About Steam...

What would you say if Steam (w/ or w/o Valve) was bought out by an another company. Would Steam be better or worse after the purchase?

I don't really like steam as it is now. I enjoy having DRM free games and not requiring the internet to play my games that I paid with my money. People tend to revere Gabe Newell as some kind of game god. I view him as a cash whale that many are enslaved to simply because they don't know of many alternatives. Steam is just another way for many companies to squeeze you dry. Remember, DRM doesn't hurt the internet pirates that sale the proverbial high seas! So in short, Steam would be the same greedy application that it is now.

CoffeeDrink said:

I don't really like steam as it is now. I enjoy having DRM free games and not requiring the internet to play my games that I paid with my money. People tend to revere Gabe Newell as some kind of game god. I view him as a cash whale that many are enslaved to simply because they don't know of many alternatives. Steam is just another way for many companies to squeeze you dry. Remember, DRM doesn't hurt the internet pirates that sale the proverbial high seas! So in short, Steam would be the same greedy application that it is now.

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Steam has an Offline Mode, where you can play any of your games without internet (except Multiplayer-only games, obviously).

I don't see how it's greedy at all, the sales let you get games cheaper than any other platform.

The in-game pop-up menu available on any game you open with Steam lets you chat with Steam friends quickly without having to Alt-Tab or anything like that.

Valve (including Gabe Newell) make great games, and they have cheap prices on Steam. How are they greedy? You don't have to use Steam, but you can have much cheaper prices on many, many games on one of the best gaming platforms when you do.

If "Steam is just another way for companies to squeeze you dry", I guess so are Nintendo games/consoles. And Xbox games/consoles. And PS3 games/consoles. And the gaming industry as a whole.

See, unlike Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all of whom would love their own DRM services, Steam is an unneeded service. It's a third party that needs no existence. There are deals and sale everywhere, you just have to find them. And if it helps at all I try and purchase my games direct from the people that actually made them before resorting to a third party; I did this with Papers, Please and not only got the game DRM free, but also got a steam code. That's 2 copies of the game from the developer for the price of one. Purchasing it from steam would have locked it down to DRM and only one copy.

It's a giant DRM machine and I cannot put to words how idiotic the whole thing is since it's induction. Nearly every boxed computer game uses Steam now, and it's very difficult to actually keep what's mine. It's another step that doesn't need to be there. Like I said, the pirates don't care what's in the way: Microsoft? We'll sale around them. Nintendo? We'll sink them. Sony? We'll board them. Steam is designed to prevent the theft of copyright and is yet another hurdle in which to jump to play a class A title. Go ahead and keep using Steam, I don't fault you; but I can find my games just as cheap elsewhere without that blockade.

And another thing, when you have a disc game and are trying to install the contents, you're not installing them, you're downloading them from Steam. I've tested this and it seems to be true with the games that I own that use Steam (DOW fell victim to this DRM nonsense, and I didn't play it until after THQ went under and another two years). Once away from the internet the game will install with a rapidity that wasn't seen when Steam was accessable.

Ooops, just found the steps you need to take if you want to install content using your disc so you don't have to wait for-frickin-ever to play:

1. Log in to Steam and click on Library.
2. Right-click on the game, select Delete local content, and confirm.
3. Insert the first disc into your computer.
4. Close Steam (Steam > Exit).
5. Press Windows Key + R to open Run
6. In the Run window type:

"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -install E:

Replace E: with the CD/DVD drive you are installing from if is not correct.
Replace C:\Program Files\Steam if your Steam installation is not in the default location.
7. Press OK. Steam will launch and ask you to sign in if you do not have your password saved. Your installation should continue from the disc

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I don't know about you but I think the default should be exactly the opposite: install from the disc, and if you don't want to do that it can be downloaded. This is a nice example of how it makes things more complicated when they don't need mucking about.

CoffeeDrink said:

See, unlike Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all of whom would love their own DRM services, Steam is an unneeded service. It's a third party that needs no existence. There are deals and sale everywhere, you just have to find them. And if it helps at all I try and purchase my games direct from the people that actually made them before resorting to a third party; I did this with Papers, Please and not only got the game DRM free, but also got a steam code. That's 2 copies of the game from the developer for the price of one. Purchasing it from steam would have locked it down to DRM and only one copy.

It's a giant DRM machine and I cannot put to words how idiotic the whole thing is since it's induction. Nearly every boxed computer game uses Steam now, and it's very difficult to actually keep what's mine. It's another step that doesn't need to be there. Like I said, the pirates don't care what's in the way: Microsoft? We'll sale around them. Nintendo? We'll sink them. Sony? We'll board them. Steam is designed to prevent the theft of copyright and is yet another hurdle in which to jump to play a class A title. Go ahead and keep using Steam, I don't fault you; but I can find my games just as cheap elsewhere without that blockade.

And another thing, when you have a disc game and are trying to install the contents, you're not installing them, you're downloading them from Steam. I've tested this and it seems to be true with the games that I own that use Steam (DOW fell victim to this DRM nonsense, and I didn't play it until after THQ went under and another two years). Once away from the internet the game will install with a rapidity that wasn't seen when Steam was accessable.

Ooops, just found the steps you need to take if you want to install content using your disc so you don't have to wait for-frickin-ever to play:



I don't know about you but I think the default should be exactly the opposite: install from the disc, and if you don't want to do that it can be downloaded. This is a nice example of how it makes things more complicated when they don't need mucking about.

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Do you really have to follow those steps? I don't even remember the last time I installed a game on Steam through disc, but it doesn't seem too tough to do. I still agree it should be easier though.

But how does Steam really make things more complicated? If anything, it would make them simpler. You've got a digital platform that lets you download and open all of your games all in one place and have achievements and Friends chat and all of those other nifty things all in one place.

The one thing I can think of that might be disadvantageous is the cut Valve takes from profits of games on Steam. I don't know how large it is, but there are games that simply don't get enough publicity when they're not on Steam. And think of it this way: if developers didn't think Valve's cut percentages were at least somewhat reasonable, they wouldn't put their games on Steam.

Remember how Minecraft isn't on Steam? Notch once said that it wasn't on Steam because (I'm paraphrasing here), "we're doing fine on our own without Valve taking a cut of the profits". This is an example of a game that doesn't need Steam to sell, and gets enough publicity to make money without a platform. Like I said before, there are games that sell better on Steam, and thus developers use Steam to make them sell better at the reasonable expense of Valve taking a bit of their profits.


I can't really see much wrong with Steam. I find it satisfying to use, and I personally believe it's great and is made by a great company. It's not unnecessary because it serves the purpose of allowing developers to help their games sell better if they so choose to put their game on Steam, and allows a single digital platform for people to store a large game library.

I've always thought Steam is chronically overrated. It's a lot like Amazon: It's a nice service, good value for the customer, lots of stock, and willing to work with other parties. But I don't understand why people are so quick to defend Steam/Valve. They're a massively wealthy and profitable enterprise. They can always stand for some criticism.

It's a nice platform but it isn't exactly part of the seven wonders. I'm glad that some games that are quite difficult to get are now available via Steam (for example those games in which the bugs usually happen because of patches), but sometimes the prices make no sense from my point of view, so I just purchase stuff I believe it's worth the price.

It would completely depend on who bought it, really. Microsoft is 50/50 on whether it'd be better or worse, as they bungled their own service (Games for Windows Live) to the point where they killed it off, but Microsoft tends to prefer to be more hands-off with gaming properties they acquire that are already successful (they're just not very good at articulating what they want). EA would be regarded as wholly worse, and it would be, but not to the extent that it would be regarded as being. Ubisoft would probably actually be worse for Steam than EA but perceived as better. Activision would probably also be worse.

Sony and Nintendo would probably not consider buying the service, as in Sony's case it's not their own service nor a platform they really do much development for (Planetside and Planetside 2 are the only games I can think of that they make for PC specifically), and in Nintendo's case it's a platform mismatch as they have no games whatsoever for the PC.

Most of these companies would probably provide better customer support, though. Steam's is left mostly up to internet searches and the game devs themselves, and for Steam-related issues, responses are slow.

Castaigne said:

I've always thought Steam is chronically overrated. It's a lot like Amazon: It's a nice service, good value for the customer, lots of stock, and willing to work with other parties. But I don't understand why people are so quick to defend Steam/Valve. They're a massively wealthy and profitable enterprise. They can always stand for some criticism.

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It's vehemently defended because it's actually helped keep PC gaming relevant and alive in the face of the trend in increasing bias toward consoles among game publishers, as well as providing gamers an affordable alternative to piracy (since, with Steam, buying and downloading a game had become nearly as easy as piracy had). PC gaming was regarded as a dying medium even when Steam debuted. It's also defended because its DRM was not and still is not nearly as intrusive/system crippling as EA's initially proposed DRM at the time of Steam's debut, and the various other DRM methods proposed and employed by other publishers (chiefly, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft) since then. Valve hasn't done a whole lot with Steam, I agree, but what they have done is far better than their chief competitors have tried or have done from a PC gamer's perspective.

It's not something people who grew up console gamers or were mainly console gamers during Steam's lifespan would be aware of, but, really, they're liked and defended because they have simply just been far more respectful of PC gamers than the vast majority of their industry peers.

Ive never liked the fact steam effectively holds me hostage when I want to play a game that a bought in a shop but need steam for it to work (and even worse needs steam to be online all the time).

I bought the game in a shop not via steam, there is no reason what so ever for steam to be involved.

At the end of the day the steam client/app is nothing more than a resource hog esppesually on weaker computers

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

Ive never liked the fact steam effectively holds me hostage when I want to play a game that a bought in a shop but need steam for it to work (and even worse needs steam to be online all the time).

I bought the game in a shop not via steam, there is no reason what so ever for steam to be involved.

At the end of the day the steam client/app is nothing more than a resource hog especially on weaker computers

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This exactly. Thank you for putting other examples. Completely forgot that Steam mops up memory when it's running. As was the case for DOW2 for me, I saw no need to even play the game. It's come to the point where I won't even buy games that say 'requires Steam' on the back. Sure PC people claim that consoles are inferior but so far with consoles you can keep the physical copies you buy and trade them off if need be. But no one is going to buy a used computer game. Not only is it wasteful (producing discs that cannot be 'reused') and pointless, but it's irritating as hell to know that Steam is lurking over my shoulder. And I think that they're recording info off your computer regarding certain programs and things. Such as recording the history of running programs. Not sure, but it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to say that they are. Claiming that "we don't spy" hardly belies my suspicions: "I am not a crook" and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". Yeah. Sure. 'You don't spy'. We get it. . . Liars.

CoffeeDrink said:

This exactly. Thank you for putting other examples. Completely forgot that Steam mops up memory when it's running. As was the case for DOW2 for me, I saw no need to even play the game. It's come to the point where I won't even buy games that say 'requires Steam' on the back. Sure PC people claim that consoles are inferior but so far with consoles you can keep the physical copies you buy and trade them off if need be. But no one is going to buy a used computer game. Not only is it wasteful (producing discs that cannot be 'reused') and pointless, but it's irritating as hell to know that Steam is lurking over my shoulder. And I think that they're recording info off your computer regarding certain programs and things. Such as recording the history of running programs. Not sure, but it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to say that they are. Claiming that "we don't spy" hardly belies my suspicions: "I am not a crook" and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". Yeah. Sure. 'You don't spy'. We get it. . . Liars.

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Yes I forgot about the fact that a bought CD is limited to one user so it has no resale value (or you can't lend your copy to a friend for a while).

Like you I would think twice before buying a requires steam title, I only have one anyway (Empire Total war).

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

Yes I forgot about the fact that a bought CD is limited to one user so it has no resale value (or you can't lend your copy to a friend for a while).

Like you I would think twice before buying a requires steam title, I only have one anyway (Empire Total war).

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In only the truest sense. I managed to snag quite a few before the DRM jaws clamped down. I have Oblivion and the DOW series, some starwars games, some blizzard games, Fallout 3 and a couple others. However, I bought DOW 2 (four?) years ago and that was locked to Steam as well as the reissue of Morrowind. Those games cannot be resold, even if they were terrible games (they're not). People defend Steam, and those same people cried out against Microsoft for trying to do the exact same thing! It's crazy. DRM sucks, plain and simple. I can't see myself ever defending DRM. I wouldn't even if I was paid to do so. Seems like we're both in the same viking longboat rowing. Just waiting for the rest of the hoard to catch up with us I suppose.

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

Ive never liked the fact steam effectively holds me hostage when I want to play a game that a bought in a shop but need steam for it to work (and even worse needs steam to be online all the time).

I bought the game in a shop not via steam, there is no reason what so ever for steam to be involved.

At the end of the day the steam client/app is nothing more than a resource hog esppesually on weaker computers

Click to expand...

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

Yes I forgot about the fact that a bought CD is limited to one user so it has no resale value (or you can't lend your copy to a friend for a while).

Like you I would think twice before buying a requires steam title, I only have one anyway (Empire Total war).

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As I said before, Steam has an Offline Mode, which allows you to play any of your (non-multiplayer) games fully functionally (except no achievements).

Steam hardly takes up enough resources to cause problems. If a computer is weak enough that Steam will noticeably affect performance of not-extremely-demanding games, it's not really designed to be playing games.

There is a feature Steam has called Steam Family Sharing, in which any account that you give permission to can play any of the games in your library on their account once they download them, at anytime that you're not in-game. Why would you need to share discs?

How can you re-sell any PC games in the first place? They're mostly digital now, and those that aren't are single use. But generally they're so much cheaper than games of other platforms that you don't need to resell them, and you'll still be saving money. This is especially the case on Steam, where sales can let you get games much cheaper than you could get them on any other platform.

How is Steam spying on you? Well you know your ISP can see anything you do on the internet. And Google can see anything you search. The only one that used to spy on people was EA's Origin sevice, which it no longer does.

I don't understand what you find actually bad about Steam. The fact that it's DRM doesn't make it bad if it's not actually being obstructive or bad in any way.

Steam lets PC gamers get much cheaper games, download them, share them with their friends and family, and you can play all your games offline. I can't really see anything signifcant there is to dislike about Steam in any way.

I'm a little bit twisted in terms of Steam. On one hand I like my games being DRM free, but for the most part steam won't allow for such shenanigans. I think there are a couple of Indie games, that you can simply copy onto another PC and which still work after that, but that's just a small minority.
On the other hand, if you happen to lose your physical copy, but the game is already registered into your account (or in my case: if the DVD-drive stops working), you don't have to bother with that, as it allows you to install your game over the internet, anyway.

Also Steam offers sales regularly, including those hugh summer and winter sales, which also give you the opportunity to gather cards which you can sell for money and while it's a rather tedious way, it still is an option to get more games into your library in the longrun.

One minor complaint I have with Steam is its not neccessarily user optimized interface, especially when it comes to client configurations. I know that I had a couple of instances where I had to look some stuff up on the internet. Granted that was quite a while ago, which means that they could have changed it in the meantime.

Also every time I boot up my PC, that stupid updater starts and it won't allow me to proceed until it finishes looking for updates, which there haven't been any for a while now. So annoying...

GreenFlame said:

As I said before, Steam has an Offline Mode, which allows you to play any of your (non-multiplayer) games fully functionally (except no achievements).

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You still earn achivements in offline mode. Quite a few of my Final Fantasy VII Achievements were earned in offline mode. That said: the whole always online DRM thing is simply not true: You can play games offline as long as they aren't multilayer only. TF2 and Dota 2, for example can't be played because they require an internet connection, and even then you can still run them offline. If a game DOES require always online DRM then it's always third party. A DRM free option would be nice, sure, but it's completely non obstructive and isn't really much of an issue. Not to mention most games don't even use Steam DRM.

I second what GreenFlame said. If steam running in the background is actually a problem, then it definitely isn't built for gaming. It isn't as if it takes up that much memory.

Not bothering with the reselling since GreenFlame already answered that. But buying digital games on steam is really cheap, you aren't losing a significant amount of money.

That said, Steam games are crazy cheap with all the sales. And as far as buying games online and still having to install them on steam goes, I prefer that. It's so much more convenient to have all my games in one location like that. To each their own on that matter. If you don't want you're games all in one place then fine. But I prefer being able too keep up with all my games on steam.

^ My thoughts.

The only time I used Steam was to play Age of Empires II: HD Edition on my mother's account. Stupidly enough we couldn't play at the same time without the program throwing a fit, and I didn't have the money for a second copy of their DRM crap.


I like to get my games from GOG. They have a few Steam titles like SimCity 4, Age of Empires (I think), and even lesser known favourites of ours such as Pharaoh and Caesar III.



Steam is a platform making money off of DRM. Their saving grace is aggressive pricing and sales that aren't bullshit. That's about it.

It's already been mentioned, but I travel to a remote cabin in the middle of a forest in NY twice a year, almost every year. I take my laptop. I play Bastion on my laptop, yes, on Steam.
No, it doesn't need an internet connection to run. We don't even have a phone line out there, much less an internet connection. I'd have to drive to a cafe to get an internet connection. Doesn't keep me from playing my games.

Orpheus said:

It's so much more convenient to have all my games in one location like that. To each their own on that matter. If you don't want you're games all in one place then fine. But I prefer being able too keep up with all my games on steam.

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This is the best part of Steam for me.

I'm probably in the minority in this thread, but on Steam as a whole, I know my 600+ games look like a child's collection to many. If I want to move over to my laptop and play any of them - all of them - I can. Just by logging in. If I buy a new computer, I don't have to worry about anything except some reinstalling. My entire library moves with me, seamlessly, and many of my games save to Steam's Cloud, so I can pick up right where I left off on a different computer. With no issues.

That. Is fabulous.

And seriously, Steam uses 1/5th of what Firefox is taking to keep this thread open. Seconding that your computer probably isn't fit for gaming if Steam's client bogs you down.


Although I have to disagree on Steam sales. Yes, they're good; no, they're not the best thing ever. The summer and winter sales can be pretty fab, but, I vastly prefer my bundles most of the year, and sometimes other sites do offer significantly better deals. Though you could argue that's all in "friendly competition."
GMG, for example, is really great with pre-purchases and recent releases. Boyfriend bought me Resident Evil Revelations 2 Complete for $10 less than Steam has it. c:
Although grey market trading is still the best way to build up your library dirt cheap.

Senusret said:

The only time I used Steam was to play Age of Empires II: HD Edition on my mother's account. Stupidly enough we couldn't play at the same time without the program throwing a fit, and I didn't have the money for a second copy of their DRM crap.

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That's just unreasonable to begin with. It's an RTS, it's online mp only. :P

The store page specifically states whether a game has "Local Co-Op" or "MultiPlayer" - or both!

If it's the latter, it's online only. It's no different from a console game that doesn't support local co-op, and ergo, you'd need two consoles and two copies of the game.

Sgt.Dustmop said:

That's just unreasonable to begin with. It's an RTS, it's online mp only. :P

The store page specifically states whether a game has "Local Co-Op" or "MultiPlayer" - or both!

If it's the latter, it's online only. It's no different from a console game that doesn't support local co-op, and ergo, you'd need two consoles and two copies of the game.

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sorry, but AoE is not online only in the slightest. It came on a CD and was released in 1999 back when you visited LANs for MP. That's not how that game works.

Senusret said:

Steam is a platform making money off of DRM. Their saving grace is aggressive pricing and sales that aren't bullshit. That's about it.

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Once again, the Steam DRM is non-obstructive. And most games don't even use it. It's not like it actually impacts the games significantly. Some games do require always online DRM, or something invasive like that, but it's always third party and not steam's fault. A DRM-free option would be nice, but it's hardly significant as it stands now.

Senusret said:

The only time I used Steam was to play Age of Empires II: HD Edition on my mother's account. Stupidly enough we couldn't play at the same time without the program throwing a fit, and I didn't have the money for a second copy of their DRM crap.

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How's that stupid? The game is listed as Multiplayer only on it's store page. (Though, it does support single player.) And even if it did support LAN then you'd still need two accounts, each with their own copies of the game.

GreenFlame said:

As I said before, Steam has an Offline Mode, which allows you to play any of your (non-multiplayer) games fully functionally (except no achievements).

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What happens when one does not have the internet? I for one, was without the internet for a few years (three) on my desktop. Didn't bug me too much, surprise, surprise. Steam requires an active internet connection to register your game. If it can't do that, you can't play offline or online. And let's not forget: companies are fallible. What happens when a huge company falls under?

Washington Mutual actually had a couple of my friends fall through the cracks. They had their life savings in that bank and were not reimbursed their money. I helped them out as best I could, and they're still working even though they should be retired. They 'lost' their home (they got it back once another bank swooped in and bought everything, tying up paperwork long enough for them to get back on their feet).

So bank story aside: what exactly are you going to do if Steam goes kaput? Strange to think something like that could happen these days, but you never know it could happen. No one thought Enron was a sham 15 years ago and millions lost their homes, jobs, savings, and cars because of it. I've always been leery of digital purchases and try to keep them to a minimum and to a system that can download them and keep them on memory file. I suppose it really comes down to preference, and I really, really hate DRM so I suppose I don't like Steam more off principle than anything else.

Orpheus said:

How's that stupid? The game is listed as Multiplayer only on it's store page. (Though, it does support single player.) And even if it did support LAN then you'd still need two accounts, each with their own copies of the game.

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We had ways of getting around this in the 90's. Now you just have to 'buy' another digital copy instead of just one for two home computers.