Steam Version of Dead Space 2 Dead in the Water

[Jesus Phish]

While it sucks for those that got a defective game (and reading around the thread it seems that its not just steam that has this issue so perhaps an update is required), this can happen on any machine. Console or pc. I remember a friend buying New Vegas 2 for his 360 on it's release day and the xbox just sat there telling him "please insert disc".

As for Steam charging more for digital distrubition, yes $60 is more than other vendors, but that $5 copy of GTA:TFLC complete edition I bought at christmas time sure saved me alot of money.

 

[Zefar]

Things like this happen once in a while to a game and you might not be able to play it for a day or two.

But it really doesn't matter. It's not like you die waiting for it and you can keep playing it for years as long as you remember your Steam Account information and have a good PC.

Kinda fun seeing people go "Oh look how bad PC gaming is!" when they have these small bumps of problem once in a while.

So when did you Console gamers buy those console games at a price of $5 or $2 even though they've been out for like a year?

But I've stopped buying games on Launch as I know it will be cheaper later. So I never had launch days problems.

 

[matrix3509]

Can someone please tell me why EA thought it necessary to add a serial key ON TOP of Steam's DRM? Seriously, publishers (and developers) do this all the frikin time with Steam and it never fails to piss me off.

 

[Diligent]

So as for the convenience of popping in a game and having it "just work" without any fuss on consoles here is my Dead Space 2 experience after picking it up last night at about 8:00.
Step 1, update the PS3.
Step 2, insert disk.
Step 3, sign up for EA online account.
Step 4, register multiplayer key through my EA online account.
NOW YOU CAN PLAY! (It's 9:40)

Lets not delude ourselves into thinking that consoles are like the were back in the SNES/genesis days where you pop in your game, press on and you're playing it. They are becoming more and more like PC's all the time, and the fact that it took me over 1 hour to get to playing my game is evidence of that.
I find it less of a chore to get the average steam game installed and running, but that's just me.

That being said, I'm glad I went for the game on consoles, because if I purchased it last night for the PC, I might not have been playing it at all.

 

[HellspawnCandy]

Steam (run by Valve) doesn't know how to treat its customers? I've never heard anyone argue THAT before, hell, they gave EVERYONE A FREE COPY OF PORTAL when it came out for Mac, I'm sure this is a mistake on EA's end.

Apologetics never get old.

Except it really is EAs fault. Valve doesn't hand out the keys. They just host the game for DL.

True. But Valve still has horrendous costumer support. When I bought Risen they ran out of keys. I submitted a ticket. It took a week and a half before they bothered to reply. They also said nothing on the forums about when it would be resolved. And that's just one of the problems I've had. When Season 3 of Sam and Max was released they held it back in order to coordinate with their god damn Mac crap at the time. Again: no word. The only person who told anything was Videogames Rodkin over at TellTale. Not a damn word from Valve despite it being their fault. The game was long released at TellTales own store.

So I'm getting a bit tired of all the apologetics who think Valve can do no wrong. They generally are crap at keeping their costumers informed of anything. I'm surprised they even admitted there is a problem in this case.

Also note the recent crap with disabled accounts and gift giving.

Oh, yea. One more thing: Valve has misunderstood the idea of digital distribution. Every game on Steam is about 30-50% more expensive than I can get a disc copy for. In the case of Dead Space 2: 50? on Steam. 25 or 30? on play.com. The same goes for Shogun 2. It's preposterous and downright infuriating. So don't defend Valve as being costumer friendly too much.

As much as steam is handy, I can't help but agree. I've lost copies of games due to things not working, had to wait(I didn't know you could send a ticket, they just told me I'm shit out of luck) due to their stupid billing pages it's doubled or tripled the copies of games of what I wanted. I was dead in the the water....

 

[camazotz]

Another reason why EA sucks.
BTW I am still gonna buy the game one year later for 10$. XD

Ditto! If digital distribution through Steam has taught me anything, it's to:

A. wait for their end of year and July 4th sales

B. Wait six month for the $60 game to drop to $20, or wait one year for it to hit $5-$10.

As soon as I decided I don't need to be a Day One Buyer, I started saving a lot of money.

Plus, I avoid snafus like this =)

 

[Dracosage]

Console gaming has become inconvenient to the point where I just don't even do it anymore specifically because I have to turn on all the **** to get everything running and fiddle with discs when my laptop is merely sitting here with Steam already open and I can carry it anywhere. So I do quite disagree with your ending remark, Mr. Funk (although I'd never buy a game like Dead Space anyway so I suppose none of this matters to me). I am of course aware that this makes me seem like a lazy person but I am usually only get short periods of time to play games or get on the internet as it is so something like speed of startup is extremely important.


Also, what's this with delaying Sam and Max season 3? I don't remember such a thing.

 

[Shayral]

Oh come on, isn't that a little harsh? I mean, that's like saying "Man, for all the convenience of pick-up-and-play with consoles, when the disc breaks at least Digital Distribution forums will often explain how you can still play your game instead of waiting for something to fix it."

It's a bit of a bias argument, though I see it wasn't exactly you slagging on Steam. But it does seem EA is to blame here, as I've never had troubles with third-party games on steam before with keys.

EDIT: Let us not forget EA's previous... Insults to Steam and gamers worldwide. Modern warfare 2 still at launch price even though Black Ops has been out for months..

 

[Torinir]

EA had nothing to do with the CoD series. That's 100% Activision.