I have no qualms using Steam. As long as Valve continues to deliver a superior product over its competitors, I say good for them.
- 7
- 1
I have something called "Steam" that does nothing
- Thread starter reddingstacey
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
- Status
Steam short changed me when the converted my steam wallet currency, i must say i am disappointed by steam....
Dealing with CD codes written in some note book you lost 3 years ago and scratched CD's and all that nonsense is something I never, ever want to return to.
- 19
Pfffft.... haha for life.
Yeah until Gaben east one too many hamburgers and someone like Bobby Kotick takes over.
I like steam(and don´t wish Gaben dead) but lets not fool ourselves and think that steam is not a DRM platform or that things will always be like they are. And for a game to force you to install 3rd party software is questionable at best.
- 5
- 2
Yeah if only there were no other services that have no DRM and let you even make backups of your games. Its either steam or going back to CD codes.. yeah
- 2
Do we really own anything? Is reality even real? If a tree falls in the forest...
- 2
- 1
I mean, to be fair, even when you buy a CD or DVD with the game you still don't own the game on there, just the rights to use it. It's just slightly harder for an Orwellian video game overlord to prevent you from using the program as you see fit when you have an object that contains its code in an easily portable format (not to say Steam is necessarily Orwellian at the moment, but it or another company like EA could become so in the future).
- 5
If i can buy it on steam, that's where I'm getting it. They never did wrong by me, I have games that I forgot I bought in my library that I can spontaneously play for nostalgia, it does achievements, and makes getting discounted games great. I also use some thirdparty websites that sell steamcodes at extremely reduced prices if a game isn't on sale via steam directly, and never had any issue with that. Also makes chatting with friends and hopping into games with them easy.
Without steam I'd probably have a much worse gaming experience.
Without steam I'd probably have a much worse gaming experience.
- 1
Same here, the only objection I could think of against Steam (that their publishing system sometimes let obvious scam games through) was squashed when they introduced refunds as well.
It seems like a lot of the dislike for steam is concern for what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands, rather than what it presently is and does.
- 6
Eh, this thread is just going to get closed like every other thread discussing Steam (it's fair enough it shouldn't be in this forum, though), but I find Steam ridiculously inconvenient because I am not blessed with high-speed internet and unlimited bandwidth.
Steam will not launch any game that it finds requires a patch (you can launch paradox games from their exe without Steam and bypass this, but that is not the norm and no credit to Steam in any case). With Origin (gasp!), it is at least possible to go offline and then use the game without it having to patch first. Not so with Steam. This is not convenient when you are stuck with awful speed internet and 8GB a month bandwidth; rather the opposite in fact. Many of Steam's other features also do not work without good internet (their much-vaunted Workshop has not worked properly for me ever since I moved; it just downloads the mod partially and puts it in a different directory without the file required for the game to recognise it). This is a widespread enough problem that there is now a site for directly downloading files off the Steam workshop, since it so often messes up (and needs you to use their cloud features to work properly in any case).
Digital downloads are great, but they also existed before Steam. I buy nothing off Steam unless there is no other option. Unfortunately, "no other option" is frequently the case, though that is actually getting less true as GOG continues to be a growing concern. If they continue to rise in market share, it may make economic sense for Paradox down the line to offer DRM-free versions of their games once again, and then both the enthusiastic Steam users and those who dislike it or simply prefer DRM-free can both have what they want.
- 2
If I had a concern about Steam, it would be so much this, even, but rather the fear that archivists of the future (i.e. like GOG today amongst other archival sites) would be unable to resurrect or preserve any pieces of game history. That long defunct games like the ones the Internet of today has brought back into being would be lost forever instead.
But I have hope for the ingenuity of future folks to solve that problem. I'm not too afraid. 1997 almost certainly didn't know that games of the 1980s would ever be so easy to find again.
- 1
The percentage indeed wasn't too large; though until CKII really took off on steam about half a year after release it must have been quite a bit larger. Anyway I was really negative about steam and didn't get it until the day before EU4 released (I had preordered); and I only got it because of EU4. At that time I don't think any other company than PI could have got me onto steam. I am still not too happy with them, but I can live with them. (Though if they actually are disabling the GG steam codes for CKII which it appears then I will get a much more negative view of them, since that potentially could cost me hundreds of €.)
Free copies which it now appears steam are disabling...
- 1
Complete nonsense. Steam doesn't own the game, Paradox does. We merely buy ONE ticket to be allowed to use their game, and they even permit us to mod it. Steam is the means through which Paradox gives us access to THEIR games, their property.
It works the same as in the past, except back then, you owned a shiny disk (yours) with someone else's game on it (not yours) that you had permission to use for one person.
- 2
You can just download the game, select the build that you want (as far back as steam goes), and then copy it out of the steam directory.
There is no DRM. It wouldn't even matter if the crab-people cabal owned the rights to your copy of the game, they can't invade your hard drive to take it off. You can play the game all you want without using Steam for anything but keeping it up to date, and if it ever does turn out that Steam is shutting down, and taking your games with it, it won't be able to do anything to your products from Paradox Interactive.
There is no DRM. It wouldn't even matter if the crab-people cabal owned the rights to your copy of the game, they can't invade your hard drive to take it off. You can play the game all you want without using Steam for anything but keeping it up to date, and if it ever does turn out that Steam is shutting down, and taking your games with it, it won't be able to do anything to your products from Paradox Interactive.
These are not problems I have, even though my internet is less than stellar. Switching to offline mode always works fine for me, my only problem with Steam's offline mode is that you typically need to pre-plan it. It doesn't always allow you to start it in offline mode without having first logged in online and then telling it to restart in offline, which can be quite frustrating if you've lost internet unexpectedly and it decides that today is not a day it will work. A few years back it would never work unless you had logged in and restarted it in offline mode, which practically made it useless. Games with patches waiting generally work fine, games that have half patched though, you're usually stuck waiting for it to finish.
Workshop I've barely ever used before, so I can't comment on my experiences of it. My biggest problems with Steam is just the monopoly issue that others have mentioned. At the moment, it's great because they provide a great service to me in a neat package. But if Valve was to turn evil empire on us...
Well, it will work, but not "perfectly". You will encounter some anomalies if you play without Steam. And you eventually seem to lose access to your DLCs if you don't check in with Steam, periodically.
And, iirc, Paradox elected to put up a warning that the game may not function correctly if you run in off-line mode, rather than fully support a Steam-free option.
- Status