle, hell I don't even mind Uplay. I head for there, because so far anything i've gotten from those sites has instantly worked (other than one Uplay occasion).
When I point this out others say, "I don't have that problem, must just be your PC's fault and not the games". WELL IF I'M HAVING THIS PROBLEM AND WHEN I SEARCH AROUND I SEE OTHERS HAVING THIS PROBLEM IT'S A DAMN PROBLEM.
Although getting this perfect is near impossible, other than that I love steam. For specific kinds of games, so when I see the games I want on GOG or the HumbleBundle, hell I don't even mind Uplay. I head for there, because so far anything i've gotten from those sites has instantly worked (other than one Uplay occasion).
I have hated Steam for a very long time. It's difficult to go into all the details as to why though. Steam has done great things yes but it has also done bad things. Since a big part of why people like or dislike something all I can offer you is my personal reasons for disliking it.
1. Regional pricing. I live in Australia and there for have to pay more for games. It wasn't always this way though. When Steam was new we were paying the standard $50 fee for games and then the price suddenly spiked to $100 for no good reason. Steam was supposed to bring death to the retail age now retailers and actually cheaper then steam.
2. Quality control. Steams quality controls has certainly taken a nose dive but it's never been great to be honest. For Valve games and most AAA games it was fine but now and then you'd find a slightly older game that simply wouldn't work.
3. Poor customer service, I'm going to retroactively use the previous two uses as an example for this one. When I complained about my games not working that I paid for Steam admins weren't even prepared to take a look at it or forward my complainant to the publishers. They simply said to check out the forums or take it up the publisher directly. Doing so got very little response.
as with regional pricing I bought that up with the admins too. They said take it up with the publisher while the publishers said take it up with Steam. I decided that neither group was going to see my money again. I also bought up the issue of regional pricing on the forums and I never felt so ignored in my life. The community simply didn't care and didn't want to care. The admins moved to the thread to another section of the forums where it would get less views. I got furious and posted a comment that got me banned.
4. Finely DRM. By the end of the day Steam is steal DRM and still has the power to inconvenience people that that. When I first got the orange Box I had to take my whole computer to a friends house and use their internet to install the game and sign in offline. This was a massive pain especially since I didn't have a car. To top it off sometimes offline mode doesn't work or stops working after a while preventing you from accessing your game.
So those are just some of the reasons why I personally hate Steam, I hope people who like Steam and read this posting will under stand the prospective.
1. Regional pricing. I live in Australia and there for have to pay more for games. It wasn't always this way though. When Steam was new we were paying the standard $50 fee for games and then the price suddenly spiked to $100 for no good reason. Steam was supposed to bring death to the retail age now retailers and actually cheaper then steam.
2. Quality control. Steams quality controls has certainly taken a nose dive but it's never been great to be honest. For Valve games and most AAA games it was fine but now and then you'd find a slightly older game that simply wouldn't work.
3. Poor customer service, I'm going to retroactively use the previous two uses as an example for this one. When I complained about my games not working that I paid for Steam admins weren't even prepared to take a look at it or forward my complainant to the publishers. They simply said to check out the forums or take it up the publisher directly. Doing so got very little response.
as with regional pricing I bought that up with the admins too. They said take it up with the publisher while the publishers said take it up with Steam. I decided that neither group was going to see my money again. I also bought up the issue of regional pricing on the forums and I never felt so ignored in my life. The community simply didn't care and didn't want to care. The admins moved to the thread to another section of the forums where it would get less views. I got furious and posted a comment that got me banned.
4. Finely DRM. By the end of the day Steam is steal DRM and still has the power to inconvenience people that that. When I first got the orange Box I had to take my whole computer to a friends house and use their internet to install the game and sign in offline. This was a massive pain especially since I didn't have a car. To top it off sometimes offline mode doesn't work or stops working after a while preventing you from accessing your game.
So those are just some of the reasons why I personally hate Steam, I hope people who like Steam and read this posting will under stand the prospective.
Problems i see with steam at the moment
1) The ui is slow and unclear (its got worse in the past year or so)
2) No quality control, no checking if the game runs correctly on modern systems.
3) utter trash from years ago littering the new games section.
4) No refunds
Overall i think steam is good for the industry and i have picked up some superb bargains but there are problems that need to be addressed.
Oh and who buys disk for PC games nowadays? I don't even have a disk drive in my system, its slow and you have the risk of the disk getting damaged or lost and its usually more expensive. I just don't get why anyone would bother, next you will be telling me Microsoft should still do a floppy disk version of windows.
1) The ui is slow and unclear (its got worse in the past year or so)
2) No quality control, no checking if the game runs correctly on modern systems.
3) utter trash from years ago littering the new games section.
4) No refunds
Overall i think steam is good for the industry and i have picked up some superb bargains but there are problems that need to be addressed.
Oh and who buys disk for PC games nowadays? I don't even have a disk drive in my system, its slow and you have the risk of the disk getting damaged or lost and its usually more expensive. I just don't get why anyone would bother, next you will be telling me Microsoft should still do a floppy disk version of windows.
When its comes to steam there are logical, emotional, and strange feelings people have the thing.
I for one, tolerate it at best, while hating the side effect of it.
1: lack of QC; need I say more when there are so many recent cases of broken games on purpose being put for sale.
2: Early access boom; when most of the first games seen for selection as well as being top sellers are early access games. There a problem since it teaches game companies that they can sell incomplete games if they cross out complete with early access. What would happen if this spread to the mobile market?
3: Effective monopoly; Monopolies are never good for the customer because once it has taken hold and grown enough, the monopoly can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. Since its completion is so weak and small compare to it. It has little to worry about. When that happens, they can set the prices, functions, options, that consumers can have. And they have little to no say in the matter. If you are banned. Tough cookies. Buy a game that will not work either due to developer incompetence, or is impossible to fix? Too bad. No refunds for games you ended up no liking? Sorry no can do.
4: The fans; Valvies I loathe for many reasons. They blindly praise steam, the seller, for pretty much anything it does. While ignoring most, if not all, justified reason to not like it. They are hypocrites for when a German consumer group tries to sue Valve for violating consumer rights, they see it as a injustice, yet turn on EA or any other group for doing similar things to Valve. Personally I would not be surprise if people dislike steam just because of them. They say bad fanbases can ruin someone's enjoyment of a thing, which for entertainment can be avoided, if your careful. But when the fanbase is of a seller, and is widespread of game websites like this one, avoiding it all but impossible, short of going off grid.
They are other reasons, but I think these are the most common most people have when it comes to steam.
I for one, tolerate it at best, while hating the side effect of it.
1: lack of QC; need I say more when there are so many recent cases of broken games on purpose being put for sale.
2: Early access boom; when most of the first games seen for selection as well as being top sellers are early access games. There a problem since it teaches game companies that they can sell incomplete games if they cross out complete with early access. What would happen if this spread to the mobile market?
3: Effective monopoly; Monopolies are never good for the customer because once it has taken hold and grown enough, the monopoly can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. Since its completion is so weak and small compare to it. It has little to worry about. When that happens, they can set the prices, functions, options, that consumers can have. And they have little to no say in the matter. If you are banned. Tough cookies. Buy a game that will not work either due to developer incompetence, or is impossible to fix? Too bad. No refunds for games you ended up no liking? Sorry no can do.
4: The fans; Valvies I loathe for many reasons. They blindly praise steam, the seller, for pretty much anything it does. While ignoring most, if not all, justified reason to not like it. They are hypocrites for when a German consumer group tries to sue Valve for violating consumer rights, they see it as a injustice, yet turn on EA or any other group for doing similar things to Valve. Personally I would not be surprise if people dislike steam just because of them. They say bad fanbases can ruin someone's enjoyment of a thing, which for entertainment can be avoided, if your careful. But when the fanbase is of a seller, and is widespread of game websites like this one, avoiding it all but impossible, short of going off grid.
They are other reasons, but I think these are the most common most people have when it comes to steam.
I used to hate it when it just started out and you had to download a lot just to get a game working. Since data has become cheaper, I don't mind so much anymore, although it would've been great if games didn't need it. Valve is one of the developers I still fully support, so power to them!
Firstly, because steam binds several parts of games to the steam service (community, multiplayer, achievements). That mean you potentially lose out of you buy from a non Steam source.
And secondly because Steam is *fucking dangerous*. We've already seen with EAs bid at Origin that people are willing to complain for no other reason than they can't buy EA games on Steam (Origin has had other problems yes, but I see this complaint constantly). Because of this sort of deranged loyalty, created in no small part by the above mentioned unnecessary integration with the store, Steam is on a path to be in a position where it'll be able to dictate terms to devs that want to sell to PC in ten years or so. We've already seen Amazon do this with the book market, and as a result both put a squeeze on the publisher (resulting in less money for author and publisher alike) and in a heavily homophobic implementation of its censorship policy.
Sadly, I don't see an alternative, MS has clearly signalled if it'll lock down the PC platform altogether if given the opportunity, Valve is the only company with both the position and inclination to challenge this (which is the real purpose of the Steambox, get more third party software on Linux and thus force MS to stay open for fear of real competition). Pick the master you want I guess :/
And secondly because Steam is *fucking dangerous*. We've already seen with EAs bid at Origin that people are willing to complain for no other reason than they can't buy EA games on Steam (Origin has had other problems yes, but I see this complaint constantly). Because of this sort of deranged loyalty, created in no small part by the above mentioned unnecessary integration with the store, Steam is on a path to be in a position where it'll be able to dictate terms to devs that want to sell to PC in ten years or so. We've already seen Amazon do this with the book market, and as a result both put a squeeze on the publisher (resulting in less money for author and publisher alike) and in a heavily homophobic implementation of its censorship policy.
Sadly, I don't see an alternative, MS has clearly signalled if it'll lock down the PC platform altogether if given the opportunity, Valve is the only company with both the position and inclination to challenge this (which is the real purpose of the Steambox, get more third party software on Linux and thus force MS to stay open for fear of real competition). Pick the master you want I guess :/
so? are you forgetting EA is one of the biggest publishers in the industry?The White Hunter said:
why doesnt firaxis get the same criticism as valve? they have released less games in the last decade than them, many of the games they released are expansions, and lets not even talk about blizzard
also whats the problem with mods? counter-strike, team fortress, dota, games based on mods and are some of the most popular and critically acclaimed games on PC
man...Caiphus said:
you are a GENIUS!
piracy of course, you are right, i no longer think a refund policy could significantly affect short games
i like your policy for refunds, i think it could work
steam does take responsability for scammed items, atleast stolen onesLaughing Man said:
also ive made well over 200 dollars via trading and the community market, and the vast mayority of my 136 game collection was acquired via trading
so allow me to respectfully disagree there, oh, also, steam trading is not a recent feature, it has existed for atleast 2 years
also community features such as forums for every single game, user reviews, community guides, screenshots hub, artwork hub, groups, etc
also id dare say i prefer to use the workshop on almost every game that supports it instead of a dedicated modding website, because i only have to press a button to download my mods and they are updated automatically, is an option, you can use the workshop or any number of modding websites, the workshop is a great features for those who like mods but want a hassle free experience when it comes to installing them
also if you dont like trading cards, just sell em on the market and make some extra cash, as simple as that
you might not like these features, but other people clearly do