STEAM SELLS BROKEN GAMES!

[brunothepig]

First, Steam are neither the publisher or developer. Unless it's an issue with the Steam version only, that Steam created (which is unlikely considering the nature of the problems) then it's not their fault. No one was blaming Gamestop for all the crap in Rage or Fallout or what have you.

In fact, three of your examples are audio, so probably an issue on your end. Check your drivers for new updates, check the forums for known issues with soundcards. Plus the most recent release you listed there is from 2004. 7 years old, you can't expect a game to work perfectly with todays hardware. If you're running Win7 then this isn't exactly surprising. Rockstar never release good PC versions, on Steam or otherwise.

It is quite likely these aren't common issues. KOTOR is infamous for being unreliable on new systems. If it's a driver/hardware issue, which it probably is, it's unfair to expect anyone to test every combination of OS and hardware. Have you checked the forums? Usually there's a fix for any problem you might encounter, and if you report the problem and Steam find out it's an issue on there end they might look into it.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

I can't speak for the others, but Max Payne and Commandos are pretty old games. As games age and hardware changes, sometimes new bugs pop up, and if it's been years since release it's unlikely these new bugs will be patched by the developers. This isn't the distributor's responsibility.

I have firsthand experience with Max Payne so I can tell you: the broken audio issue you experience isn't the result of Steam distributing a broken copy of the game. Rather, it's because the game itself doesn't interact well with newer hardware. I know this because I own a retail copy of the game from years back, which used to work perfectly but which no longer does on newer PCs. All is not lost, however. Look at this fix on the Steam forums [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=848215].

I know this kind of thing is frustrating, but this kind of complexity is the price you sometimes have to pay for gaming on a PC. There are upsides too, though. Even though old games sometimes have problems like this, the PC's backwards compatibility is still miles beyond that of any console I know of. I've encountered very few games that absolutely can't be made to work on my current PC -- I can play just about any game in my collection, even the 20+ year old ones I used to play on an Amiga 500 computer as a child.

 

[Ruwrak]

Pre post: Damn been ninja'ed.


But yeah what the rest said.
Wonder if it's an origin employee? [/silly and absolutely not ment to be taken serious sentence]

 

[suitepee7]

snip

you have been answered in the first post

I understand where you're coming from, and please don't take this as hostility, but.. those are the games' faults, right? Steam distributes, it has no part in porting, development or patching of said games.

the most likely causes are either having a too modern computer for those older games, or the games having bugs anyway.

if you are having that much of a problem, contact steam support and see what they have to say. if they blow you off and say "not our problem" then you have a reason to complain, but they aren't dicks and wouldn't, so you don't.

 

[karoliso]

Most likely the games you bought are too old to run on a modern computer. If that's the case then I recommend a program called 3D Analyze. It can emulate hardware. I use it to play the multiplayer portion of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Also if your computer has more than one core I suggest you put the game to run on only one. You can find online tutorials on how to do this.

 

[CoL0sS]

I understand where you're coming from, and please don't take this as hostility, but.. those are the games' faults, right? Steam distributes, it has no part in porting, development or patching of said games.

What this smart man said.

Now concerning your issues.
1) Max Payne missing audio - well known issue on Vista/Win7 -> there is a patch that fixes it
2) See 1)
3) Didn't play - can't comment
4) /sarcasm Really ?
5) Sega makes shitty console ports

 

[Idsertian]

As everyone else has stated, you can't blame Steam when the devs give them crap software in the first place.

Now, if you were playing TF2 and the item servers went down, you could blame Steam, as the two almost always seem to go down together. Blaming Steam for the issues you've stated above...not so much.

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

examples:
Max Payne ($10) - broken audio in key scenes
commandos: behind enemy lines ($5) - broken audio and save/load features.
full spectrum warrior(15$)- crackling audio (ruins game experience)
most Rockstar games have obvious major flaws (+$30)
Sega games are prone to crash, and many more..

Sounds like you've got a broken soundcard, or bad drivers, nothing to do with steam.

And every game crashes, often to do with hardware, theyre the exact same versions of the games sold in stores. Valve and steam have done nothing wrong, your hardware is probably broken, calm down and have a biscuit

 

[Wintermoot]

I also got a bug in a game that refused to boot (SR2 already started a help thread) FROM THE RETAIL VERSION.
games have bugs look for patches or fix it yourself.

 

[Tanakh]

I came here expecting tears about Dungeons Defender. Leave dissapointed.

 

[Plazmatic]

Never before has a publisher gotten away with such widespread distribution of essentially flawed/unplayable software. Steam needs to take responsibility for the product it deliver to gamers, how can we advance gaming if major publishers are knowingly distributing games that do not work on modern systems, and making the gamers do all the work to find MODs to fix them. Sometime a mod does not exist and the game sits 'on the shelf' a digital waste of money.

examples:
Max Payne ($10) - broken audio in key scenes
commandos: behind enemy lines ($5) - broken audio and save/load features.
full spectrum warrior(15$)- crackling audio (ruins game experience)
most Rockstar games have obvious major flaws (+$30)
Sega games are prone to crash, and many more..

These games are being sold in part of recent sales packages, and they have completely broken game features right out of the box. Is that fair to gamers? I know these are older titles, but it is absolutely steam's responsibility to fix games to be compatible with windows 7 and modern hardware BEFORE selling them.

I love the concept of steam, and that is what makes me so mad about this. Steam is supposed to be representing pc gaming, and their magic '1 click' service delivers you a broken game? Steam, this is a SERIOUS PROBLEM. FIX THIS NOW, or give us our refunds.

sorry not steam's fault, quit whining.

 

[Lukeje]

Max Payne ($10) - broken audio in key scenes

Did you try reading the system requirements? You know, the bit where it says ``OS: Microsoft® Windows® 2000/XP (only)''?

 

[Conza]

Never before has a publisher gotten away with such widespread distribution of essentially flawed/unplayable software. Steam needs to take responsibility for the product it deliver to gamers, how can we advance gaming if major publishers are knowingly distributing games that do not work on modern systems, and making the gamers do all the work to find MODs to fix them. Sometime a mod does not exist and the game sits 'on the shelf' a digital waste of money.

examples:
Max Payne ($10) - broken audio in key scenes
commandos: behind enemy lines ($5) - broken audio and save/load features.
full spectrum warrior(15$)- crackling audio (ruins game experience)
most Rockstar games have obvious major flaws (+$30)
Sega games are prone to crash, and many more..

These games are being sold in part of recent sales packages, and they have completely broken game features right out of the box. Is that fair to gamers? I know these are older titles, but it is absolutely steam's responsibility to fix games to be compatible with windows 7 and modern hardware BEFORE selling them.

I love the concept of steam, and that is what makes me so mad about this. Steam is supposed to be representing pc gaming, and their magic '1 click' service delivers you a broken game? Steam, this is a SERIOUS PROBLEM. FIX THIS NOW, or give us our refunds.

This is all forgivable, if they put a disclaimer with the problem (once someone has made them aware).

Solution. Forward these details onto them, and tell them that they must put these bugs as a disclaimer on selling the software. It is likely you've put 2+2 together, they are so cheap; because of these issues, but they chose to lower the price and sweep the problems under the rug.

Otherwise, its just a co-incidence.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

As a slightly more useful post, please do check the steam forum for the games you're having problems with, if there's not an official fix, there's often a solution from a fellow gamer.

I'd suggest you could almost replace 'Steam' with 'stores' however, if it's being sent out broken, it's the supplier at fault, really, although, if it's a large fault with all stock, the store SHOULD stop selling it, simply as an act of customer service, I know steam can be at fault there.

The biggest problem is, a PC game has to work on windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7, and all the 'editions' of those operating systems, then it has to work on a million combinations of CPU, motherboards, video and sound cards, and then you add dodgy drivers into it. It's just not the plug and play options of consoles.

 

[Gregg Lonsdale]

umm... yeah, what everyone else said. not steam's fault

 

[wooty]

The only thing steam needs to fix, for me at least, is its goddamn cloud cr-app, I didnt ask for it and I dont need it.