Yeah, this is where I'm at.

I'm also kind of annoyed at the whole "natural monopoly" thing that Steam in particular has become, but that's a whole other kettle of smelly fish that I'll probably regret bringing up.

I can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you why I personally hate the steaming pile of crap that is Steam and why I used alternate methods to be able to play the copy of Fallout 4 I purchased and have not even removed from the box.

Once upon a time, a friend wanted me to play FFXIV. He used Steam so I went through Steam to start my free trial. At the end of the free trial, I decided to buy the game. I bought it from the SQuare-Enix store, not from Steam, since I wanted Physical collectors Edition. Everything was fine. Fast Forward to the expansion. I decided I wanted Physical Collectors Edition of the expansion as well. Can't get that on Steam. So I purchased it through Square Enix store. Went to apply my code to the game, not valid. Why? Because I signed up for the free trial on Steam and in-between when I purchased the game and the expansion, Steam forced Square-Enix to make anyone who bought the game on Steam buy all future updates through Steam. So even though I bought the original game from Square-Enix, because I signed up for the Free Trial through Steam I must buy all expansions from Steam and can not own Physical Collectors Editions unless I buy 2 copies of each expansion, a Phisical Collectors Edition and then a Digital Collectors Edition from Steam if I want the in-game goodies as well.

TL:DR: Signed up for free tiral on Steam, forced to buy all future expansion from Steam, Steam does not offer Physical Collectors Editions. Poop on Steam.

But the freaking awesome thing about Steam is, you can just download your game if you lost the disc, or if the disc is unreadable, etc. And the download's blazing fast too.

I love to Steam my left-over red lobster biscuits for about 15 seconds.

That's a valid reason, it doesnt help that steam customer service svck bigger balls than gaben himself, you can even get banned randomly without for cheating when you haven't even played a multiplayer game in your life, and they won't care about it no matter how many times you try to contact them. There are times when they will just ignore you, or take months to reply. Their customer support is possibly the worst part of it. You better pray you never have a problem with steam because if you do, you are [censored].

Yeah, have never had to deal with CS, and never will. I'll bet that 90% of people don't have issues like mine or ever have to contact CS though. Those people will never understand and there is no getting through to them. Steam is probably great for 90% of the people until you have an issue. As soon as you have an issue though, there is no real way to fix that issue and you're left screwed and no one really cares, because they never had an issue.

Sounds like your gripe is with Square-Enix. They gave you an invalid key; chose not to recognize the code you had. Steam is only a go between.

Yea, I've heard that before. I just let it do what it wants. It has never been an issue for me. I think too many people just want something to complain about and revel in hating on "The Man".

No, they gave me a valid expansion key, if my account was not flagged as a steam account. The only reason Square-Enix did that is because Steam forced them to in order to even have it available on Steam. Square-Enix did nothing wrong, they would be stupid to not have it available on Steam given how populr it is. When they made the expansion though, Steam forced this upon them, if they did not do this, it would not have been available on Steam at all. I did not even realize my account was flagged as a Steam account though, becaues I never purchased anything FFXIV related through Steam previously. The only reason it happened is because Steam bullied Square-Enix in order to get more sales for themselves.

Play on console. Don't need a steam account and we're gonna get mods too this time! (eventually )

Square-Enix chose to go with Steam. This was a qualifier to the deal. Square-Enix was either negligent or had other reasons for not allowing the code to work on Steam. Not a "Steam" issue. If I were you I'd bug Square-Enix about it.

Except it was not this way when I bought the game. They chose to go with Steam, released the original game on Steam, then when the expansion came out, Steam decided to change the previous agreement. Steam had not forced Square-Enix to do this before the expansion, or I would have known when I bought the game originally. Steam changed the paramaters after the fact. Square-Enix had no way of knowing ahead of time that Steam would do this. Nothing Square could have done if they wanted their game to remain on Steam, as it already was.

I did contact Square-Enix and they did offer to let me return the Physical Collectors Edition for a refund, but they could not let me apply it to my account due to their contract with Steam. I wanted the Physical goodies that came with it. If I want any Physical Collectors Editions there is nothing I can do short of starting a new account and re-purchasing the game+expansion or just buying 2 copies of each expansion.

Either way, it is Steam's fault as they are the ones that altered the contract at renewal when the expansion was released. Square-Enix had the choice of either losing all Steam sales, therefore forcing anyone who already bought the game on Steam to re-purchase through them, or leave it one Steam and deal with this new contract. They were literally powerless because Steam refused to bend. They could either piss of everyone who ever bought the game from Steam or deal with a few outliers like myself that they could offer refunds too. IMO, Square-Enix made the right choice still, even though it screwed me, it affected far less people than the other choice and they get to remain on a popular distribution platform,

And Square-Enix said yes. Their software; their decision to go with Steam. Their omission on the CD key you used. They do not HAVE TO use Steam; they WANTED to and CHOSE to.

If by hating on "The Man" you mean some parasitic middle man that offers nothing positive in return for their commission, and produce nothing but messing up your entire mod library, then yes.

But they were ALREADY using Steam WITHOUT this restriction, then Steam decided to change it. STEAM CHANGED THE AGREEMENT and had Square-Enix by the balls. If Square-Enix wanted to continue doing something THEY WERE ALREADY DOING WITHOUT THIS RESTRICTION, they were forced BY STEAM, to accept this. Really, they had no choice. Well, they did, but it would have pissed off far more people and cost them sales. That is not really a choice though.

I started to hate steam after they decided to act like a monopoly company - they demand to give them your phone number, no matter how many times you said no - if you managed to get it off your main page, they put it on their shop page with no way how you could complain directly and with explanation, that you can leave if you don't like their behaviour. So if like 2-3 years ago Steam was the reason for me to start to buy PC games, now I try to avoid any kind of purchase on their application.

Also they use steam now for a bit more of shady business and mainly for propagation of their products and contracts that are with games for their products.

So I was thinking - it would be easy for Microsoft and their windows to have something like that - still better than steam now...

on the other hand the reviews of steam users are still the most correct and objective- because it is required to own the product and play it for some time.

But I wish it would be possible to buy atleast Fallout Antology somewhere else.

I did say that I found Steam convenient. However, digital downloads were becoming a thing before Steam went "public" and still are for studios that don't do business exclusively through Steam, so this isn't really an exclusive plus.

If you don't want additional account security, I don't know what to tell you. There can be a lot of money at risk should your steam account get hacked. Having a phone number to verify your account is your choice. They aren't at fault for wanting to protect your investment.

If you mean running the game without Steam...absolutely it would. I'm not advocating it, just saying it's likely possible.

It offers plenty to me. It keeps my games updated, it connects me with friends across the country, it has enabled me to move my Steam folder across several computers with minimal maintenance to reinstall the games, it's freed my house from the clutter of game boxes and manuals I never looked back at after installing, it's gotten me games far faster than going to a brick and mortar store to buy physical disks, it gives me access to beta patches, it's given me access to free games, it is a great distribution platform for Indie Devs...

I hate to say this, but I'm suffering from a bit of schadenfreude listening to the "Master Race" suffering. I am a horrible person. Must be my jealousy and makes me VERY glad that I decided to purchase F4 for my PS4 only rather than go my usual route of purchasing for both my PS4 AND my PC. Apparently I dodged a bullet on that one.

I don't see any suffering, only pointless complaints and juvenile hate against Steam.

This.

I've been using Steam since it's inception. No complaints here.