Why is Steam so broken and buggy?

[Kathinka]

because they tricked the masses into liking it.

they release the worst and most restrictive DRM of it's time, slap on some buggy social gimmicks like a friendlist, and tell people it's the greatest thing ever for them.
and we sheep believe it and don't mind the most agressive copy protection in the history of ever on our pc's.

/ragefueled rant

How...what...why...never mind. Nonfactual statements are nonfactual.

indeed they are...especially when not even supported by a single line of argument or such..

Yeah no joke, you didn't tell us how it's the worst or most restrictive DRM, or how the social aspects are buggy or gimmicky. You just stated these things as though they were fact. And so I say again, nonfactual statements are nonfactual unless you can show us something that reinforces your terrible little theories. Really surprised I even had to clarify that.

read everything instead of just parts of the whole thing, and stand corrected.

 

[Kathinka]

i know it could have been done before. the point is that no one before was shameless enough to actually do it, make tools for it avaiable.
and the method you described wouldn't even be a problem. activation only from the home turf well and good. but after activating it at home, i can't even play my perfectly legaly bought copy of portal 2 abroad! sorry, but if you are going to attempt to defend that or somehow now make up some convoluted excuse again that it isn't steams fault, i will have to asume that heavy fanboyism is at work here.^^

1. Buy Portal 2
2. Log into Steam account, or just boot it in offline mode
3. ...
4. Cake

not possible. as soon as you try to start portal two in offline mode (or try to), an error message is displayed telling you to log on.

no cake for me

edit: i was just corrected by a steam-savy friend: some versions of portal 2 CAN be played in offline mode. not the eastern european version though (to prevent people from central europe to buy cheaper eastern european copies i suppose)

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

not possible. as soon as you try to start portal two in offline mode (or try to), an error message is displayed telling you to log on.

no cake for me

edit: i was just corrected by a steam-savy friend: some versions of portal 2 CAN be played in offline mode. not the eastern european version though (to prevent people from central europe to buy cheaper eastern european copies i suppose)

Your challenge is accepted. Will edit this post with results.

EDIT: Game booted up normally for me, and I have read your edit. I'll concede that service in your area is not as good as mine; that's unfortunate, but should end the argument.

 

[Kathinka]

not possible. as soon as you try to start portal two in offline mode (or try to), an error message is displayed telling you to log on.

no cake for me

edit: i was just corrected by a steam-savy friend: some versions of portal 2 CAN be played in offline mode. not the eastern european version though (to prevent people from central europe to buy cheaper eastern european copies i suppose)

Your challenge is accepted. Will edit this post with results.

EDIT: Game booted up normally for me, and I have read your edit. I'll concede that service in your area is not as good as mine; that's unfortunate, but should end the argument.

well it doesnt. because the fact still remains: i can not play the game i legally purchased, because..'fuck me' i guess?
is it really such an outlandish demand, that i can please maybe play the game i payed moneyz for? when and where i want, and not when and where my steam-overlords decide to mercyfully let me?

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

well it doesnt. because the fact still remains: i can not play the game i legally purchased, because..'fuck me' i guess?
is it really such an outlandish demand, that i can please maybe play the game i payed moneyz for? when and where i want, and not when and where my steam-overlords decide to mercyfully let me?

And I can do... what about that? You've demonstrated that your complaints are legit, rather than made up fanboy rantings, but they don't apply to all people, so they don't invalidate my position; we might as well be talking about two different companies.

 

[Kathinka]

well it doesnt. because the fact still remains: i can not play the game i legally purchased, because..'fuck me' i guess?
is it really such an outlandish demand, that i can please maybe play the game i payed moneyz for? when and where i want, and not when and where my steam-overlords decide to mercyfully let me?

And I can do... what about that? You've demonstrated that your complaints are legit, rather than made up fanboy rantings, but they don't apply to all people, so they don't invalidate my position; we might as well be talking about two different companies.

i'm not asking you to do anything. but just because they decided to screw certain people over harder than others doesn't make them nice.

it's fascinating to see though how they seriously got people defending their crap..how they managed to pull this twisted stunt, i will never ever understand. i actually had some faith in humanity in general and gamerkind particular left before that.

 

[Vonnis]

I haven't encountered any real bugs with steam so far, fortunately. I'm not a fan of the program at all though; all it is to me is DRM. I don't care about the social crap, I don't care about the sales, I just want to be able to play the games I bought without any hassle. Steam actually forced me to pirate a game because I wanted to replay HL2 after a conversation with a friend, but that was linked to an account I hadn't used in years so I Had no idea what my login details were. Kudos to Valve for making me pirate a game of which I had a physical, paid for copy sitting a foot away from me being utterly useless.

 

[newwiseman]

I love that, other than no multiplayer, I've never had a problem with games I've no-steam cracked. Even New-Vegas crashes less...

My motto, "buy it, crack it, play it and tell DRM to fuck off."

 

[Amberella]

Sometimes when I'm chatting with the fiancé it likes to lose connection to the server. It can get quite annoying. We had to get on Skype a few times because of it.

 

[Kathinka]

well it doesnt. because the fact still remains: i can not play the game i legally purchased, because..'fuck me' i guess?
is it really such an outlandish demand, that i can please maybe play the game i payed moneyz for? when and where i want, and not when and where my steam-overlords decide to mercyfully let me?

And I can do... what about that? You've demonstrated that your complaints are legit, rather than made up fanboy rantings, but they don't apply to all people, so they don't invalidate my position; we might as well be talking about two different companies.

i'm not asking you to do anything. but just because they decided to screw certain people over harder than others doesn't make them nice.

it's fascinating to see though how they seriously got people defending their crap..how they managed to pull this twisted stunt, i will never ever understand. i actually had some faith in humanity in general and gamerkind particular left before that.

Sounds like your area just likes to screw gamers on pricing to me. The fact remains that Steam is one of the least intrusive methods of DRM and one of the most free content-rich distribution platforms out there. So based on those merits, of course we'll defend Valve. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend another method of digital purchase if you can find a cheaper and less restrictive one in your area, but in general Steam will still be something I recommend to others.

how is it "my areas" fault if steam enforces unreasonable restrictions on customers?
i get it if you like the whole thing, but that doesn't make all the bad things magickly go away, no matter how hard one tries to shift the blame.

 

[HassEsser]

you are right of course, it is still just a slightly less stinking lump of crap in the ocean of feces that are all the other DRM's. but the thing is: it doesn't prevent piracy in the slightest. i dare to say that due to the restrictions of steam not a single extra copy of any game was sold. ye olde offline stuff (laserlock, starforce or whatever) were just as effective.

You can't even really say STEAM utilizes any DRM. All it does is make sure you are in your account, then you are ready to go do whatever the fuck you want to do. And how can you even say that about sales? Not only do you not know what you're talking about, but I'd even say that you are straight wrong in the first place. STEAM has made everyone's life easier, and has made PC games much more accessible, therefore, of course STEAM has directly, and positively contributed to sales numbers. You'd have to be an idiot not to see this.

but steam doesn't let me play certain games if i'm not online (not all, just certain). it enforces languages i don't want on some games. (i want to play mw2 and blackops in the english original language, not some crappy dub. but no can do says steam(ing pile of shit).

This has nothing to do with STEAM and is entirely the publishers fault. Blame Activision, instead of scapegoating STEAM.

i can't sell my used games. i can't lend my games to my friend to play them.

Yes you can lend your games to friends, assuming you trust them enough, just give them your user and PW. I've done this loads of times for my friends who were on the fence about games like Team Fortress, CSS, Killing Floor, etc.

for some regions, steam enforces content cuts (like censoring black ops when i connect from germany). and when i try to start portal2, which i have bought from my own hard earned money at home in eastern europe, while being somewhere in any central european country, steam says that i should please buy a second copy of the game for this region i'm currently in. what. the FUCK?

The fault of that, again, should be placed in your country. It isn't STEAM's fault there are region restrictions, they are simply forced to abide by them. Also, you can mod your game (easily) to bypass restrictions.

And before you get the wrong idea, I don't like STEAM any more than you do. STEAM is a horribly bugged, unstable program; but when I see someone pull blatantly incorrect statements out of their ass, I'm forced to say something, regardless of the topic.

 

[Kathinka]

snip

well, i have listed all issues i have with steam, and so far no one was able to explain to me how it's not steams fault. and it's NOT a restriction put in place by my country, when will people get this into their skulls...it is a decision made by the software companies and steam! the countries in question have NOTHING to do with it. company X says "naw, you can't play game y in place z, sorry 'bout that." and steam, allthough it might not be their thing, willingly enforces this preposterous restriction willingly and eagerly (they are financially interested in people buying the more expensive version of a game too, after all.). allthough they did not think up this redicolous scheme, they still like it and are the publishers willing henchman. that doesn't make it any less questionable.

once again: the publishers and steam want and do that, NOT the country! got it? ok, nice, moving on.
jeeze..

though i kind of see that this is going nowhere, arguning against reality-defying fanboyism is doomed from the start..and yes, reality defying levels are reached when instead of admitting that maybe, just maybe, the beloved steam corp. has a tiny bit of fault in the whole issue, some governement conspiracies are thought up.

 

[DrOswald]

well it doesnt. because the fact still remains: i can not play the game i legally purchased, because..'fuck me' i guess?
is it really such an outlandish demand, that i can please maybe play the game i payed moneyz for? when and where i want, and not when and where my steam-overlords decide to mercyfully let me?

And I can do... what about that? You've demonstrated that your complaints are legit, rather than made up fanboy rantings, but they don't apply to all people, so they don't invalidate my position; we might as well be talking about two different companies.

i'm not asking you to do anything. but just because they decided to screw certain people over harder than others doesn't make them nice.

it's fascinating to see though how they seriously got people defending their crap..how they managed to pull this twisted stunt, i will never ever understand. i actually had some faith in humanity in general and gamerkind particular left before that.

Sounds like your area just likes to screw gamers on pricing to me. The fact remains that Steam is one of the least intrusive methods of DRM and one of the most free content-rich distribution platforms out there. So based on those merits, of course we'll defend Valve. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend another method of digital purchase if you can find a cheaper and less restrictive one in your area, but in general Steam will still be something I recommend to others.

how is it "my areas" fault if steam enforces unreasonable restrictions on customers?
i get it if you like the whole thing, but that doesn't make all the bad things magickly go away, no matter how hard one tries to shift the blame.

For example, you said earlier that you could not get an English version of MW2 through steam. That is because the game was edited for Germany and Steam cannot legally sell the English version in Germany. It is not Valves fault because they are a distribution service, they didn't make that rule. They only follow it.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

I haven't even been able to log into steam for about 2 months.

 

[Byere]

I can't count the amount of times I finish goals in games that would usually net you achievements and I just haven't been given my badge for it. Most notable would be Fallout: New Vegas. So many times I do things like dishing out 10k+ damage with a weapon type or completing a quest with an achievement linked to it, only to NOT get my achievement.

Steam is a pain in the ass IMO

 

[DrOswald]

I haven't even been able to log into steam for about 2 months.

Why?

 

[Kathinka]

well it doesnt. because the fact still remains: i can not play the game i legally purchased, because..'fuck me' i guess?
is it really such an outlandish demand, that i can please maybe play the game i payed moneyz for? when and where i want, and not when and where my steam-overlords decide to mercyfully let me?

And I can do... what about that? You've demonstrated that your complaints are legit, rather than made up fanboy rantings, but they don't apply to all people, so they don't invalidate my position; we might as well be talking about two different companies.

i'm not asking you to do anything. but just because they decided to screw certain people over harder than others doesn't make them nice.

it's fascinating to see though how they seriously got people defending their crap..how they managed to pull this twisted stunt, i will never ever understand. i actually had some faith in humanity in general and gamerkind particular left before that.

Sounds like your area just likes to screw gamers on pricing to me. The fact remains that Steam is one of the least intrusive methods of DRM and one of the most free content-rich distribution platforms out there. So based on those merits, of course we'll defend Valve. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend another method of digital purchase if you can find a cheaper and less restrictive one in your area, but in general Steam will still be something I recommend to others.

how is it "my areas" fault if steam enforces unreasonable restrictions on customers?
i get it if you like the whole thing, but that doesn't make all the bad things magickly go away, no matter how hard one tries to shift the blame.

For example, you said earlier that you could not get an English version of MW2 through steam. That is because the game was edited for Germany and Steam cannot legally sell the English version in Germany. It is not Valves fault because they are a distribution service, they didn't make that rule. They only follow it.

i never attempted to get a german version of mw2, i was refering to the czech version, or more specificly, that steam won't let me get an english version from the czech republic. content-wise, czech and english are completely identical.

but it's not true that steam is not allowed to sell the english version of mw2 in germany btw. they just chose not to. the english version (boxed obviously) can perfectly and legally be obtained in for example amazone germany. the german version just got a slightly lower rating than the english one. both are officially and legaly for sale.