Valve

[AndyT]

Is OP really having a go at Valve for offering you a huge variety of games at cheap prices? That has to be the dumbest thing I've heard. If you buy a game and don't play it, then you are a fool and you deserve to lose your money.

Also, I suggest you wait for HL3 or whatever Valve is working on atm (let me assure you, Dota 2 is nothing but a side-project), before you accuse them of doing nothing.

I despair. Are you incapable of reading an entire post or a series of posts? I am not bashing Valve. This is not a Valve bashing thread. Your response is EXACTLY the point of my OP. Many gamers seem simply unable to remain impartial when talking about Valve. How dare anyone question them?!

Same goes to the guy above talking about Valve bashing "becoming a thing". This is not a Valve bashing thread.

 

[Tummy]

If you can not seen the immense quality in Portal, Portal 2 and the Half Life series of games then there is no hope for you. Even a game that has very little actual story to it, such as Left 4 Dead still has at it's core a game of very high quality.

It's a daft comment to make, a bit like a film reviewer not seeing a film and then giving an opinion on it.

They are one of the top gaming companies, I've been on since the start (on various accounts) and have never had an issue with them, be that getting refunds or having problems contacting their customer services. I've never had a problem getting one of the games to work through the platform, or if it has not worked it has not been the fault of Steam but rather the game's developers. People seem to forget that steam just sells you the game and allows you to download it, they're not responsible for problems with that game, that lies with the developer. Would you buy a game from Amazon and then moan at them that you can not get it to work or would you contact the developer?

I understand they are not perfect, but the over the top criticism is hilarious.

 

[Omaeka]

I despair. Are you incapable of reading an entire post or a series of posts? I am not bashing Valve. This is not a Valve bashing thread. Your response is EXACTLY the point of my OP. Many gamers seem simply unable to remain impartial when talking about Valve. How dare anyone question them?!

Same goes to the guy above talking about Valve bashing "becoming a thing". This is not a Valve bashing thread.

This pretty much, Valve are very good, but damn, you cannot say a bad thing about them without an army of people defending them, regardless of what you say. Fanboyism isn't just fanatical martyrism you know, simply disregarding somebodies greavences with a company simply because you like them could fall under that title too. They aren't perfect, and when somebody shows evidence of that, you shouldn't just completely disregard them and their issue, whether they are the minority or not.

 

[Tummy]

This pretty much, Valve are very good, but damn, you cannot say a bad thing about them without an army of people defending them, regardless of what you say. Fanboyism isn't just fanatical martyrism you know, simply disregarding somebodies greavences with a company simply because you like them could fall under that title too. They aren't perfect, and when somebody shows evidence of that, you shouldn't just completely disregard them and their issue, whether they are the minority or not.

You completely disregarded their IP's as gimmicks, yet without fully exploring them? That's almost like fanboyism dissmissal of something.

You're completely hilarious run down of all the companies was the highlight.

Companies aren't perfect but when they get more right than wrong they tend to be the better companies. Valve offer very high quality products and a very stable platform to run them from, they also allow you to buy other games through the platform, contact friends, play with friends and have huge, huge sales.

If you can not run a game, who's fault is that? Steams or Amazons? or yours for buying something that isn't going to run? If it's a problem with hardware or software of the game, then that lies with the developers.

 

[Purdy]

You completely disregarded their IP's as gimmicks, yet without fully exploring them? That's almost like fanboyism dissmissal of something.

You're completely hilarious run down of all the companies was the highlight.

 

[piggeh]

Let's be honest, gamers do not really care if a game is made by a big corporation or an indie developer. A game is a game. If it's good then it will sell and people will be happy to give their money to whomever. The reason gamers or any customers get annoyed at companies is through bad experience. EA release rubbish versions of FIFA to the PC year on year? Bad experience. EA release Origin which is untuitive and buggy as hell and practically force you onto it? Bad experience (and I say that regrettably as competition is a good thing for Valve/steam). EA outsource their customer service and now no one gets a common sense response? Bad experience.

You add everytihng up and people end up despising EA. Valve may give you pop ups but steam is very intuitive and well designed, as is Source, and many other parts they produce. They produce well made content and release stuff that's 'cool'. They are far from perfect (steam seems to be their focus again rather than game releases) but they tend to do things in a way that sits well with their user base. EA have a different approach, it nets them a lot of money but also a lot of badwill so it's obvious one will be held as a shining light whilst the other is lamented.

 

[Omaeka]

You completely disregarded their IP's as gimmicks, yet without fully exploring them? That's almost like fanboyism dissmissal of something.

You misunderstood my use of the word gimmick, I wasn't saying they were bad, they just look extremely shallow from a story/lore perspective, yet don't have the kind of gameplay that would keep me attracted without a decent storyline.

You're completely hilarious run down of all the companies was the highlight.

Highlight? Hilarious? So to you, every company is perfect? The pros and cons listed were bloody accurate, and you couldn't dispute a single one, except Valve of course, with a completely off-the-mark defence no doubt.

Companies aren't perfect but when they get more right than wrong they tend to be the better companies.

I know this, but that doesn't mean that they should literally have what they get wrong completely disregarded because other companies do more things wrong.

If you can not seen the immense quality in Portal, Portal 2 and the Half Life series of games then there is no hope for you. Even a game that has very little actual story to it, such as Left 4 Dead still has at it's core a game of very high quality.

Opinion, even if I don't, saying 'there is no hope for you' because somebody doesn't enjoy something you enjoy, again, is fanboyism.

It's a daft comment to make, a bit like a film reviewer not seeing a film and then giving an opinion on it.

Agreed.

They are one of the top gaming companies, I've been on since the start (on various accounts) and have never had an issue with them, be that getting refunds or having problems contacting their customer services. I've never had a problem getting one of the games to work through the platform, or if it has not worked it has not been the fault of Steam but rather the game's developers. People seem to forget that steam just sells you the game and allows you to download it, they're not responsible for problems with that game, that lies with the developer. Would you buy a game from Amazon and then moan at them that you can not get it to work or would you contact the developer?

Wrong, if you buy a product from a distributor and it doesn't work, you go to them. Hence the term warranty for example. If I buy a GPU from OcUK and it breaks, I don't go running to AMD/Nvidia for a refund/replacement.

I understand they are not perfect, but the over the top criticism is hilarious.

Where is there a single case of over the top criticism? Everything said has been fair enough and unbiased, you literally cannot say a thing about Valve negatively or else you're 'over the top', refer to the word fanboy for this issue.

 

[The-Plethora]

I think Valve / Steam is amazing. When we first encountered it with HL2 most people thought it was a pain but a lot has changed since then.

You can basically only buy stuff at Christmas and Easter and have enough games to last the year, if you have a problem with a game just right click it in the menu and click visit forums. If I re-install my PC again no problem, run steam again and everything is there.
No messing about installing patches, they just update in the background, play with a friend? right click and join player.
Chat with friends in game through the overlay interface without exiting the game.
They keep innovating and updating features, isn't there a native Linux steam release out now? and what about the steam big picture update they have just included?
Steam has allowed me to play games I maybe otherwise wouldn't have looked at due to price or availability, most recently the excellent ace of spades. How many people would have picked up the walking dead were it not for steam not to mention all the other independants using it to make their games available.

ALl in, steam is pretty damn awesome!

I only have 2 slight gripes with steam, firstly the launch prices of some games are stupid (Black Ops for £45.99?) but they know they can charge this for the convenience, even then it doesn't beat the laughable price of £50 for Skyrim from the XBox store.

The second thing is that games that natively have copy protection they don't always make them strip it out before it goes into the shop.

 

[Nerusy]

This pretty much, Valve are very good, but damn, you cannot say a bad thing about them without an army of people defending them, regardless of what you say. Fanboyism isn't just fanatical martyrism you know, simply disregarding somebodies greavences with a company simply because you like them could fall under that title too. They aren't perfect, and when somebody shows evidence of that, you shouldn't just completely disregard them and their issue, whether they are the minority or not.

For goodness sake you have to be trolling, if the problem raised are valid then they are talked about and taken into account. Who says valve is perfect, what are we 12? Perfection towards consumers in a business? I'd eat my pants if we find one. It's a damn statistical impossibility.

You say there is an army of fanboys defending valve. As I said fanboys implies irrational love of something.

Now you point was you think valve games don't have story but you have not even played them to make that statements. So does pointing out your irrational bashing of valve makes me fanboy who protect valve? Of course not, I am protecting common sense. If anything you come across as fanboy of valve-hating club, people who irrationally dislike something, since you did say that you dislike their games for lack of story without even playing them

Do you see just how irrational your statement is?

Onto point of technical difficulties, the point I made is, when it comes to PC and software you can not eliminate completely those technical problems, it is literally impossible, there will be 0.01% of people, always, who have technical problems with steam. You fix 100 bugs in one patch the next day due to hardware or software changes in any one of hundreds of software on your pc will cause another 100 bugs, they fix them but it is impossible to eliminate the problem.

Now if steam was pos platform riddle with bugs then there is not defending that, that's poor design and implimentation but that is not the case.

Now please I beg of you, tell me you understand my point as I made it 3 times now.

Edit:

Where is there a single case of over the top criticism? Everything said has been fair enough and unbiased, you literally cannot say a thing about Valve negatively or else you're 'over the top', refer to the word fanboy for this issue.

Cons

- Steam is a broken mess, that they refuse to fix, even though it's what gives them their billions of $

- All their IPs are gimmicks, except Half Life

- Never make any games, have a huge studio, yet are clearly lazy

- Way too many blind fanboys

- **** customer support

You have to be kidding me, you are saying your post is not riddle with extremely biased points and irrational points?

 

[Tummy]

Let's go!

You misunderstood my use of the word gimmick, I wasn't saying they were bad, they just look extremely shallow from a story/lore perspective, yet don't have the kind of gameplay that would keep me attracted without a decent storyline.

So, you haven't played a game but you've already figured out that it will not have the story or game play that you will like you dismiss it as being a gimmick. Awesome, see reviewer not seeing a film and giving an opinion on it again.

There is a world of difference between picking a game up and being like, 'nope, not for me' and being like 'well clearly this isn't for me as it lacks the character depth and story line arch of this', I personally, find the second very difficult to do without playing the game.

Highlight? Hilarious? So to you, every company is perfect? The pros and cons listed were bloody accurate, and you couldn't dispute a single one, except Valve of course, with a completely off-the-mark defence no doubt.

Hmm. Pick me up on where I've said that every company is perfect. Go on. In fact I said

Companies aren't perfect but when they get more right than wrong they tend to be the better companies.

They were not 'bloody accurate' haha.

I know this, but that doesn't mean that they should literally have what they get wrong completely disregarded because other companies do more things wrong.

I've not said this at all, I've said that Valve in their entirity get more things right than they do wrong. EA get more wrong than they do right, yet when they release a gem you really pick up on it. Valve release lots of games to a very high standard and people who don't play them call them gimmicks.

Opinion, even if I don't, saying 'there is no hope for you' because somebody doesn't enjoy something you enjoy, again, is fanboyism.

Hmm. Not really, I don't like some games, but I can see the quality in them and see why other people like them. It's being able to reconise when something is good and well made, but not to your taste.

Agreed.

Wrong, if you buy a product from a distributor and it doesn't work, you go to them. Hence the term warranty for example. If I buy a GPU from OcUK and it breaks, I don't go running to AMD/Nvidia for a refund/replacement.

No, this only works with games. If I buy a game and it is faulty and it's not the fault of the person whom sold it to be, it's not their fault. If I can not run a game as expected, I don't go and complain to Amazon that my PC isn't up to scratch nor do I go and complain to Amazon if there is a bug in a game, same applies to steam. I'd email whomever made the game or check their forums for help and advice before asking for a refund.

Where is there a single case of over the top criticism? Everything said has been fair enough and unbiased, you literally cannot say a thing about Valve negatively or else you're 'over the top', refer to the word fanboy for this issue.

Hmm.

 

[Tummy]

For goodness sake you have to be trolling, if the problem raised are valid then they are talked about and taken into account. Who says valve is perfect, what are we 12? Perfection towards consumers in a business? I'd eat my pants if we find one. It's a damn statistical impossibility.

You say there is an army of fanboys defending valve. As I said fanboys implies irrational love of something.

Now you point was you think valve games don't have story but you have not even played them to make that statements. So does pointing out your irrational bashing of valve makes me fanboy who protect valve? Of course not, I am protecting common sense. If anything you come across as fanboy of valve-hating club, people who irrationally dislike something, since you did say that you dislike their games for lack of story without even playing them
Do you see just how irrational your statement is?

Onto point of technical difficulties, the point I made is, when it comes to PC and software you can not eliminate completely those technical problems, it is literally impossible, there will be 0.01% of people, always, who have technical problems with steam. You fix 100 bugs in one patch the next day due to hardware or software changes in any one of hundreds of software on your pc will cause another 100 bugs, they fix them but it is impossible to eliminate the problem.

Now if steam was pos platform riddle with bugs then there is not defending that, that's poor design and implimentation but that is not the case.

Now please I beg of you, tell me you understand my point as I made it 3 times now.

These are two important points as well, I feel I've made the first and I've commented on the second within relation to the seperate game developers that release through Steam.

Steam might not work on your system, but given the range of system types available there will always be a very small minority of systems that will struggle, for hardware specs or system configuration.

It's back to a company getting right more than they get wrong, Steam get a lot more right.

 

[Tummy]

Right first lets get technical steam platform issues and custom service out of the way. Majority are happy, otherwise the internet would have made steam and valve notorious for bad service. In reality they have reputation for both good customer service and platform, Individual rare cases do not make the rule, it is expected when it comes to PC (certain hardware combinations, software clutter). Majority are happy therefore majority like valve and it is rational to like valve. Fanboism implies to like something irrationally, but people have a good reason to like valve. (Again there will be some people who are likely to like valve irrationally and really do fall under "fanboy" criteria but they fall neither under pro or con of company) however they are not majority, majority like the company for valid good reasons.

Now onto frequency of game releases. That is not true at all, lets bring Bullfrog Productions, beloved developer studio that brought many people joy with their amazing games. In 17 years they made 21 games. Valve in 16 years of existence made 27. Edit: Also you say they are massive company and therefore should shoot out many games left and right but in reality they only have 293 employees. To give you some prospective Blizzard Entertainment has over 4,600.

Now onto the story aspect, that's another moot point. They pack all their games with story, even when story is not needed, there is tons of lore for TF2 where the conventional wisdom is that multiplayer only oriented games do not even require story. Valve always puts a good story in the games on top of revolutionary gameplay. You admit yourself you have not played games hence your point is (forgive me) stupid, how can you say that they don't have story if they have not played them? At least read the synopsis of plot on wiki to confirm and deny your prejudice.

Pal, the only real valid negative points you have are customer service and steam platform issues, both are circumstantial biased and rare as a result will not affect the majority, who, as a result like the company.

Fantastic post.

 

[Purdy]

Where is there a single case of over the top criticism? Everything said has been fair enough and unbiased, you literally cannot say a thing about Valve negatively or else you're 'over the top', refer to the word fanboy for this issue.

My sides.

 

[Omaeka]

Fair enough, I've been proved wrong on a few things today and I'm big enough to admit and accept that.

The fact still remains, that the 3570k is a very popular and widely used processor, and the HD6850 was one of the most popular cards of its generation. Put two of them together and Steam doesn't work, lol.

Didn't work with a FX-4100 with a 6850 either, and that sounds like its an issue on my end indeed, but reformatting a PC, fresh install of windows on it and boom, back to the same. Hardly any user error there, especially as my computer is clean and bloatware free, is maintained thoroughly and never has a single thing on it I don't want there.

Although maybe it's the 5,000 installs of DirectX and Microsoft CCC+ that I'm forced to install with every game I get that's doing something, but that's to Microsoft to fix with their installers, why the hell would a game that uses Dx9 install the Dx9 cab of Feb 2012 when my computer is running the latest Dx11 that is fully backwards compatible?

Anyway, just because Valve get a ton of stuff right, doesn't mean it's 'bashing' or anti-fanboyism to point out what they don't. I'm no less open to praising them as anyone else for the things they do right, but it seems I'm one of the very few who are happy to point out what they do wrong.

 

[eekfek]

We all have an addiction and Valve are our favourite suppliers

bring on the Xmas Sales !! woohoo !!

 

[dogmanstaruk]

We all have an addiction and Valve are our favourite suppliers

bring on the Xmas Sales !! woohoo !!

Valve and Steam aren't perfect, but I do like the sales.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Portal 1 and 2 are so epic they cover Valve for a good decade compared to other gaming houses.

More than happy to wait for Valve titles as they ALWAYS deliver.

I have never bought a Valve game and thought "Well, this sucks and was not worth 50 pence let alone £25" They earnt their place among the top tiers of game developers and Steam, although having rocky beginnings is the powerhouse of Online digital distribution and does it fantastically well.

 

[spoffle]

I don't tbf, but that's because I'm put off by Valves story depth to content ratios, other than Half-Life I just cannot seem to attract myself to the idea of playing them, because they seem very in depth gameplay wise but shallow story wise, nobody can say Left 4 Dead has a good story.

I'm just massively put off when a company makes a game focused on the gameplay/multiplayer etc. then try to squeeze some lame, cheesy storyline inbetween the gaps as gaffa tape. The only game like that which has appealed to me is Quake.

Although, this thread has definitely made Portal appeal to me now, finally.

So you haven't played Portal, but think they have no story?

There is loads of story with Portal. LOADS.

 

[spoffle]

Fair enough, I've been proved wrong on a few things today and I'm big enough to admit and accept that.

The fact still remains, that the 3570k is a very popular and widely used processor, and the HD6850 was one of the most popular cards of its generation. Put two of them together and Steam doesn't work, lol.

Didn't work with a FX-4100 with a 6850 either, and that sounds like its an issue on my end indeed, but reformatting a PC, fresh install of windows on it and boom, back to the same. Hardly any user error there, especially as my computer is clean and bloatware free, is maintained thoroughly and never has a single thing on it I don't want there.

Although maybe it's the 5,000 installs of DirectX and Microsoft CCC+ that I'm forced to install with every game I get that's doing something, but that's to Microsoft to fix with their installers, why the hell would a game that uses Dx9 install the Dx9 cab of Feb 2012 when my computer is running the latest Dx11 that is fully backwards compatible?

Anyway, just because Valve get a ton of stuff right, doesn't mean it's 'bashing' or anti-fanboyism to point out what they don't. I'm no less open to praising them as anyone else for the things they do right, but it seems I'm one of the very few who are happy to point out what they do wrong.

It really could be down to your computer set up, the way Windows is installed, the way the PC is set up, the disk configuration.

I've used Steam since 2004 on many different hardware configurations and I have yet to have any issues with it. I've always ran it on a drive other than C, and it's been on many different computers and hard disks. I've had pretty much the same Steam folder the whole time though, copying it to new drives over the years.

As for pointing out what they haven't got right, as has been said, it's quite circumstantial.

 

[mrjagga]

Steam and Valve are fine. Stupid thread