"Why do I need Windows 95 to play this game? DOS is fine!"

"CD-ROMs? That's just a phase, I'll stick with my floppy disks."

"Why do I need to buy an HDTV for my Xbox 360? What's wrong with a normal TV?"

Face it, technology evolves and people need to evolve with it.

Ehh, not when said technology requires things that aren't readily available to everyone even when they can afford it(as I've pointed out before, Steam & Dial-up do NOT mix at all). there are other things wrong with your statement but I honestly don't feel like going into it, I've done argued in about 85% of this thread and thats enough for me ^^

When cable television was beginning to get popular, do you think every house in the country was wired up at the same time?

I don't think you realize just how damn comfy my couch is.

I think the main reasons I use Steam is because of the prices and selection. As most of you are aware, brick 'n mortar prices in Australia include a significant markup compared to other countries. For example, I believe Oblivion is still labelled at AU$40 (where it is still sold). Given that Steam normally sells it for US$25, and I bought it for half that, its enough of a tradeoff that I can live with the disadvantages. The vast bulk of games I've purchased through it have cost me less than $10 -- many have been under $5, and one was even down to $1 .

I see Valve's DRM stuff as being pretty much just the digital distribution equivalent of a CD check, and it is unobtrusive :shrug: (aside from having to run the Steam client, but that is beside the point). The thing that is most irritating for me with DRM crud is when it means I can't play a game without a crack, since I use a GNU/Linux distribution and run Windows games through Wine. I've never had and problems from Steam in that regard (when it is the only copy protection used), nor with their (in-game) anti-cheating measures (unlike that one that's common that I can't remember the name of). Second to that is activation limits, which Steam itself does almost the opposite of, though some companies insist of chucking third (fourth?) party junk on top of it.

I'm supportive of Valve's approach to the issue: make it have as little impact as possible on the user, and balance it out a bit by providing other services. They take, yes, but they also give, and for some people they give more than they take. Unlike Securdisc and it's ilk :dry:.

A game made for a particular platform or operating system isn't close to similar to the Steam requirement. You NEED the operating system. lol CD-ROMs to floppy discs isn't either... and HD TV for a better gaming experience isn't a requirement either. Retail of physical copies accounts for a massive share of a publishers coffers. lol Steam isn't the be all and end of all DD. "Embrace Steam, for Steam is the future."

Said it before and I'll say it again, why as a publisher should you tie your games to one service? That's got nothing to do with evolving tech. Making it a requirement. Spread the product. Let the best third-party service win. Let Steam lock horns with all and any comers and improve its service, and attract customers based on its service. Beth show they can make great games, they compete with other publishers and devs, and they win. That's how technology and services evolve, hearty competition as decided by consumer choice. I like Beth, not a fan of Steam. Steam isn't more convenient than walking into a store to peruse a bunch of games on a shelf, talking to a member of staff about the release dates of upcoming titles, trying out a game in the store before buying it.... walking out with a copy and getting home to play it* woo hoo... it's great, easy. :no:

(*only to have to sign up to cack service that the game doesn't even need to run.)

They're not all similar, but they all show how stubborn people can be about change. Steam isn't going to explode your computer and murder your family.

Should've declared it as plain static.

Ya... broadcast TV was still avaliable, there was no need to upgrade to cable in order to continue watching the shows you had been watching, and shows are still being made for broadcast channels.

I dont know if Steam will always force you to download a patch when you activate a game (even if Steam is set to not automatically patch), but I recall reading it does. Given that patches these days can be several hundred megabytes large (if not gigabytes, as I recall some of the initial patches for New Vegas being), thats a matter of days to download a patch.

lol :thumbsup:

It also isn't going to get used, it doesn't stop or hinder pirates illegally downloading and playing the game I purchased and am playing legally, and yet, it is still a requirement. Why? Another service could appear next week that is better than Steam, and yet a studio and publisher is committed to tying a game to Steam, meaning as a consumer, my choice becomes install lots of different services... or if it keeps going the way it is, stick with one service that can stink to high heaven and become stagnant without competition. Technology evolves through competition.

You like it, you use it, great, it's CLEARLY not going to be an issue for you. What do I need it for? Will your head asplode if it doesn't come as a requirement for people who don't use it? lol I don't get it.

You're acting like there are no disadvantages to DD, DD and pressed media have many trade-offs, neither being innately superior to the other.

When Cable Television was beginning to get popular, there were maybe less then half a dozen shows that could be seen on it that couldn't be seen on TV. On the other hand, dozens and dozens of games require Steam to run, and that # is going to continue to rise whereas the infrastructure to bring DSL/Broadband/whatever is not progressing at nearly a fast enough pace. Hell, I only live 8 miles outside of town and it has DSL and Broadband options, yet it could be 2 or more years before they manage to bring it out here. Imagine the people who are 15, 20, 25, 30 miles away from a town. They won't get any kind of High Speed internet for another 5 or more years. It will take at least another decade or more before 90% of the U.S. is covered in High Speed, and that's being EXTREMELY generous, I honestly don't think we'll achieve that level of saturation for another 20-25 years.

And there's no need to upgrade your internet to keep playing your current games. If you want to play new games that require you to download patches and all you have is dial-up, you'll just have to cope until an upgrade is available.

Even if a game doesn't require Steam, games are becoming so DLC heavy and patch-dependent, you'll need a high speed connection anyways if you want to continue gaming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network

But why should those of us who don't have the option to upgrade be penalized and unable to play a game just because of where we live? I want to play skyrim. I own FO3, but not FO:NV. Your argument relies on the idea that people who have dial-up remain with it because we are to cheap or stubborn to upgrade, but that just simply isn't the case, and it's stupid to exclude a large portion of the population just because our country is to damn slow in upgrading the infrastructure necessary for High speed internet.

nope but cable didn't become a requirement to watch a new show even now unless the show is only on a cable station.

I hate you. Screw Australia and it's population descendant of primarily criminals! BAH! Why can't the U.S. do that! a freaking Gigabit connection to 93% of the country and the other 7% having at least a 12 megabit >< I truly envy you now, lol. Those speeds are like the ones you find in Japan(buddy that was serving in the airforce was there for a year n a half, on base they had a 100 meg connection, he said in Tokyo it was upwards of 1gig.

It's unfortunate, I agree, but it's not only Steam. Games have become so large and companies often don't properly test them, or save large bits of content for DLC, and as a result they rely on the customer's internet connection to deliver that missing data.

It svcks, but that's just the way the industry is these days. Did you try petitioning your local government to maybe speed up the installation of high speed net? Maybe if they feel there's a demand then they'll do something about it. :confused:

Everyone on the mountain signed a petition a while back and sent it in to our State rep. Basically got a form letter in response stating they appreciate our concerns and that they would see what they could do. lol.

So... if I was living in an area where the only internet service avaliable is dial-up... I can't play a Steamworks game just because I'm not living in an area with high-speed internet? You wonder why people don't want Steam integrated with games?



Know what I did with my internet-less gaming computer whenever a patch came out? I downloaded the patch on my parents computer, and saved it to a flash drive, or burned it to a CD and brought it to my computer and installed it.

With Half-Life 2? I had to unhook my computer, carry it into my parents room, unhook the ethernet cord from their computer, hook it into mine, connect to steam, download the patch, unhook the cable from my computer, plug it back into theirs, carry the computer back into my room, hook it back up, and then enjoy the patch. It was a [censored] hassle, and there was nothing I could do, because I was unable to get internet in my room. Luckily we had high-speed internet. If we had dialup, I'd just go to a friends house or something, and download the patch. I'd be pissed off if I had to haul my computer to a friends house.

& what of the local governments that can't afford it & those of us that are basically out of range of land-based high-speed net service

That really svcks. I wish I could relate to your problem, but I haven't had dial-up for probably 10 years, and even then it was a 56k connection, not 26.4k. It does sound terrible though. :nope:


You can't activate a Steam game over dial-up? If you buy a retail game it still has the install files on the disc, no?

Steam doesn't force the publisher to release the patches, you'd have to download them even if it didn't use Steam.


Like I said, that's unfortunate, but you don't really have many options in that situation.

We only got the convicts 'cause you guys wouldn't take them any more. And you got loads more religious/general hokerrs .

And there's still a slight chance that the side of politics who aren't currently in power will somehow get their way and take us down the route of patching up our current, ageing infrastructure and relying heavily on wireless stuff. Because that'd be cheaper, its what the USA has decided to do, and using/needing hundreds of megs of bandwidth is inconceivable :rolleyes:. If that happens, you get to point and laugh at our crushed dreams .

lol, same here. 56k for QIIIA and the like, it was a total nightmare sometimes. Even waiting on patches and stuff, I can't even fully recollect the level of pure svck, I've omitted most of it from memory. No doubt when I reach the afterlife some god is going to show me around my life like a spirit did Scrooge, and I'll see myself gormlessly watching progress bars for hours and days at a time over however many months, and sometimes screaming at my monitor after successfully fragging a player only to appear three corridors back with a rocket up my ass and the frag I thought I got wiped away by the gremlins of lag. :verymad:

As I understand it, once you activate the game on Steam, it will still check for available patches and download them.