Tell me about Steam...

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In all fairness I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that if Valve went bust (for whatever reason, however unlikely) we'd all be out of a **** tonne of games...

Valve have made it clear in the past that they already have systems in place for such an event, and that games would still be accessible.
 
Soldato
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Pretty much every company you deal with harvests your information anyway, be it your bank, internet provider, supermarket. Adding Steam to that list really won't make any difference to the amount of privacy you have overall. If you have a facebook account that's the worst offender.
 
Soldato
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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.
 
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Soldato
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- For any patch application you have to go back to Steam on-line mode, theoretically making your PC vulnerable again. After patching you can go back to off-line mode. It is not possible to manually patch Steam games using downloaded patch files.

Let me go get my tin foil hats!

If you think Steam is a big issue and concerns you that much you must live a very sheltered life.

I wouldn't sign into Steam btw, you will start up Skynet.
 
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I read it, otherwise I wouldn't have quoted it.

Would you like a tin foil hat as well?

Don't worry bro, made one for you and your cat.

tin-foil-hat.jpg
 
Associate
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OP - I think the best link is This One.

It'll give you an overhead of the DRM and privacy issues. I'm cautious about DRM (I won't buy any Ubisoft games anymore) but Steam seems ok.

Unfortunately I believe that it's currently unavoidable to sacrifice some privacy in the modern online world. The principle of "I shouldn't have to give my details away to play a game" doesn't work in the real world. Piracy is a convenient excuse for the publishers to justify this change.

There's also a big list of DRM types Here
 
Soldato
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Steam is pretty much the best DRM...not that DRM is good, but steam is the least restrictive.
Btw if steam ever shuts down, all your games will still be playable, as they will patch the games to run without the steam application, there's nothing to worry about really with Steam.
a lot of people (including me) like having all their games under one central hub.
 
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The thing about steam is that steam DRM im fine with, but some games insit (GTA4 for example) on forcing other DRM on you... i just upgraded to windows 8 and found that windows games live forced upon me by said GTA4 didnt work with windows 8! WINDOWS GAMES LIVE!!! ... i had to mess about for like 30mins finding a work around just for the game to finally load up and littraly die for 10mins while the game tried to verify via windows live!

At this point it becomes a total pita to play the product you want to play... all because steam DRM isnt good enough for some companys, i for one wish that all companys would accept steam DRM as industry standard DRM and be done with it, theirs much worse stuff out.

I dont want DRM at all but if i must have it, let it be the least intrusive type of DRM run by the least nefarious people possible.
 
Soldato
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We wouldn’t need DRM at all if so many PC Gamers didn’t pirate games and reduce the amount of money that goes into game development. So we need DRM. Steam is the least intrusive DRM I’ve used, it usually just works, I can’t recall many issues at all in 8 years (apart from the disastrous Steam launch of HL2 for a few hours when they were obviously overloaded) and some distant issues with offline mode and it’s certainly way better than Punkbuster or any of the nonsense Ubisoft etc. have used.

I seriously would not limit my gaming to non-Steam games just because of some story I tell myself about DRM. I’d be missing out on so much.
 
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We wouldn’t need DRM at all if so many PC Gamers didn’t pirate games and reduce the amount of money that goes into game development.

*snip*


Spot the EA Representative people ;) (I jest but ill go on to explain my feeling on this, your of course welcome to yours!)

The mass majority of pirates wouldn't be buying the games they pirate anyway, chances of it actually effecting revenu in any meaningful way are slim in my opinion and if anything the increased exposure, pirated multiplayer limitations and potential DLC (tho the industry abuse of DLC is another thread in itself) are all actually key reasons for pirates to buy after they sample and i think actually leads to more actual sales than piracy in general takes away.

If the product is gone people will pay for it, the proof of this to name just a few is evident in minecraft, Terraria and Hotline Miami... i dont even want to limit this to indy titles but since all have had extreme levels of piracy leading to increased overall sales they stand as examples why the industry copy paste "Piracy = Industry Death" is just an excuse major publishers use to put the screws to development teams and shift the blaim while justifying futher abuse of the DLC concept to line pockets of greedy deadline cutting fat cats.
 
Soldato
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Steam has turned me from someone who rarely purchased games to someone who purchases lots of games - in fact really too many to actually play!
 
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