Why is Steam so broken and buggy?

[HassEsser]

1: i am NOT german.
2: i am from the CZECH REPUBLIC
3: the czech republic, unlike f.e. germany, does NOT ENFORCE ANY LIMITATIONS on games or how they are sold. they do not, in any way, tell anyone what to do with games.
4: steam STILL enforces restrictions on czech customers

I never once said you were German. Never once. I merely stated countries like Germany and Australia force VALVe to restrict their shit. Learn to read.

i know that these four steps probably brought you to the utter limits of what you are able to comprehend, but i need you to stay with me through this, you can do it. reread it if you need to.

you got that? you finally understood that? after only three post? ok, good. carry on.

jeeze, if all my points are "destroyed" like that then that's a great weight of my mind.

It is impossible for you to be any more inane than you're currently being.

 

[Kathinka]

snip

aaand again you fail to show me where it is my countries and not steams/the publishers fault that pointles restrictions are forced on me. so i have to assume you saw it yourself and just decided to avoid the whole point to not have to admit you were wrong.

 

[DrOswald]

Anyone have a clue as to what the problem is?

Yeah. The problem is that Valve has so many fansheep that will hail Steam as the best thing since the wheel and will never acknowledge that anything could ever be wrong with Valve's money machine.

Also it's practically a monopoly in digital distribution.

In such a scenario, why would they bother fixing their shit, when they can just push out more hats a few dollars a piece? Look up the meaning of 'monopoly' in any economy book

Valve does not have a monopoly. A monopoly can only exist when there is no viable substitute of goods in a market. In this case, the viable substitute is non digital distribution. They are the most powerful digital distribution service, but that does not mean they have a monopoly.

If digital distribution becomes the only major retail outlet of games, then they probably will have a monopoly.

Also, have you ever asked yourself why valve has such loyal customers? I would venture a bet that it is because valve provides a quality service at a competitive price. Their model is certainly not perfect, but it is better than any other model I know of in the game industry. Can you point me to something better?

 

[Hyperactiveman]

Steam is WIN!

Try GfWL or Impulse if you think it's broken and buggy...

 

[mavkiel]

I have, I actually prefer gfwl over steam, for certain things. For example fallout, I hate that steam got their grubby claws on it. Its been nothing but a bloody nightmare with them. Say what you will about gfwl, but they allowed you to pick and choose what patch you wanted to play with.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

The worst thing about Steam is that you cannot specify a disk to install to!
I don't want every game on my sweet SSD you know, Valve! :\

I did it; I installed Steam to "D:\Steam" instead of "C:\Program Files\Steam". Easy.

That's hardly the same as THEM giving you an option to install some games on C:\, and some on other disks, now is it?

 

[UNHchabo]

The worst thing about Steam is that you cannot specify a disk to install to!
I don't want every game on my sweet SSD you know, Valve! :\

I did it; I installed Steam to "D:\Steam" instead of "C:\Program Files\Steam". Easy.

That's hardly the same as THEM giving you an option to install some games on C:\, and some on other disks, now is it?

Fair enough. There is a way to do it, but it requires a bit more effort. If you have Vista or later, you can use symbolic links.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1138731