I dont like to support products which makes you depandant on something...
With Steam you have to download games which you actually dont own like a DVD and if you start with Steam, you will probably buy even more games from the same service.
Its like a coffee machine with pads/caps, the basics are cheap (free Steam) but you have to pay a lot for the pads/nespresso caps (depandant on Steam and forced to be online). I dont like such concepts, but these business models are quiete profitable. Standard Oil was one of the first modern companies in the end of the 19th century who did this already. They sold cheap petroleum lamps but sold expensive their petroleum with higher quality (standard) than others.
To be forced to play online is just a no go for me. I dont support everything when I dont really have to.
Their normal pricing for games is wrong, but this is publishers issue not Steam's... I only buy games from sales, but then they are quite good.
I love steam and I usually have the internet connection so I don't have any issues using it. 91 games in it... I don't see need for physical media, you could rip images from CD/DVD, but why bother fighting with no-cd and others when Steam does everything for you. Main reason is that it just works, and I love how everything is handled in one place.
I hate to be forced to be online when i want playing offlinegames.
Steam has an offline mode.
Which doesn't always work, I serve overseas and after a while I always get a message 'this game is not ready to play offline' and I am prevented from playing (Civ V). I have now uninstalled the game and like the previous poster won't be relying on Steam to provide access to a game I HAVE BOUGHT!
Shame really because I really like the Civ franchise.
If CIV V uses Steam Cloud, turn that off.
I had the same problem with other games when offline because it was trying to connect to the cloud server.
So Ive started using steam recently...And Id like everyones opinion of it!
Do you guys think its good? Bad? That it should do more?
Opinions plsssss ^_^
As for me, I think its great except for the fact that I cant add cd keys to it (i think you cant..) so that you can play games that you didnt get from steam on it and have it on an online backup kind of thing
If you're into the whole "download to hard drive" thing, always get it on Direct2Drive when you can. Steam has some great sales, and I often take advantage of that. But you pretty much need to run Steam in order to run the game, which is stupid as hell. If your Internet is failing miserably after a power outage (or, if you just have Comcast) and you didn't set it to "Play Offline" mode (which ironically you have to connect online to do so) ...
Their normal pricing for games is wrong, but this is publishers issue not Steam's... I only buy games from sales, but then they are quite good.
I love steam and I usually have the internet connection so I don't have any issues using it. 91 games in it... I don't see need for physical media, you could rip images from CD/DVD, but why bother fighting with no-cd and others when Steam does everything for you. Main reason is that it just works, and I love how everything is handled in one place.
Its easy explained why Steam gets also a lot of support from the gaming industry when it comes to direct download.
The branche want to avoid at all cost that people dont sell their used DVD´s, the whole second-hand market which is a negative point for them gets fixed with it. When you create a physical media from the bought downloaded conent and you try to sell it, you get in trouble. This is one of the main reasons why this whole Steam concept is called the "future".......pure marketing tricks.
With Steam you have to sell your whole account instead of single games, plus that you can sell it only to them who want to have Steam. Heck on ebay steam accounts get removed...
Nah sorry this whole Steam thing means totally dependancy on just one company....and still they have the power to disable your account if needed.
Their normal pricing for games is wrong, but this is publishers issue not Steam's... I only buy games from sales, but then they are quite good.
I love steam and I usually have the internet connection so I don't have any issues using it. 91 games in it... I don't see need for physical media, you could rip images from CD/DVD, but why bother fighting with no-cd and others when Steam does everything for you. Main reason is that it just works, and I love how everything is handled in one place.
Its easy explained why Steam gets also a lot of support from the gaming industry when it comes to direct download.
The branche want to avoid at all cost that people dont sell their used DVD´s, the whole second-hand market which is a negative point for them gets fixed with it. When you create a physical media from the bought downloaded conent and you try to sell it, you get in trouble. This is one of the main reasons why this whole Steam concept is called the "future".......pure marketing tricks.
With Steam you have to sell your whole account instead of single games, plus that you can sell it only to them who want to have Steam. Heck on ebay steam accounts get removed...
Nah sorry this whole Steam thing means totally dependancy on just one company....and still they have the power to disable your account if needed.
Iam not stupid to follow this crap...
Thats interesting point of view.
But when I come to think about it, I sorta like to physically own the game box, hell I still own the original bow EQ and UO came in.
Console gaming - The code can reportedly be used up to five times, a move that will not only prevent piracy but will also impact on the increasing trade in pre-owned games, as retailers will have no idea how many times a code has been used when a customer tries to trade the game in.
You guys support Steam, a system which actually takes your rights and freedom.
They take your rights to sell what you own. You own physically nothing, if you burn it on DVD and you try to sell it - piracy. If you try to sell your Steam account on ebay, they take it down.
They earn more a lot more money and only share a part of it with lower game prices or sometimes bargain offers for a while to attract you.
If they shut down the server for older games, you own nothing and cant play offline.
You destroy with your support all the small retailers which had actually good prices and the second hand market.
The future of games looks maybe different than you think.....the system is based on greed for more profit for them and less to the customer, like "clever" business works actually.
edit: hey I didnt mean that who is using Steam are "bad guys", I just wanted to give some hints what stands behind the concept.
I am a huge supporter of the second hand market I buy a lot of games off Amazon Marketplace for a song so no I will never support the likes of Steam. I do however use D2D for MMORPG but only when they are cheap.
Its easy explained why Steam gets also a lot of support from the gaming industry when it comes to direct download.
The branche want to avoid at all cost that people dont sell their used DVD´s, the whole second-hand market which is a negative point for them gets fixed with it. When you create a physical media from the bought downloaded conent and you try to sell it, you get in trouble. This is one of the main reasons why this whole Steam concept is called the "future".......pure marketing tricks.
With Steam you have to sell your whole account instead of single games, plus that you can sell it only to them who want to have Steam. Heck on ebay steam accounts get removed...
Nah sorry this whole Steam thing means totally dependancy on just one company....and still they have the power to disable your account if needed.
Iam not stupid to follow this crap...
I understand that it's not always easy to sit through reading an entire thread once it's this long before wanting to post your views, but I did cover that part of the discussion in my post back on page 3 (post #33). Of course, that post was quite a wall of text, so to snip out the pertinent portion(s)...
Originally posted by Shiymmas
If anything, Gamestop and its ilk has ruined game sales in general. The re-sale of used games pretty well crushes profit margins for publishers and keeps smaller companies from ever getting games on the shelves (indie games). PC games side-stepped this long ago by requiring CD keys for use of nearly any multi-player online game. Simply put; you can buy a second-hand copy of a game all day, but can't use its online features without a fresh key or the account the key was registered to. This factor alone is, in my opinion, far more responsible for faltering retail sales of PC games, given that there is little motivation for retailers like Gamestop to carry such games as they can't have customers bring them in, pay them a minimal amount, then resell at a markup.
Meanwhile, "Power to the players!" - the all-time greatest tag-line for a scam ever - basically means "you don't get access to X feature unless you pre-order or buy this game from Gamestop!". Sweet! So now they're restricting features of games that should be included in the box price regardless of how and where it's purchased, all so Gamestop can pressure consumers into buying from them, at full price, without as much as a review out for a game. In other words, buying games sight-unseen. Wonderful concept/service there.
On top of that, considering the aforementioned "service" of buying and selling used games (console, mostly), Gamestop scoops up their rather mediocre profits on pre-orders (generally +/- $10 per $60 copy sold), then weeks after a game's release starts really raking in the profits by buying up the used copies by low-balling customers, often giving less than 50% of the markup they'll charge for the same game once they toss it back on the shelf. The best part? Customer A buys a game at pre-order for $60. Gamestop gets $10 profit. Cust. A brings in said copy, barely used, and gets $20 store credit for it. Customer B comes in and buys A's used copy for $40 - a great deal compared to the original price! Now Gamestop has picked up $30 profit from one copy of a game. Cust. B brings the game back after finishing it, and Gamestop hands them $15 or less, only to re-stock that copy and sell it once again to customer C for $30+, and now Gamestop has racked up nearly the full retail price of the originally sold copy. Forget how many times a single copy of a game may cycle through their hands; the scale at which this takes place is what's staggering. In the meantime, the developers and publishers of said game have only been paid for a single initial sale, while that same copy has paid for itself multiple times over for Gamestop, generating ungodly amounts of revenue, all for screwing over the folks who actually make the games and withholding features from players in the meantime.
With Steam, the developer itself can have its game published for a likely minimal fee when compared to trying to have a game published at retail, with little to no overhead expense and meanwhile receive a load of publicity which they otherwise couldn't possibly afford, not to mention a system with which they can consistantly maintain and update a game without having to individually provide the servers or maintain their own website for. Really sounds like a terrible deal for any developer.
Add it all up, though, and it becomes much easier to understand why the "standard" price for games is so high. If the initial sales prices weren't so jacked up, the devs and publishers would see very little profit. Thanks, Gamestop.
You're saying that you shouldn't need to download a game that you own a DVD copy of, but my simple question would be "Why are you adding it to steam if you own your own copy and want to install from the DVD?" The benefit of adding a game to steam and installing from there is that you will get the latest, most up-to-date version of the game and it will be patched and maintained at your preference. If you'd rather do so yourself, manually, then just install from the DVD without adding it to Steam. Problem solved!
Honestly, I'd love to see some legitimate arguments against Steam that point out its flaws, but the only one I've ever seen is that it doesn't come with hard copies. However, for me, I don't care about owning a jewel case, a CD, and a box that's going to either get thrown away, or take up space somewhere in my closet/under my bed/on a shelf somewhere collecting dust. The only issue that could ever be conceived is if Steam went down, but the odds of that are so slim that I couldn't possibly be concerned. Even if something did happen, I've gotten more than enough value from it, and wouldn't freak out over tracking down hard copies of truly loved games if the situation arised. Oh, and the CD keys for the games would likely still be valid for use with a backed up hard copy. Either way, that one issue is little more than personal preference until something happens to restrict the use of your games.
Really, there's no reason - if you follow the rules - for your Steam account to ever get disabled. If you find the thought of its potential to be disturbing, simply refer to their rules on banning accounts. As for the whole thing being a "marketing trick", I beg to differ. As I explained above, used game sales are why box prices are so damned high to begin with. Between that and outrageous publishing fees/expenses, it's tough for the developers themselves to turn the kinds of profits they deserve and it's why you, the consumer, feel the necessity to make some of your money back on a game you're done with by reselling it. If it weren't for piracy and used game sales, there'd be no reason for prices to be so absurdly high, and a price drop across the board would be far more likely.
But really, concern over the longevity of your games on Steam is fairly inane. The reality of what would have to take place for it to shut down is quite unlikely, and as I previously explained as well; for every game you purchase you do receive a CD key with which I'm quite certain you could recover your games. Nevermind that legally, I'm quite positive that in such an event, Steam would be responsible for compensating individuals with either refunds, or vouchers for hard copies or the hard copies themselves, as well I'm sure there is some degree of responsibility on the developers' end as well.
Really though, if the sale of your used games is your concern, then buy the handful of single-player games that you even can re-sell from somewhere else. I don't understand the complication as it seems that's what you'd do anyway. As for the rest of your games, there's not much of a market in used multi-player PC games anyway (MMO's, MP shooters etc.).
I've said it before and I'll say it again; I have no affiliation with Steam. I am, however, a huge supporter of theirs given then potential of what it can (and does) do for PC gaming. From where I sit, I'd rather see the likes of Gamestop shut down as they're gaming's worst nightmare across all platforms. Don't get me wrong, either; I support the devs in this, not the publishers and yes, I get that that's exactly what Steam is. I'm quite sure, however, that whatever they and their game devs make from their game sales is 100% profit, as opposed to the expenses involved with the creation of hard copies, shipping, and other forms of marketing (nevermind expenses I'm failing to list involving production of hard copy games). Would still love to see a logical argument against what I've said, as well.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde
If you're into the whole "download to hard drive" thing, always get it on Direct2Drive when you can. Steam has some great sales, and I often take advantage of that. But you pretty much need to run Steam in order to run the game, which is stupid as hell. If your Internet is failing miserably after a power outage (or, if you just have Comcast) and you didn't set it to "Play Offline" mode (which ironically you have to connect online to do so) ...
you're screwed.
I have never had a problem with restarting Steam into offline mode if my internet went down...
Both while the computer was on or just having it booted up.
As long as you were signed in before you internet dropped, you're fine.
Comments
I dont like to support products which makes you depandant on something...
With Steam you have to download games which you actually dont own like a DVD and if you start with Steam, you will probably buy even more games from the same service.
Its like a coffee machine with pads/caps, the basics are cheap (free Steam) but you have to pay a lot for the pads/nespresso caps (depandant on Steam and forced to be online). I dont like such concepts, but these business models are quiete profitable. Standard Oil was one of the first modern companies in the end of the 19th century who did this already. They sold cheap petroleum lamps but sold expensive their petroleum with higher quality (standard) than others.
To be forced to play online is just a no go for me. I dont support everything when I dont really have to.
Steam is future of gaming.
Their normal pricing for games is wrong, but this is publishers issue not Steam's... I only buy games from sales, but then they are quite good.
I love steam and I usually have the internet connection so I don't have any issues using it. 91 games in it... I don't see need for physical media, you could rip images from CD/DVD, but why bother fighting with no-cd and others when Steam does everything for you. Main reason is that it just works, and I love how everything is handled in one place.
If CIV V uses Steam Cloud, turn that off.
I had the same problem with other games when offline because it was trying to connect to the cloud server.
If you're into the whole "download to hard drive" thing, always get it on Direct2Drive when you can. Steam has some great sales, and I often take advantage of that. But you pretty much need to run Steam in order to run the game, which is stupid as hell. If your Internet is failing miserably after a power outage (or, if you just have Comcast) and you didn't set it to "Play Offline" mode (which ironically you have to connect online to do so) ...
you're screwed.
Its easy explained why Steam gets also a lot of support from the gaming industry when it comes to direct download.
The branche want to avoid at all cost that people dont sell their used DVD´s, the whole second-hand market which is a negative point for them gets fixed with it. When you create a physical media from the bought downloaded conent and you try to sell it, you get in trouble. This is one of the main reasons why this whole Steam concept is called the "future".......pure marketing tricks.
With Steam you have to sell your whole account instead of single games, plus that you can sell it only to them who want to have Steam. Heck on ebay steam accounts get removed...
Nah sorry this whole Steam thing means totally dependancy on just one company....and still they have the power to disable your account if needed.
Iam not stupid to follow this crap...
Thats interesting point of view.
But when I come to think about it, I sorta like to physically own the game box, hell I still own the original bow EQ and UO came in.
Well, thats actually the truth.
Here is an article from 2008 " the second-hand market is a "very critical situation" for EA"
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/85956-Pre-Owned-Games-A-Critical-Situation-For-EA
"Electronic Arts has made the decision to lock out multiplayer modes on used sales"
http://www.neowin.net/news/electronic-arts-locks-out-multiplayer-modes-on-used-sales
Sony has revealed that it will look into charging for online content in second-hand games.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a266557/sony-to-charge-for-online-in-used-games.html
Buying used games is cheating
http://kotaku.com/#!5620280/thq-buying-used-games-is-cheating
Console gaming - The code can reportedly be used up to five times, a move that will not only prevent piracy but will also impact on the increasing trade in pre-owned games, as retailers will have no idea how many times a code has been used when a customer tries to trade the game in.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/sony%25E2%2580%2599s-answer-to-ps3-piracy-serial-codes&
You guys support Steam, a system which actually takes your rights and freedom.
They take your rights to sell what you own. You own physically nothing, if you burn it on DVD and you try to sell it - piracy. If you try to sell your Steam account on ebay, they take it down.
They earn more a lot more money and only share a part of it with lower game prices or sometimes bargain offers for a while to attract you.
If they shut down the server for older games, you own nothing and cant play offline.
You destroy with your support all the small retailers which had actually good prices and the second hand market.
The future of games looks maybe different than you think.....the system is based on greed for more profit for them and less to the customer, like "clever" business works actually.
edit: hey I didnt mean that who is using Steam are "bad guys", I just wanted to give some hints what stands behind the concept.
I am a huge supporter of the second hand market I buy a lot of games off Amazon Marketplace for a song so no I will never support the likes of Steam. I do however use D2D for MMORPG but only when they are cheap.
I understand that it's not always easy to sit through reading an entire thread once it's this long before wanting to post your views, but I did cover that part of the discussion in my post back on page 3 (post #33). Of course, that post was quite a wall of text, so to snip out the pertinent portion(s)...
Really, there's no reason - if you follow the rules - for your Steam account to ever get disabled. If you find the thought of its potential to be disturbing, simply refer to their rules on banning accounts. As for the whole thing being a "marketing trick", I beg to differ. As I explained above, used game sales are why box prices are so damned high to begin with. Between that and outrageous publishing fees/expenses, it's tough for the developers themselves to turn the kinds of profits they deserve and it's why you, the consumer, feel the necessity to make some of your money back on a game you're done with by reselling it. If it weren't for piracy and used game sales, there'd be no reason for prices to be so absurdly high, and a price drop across the board would be far more likely.
But really, concern over the longevity of your games on Steam is fairly inane. The reality of what would have to take place for it to shut down is quite unlikely, and as I previously explained as well; for every game you purchase you do receive a CD key with which I'm quite certain you could recover your games. Nevermind that legally, I'm quite positive that in such an event, Steam would be responsible for compensating individuals with either refunds, or vouchers for hard copies or the hard copies themselves, as well I'm sure there is some degree of responsibility on the developers' end as well.
Really though, if the sale of your used games is your concern, then buy the handful of single-player games that you even can re-sell from somewhere else. I don't understand the complication as it seems that's what you'd do anyway. As for the rest of your games, there's not much of a market in used multi-player PC games anyway (MMO's, MP shooters etc.).
I've said it before and I'll say it again; I have no affiliation with Steam. I am, however, a huge supporter of theirs given then potential of what it can (and does) do for PC gaming. From where I sit, I'd rather see the likes of Gamestop shut down as they're gaming's worst nightmare across all platforms. Don't get me wrong, either; I support the devs in this, not the publishers and yes, I get that that's exactly what Steam is. I'm quite sure, however, that whatever they and their game devs make from their game sales is 100% profit, as opposed to the expenses involved with the creation of hard copies, shipping, and other forms of marketing (nevermind expenses I'm failing to list involving production of hard copy games). Would still love to see a logical argument against what I've said, as well.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
I have never had a problem with restarting Steam into offline mode if my internet went down...
Both while the computer was on or just having it booted up.
As long as you were signed in before you internet dropped, you're fine.