Valve haters, vs Valve fanboys. DRM and Why do some people hate Valve and steam?

[gigastar]

Well I don't hate Valve but I do hate steam. It has good sales sure but aside from that the program is horrendously bad. Slow to load, ugly UI, constant updates and inconsistent download speeds are my chief complaints with it. Also outside of the sales it's regular prices are absurd.

Absurd as opposed to what? Console prices? BWAhahahaha.

Yes. Absurd compared to console prices. I can pick up a console title for $69 dollars brand new while steam regularly charges 79-89 dollars (even $110 for certain titles).

Then that may be because youre living in a country with a high tax rate on digital sales.

Also note that the asking prices are not determined by Steam, but by the publishers.

 

[w9496]

In my experience, Steam ran like a virus on my computer, always wanted to be online and got pissy when it wasn't getting enough attention.

Then there are the hyper-rabid fanboys/fangirls that insist they are simply the greatest and must convert you to the cult of Valve.

My biggest gripe is the source engine. Could you imagine if any other company used the same ugly engine for as long as Valve has? They'd be torn apart for not updating. Why Valve gets a free pass, I might never know.

 

[AlbertoDeSanta]

I can pick up a console title for $69 dollars brand new while steam regularly charges 79-89 dollars (even $110 for certain titles).

No, just no, I just did a search of Steam and there are only half a dozen games above 60-70 dollar price point, almost all of which are bundle packs or 'premium' editions. I know sometimes prices are different in different countries so maybe thats it.

Steam prices very according to your country. This usually falls down to weather said country taxes video games. South Americans and Australians have it worse from what i have heard.

Backing this up with first hand evidence in Australia. Australian Civ 5, not gold edition, is $70. That's right. Seventy. Fucking. Dollars. I recently bought two copies from TF2 outpost for about $8. It baffles the mind how the taxation of pretty much everything here in Australia is viewed by anybody sane as 'fair'. Yes, they help to keep our country as 'well run' as it is, but, it's unfair to any form of Consumerist society.

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

In my experience, Steam ran like a virus on my computer, always wanted to be online and got pissy when it wasn't getting enough attention.

Then there are the hyper-rabid fanboys/fangirls that insist they are simply the greatest and must convert you to the cult of Valve.

My biggest gripe is the source engine. Could you imagine if any other company used the same ugly engine for as long as Valve has? They'd be torn apart for not updating. Why Valve gets a free pass, I might never know.

The source engine has been updated numerous times, it was designed as a modular engine that could be incrementally upgraded over time rather than having to be rewritten each time. Compare the source engine that ran the original Half life 2 to the source engine that ran Portal 2, the shaders and lighting and water effects and all that are completely revamped, same engine, just upgraded. Even Dota2, a MOBA, runs in the source engine, an engine originally designed for first person shooters.

Source is actually pretty incredible from a technical standpoint, but is definitely starting to show its age a bit I think, Gabe has stated previously that a new engine is in the works.

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

I can pick up a console title for $69 dollars brand new while steam regularly charges 79-89 dollars (even $110 for certain titles).

No, just no, I just did a search of Steam and there are only half a dozen games above 60-70 dollar price point, almost all of which are bundle packs or 'premium' editions. I know sometimes prices are different in different countries so maybe thats it.

Steam prices very according to your country. This usually falls down to weather said country taxes video games. South Americans and Australians have it worse from what i have heard.

Backing this up with first hand evidence in Australia. Australian Civ 5, not gold edition, is $70. That's right. Seventy. Fucking. Dollars. I recently bought two copies from TF2 outpost for about $8. It baffles the mind how the taxation of pretty much everything here in Australia is viewed by anybody sane as 'fair'. Yes, they help to keep our country as 'well run' as it is, but, it's unfair to any form of Consumerist society.

Well I am in china at the moment, (for a few months) and you can't even buy Civ 5 here, steam just says 'not available in your region' so don't feel so bad.

 

[w9496]

In my experience, Steam ran like a virus on my computer, always wanted to be online and got pissy when it wasn't getting enough attention.

Then there are the hyper-rabid fanboys/fangirls that insist they are simply the greatest and must convert you to the cult of Valve.

My biggest gripe is the source engine. Could you imagine if any other company used the same ugly engine for as long as Valve has? They'd be torn apart for not updating. Why Valve gets a free pass, I might never know.

Source is actually pretty incredible from a technical standpoint, but is definitely starting to show its age a bit I think, Gabe has stated previously that a new engine is in the works.

Well that's good to hear. I admit, Source was pretty amazing back in the day, but even if they have been updating it all of this time, It looks like ass in games like Left 4 Dead.

If they are working on a new engine, I wonder how long they're going to hold on to this one. Maybe it will still be around for the release of Episode 3.

 

[RandV80]

Thanks for doing the legwork here, it goes to show that $team is covering their asses legally in exactly the same way that M$, $ony and ?A with Origin, this certainly gives them more power over consumers than they had previously, and thats not cool. The real question is, out of these four companies who do you trust the most? All I can say is, it ain't Microsoft, and it definitely ain't EA..

No problem, it's number 17 in Sony's PSN EULA.

http://legaldoc.dl.playstation.net/ps3-eula/psn/u/u_tosua_en.html

I think a lot of the hate comes from not really understanding it, as long time PC gamers know what most of us did in the late 80's and through the 90's was pretty bad. Piracy was rampant and I am guilty of it as anyone else was, we didn't think it was hurting anyone, but it was, it was hurting PC gaming. Steam is a Hell of a lot better than what many of us deserve that is for sure, maybe a few years of extreme delayed release dates or no games at all would have kept the complaints to a minimum.

Console gamers complain cause they don't understand it either, as you can see most probably don't even understand what they are signing on to with PSN and XBox Live. Hang around the XBox Live support forum for a day and watch twenty or thirty people a day lose access to everything they downloaded on XBox Live including any points or money on their account just for changing their avatar colour or having a curse word in their Bio.

Steam's method is the future for gaming, as you can see Microsoft already tried it, and they won't give up, if consoles survive another generation I guarantee they will have similar if not identical setup to Steam.

That's sort of the point I was going to make. DRM has become a buzz word, and rightly gets trashed on by the internet. However on the PC for both games and software 'DRM' has been in existence well before that even became a term. Before Napster ever came around you had stuff like CD keys and some really creative idea's in the game industry like putting what was essentially a cypher in the game manual locking you in the starting area if you didn't have it. These were attempts to make sure the person that bought the game was the one playing it, as back then there was nothing stopping you from creating copies of the game.

What came later was when the music industry started getting involved to combat that great big evil known as internet piracy, but they took things a step further and began adding draconian measures to there stuff creating enhanced content control for themselves at the expense of the consumer. In my opinion this is the evil of DRM. We've seen it attempted by companies like EA and Ubisoft, but we haven't seen it from Valve. Steam uses very reasonable methods to make sure that you're paying for what you but, same as PC developers used to do before Napster, and no more. Some people will lump it in with all the rest of the DRM since it's similar in nature but this distinction really needs to be made.

And people ask why does Valve get a free pass when other game developers don't? To me that answer is very simple: they're a privately held company. Valve doesn't have to answer to shareholders, instead Gabe Newell gets to call all the shots. Shitty things happen when the CEO has to go to the board and answer to shareholders "how do we earn the greatest profit?"

If Valve ever goes publicly traded, then I'll be worried for Steam. But until then they've earned my full trust. And I'm not even a big fan of the games, I only got around to play the Half Life series last year, took me a while to get around to the Portal games as well, and that's all I've played from them. Really I'm just a fan of the Steam platform.

 

[residentout1]

right now i am angry at steam i got fable 3 on sale two weeks ago and can't play it because they been out of cd keys and from what i can tell on the form a lot of other people are in the same boat as me geting no help from steam just get automated response from then there has been no sign i will get a key soon
just how long does it take to get cd keys?

http://steamcommunity.com/app/105400/discussions/

 

[RandV80]

While I wouldn't go as far as saying I hate them, there are a number of things that annoy me about them. The first thing is that age old joke that they can't count to three. Way back in 2006 they said that the Half Life 2 episodes would be "a trilogy that will conclude by Christmas 2007". Well it's six years later and it still hasn't happened.



Sure, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. They take small time developers with great concepts and help them gain the success they deserve. But if they are just throwing resources behind these things, why not just act as a publisher? Instead they hire them so they can ultimately take all the credit for them and the success that comes with it.

Of course they do a lot of good as well. Namely their sales and their ideologies but the good doesn't take away the bad, it only takes the edge of it.

You say that all like it's a bad thing, but put them up in comparison to what other developers have done when they hit gold. On one end you have a company like Blizzard that's done basically nothing with their money, I'm guessing they have a Scrooge McDuck like vault somewhere where the company founders swim in all their money. And on the other you have ones like EA or Activision that simply started buying up competitors and turning into the big bad publisher that sucks the life out of developers and turns them into soulless sequel machines.

 

[black_knight1337]

as for your comment about why aren't they just a publisher, you are underestimating the fact that they don't just throw resources at these small time guys that they hire, they also throw in-house people at them.

Oh, I know. But there isn't much difference when it comes to the end product. Whether the small studio receives $x to hire whoever they need and can get support from the in-house devs or they just get the devs upfront it doesn't make a lot of difference when it comes to the end product. All that Valve has really been doing is taking already great and proven concepts and putting AAA shine on them. At most it would be stylistic differences which vary from artist to artist anyway.

A lot of smart guys work for valve, these smart guys are what made narbacular drop from a mechanic demo into an amazing game franchise complete with memorable characters. If you think about it, how many millions of small time guys thinking up ideas out there? Of these maybe a few hundred will think up something truly profound. Thats a ratio of at least 10000 to 1. Lets say that valve's guys are so much better at coming up with new ideas that they have ten times this ratio, thats still 1000 people needed to come up with a profound new game idea. Valve only has 300ish.

I know its weird to talk like that, but its a numbers game, its just far more likely for one person out of a group of millions to come up with an amazing idea than for a guy in a company with 300 people. Ideas like this can't be FORCED, many times they just come in a flash of inspiration.

Knowing this, all companies do the same thing, they realize that there are only so many truly original ideas that their employees can think of, so if someone else comes up with something amazing, they bring them on. Apple, Windows, Google, Valve... people act like this is a travesty, but its not. Its a numbers game. there are more people outside these companies, therefore it is more likely for a truly original idea to originate from outside the company than inside it.

Like I said, that isn't what my issue with it is. My problem is that they all get treated like they're all, as you put it, Valve's 'original' IPs. The only reasons for doing it that way is for a)More profits and b)More glory. It's about giving the guys behind these great concepts the credit that they deserve. Most people wouldn't know about most of what I posted before and at most would have heard about IceFrog but even that would be limited to people in that circle.

You say that all like it's a bad thing, but put them up in comparison to what other developers have done when they hit gold. On one end you have a company like Blizzard that's done basically nothing with their money, I'm guessing they have a Scrooge McDuck like vault somewhere where the company founders swim in all their money. And on the other you have ones like EA or Activision that simply started buying up competitors and turning into the big bad publisher that sucks the life out of developers and turns them into soulless sequel machines.

Throwing money and support behind a small time developer so they can make their games that bit better isn't a bad thing and I don't have a problem with it at all. What I do have a problem with is Valve 'absorbing' them and taking all the credit for it.

As for your examples, they aren't really that relevant. Blizzard reinvest their profits back into themselves, keeping their 3 big budget franchises going. EA? yeah, there's some shonky stuff there but I'd like to direct you to a studio called Klei Entertainment. In 2009 they announced a side-scrolling beat 'em up called Shank which was later released in 2010. Shank was actually published by EA along with it's sequel in 2011. The thing is, EA hasn't had any involvement with them outside of that. They didn't run them into the ground like they've done to others, nor did they take all the credit like what Valve has been doing. They did it the way it should be done, as a one time thing to take a game from just being good to great and to set up them up for their future titles.

 

[O maestre]

I don't like the idea of one company controlling such a large market share. Other than that I am fine with steam, just wish they had some decent competition.

EDIT:I also hate the steam client with a vengeance, intrusive, confusing and unintuitive. If it wasn't for the website it would be unusable. Also I hate the fact that updates are forced on your game, stream broke modded skyrim and I haven't finished the game because of it.

EDIT 2: no customer support whatsoever I complained about my problem and got no help.

 

[RedmistSM]

For me, it was an annoyance when I was trying to buy PC games. Picked up the orange box from my local game store years ago and was pissed to find not a disc that would run on its own, but something I needed to create an account on some stupid service to use. I registered, but never played that copy, bitter that it was way more of a hassle than just inserting the disc in a console and get going. I only got into it earlier this year because I was able to get a new PC copy of Bioshock Infinite for under half the price of the 360 version at a store's stand at a LAN party. And since then, all the free games I've been getting from my friends and the sales that give me tons of games I will never ever play for a small price have mellowed me out somewhat. The service itself still annoys me when it comes to buying retail games, though. What's the point in having to use an online service to play a physical disc?

 

[LordMithril]

I get both sides up to a point.
For Steam, I myself don't "love" it but I use it. And why wouldn't I?

+Its the best platform out there.
+Doesn't exclude other publishers (except those that willingly stay away).
+sales (although its a curse to, why did I buy some of the games i own...)
+workshop (instead of searching the whole web for that one mod/level)
+auto updates games and mods

-DRM (yes it's "always on DRM". But the uptime is great)
-sluggish UI (true, I rather use the website when browsing the workshop, also because of multiple tabs)

Talking about Valve.
Yeh they have some nice games. Loved the portal games. Played some L4D. And I get why people like Halflife.
But who cares if they publish games or not. Sure it sucks when you are waiting for HL3 or EP3. but hey, cant be worse that DNF right?

At least they don't pressure smaller studios like some other company's and release (arguably crappy) games every year in the same franchise. (NFS,AC,CoD, or the late Guitar hero series)

 

[DoPo]

Besides, how often does it happen that Steam has the exact game you want on sale? That's quite a coincidence.

No, it's not - I can add the games to my wishlist and I get an email when they are on sale. Done. Also, there are the seasonal sales that has most of their catalogue at reduced price, so you're almost sure to get a game you want for less.

 

[DoPo]

intrusive

Define "intrusive".

Also I hate the fact that updates are forced on your game

You can disable the auto updates. You know that, right?

-DRM (yes it's "always on DRM". But the uptime is great)

You can go offline. If your internet stops, you will continue playing, too. Unless you mean "it's not a one time activation"...which is a weird way to word it and there aren't a great many games that use the one time activation either.

 

[BeerTent]

Personally, I like it. People complain about the UI, but there's really only three locations I use, The friends window, the store page, and the library window. I see nothing wrong with any of these three windows. For those complaining that it takes a long time to do anything, I advise to check your system, as next to everything is done fairly quickly for me.

I like steam. I can legally purchase any game I want and have it all managed digitally. I don't need to go online to find obscure games on websites, I don't need a 2nd or 3rd bookcase to manage all my hard-copies, and Steam can manage their mods, Steam is able to include everything. We're not dealing with Origin, which only has a handful of publishers on it, we're talking Steam, who has just about everyone who matters. (I don't buy EA games, I don't like that company. I'm probably the only person left sticking to that boycott, instead of just saying I'll do it, and buying the first thing that pops up.)

Did I mention the mod support? Without Steam, I wouldn't have seen a large number of amazing games, and I wouldn't have seen them grow from nothing. To someone who finds the development of these things as a hobby, that's amazing.

The DRM is not intrusive, but for those who look, can be very easily removed. The Steam Overlay is very friendly in allowing me to quickly and easily join the servers my friends are playing. Steam helps me maintain a sense of community, as I play games with friends. The overlay allows me to not alt-tab the game and join the discussion, which is also placed on my 2nd monitor. While I'm not big on how it's going the way of facebook, at least Steam doesn't ask for any real information.

It, however, is a big problem for those who are unable to get a stable internet connection. And yes, I'm aware, on the west side of the world, stable internet is a luxury. It can be intrusive for those sorts of people. I can't find a solution for that.

The Tech support has been very helpful to me. I've got about 6 tickets revolving around Steam and the Source engine. All of which have either been followed up with a "I think you mean this, but tell me if I'm wrong" or a quick, clear and concise answer. I advised to go to the publishers if you're having issues with a game not made by Valve. What's Valve going to do about it, if you're having troubles with Assassin's Creed? THINK!

Valve is a company. And we live in a capitalist society. They're here to make money, not be your friend. Get over this hurdle, and realize that they've got a pretty good system.

There are some problems with it, I'll agree, but Steam has merely adapted other things that other companies have done. For example, the EULA. I don't agree that this makes it right, but again, it's the sue-happy society we're in, and they're merely protecting themselves.

People rip on the Half-Life series, and the "Trilogy Fear." Really, we're still interested in Half-life? Left 4 Dead's still fun for a little bit of lan-tertainment. I wouldn't want another installment of Team Fortress, and as far as I'm concerned, Portal's done. This really just ties into fans being foaming-at-the-fucking-mouth rabid. It's done. The series are no more. Valve's trolling you because the rest of the mentally developed world thinks it's hilarious.

That's what I'm thinking, anyway.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Some people don't like digital DRM and the lack of "ownership" that Steam brings even at the trade-off of extreme sales and convenience.

Which is fine, I mean, if there weren't people refusing to use Steam there would be no motivation for Valve to improve it.

 

[bug_of_war]

snip

It's not hate for the company so much as it is for their fanboys. There are those whom come off as smug and dismissive and it becomes very tiresome when EA gets flack for re-using an engine yet Valve get a free pass. It's frustrating when you're a fan of Battlefield and then you have to hear some people rag on Origin and how bad it is when it's really just Steam in it's early years. It's annoying when Steam forces people to go through a 2 month process in order to get back their money when the game they purchased on their system does not function.

Basically, as someone who is just looking for a couple of hours of fun every so often, it's annoying to hear and see nothing but praise going to a certain company, especially when others have been hated on for doing the same thing.