What are the problems with Steam?

oppp7

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Aug 29, 2009
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I have problems with speed and such, what with my computer becoming crazy slow whenever I so much as look at Steam. I don't think this is me, since Guild Wars seems to run fine. But what the hell does Team Fortress 2 have that GW doesn't? The graphics don't seem good enough to warrant this difference in framerate. Everquest 2 is the same way. Also, I've gotten a high ping in offline mode, which is hilarious.

Overall though, it seems alright even though I don't buy things off it.
 

CoffeeBoy

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Oct 5, 2010
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I lost all of my games for a day or two about two months ago. Steam client performed an update and boom no games in the library. Went to the website to log in, but got a reply like "That account does not exist." A couple days later everything was fine.

Now to other things:
You can right click on any game in your Steam client library, select Properties, select Updates, and chose "Do not automatically update this game." If you want a game gone from your drive, select that before you delete it.

Most Steam purchased games do not require an internet connection and do not have to be started from the Steam console. For every game that you have installed, the full game, with the regular executable is stored on your hard drive. For instance, mine are here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common

I can browse to that folder and start my games without ever having accessed the Steam console.
 

Xannieros

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Jul 29, 2008
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A few problems for me.
*No download queue.
*Updates when playing other internet related games. (Partially my fault.)
*Doesn't download when playing steam games.
*Some mods are difficult to implement.
*To update some games, you have to re-download the whole game again. (Rare occasions.)
*No way to play offline mode without logging in first.
*Somewhat unresponsive when pausing and resuming downloads.
 

CoffeeBoy

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Oct 5, 2010
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A queue would be nice, but you can always just pause the others.
Avoid updates by closing the console or selecting do not update for each game.
Download while playing a game by alt-tabbing after the game starts, and then select resume download.
Don't use off-line mode, just start the game from the steamapps\common folder
 

Jitters Caffeine

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Sep 10, 2011
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Zeh Don said:
The issue I have with Steam is less about "Steam" and more about the behind-the-scenes stuff, that gamers don't get to see.

For example, Steamworks bundles the Steam Store Client with all Steamwork enabled games. Even for retail purchases.
This means that everyone who purchased Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Civilization V, etc., on the PC are now Valve customers whether they wanted to be or not.
Valve trumpets it's 30,000,000 accounts like kind of achievement. I ask: how many of those accounts were forced to be made so someone could actually use the game they just paid honest money for?

Another issue is that Steam makes all games Online Only. It's Offline mode simply doesn't work unless you can connect to the internet first.
The logical falacy of that is mind numbing: if I could connect to the internet, why would I need an offline mode?

The last issue is of course the impending Steam monopoly: thanks to Steamworks, all other Digital Distribution serices are essentially Steam Re-sellers, doing little more than selling Steam Serial Numbers.
The problem is that all Steamwork games launch the Steam Store Client first: if I buy a Steamworks game on Impulse, it launches Steam, forces me to make a Steam Account, and downloads my game from there.

Steam, in the current business climate, have to be nice to their customers to retain them. As everyone apart from GOG.com now sells Steamworks games, that "be nice" phase is coming to an end.

For example, Valve pulled several EA titles from Steam because they were selling DLC in-game. This meant that Valve couldn't take their 30% cut, and so decided to fuck it's customers and pull those games and all support for it.

Another solid example is that Valve have enforced the Terms of Service upon Bethesda Softworks when it was discovered Skyrim was capable of running without Steam launching first - a direct violation of the Terms of Service for Steamworks.
Bethesda were forced to patch their game, and screw their customers who needed to modify the game in order for it to run, otherwise Valve would pull the game from Steam. Because the game was Steamworks enabled, this meant customers who purchased the game in stores would be unable to even install their legally purchased games.

Valve are making their move. It won't be long before Valve are as hated as Activision - but by then, it'll be too late: they'll have all your games.
Yeah, it all sounds kinda shady to me to be honest. Almost like how those Businesses like Zynga and other facebook game producers sell your information to 3rd parties, even though it explicitly says they won't and Facebook says they can't. I hate how non transparent things like that are. It just makes me uncomfortable
 

Jitters Caffeine

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major_chaos said:
Oh thank you OP I've been waiting for this thread, believe me I have a list of problems with steam but the highlights are:

Awful UI makes browsing a pain

Can't chose where to install games

Terrible customer support that has twice given me a response that equates to "fuck off"

Several games do not like the overlay and will glitch/crash if I use it.

It slows down my start up massively by bringing my comp to a screeching halt for 2-3 minuets after I start steam.

The servers are powered by hamsters so whenever there is a usage spike the store becomes unusable and popular games tend to download slowly on launch day.

The community is awful with forums one step above 4chan and steam exclusive games (namely CS and TF2) have attracted player bases way worse than CoD at its worst.

The fact that valve (a company I have no trust or respect for) can take away all my games, at any time, forever, for any reason.


And those are just the highlights, lets not even get into Steam telling me my games are "unavailable" or any of the more minor issues I have with the platform.
Well you're certainly welcome lol. I was just honestly curious if I was the only person who's ever had problems like this, or if I was just crazy
 

Wintermoot

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Aug 20, 2009
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for some reason Steam prohibits modding SR2 (although that could also be a port problem)
offline mode requires you to go online.

other then that no problems.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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ToastiestZombie said:
Gabe Newell stated that if Valve were to every shut down, then all steam games will be made DRM free somehow.
And it's totally true, because despite the legal problems he or the remnants of Valve would get into, he totally would do it!

Seriously, don't delude yourself. A lot of companies really only release on Steam because of the DRM. Think they're going to sit by if their titles are made DRM-free? Newell's not a moron. This won't happen, because you already bought the games, he got your money, and Steam in this instance is going down. He has nothing to lose from you and everything to lose from them.

It's an empty promise to mollify you.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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None so far other than a couple of fairly irritating download/update problems and 'offline mode' not actually working when I needed it.

Oh, and of course the constant steam sales meaning I now seem to own about 20 games I've never even played for a minute... (Oh, and a lack of hard drive space making me aware that the way steam stores games is moderately inconvenient if you have more than one hard drive.)

Oh, and several games where I've had to verify the game cache a dozen times due to weird bugs.

However, none of that is all that bad overall. It compares quite well to most other non-steam games I've owned except those that have no DRM whatsoever.
 

ToastiestZombie

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Mar 21, 2011
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Zachary Amaranth said:
ToastiestZombie said:
Gabe Newell stated that if Valve were to every shut down, then all steam games will be made DRM free somehow.
And it's totally true, because despite the legal problems he or the remnants of Valve would get into, he totally would do it!

Seriously, don't delude yourself. A lot of companies really only release on Steam because of the DRM. Think they're going to sit by if their titles are made DRM-free? Newell's not a moron. This won't happen, because you already bought the games, he got your money, and Steam in this instance is going down. He has nothing to lose from you and everything to lose from them.

It's an empty promise to mollify you.
Doesn't mean Gabe Newell wont do it. It would be entirely the other publishers faults if they dont want anything to happen. Anyway, Steam probably wont ever go fully bankrupt, because it is such a good service. If Steam was in any way having money problems then we wouldn't have amazing deals every other day.
 

Dr Jones

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Jun 23, 2010
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Acrisius said:
I find my access to offline games is often terribly bad when I'm in offline mode. And there's always the fear that if I piss them off, they'll take away all the games I've spent a lot of money on :)

Steam is great and convenient, but it's not perfect.
This.
You HAVE to set your Steam to offline before losing the internet, or else starting it up will say "Can't connect to Steam" (Two options here- Retry Connection or Start in Offline Mode), well it can't start in offline mode cause it need's to connect to Steam.
 

imperialreign

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Mar 23, 2010
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Steam is making money hadn over fist, and that profit is only growing on a monthly basis.

I've not had any issues with their service, only some annoyances. Major titles can be a PITA to get downloaded and installed right around release date (at least for MAJOR titles they've been starting to offer the ability to pre-load if you pre-purchased the game . . . you can download and install a couple of days before release, and don't have to deal with the server slam on release day).

Some MP titles I've been having piss-poor connectivity to servers recently (TF2 I'm staring at you), with horrible latency and having my connection dropped . . . but that only seems to be with official valve servers. Sometimes it seems to be from Cloud updating, sometimes exiting Steam and re-starting fixes it.

Otherwise, no problems . . . and if you do have a problem, they attempt to fix it quickly for you, too.
 

Gasaraki

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Oct 15, 2009
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Thistlehart said:
My roommate bought Skyrim. He had to download Steam onto his computer so that he could play it. He has to keep Steam on his computer to play Skyrim. Steam took up processing power and watched what he did. Then Steam updated, and Skyrim no longer worked.

That's horsesh*t.
Looking at the windows task manager, Steam is using significantly less ressources than iTunes, Firefox, Bittorrent, Skype, Rainmeter, or even Explorer.exe. I seriously doubt that steam's processor usage is having any sort of effect on your roommate's computer's performance.
 

northeast rower

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Dec 14, 2010
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How I don't know what my PC can and can't run. Of course, there are cases where it just can't measure up (Amnesia) and I'm fine with that. Then there are times where it's too good to run something (Fallout 3) and that just doesn't make sense. I know that it's the fault of the devs, but I'd appreciate a patch/warning somewhere.
 

Zack Alklazaris

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Oct 6, 2011
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My only issue with it is once when download Team Fortress 2 the download abruptly stopped and when I tried to redownload it it said the server was maxed. That wasn't the case, it has something to do with my files being corrupted. So I had to delete my half downloaded TF2 and reredownload it. It was a pain in the ass, but other than that I love steam. I have major issues with losing discs or serials. Steam keeps track of all of it for me and lets me play on any computer with internet.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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ToastiestZombie said:
Doesn't mean Gabe Newell wont do it. It would be entirely the other publishers faults if they dont want anything to happen.
If only they had some legal recourse I'd already mentioned that could prevent that....

Look, I understand you love Steam, but you've moved into blind faith and apologetics, and that's a whole 'nother animal.
 

Jimmy T. Malice

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Dec 28, 2010
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Steam may not be as bad as some of Ubisoft's DRM, but boy is it invasive. You absolutely have to be connected to the internet if you want to play any game, and it insists on updating every other day. Plus it takes about five minutes to start up and then launch a game.
 

Twilight_guy

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Nov 24, 2008
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Besides it being a monopoly, I don't see a problem. I do take issue with people bitching about every other company being pure evil and then praising Valve and Steam while seemingly blissfully unaware that if Valve decide not be nice it could bring the ax down and kill everything tomorrow but that's just me.
 

ReinWeisserRitter

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Nov 15, 2011
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My only two beefs with it in my extremely limited experience is the frequent, unannounced sales (one becomes tempted never to buy a game for full price because they're afraid the bastards are going to discount it twelve seconds afterward - and they often do) and the fact that some games require you to be connected to it in order to play them, which is a considerable pain in the ass when, say, your internet is out.

Don't get me wrong about the first one; sales are good. I just wish they weren't out of nowhere all the time, with no warning about the games that are to be going to be discounted; an email about games on a watch list or something going on sale would be nice, assuming they don't actually do that. The way they handle it right now regardless makes it easy to adopt a "Eh, I can wait to see if it goes on sale later" mentality about a game, at least if you're not the kind of person who picks their games up at launch. I'm admittedly difficult to get excited.