Tell me about Steam...

Soldato
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Angilion, why not ring/e-mail Valve yourself wtih any concerns about their DRM ?

They would more than likely be transparant with you and give you an idea of what information is being collected, since its your right to know.

Or just try Steam cause YOLO <- yep i said it :(
 
Soldato
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Where are my claims of wildly implausible things with no evidence to support them?
wait for it... ah, here it is.
Steam gathers data from your PC and sends it to Valve. This is not a secret. It is not a conspiracy. It is not covered up. I just asked what data it gathers.

Steam does not gather data from ypur PC and send it to Valve. Except under one specific, rare situation which you receive clear notification, and have to opt-in to.

Every now and then, no more than ocne a year, you *might* get a pop up when you launch steam asking if you want to take part in the steam hardware server. If you say, no, that pop up closes and no data is collected. If you say yes, then some data about your system is collected, anonymised, and made part of the steam hardware survey.

You referred to steam as spyware. This is not at all how spyware operates.

The data collected by the hardware survey is here:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Now, during this survey, and only during this survey, steam does collect information on software on your system that it really has no need to know (like whether you have Microsoft Office installed or, more pertinently for some people, bittorent). This caused a minor controversy when it was introduced- it wasn't part of the survey for the first few years.
But you can easily opt-out, and most importantly, this is an actual survey - the data is anonymised, and steam has no way of looking particular users to the data collected.
 
Soldato
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I've looked around online for details and all I've found is ~85% fans saying everything is fine regardless of anything because Gabe Newell and Steam are heroes beyond reproach, something like Father Christmas and Superman, ~10% opposition saying that it's utterly terrible under any circumstances and the remainder saying that this sort of DRM is unavoidable, Steam works well enough and Valve haven't got a history of being incompetent or malicious. It seems to be rather polarised and rather short of actual information.

It's not really polarised at all. There are very few people who have used steam who hate it. There are some forums where people who have never used it, and are paranoid about it, are basically regurgitating paranoid fears back from 2003-4. And there are people who just wont accept DRM on principle.

I do understand the dislike of DRM on principle. I dont like it either. Steam is the only DRM service which actually adds value, and on-balance, the trade-off is worth it. It gives a lot of features which you may not care about, but which add a lot of value to most users:

* autopatching. You never have to manually update a game again. For some games where, after installing, you have to hunt down patch 1.1, then 1.11. then 1.2, and install them each in order, what a hassle.

* Incredibly easy transferral of your entire steam catalog from one computer to another. (just copy the steam folder then double click steam.exe, and a couple of minutes later you're up and running). With steam you just forget about it and it's done.

* A central games launcher. If you have a lot of games installed, you dont have to have a couple of dozen or hundred shortcuts scattered across your desktop. Just open steam, and double click the game you want to run.

* steam sales, especially the summer and winter events. Really, any pc game user who has missed out on these doesn't know what he's been missing.

* most games on steam have dedicated forums in the steam community site. This is an excellent resource for if a game has problems, and for fixes.

* the cloud save feature of steamworks games allows you to pick up a game where you left off on any computer you own. I have a media centre PC and a desktop, and for those games, I can play the same campaign on either computer, and dont have to finagle a way to swap svage games from one to the other.

* indie dev support. So many indie devs have said they wouldn't have succeeded, without steam's active support and easy distribution network.

There's a bunch of community features, achievements, the game overlay, and other stuff, that don't particularly excite me, and of course offline mode, but the bullet point list above are all killer features IMO.

I'd also like to come back to this: "~85% fans saying everything is fine regardless of anything because Gabe Newell and Steam are heroes beyond reproach, something like Father Christmas and Superman"

There is a good reason for this. Steam and Valve are popular, because they are a good company. Most gaming companies are publicly owned, so have to make decisions that satisfy both shareholders and customers. Valve is privately owned, and only have to concern themselves with keeping their customers happy. Their company structure allows them to continue releasing free product for their games and keep multiplayer servers running years after the EA's, Activision and Ubisofts would have shut their servers down and started charging ridiculous prices for add-on map packs, etc.

So, valve have earned the popularity they have. That said, they aren't perfect. Their customer support is slow, there are features steam doesn't have but should, and most steam users are aware of their faults. Their popularity is not a case of blind groupthink. It's just people recognising a good service when they see it.
 
Associate
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There is 40 million steam accounts and 6.6million concurrent users. i'd say those numbers are pretty good and if you think you are going to be the One amongst those numbers you are not.

New Vegas is available on the Xbox360 or PS3 so get one of those and play it.
 
Soldato
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The fact that Steam periodically asks you to participate in the Steam Hardware Survey (whereby it collects information about your hardware and installed software) suggests that it isn't doing any behind-the-scenes spying. They wouldn't ask for permission to collect that information if it was doing it (and more) in the background anyway.

Well... no. For that very reason it would be in there best interest to ask you to opt in/out of a survey. Because then some people think that because they're asking you they wouldn't also be doing it behind your back. The idea that Steam are actually watching you and taking information anyway is one of paranoia, pure and simple, however possible it actually is.

As for throwing the word Spyware around...... you can opt-out of Steam Surveys, if even asked to submit one.

Indeed, and its not as if anything it does isn't displayed on there own website. They use it as information for development as far as I understand because they can see what spec computers people are using and there capabilities.

If I had said that Valve was a front for the Illuminati/New World Order/<insert your conspiracy group of choice here> and that Steam read your mind or controlled it, or something silly like that, that would have been tinfoil hat territory. But I didn't.

Steam gathers data from your PC and sends it to Valve. This is not a secret. It is not a conspiracy. It is not covered up. I just asked what data it gathers.

You are behaving like the most knee-jerk theists, outraged at any perceived slight to your faith in Valve.

Everything you have posted comes across as being paranoid, which speaks of tin-foil hats.

Is the data they sent what they say it is? Well I think it's a safe bet that (without searching for it cos I'm at work and cba to) people have monitored exactly what information the steam survey collects and sends to valve to know whether or not it is collecting what they say it is. If there had been even the slightest hint of foul play, something would have turned up.
 
Soldato
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Well... no. For that very reason it would be in there best interest to ask you to opt in/out of a survey. Because then some people think that because they're asking you they wouldn't also be doing it behind your back. The idea that Steam are actually watching you and taking information anyway is one of paranoia, pure and simple, however possible it actually is.

Realistically though? If they were already gathering hardware/software data in the background, it'd just be a thing they do and they wouldn't ask permission just to provide the illusion that all is well, unless there was some sort of malevolent intention in the first place.
 
Associate
Joined
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Really, this is the future. You either accept it and join us or you're going to rapidly run out of games to play.

I appreciate some of your concerns but your posts do come across a little bit tin foil hat conspiracy nut :p

I enjoyed reading this thread, but at the end of the day this is by far the best response.
 
Man of Honour
OP
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I've a question for the charming OP, why so defensive?

You asked a question and most people gave you the best answer they could give, it turned out to be the answer you had come to a conclusion about yourself prior to posting and such is the nature of internet forums you proceeded to get slightly trolled due to an increasingly defensive and may i say slightly rude attitude towards the responders, what exactly did you expect?

At this point you may aswell stop posting here because your just going to get trolled into the ground for been a bit of an arse.

No, I'll get trolled into the ground for not being a fan. Which, of course, fans will see as being a bit of an arse.

But a few people have made actual replies rather than insulting me for not unthinkingly accept the wonder of Steam, hallelujah and praise Steam! One person even answered my question. Well, several did but the others gave answers I know to be untrue.

The insults for not unthinkingly accepting the wonder of Steam was what I expected.

The reasonable posts and the actual answer was what I was hoping for.

Despite the number of people apparently trying to convince me that Steam is a cult for unpleasant people who must lash out at anyone who asks questions, I have got some information from which to make an informed choice. So from my point of view this thread has been at least partially successful.
 
Soldato
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llanelli , south wales
you know .. i started to read this thread ...........got bored after 1 page and skimmed the rest ......

simple option .. if you have a problem with steam .DONT BUY GAMES THAT NEED IT + DON'T DOWNLOAD IT...

my only concern personally , is what happens to games i buy on it if valve go bust ?
 
Soldato
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Gold Coast, Australia
Install Steam
Buy game
Download game
Play it

End of. Pointless discussion, you already know you cannot get the game in the method you would prefer so you either accept the method that allows you to get it or go without. What more is there to it? You don;t want to be told about Steam by the sounds of it, just rant about it.

As for throwing the word Spyware around...... you can opt-out of Steam Surveys, if even asked to submit one.

+1

From the OP sounds like you're better off not being on the pc at all.

Try a console?

+1

i've used steam for around 6-7 years now, never had any real problems with it and never found it being invasive of my privacy in any way. try not to worry about it and just play the games :D

I have been on Steam for 8 years and it is quite literally the best thing to happen to PC's for as long as I can remember.

Without being disrespectful to the OP it is quite an old fashioned view that a company like Steam would steal your information or watch what you are doing. This would be no different to any activity on the internet such as internet banking, using eBay or even just using the internet full stop.
 
Associate
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my only concern personally , is what happens to games i buy on it if valve go bust ?
Given how successful Steam is, it would possibly be purchased and run by another company, with no change for the end user noticeable in the short term.
Valve going bust is highly unlikely though (Steam is pretty much a liscence to print money), but there is always the unbelievably small chance everything could go (you would probably have some notice via news etc and could always download everything you want to keep and go offline if thats an option).
I wouldn't worry about it at the moment, unless Valve do something mind bogglingly stupid, or the economy completely crashes and burns (but then gaming would probably be the least concern :)) Steam will be around for a long time as it's competitors are so far behind.
 
Man of Honour
OP
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5 Dec 2003
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Just to the left of my PC
You going to sign up then? There'll be another sale along in a minute.

Yes, I am. The silly yabbering of the "anyone who asks any questions is a tinfoil hat-wearing paranoid loony" brigade of devout fans is unimportant and expected, so it didn't put me off. They're not Valve's fault.

This sums it up for me, essentially:

I do understand the dislike of DRM on principle. I dont like it either. Steam is the only DRM service which actually adds value, and on-balance, the trade-off is worth it.

Reasoned replies like that, plus the one actual answer to my question, tipped my opinion from "probably will" to "will". On balance the trade-off is worth it because Steam is required for some games I want to play, it is of some use and Valve don't have a history of greed, malice or incompetence.
 
Associate
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I have a thread on here somewhere about not understanding the appeal of Steam and now I won't be without it, I have a GTA pack, Skyrim & DLC plus a couple of others now on Steam and love it. Hell I have even gotten my other half in to Steam too!

Stoner81.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
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South UK
One of the weirdest threads Ive ever read.

Its Steam, a PC gaming platform, the same as PSN for playstation and XBL for Xbox. Its not the central intelligence of MI5.

Initially I thought troll but I think its genuine, at the end of the day its nothing to do with the DRM, its about the games you want to play.

If you want to play Half-Life, you need Steam, if you want to play BF3, you need Origin. If you dont agree with that, you wont play the games, simple and move on.
 
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