Is Steam just as good as buying the actual game?

liamcrane

liamcrane

liamcrane

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Hi all,

I really want to buy GTA 4 and its so hard trying to pick it up anywhere!! I saw it on steam for £20 but im not sure whether to buy the download version of the game or the actual game cd itself. Is there any pro's or cons performance wise when playing a downloaded version over the actual cd version? Also i have never bought anything of steam before just wanted to know what its like from your own preference?

Hope you can help

Many thanks
 
I use steam for pure convience and I love the sales. I usually go for if a game is a lot cheaper off steam, buy it off steam, but if its just a few pounds, usually buy it on steam.
 
I only buy my games on Steam, I have GTA 4 - really like it!
I don't like having loads of disks around, and being able to play it without putting disks in or having a few games running at the same time and being able to jump between them etc for is great.

I love Steam! :D
 
Well unless your optic drive is super slow I can't really see any way there'd be a difference in performance. Steam games are often more expensive than retail and that's their main drawback. If you can find it cheaper on DVD buy the physical release, otherwise just download it off Steam.
 
Thanks guys, i have seen the actual game disk £5 cheaper than steam. Like you say its kinda good not having loads of disks laying around. Am i right in saying if i was to download GTA it would come with the most up to date patch installed as i know there has been a few?

I only have a 3mb connection and the file size is about 15gb i think, its gonna take me hours to download that!!

I have always been curious to know when you install a game to your HD why would you need the disk? all the files the game needs have been copied to the HD haven't they?
 
When you install through steam all the patches are downloaded automatically. As for the installation - a steam installed game requires no disks to run, a normal game may require them depending on DRMs and the amount of data you can actually install.
 
Discs are only needed for anti piracy checking.

The fact it's about the most easily avoided anti piracy method and no longer serves any purpose beyond annoying customers seems beyond most publishers still though.
 
Steam is great for gaming apart fromt the prices.

So just buy games in the sales, I'm currently rebuying all my games via Steam when they come up in the sales.
 
Thanks guys, how often to they have good value sales? i see a lot of people talking about them on here so thats why i have taken a keen interest in it
 
They were selling GTA4 for £5 over christmas :D

They have good sales over the weekend (Gratuitous space battles at the mo), and sometimes midweek deals too.
 
The only con with the steam version apart from the price (buy it cheaper online) is the size, its 15gig !
 
I know there is an option to backup your steam games to dvd but how would i back this game up its 15gb? can you do it across mulitple dvd's
 
liamcrane said:
Dont tell me that lol £20 now
Click to expand...

In the summer sale it was down to £5 as well, I remember over Christmas I bought every single RockStar game for £30! Including GTA IV and it's DLC. I would wait, they might do a "Back to school" kind of sale?
 
Steam sales are epic - I paid £2.50 for CS:source, £2.25 for both Oddworld games, £6.80 for LFD2. I also got Orange Box for a good price a while ago.

If only they lowered the price for new games to a more competitive level (such as £20-25 for a brand new pc game) then I would get all my new games from Steam.

I honestly believe that if Steam just lowered the prices for new releases, they would have a HUGE market share.
 
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