Steam

Overall I don't like Steam.

I have HL2, Ep1 and Ep2 and as such, I have it installed. But only because I have to.

I don't agree with having the stupid thing rammed down my throat when I don't want it installed. I can patch my own games in my own time, thankyou. I don't need any app doing it for me. I also don't agree with giving Valve the power of jury, judge, and sentencer with regards to products i've paid hard money for.

If I see a game that "requires" Steam, it actually puts me off buying it.

What do you have to worry about?
 
I like steam. I didn't at first, but it has got much better. Besides unless you want to play multiplayer (which you'll want to update the game anyway) then once the game is all happily installed leave steam in offline mode if you don't want it constantly updating/looking for updates, or turn the update feature off for that game.

Frankly this current culture of hating something because it is "da man" really bores me. :(

With regards to OP, knubje is winding you up with regards to an apology (i think :p), but quite frankly it sounds like more of a problem with both your specific game and your internet connection than steam itself, so perhaps your being a bit unfair?
 
I like steam. I didn't at first, but it has got much better. Besides unless you want to play multiplayer (which you'll want to update the game anyway) then once the game is all happily installed leave steam in offline mode if you don't want it constantly updating/looking for updates, or turn the update feature off for that game.

I think you can set an individual games properties to not download updates as well.
 
Steam is great until it all goes wrong.

All the people praising it will be crying when their account gets randomly banned/hacked/vac banned and theres nothing valve will do.

There are plenty of horror stories as well. Personally I dont like the amount of control valve retain over games I've paid for tbh.

sid
 
Overall I don't like Steam.

I have HL2, Ep1 and Ep2 and as such, I have it installed. But only because I have to.

I don't agree with having the stupid thing rammed down my throat when I don't want it installed. I can patch my own games in my own time, thankyou. I don't need any app doing it for me. I also don't agree with giving Valve the power of jury, judge, and sentencer with regards to products i've paid hard money for.

If I see a game that "requires" Steam, it actually puts me off buying it.

You can turn off patching.
 
Personally I dont like the amount of control valve retain over games I've paid for tbh.

What control?

You can play your games however, and whenever you want, on whichever machine you want. You can decide not to update your games if you want, you can install mods for your games if you want.

The only 'control' they have is to VAC ban you from Valve games if you cheat/hack.. and if you cheat/hack, it's your own fault.
 
Steam is great until it all goes wrong.

All the people praising it will be crying when their account gets randomly banned/hacked/vac banned and theres nothing valve will do.

There are plenty of horror stories as well. Personally I dont like the amount of control valve retain over games I've paid for tbh.

sid

How many people do you know that have had an account randomly VAC banned?

All the people I know, were either lax about account security (shared their account around, gave their password out, etc) or actually just got caught cheating.
 
There's a guy on this forum who's had his steam accoutn hacked twice, and had no problem getting it back either time.
 
Well you say that now but it could always be you.

Its not like the old days of popping a cd and sorted. Its all a questions of ups and downs.

Just the other day I wanted to play L4D but steam friends was down so meh. Its a long shot but it does happen.
 
Guys, it's like most things in life:

Not perfect
Has it's ups and downs
Has it's foibles

Having said that, it is damn good at what it does. So far everything people have mentioned, with the exception of the "eggs in one basket" scenario, really is not grounds to call it rubbish or whatever. Infact almost everything that has been mentioned so far, has been down to user error, ignorance, stupidity or perception.

Everything else, re: security, usability, reliability is all top notch and the only way it's going to get exploited is through human error/intervention.

Find me a better content management system for online gaming and I will find you a liar.
 
I love Steam.

I am one of these people who hates having to keep disks around, if you buy a game, the disk breaks for whatever reason and you have to reinstall.. OH NOES! your £20+ down and you don't have a game.

With steam you can just hit download. I tend to get 1MB/s if I leave it downloading while I'm at work so most games take a couple of hours at most. Never had any problem with steam that wasn't my own stupid fault.

I also love having an application that can manage all my games, seeing as I have upwards of 25 of them not having to trawl through programs list or have my desktop cluttered with icons I can just stick them all in steam (the non steam games option rules) and just bring it up whenever I want it, and when I don't it sits in my system tray.

GO STEAM.
 
I love Steam.

I am one of these people who hates having to keep disks around, if you buy a game, the disk breaks for whatever reason and you have to reinstall.. OH NOES! your £20+ down and you don't have a game.

With steam you can just hit download. I tend to get 1MB/s if I leave it downloading while I'm at work so most games take a couple of hours at most. Never had any problem with steam that wasn't my own stupid fault.

I also love having an application that can manage all my games, seeing as I have upwards of 25 of them not having to trawl through programs list or have my desktop cluttered with icons I can just stick them all in steam (the non steam games option rules) and just bring it up whenever I want it, and when I don't it sits in my system tray.

GO STEAM.

Beautiful ;)

/Shed's tear of appreciation and empathy :D
 
Yeah I like steam and having to continously download patch's does get annoying. Steam does it for free and like people have said above I prefere having digital copies and obviously the weekend deals are pretty good.

Only thing that concerns me about steam is what if it goes bankrupt or something? Do I lose all my games?
 
Steam must be like marmite.

personally, i'm a bit meh - but I hate marmite. i much prefer to have the tangible product, the whole game buying experience is something I enjoy and I like having a wall of computer games around my pc desk.

i think Steam still has pricing issues, bar the odd exception i can still find most of the games cheaper from online stores or even (shock horror) the high street stores and I'm prepared to even wait for them to deliver it or make the trip to the shop. i've also had download speed issues before, but stopping and starting it usually sorted it or at least made it quicker.

in short i like the choice and i like the physical product. i bought DoW2 retail and was annoyed to find that I had to run steam to play the game but I guess that is the trend these days. forcing customers down one route or another is not good imho. on a positive note, i was able to install steam and download plants vs zombies on my new laptop in about 5 minutes last night, so it's not all bad.
 
I may be wrong but it seems with games associated with steam you can only play them if you are connected to the internet.How is that fair?I pay for the game,I want to play an offline game but I can't?!
Like I said I MAY be wrong but that's the impression I got the other day.
 
Find me a better content management system for online gaming and I will find you a liar.

What if I don't want a "content management system" with my game?

[Edit] To those mentioning that you can stop it patching - that wasn't really my point. My point is that it's far too intrusive as an application.

The forced install is the biggest problem I have with it.
 
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