I just don't understand the appeal of steam?

voorhees1979 said:
Consoles you can buy the disc and then sell it once complete. Steam you buy a game you are stuck with it, they could at least offer a small trade in price.
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Replace "Steam" with "PC Games" and you're sorted.

It's a shame that Steam doesn't have something like Green Man Gaming in regards to selling back your CD keys but it's really not that big a deal. I really can't say I miss the £1-£5 per terrible game that I'm losing out on.
 
FrenchTart said:
...for you, personally, sure.

For many of us the cons you are talking about are things we don't care about and the benefits you don't care about, we do.

Huge amounts of convenience and as already stated, the resale value of PC games is so near nil that I can live without it.
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Indeed, my boy loves steam....he buys loads of stuff of it. I am just an old fudder who yearns for the days when I could buy a game and if it was crud I could sell to someone else....now I'm lumbered with them.

sign of the times........does make me wonder why they are not cheaper though, as everyone is forced to buy retail rather than on the second hand market......
 
Not selling the games on dosent bother me.

Besides, I tend to buy most steam games when they are on sale and its just nice to have a game library all in one place. So, years from now I can just easily view my games list and think, hmmm BF3, Saints Row 3, Crysis 2, they were classics, and with a simple few mouse clicks and an hour or so of downloading I can be playing the game. So simple.
 
My games are all available from one place.
My games are all available from any PC.
My games are all available within minutes of reinstalling an OS
My games are all automatically updated to the latest version, saving hours of searching for and installing patches.
My games are often cheaper than retail, as Steam have regular sales

plus there is no scratched dvd's everywhere.

enough said !
 
As everyone has said the main reason I like steam is convenience! If I want a game 9 times out of 10 I can search steam (or any other digital distributor) and have it installed and running in no time... no messing about ordering it online or going to the shop...

Steam's DL rates can be a bit variable depending on the time of day and that can be a bit of a PITA but to be fair its not often I get less than 5 MB/s normally somewhere around 8 - 10 MB/s (100mbit/s connection).

For those saying that retail is often cheaper well maybe sometimes it is... but then you have to factor in the hassle of going to the shop... petrol cost... inconvenience... queueing etc and time... and to be fair I would rather get up on a Saturday morning.. set my new game downloading have a bite of eat and hey presto its installed... then spend 2 hours going into town to battle the chav's.
 
voorhees1979 said:
Consoles you can buy the disc and then sell it once complete. Steam you buy a game you are stuck with it, they could at least offer a small trade in price.
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Not for long, it's a dying format.
Everything, even consoles will be digital media soon.
They won't let you sale digital copies, it's to easy and they won't make money. Embrace it becuase of the 10s of other benefits in the knowledge at a some point in the near future, no one will be selling second hand games. Other than for obsolete systems.
 
Glaucus said:
Not for long, it's a dying format.
Everything, even consoles will be digital media soon.
They won't let you sale digital copies, it's to easy and they won't make money. Embrace it becuase of the 10s of other benefits in the knowledge at a some point in the near future, no one will be selling second hand games. Other than for obsolete systems.
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This.

Besides, if you want any actualy decent price from trading in your console game, you have to get rid of it pretty soon after release so you might as well just be renting games.
 
Glaucus said:
Not for long, it's a dying format.
Everything, even consoles will be digital media soon.
They won't let you sale digital copies, it's to easy and they won't make money. Embrace it becuase of the 10s of other benefits in the knowledge at a some point in the near future, no one will be selling second hand games. Other than for obsolete systems.
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I think we're a little way off totally digital distribution just yet, our broadband infrastructure just isn't up to it currently. For every hardcore gamer tech enthusiast with a 20Mb+ connection, there are hundreds, if not thousands of casual gamers with sub 8Mb connection and 30GB monthly limits. You'd kill off your market if half the potential customer base though 'wow, i'd like that but I can't really get the games very easily'.

What I definitely agree on though, is the death of the second hand market. I think the next generation of consoles will still be using optical media (or maybe something different like solid state memory cards, something physical anyway) but will develop the console OSs to prevent or discourage resale, by implementing things like CD-keys for console games or something along those lines.
 
In my opinion Steam is terrible. The games might be cheaper than on discs but you don't get the special features, limited edition items and Steam rockets your internet bill to a high price. Games where not meant to be downloaded. Life on the disc!!!
 
newbieclocker said:
In my opinion Steam is terrible. The games might be cheaper than on discs but you don't get the special features, limited edition items and Steam rockets your internet bill to a high price. Games where not meant to be downloaded. Life on the disc!!!
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What kind of prehistoric pay as you go connection are you on...? :confused:

And what special disky features do you get in a mass produced DVD carton that Steam doesn't provide then?

Digital Distribution is the way forward. Most "special edition" crap isn't worth the poor quality plastic they make it out of these days.
 
The most important feature, the one that makes me ignore most of the problems is that it establishes a singular community.

All too often games communities just die out after the game stops being supported or whatever other reason.

Without steam, i doubt CSS would have had the same success.
 
Well chaps I have bitten the bullet and bought my first few games :D I bought the GTA pack from the MM and just now bought the Elder Scrolls pack since it was on offer :D

Stoner81.
 
Welcome to the dark side :) ;)

In all fairness I do still really like the idea of having the physical disk, maybe because I am a bit old fashioned, however Steam makes it so easy to purchase and download it does come in very handy.

Especially like last year when Grid was on offer around the time of my LAN party and so those that didn't have it could get it nice and easily while drinking a cold beer :)
 
Confused said:
My games are all available from one place.
My games are all available from any PC.
My games are all available within minutes of reinstalling an OS
My games are all automatically updated to the latest version, saving hours of searching for and installing patches.
My games are often cheaper than retail, as Steam have regular sales
Click to expand...

Mostly this, although I find that most of the time Steam is noticeably more expensive than other places.

Like Modern Warfare 3... still £40 on steam, £20 when I bought it at a lot of retailers.

Lot more examples like that.

Older games though, they usually get some good deals on.

Despite this, you can still add serials for non-steam-bought games, which is a feature I've used a lot - if I can add any game to it, I will for ease of re-installation.
 
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