In Chicago you have to drive out to the burbs to find any place that sells physical copies. Steam has been my vendor of choice for a long time.

Steam copy, I'm willing to admit that I don't play PC games often and my PC game discs usually get lost or damaged. I negate both problems if it's in a digital format.

I got a physical copy for my 360, so I'm set for the "lol, memento" thing.

I agree, In that regard it'd odd that Beth is pushing Steam.


I agree completely.

physical

A physical copy. I am a materialist.

I'm not really a PC gamer, but if I was I'd buy the physical over digital any day.

I despise steam. It automatically patches games, it makes modding harder and you have to start the damn thing before you play, often with a 3 hour update. Thats one of the reasons i disliked FO NV.

Maybe not, but oh well. I wish it were gone. Sue me for not toeing the politically correct line.

IMO, Steam is a bad service and deserves to die. If bandwidth caps bring that demise about, I have no problem admitting I'd be happy about that because I've seen Valve screw far too many people out of legitimately purchased goods to care about lazy people who can't be bothered to stimulate their local economies by buying physical copies.

I'm also of the opinion that cloud storage is extraordinarily dangerous, and I think recent incidents on both PSN and Amazon should be the wake up call to that.

Google and Microsoft have been doing cloud storage right for years. And the PSN isn't really a matter of storing things in the cloud, but just an online service with very poor security.

But it is rather ignorant (and somewhat bigoted) to just wish Steam dead because you disagree with it on a personal level. 30 million people use Steam, and the Skyrim forums must be the only place where I've actually heard people complain about being forced into it. I don't like a lot of politicians that I didn't vote for, but I wouldn't wish them dead. It's just selfish and almost sadistic in a way.

I can also say that I've never been screwed over, nor have any of my friends with one exception. A friend of mine tried to buy a game on sale (I think it was Borderlands) and it vanished from their library after about an hour of playing. A quick call to Valve remedied that and it also got them a free copy of Portal. I've seen stories of accounts that have been banned from Steam, but more often than not it's because they attempted to sell it or bought it from someone else. You can contest these things if you think you've been wronged.

I must also disagree that buying physical copies stimulates the local economy. If you want to buy a game near where I live, you have 5 choices: go to the Gamestop in the town south of me, go to the Gamestop in the good mall that's a far drive away, go to the Gamestop in the somewhat close town that's in an iffy neighborhood, go to the Gamestop out east more in the small yet closer mall, or go to the Gamestop that's across the street from that previous Gamestop. Small videogame outlets died in the 90's. If buying video games from Gamestop helps stimulate local economies, then Walmart must be the messiah of struggling business owners.

Ah, the age old retort for someone with no argument: Opponent is a racist/bigot. Cute. I more or less expected that.


Great! So because you've had nothing but a rosy experience, you're fine with other people being screwed by an intrusive and ugly service that has no business even being used for a single player game. Love it.


You have a strangely short sighted view of the local economy then if you are leaping to the assumption that Gamestop and Wal-Mart are the only two places that sell games. Out here, you can find them in all the major retailers, but that's starting to change because Steam is encouraging the lazy to stop leaving their homes to go shopping. The fact is, the more this trend continues, the more likely it is that Steam will approach monopoly power. I for one do not wish to see this happen. Steam's downfall would be a major win for competition and free enterprise.

Hey! Lets have lunch togather, then you will have one more friend that got screwed over by steam!

Long story short, both the Tec support for Stream and the dev for Fall Out Vegas are pointing fingers at each other and not helping me now.

That is the problem with involving a third party between you and your dev.

After 3 weeks of so called tec support I gave up. My $50 bought me about 16 hours of FV and the rest is now a donation to the dev....

Bethesda, I will PAY $150 for Skyrim if I do not have to use Steam at all...please give me that option!

Be glad all you're out is $50 for one game. I've got several friends who are out hundreds of dollars for entire collections that are mated to Steam with no legal recourse but to get their banks involved. Messy stuff.

I will probably be getting a physical copy. From past experiences with Bethesda games I will be modding the game to heaven and back. Steam is sometimes hit or miss with modding or altering a games core files.

Physical. Not only because I like having a physical copy, but I'll be modding it to hell. Now matter how awesome the game turns out, modders will make it better. ^^

I've been waiting for this game for years, so I will buy a physical copy. I would be stupid if I bought it from Steam...

Arthmoor, I don't even know if you're trying to make a point sometimes, or you're just spouting the same argument because people might not have heard you the first time.



I never called you a racist, I called you a bigot. From Wikipedia: "A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs." By definition, you are a bigot because you are obstinately devoted to the idea that Valve is an evil entity that desires nothing more than to screw you over at every possibility, and those who do like Steam (such as myself) are clearly misguided fools that you must seek to rectify on your crusade of righteousness. When someone attempts to pose a counter-argument, you simply state that they are wrong without giving a reason why. If you're going to say something, you could at least say something more than "cute" and wave your imaginary air of superiority in people's faces.



Yes, I've had a rosy experience. I'm certainly going to praise Steam for that because I've had nothing but trouble with everything else. Was Games for Windows Live any better with Fallout 3? How about SecuRom for Mass Effect? If your physical disc gets scratched, what do you do? I know of no one who, at any point in their lives, have been screwed over by Valve, their Steam service, or through any association of that. Out of 30 million people, how many people found themselves at the wrong end of the stick? My bank once decided to put a hold on my finances, while I was visiting another country no less. I was once charged double for my electric bill due to a database error on their part, yet they told me I still needed to pay it or they'd shut me down. My World of Warcraft account was hacked by Chinese gold farmers, and it was closed. The point is, this is life. Crap happens. WoW isn't a bad game simply because I lost time, money, and a lot of characters. My electric company was clearly at fault for what they did, but I'm not about to form a flash mob and storm their offices demanding my 300 bucks back. People who find themselves banned from Steam are more often than not people who have tried to sell their accounts or buy other accounts. If that is not the case, then a call to Valve could easily fix the mess. It's not that hard.



Gamestop is not a local business by any means. It is a multinational corporation that could care less for the communities they service. There used to be more local stores nearby, but they have either gone out of business or have been purchased and turned into more Gamestops. Gamestop isn't the only place that sells games, but what other alternatives do I have? Walmart? Target? Best Buy? No one but Gamestop even buys back used games. And none of those can be considered local businesses. They stifle out local business more than Steam ever could, and I honestly can't believe you can make the argument that Walmart is good for local business. What Steam is doing is saving me from wasting the equivalent of 5 dollars in gas to drive to a store. I spend the equivalent of a new video game in gas every week because I have a long commute. I'm not going to drive if I can help it.

Also, I don't think you have any idea of the scope of a monopoly. I can certainly buy my PC games at many other retailers (without leaving my house even), and get them in boxed or digital form. Or, I could just not play PC games, because PC games aren't a market, they are a sub market of a market based on console, handheld, mobile, and online entertainment. The gaming market is a massive thing, and you seem a little paranoid if you think the big bad Steam monster is going to dominate all of it.

Yes, it was. I deinstalled GFWL and Fallout 3 continued to run just fine.

Do that with Steam without "patching" the game first.

Number 1 reason I am thinking of getting a physical copy instead of Steam is modding.

I would find it much more cumbersome to have to deal with a hugely inflated steam folder and navigate through it all the time.
With a physical copy I can control where the install directory is etc.

I usually also get physical copies from near by EB games store when I pre-order cause I only have to drop $5 and not pay the whole game in advance and I can cancel pre-orders or move them to another game as well.

Other than that I like Steam it keeps things centralized and I have no problem so far with it. Also it is cheaper than the store at times.
Like right now the Canadian dollar is on par with US or better I can get a game tax-free and end up costing less in currency conversion, it's great.

I think I will get witcher 2 this way for $45 instead of close to $55 or something + tax in store.

Physical copy - hopefully with all the goodies of a CE if there is one for the shelf, and a Steam copy for the convenience.

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