Hi Bethesda,

Long time fan, first time caller...

Really, I bought copies of Fallout 3 for the PS3 and for every PC in the house. I played until the disc looked thin. I preordered New Vegas and waited with baited breath.
The Amazon package finally arrived.

Excited, I start the install. The second screen wants me to either join Steam now or cancel the install. I pause to think back to the crashes in 3 caused by Games for Windows and I don't even play multiplayer. I want to play the game here and now, not join some other on-line spam generator. So, I hit the cancel button, ejected the shiny, new disk and went back to Minecraft.

You have my money, but you lost my heart.

Joe

Okay, your loss.

Yes really.

Ive never gottens spam from steam. I only have steam to get my free copy of portal.

Steam is nothing like GFWL.

It's also nothing like it was back in 2003 when it first came out. It actually WORKS now, and has a surprisingly amount of kickass features.

Guess what, you don't have to do that now with Steam.

I've never gotten any Steam spam, unless you count the occasional email receipt when I buy something.

You should give it a go and think off all the money you will save because with steam you can put it on all the computers in you house now.

If by "works" you mean "exists as a complete failure as DRM (i.e. stops no piracy) while simulataneously aggravating legitimate users who don't have access to stable high speed internet (60% of the world population)" then I would agree. It works wonderfully.

A few "kickass" features that also do not work unless you have access to stable high speed internet do not make Steam any better.

Mate, you really should give steam a chance, its actually very good and i am glad everytime i see a pc game that releases use steam.

Automatic updates no more searching and downloading.

Chat with your mates while playing through the friends list.

Browse the net IN-game.

No need to insert the CD anymore so you don't scratch it up.

Steam also has fantastic sale days... you can get games off of steam for less than half the price you would pay in a shop when they go on sale. really just give it a go rather than assume its some evil spam hacking monster like most complainers would have you believe.

People can complain all they want but the fact is steam is probably the future for pc gaming and we will see more and more games use it.

Jim Rome fan

Anyway, you only need Steam once to activate it, after that you can play off line.

I’m assuming you brought a PC DVD version? Which makes me wonder why you would even need to install steam… seems pretty lame. I guess I’m kinda old school if you got the game disk why would you need an internet based online store…

If you are common to games you'll realise that any new release that uses steam is always steam exclusive...making me belive that if a compny wants to use steam to distribute thier game they are force to make all version (online and phyical disc) require steam.

Anyone who says Steam fails at DRM is just whiny because it's DRM and they don't everything they want for free.

Steam is a marvelous alternative to an entire host of DRM methodologies out there. It is FRIENDLY to legit consumers, unlike some that make people want to crack their game because it's just easier that way compared to actually going the legal route, or worse, cracking actually IMPROVES the gameplay.

Steam also backs up its DRM with a lot of neat services. For instance, I am writing this message from within Steam's browser while I play Fallout. No alt-tabbing required. There's chats, messaging, friends, game groups, direct line access to guides (if that's your thing), and you can easily find out if there's multiplayer matches going on in your multiplayer games.

Furthermore, they have VERY nice game deals that occur every so often, SUPPORT indepedent game developers without tearing them limb from limb, and use software that's fairly portable. I actually like the ability to scrap my hard-drive and not spend a week hunting down some key in a box I probably sat on or something, and instead just downloading the game straight off Steam's STABLE servers.

I have over fifty games through Steam and never had a problem. Actually it`s quite convenient.

No DRM 100% stops piracy, and even so, statistically, Steam stops more than any other DRM.

Any "issues" you have because you have a slow internet are not the fault of Steam -.-
Though even when I was 56k dial-up, downloading from Steam was quicker than FTPing files.

Name ONE feature that doesn't work. Because I use Steam a lot, and there aren't any features that are broken.

No, they'd probably rather be enjoying single player, non-online games, since they don't have the broadband needed for the multi-player online ones. :whistling:


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As I've mentioned in other threads of this type, I have Steam. I like it for the things it's good at (digital distribution, especially of smaller indie games).

But I really find it very very objectionable, on a philosophical level, to require tying a single-player, non-online, purchased non-digitally, game... to an online network.

It's getting dangerously close to the "inconveniences legal users more than the pirates" line that every DRM scheme needs to be judged against. (Whereas Ubisoft's insane DRM blows right past that line and never looks back. Heh.)

See this is false. You still need Steam to play. While it is in off line mode, you STILL NEED STEAM ON TO PLAY. ( I would use bold, but I don't know about you guys, bold doesn't stand out for me, so I guess it doesn't stand out for you. If I am wrong sorry.) So if Steam is OFF, you can't play NV.

So will people say, you only need Steam for activation only, you don't. You need it to play. Yes you can turn it off after the game has started, the game will not start if Steam is not on.

Tying it online only has to be done once; you can then play in offline mode. It is also the best method of preventing piracy, since you're not just fooling some decryption algorithm built into the software itself, you actually have to verify the legitimacy of the software from an outside source that has better security measures to prevent hacking. It's not perfect, but then nothing is.

Fancy DRM schemes' only purpose is to reassure the stockholders. Simple schemes are enough to stop the "casual" pirates (unfortunately, it's been shown that *no* DRM isn't an option. Lazy jerks will just not pay. But even minor DRM will stop them). And no DRM will ever stop the dedicated pirates.


As I said, my objection in this case is mostly philosophical - I feel it's assinine for a non-online single-player game to have anything to do with an online connection.


(As an aside, I'm also always amazed at the people who mention "it's great! You don't have to stick the disk in the drive anymore!" like that was some kind of bother. A disc-check would be far superior in this case.)


Again, I like Steam, I've used it for years and bought things from them. Being anti-Steam isn't the issue. At least for me.

Try using Sateliite Internet and then name ONE feature that does work.

As far as the argument that my connection type absolves Steam of blame: That would be a strong argument only if Steam were optional. However, since Steam is required to activate a single player game, then it should allow anyone on any connection speed to activate said game. Did you ever consider that maybe the reason some people play single player games is because they have no other choice? Now they can't even get the latest single player games for the same reason that they couldnt' get multiplayer games before.

Easy.. For me, it's Steam's 'auto update' for ITSELF.
I got Civ V for pc. (considering it doesn't come out for anything else).
Because of someones idiocy at 2k/Firaxis/whatever, I was forced to install steam.

Once a week, even though I have Steam set to OFFLINE ONLY, it has done a self-update, and locked-up. Because it locked up, I was unable to play the game that REQUIRES Steam to be up and running to start. I'd say 'any' game, but as i only have the one, doesn't really matter. The lock-up has gone on for more than an hour each time, and once required me to reboot my system to get it to work properly. Steam itself is a feature I can do without.

I tend to prefer gaming on consoles (and surprise surprise, I've not had uber-long load screens or major bugs on the Xbox 360 version of New Vegas). But even if I didn't, I would do my best to avoid Steam, and I have in the past. I was sorely tempted to return Civ V as soon as I installed and realized Steam was required. If it wasn't 4 weeks past, I'd likely be even more tempted.

I realize some people love it. I don't. There is NOTHING that Steam offers me that I couldn't already do elsewhere, and honestly, better.

In case you couldn't tell. I rather side with the OP

Same here (well, close to 50 games)...but no problem with Steam here at all. Ever.

I really like Steam, overall, but it's not perfect. Yes, I've had Steam crash on me from time to time, but usually I just start it again. I moved my entire steam directory from a drive that was filling up to a new, larger drive, and I was assuming it was going to be a nightmare, but in fact it was an easy process, and I didn't need to redownload my games. In fact you just move the games directory (steamapps) and the steam.exe file, then launch steam.exe, and it updates itself and fixes up all its settings so it will work in the new location. Nice work there.

One thing that surprises me is that people aren't up in arms about the lack of resellability of steam games. I'm sure this is the feature that is most important to game publishers. For myself, I'm OK with it, but I'm going in with my eyes wide open, and I rarely purchase full-price games on steam (FNV is the only one, really). I have a friend who routinely buys games, finishes them, and then sells them on ebay for about 60-70% of full price (because the game is still quite recent at that point), so from his perspective the true price of a game is only 30-40% of full price. He's not so into Steam.

I mean, people are definitely annoyed about this trend of putting DLC codes into the game box so if you resell the game the next buyer has to pony up $10 or something to get the full experience. Steam is like that, except the DLC is the whole game.

If I hadn't needed it to install this game. I would have nothing to do with Steam.

In my case, I don't resell games. I might purchased used.. though rarely. I'm exceptionally picky about just what computer-games I buy. Partially because I prefer to do my gaming on console. And for console games, there's GameFly, so i can try something and then buy it if I like it.

However the non-resale-ability of Steam is not one of the reasons I dislike it. Mainly, I see it as intrusive and annoying. Steam does NOTHING for me that I care about and couldn't do already without it. Often better.