Tell me about Steam...

It took me a long time to make the jump, but I do like Steam now. If there has to be DRM, then Steam is probably the least intrusive that I've come across. The overlay is a godsend for games that don't like ALT+TAB to windows as well.

I did find an issue with the client before where a broken internet connection wouldn't let me play my games. I was raging quite hard until I found that unplugging the NIC meant I could play them again. I think they fixed that issue now. :)

I've avoided Origin partly because I dislike what EA have done to so many decent developers, and partly because I mistrust them. However, I've found that it can be run in a sandbox so will probably suffer it in that capacity so I can play ME3.
 
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i've used steam for around 6-7 years now, never had any real problems with it and never found it being invasive of my privacy in any way. try not to worry about it and just play the games :D
 
Angilion said:
I'll nail my colours to the mast straight away - I dislike modern DRM. I'd even prefer crappy old DRM solutions such as Lenslok from the 1980s (yes, I'm old - my first computer was a ZX-81). The only place I've bought any games in years is gog.com, precisely because they don't have any DRM at all.

So I've completely avoided Steam, but that's becoming more and more restrictive. The potential tipping point is Fallout: New Vegas, which I really want to buy and is yet another Steam-only game.

Steam ticks the two major boxes of why I dislike modern DRM - it's spyware because it takes information from your computer and sends it to the publisher and it makes all game "purchases" game rentals because it leaves the publisher in control of when or if you are allowed to play the game you've paid for. Nobody would accept that crap if it wasn't imposed on them.

I've looked around online for details and all I've found is ~85% fans saying everything is fine regardless of anything because Gabe Newell and Steam are heroes beyond reproach, something like Father Christmas and Superman, ~10% opposition saying that it's utterly terrible under any circumstances and the remainder saying that this sort of DRM is unavoidable, Steam works well enough and Valve haven't got a history of being incompetent or malicious. It seems to be rather polarised and rather short of actual information.


So...does anyone know what information Steam spies from you? Not what is written in the typically vague EULA (I've read that), but what it actually takes and sends to Valve. As far as I can tell, nobody knows or cares apart from me - people either won't use it regardless of what it spies or they'll use it regardless of what it spies as an act of trust and faith in Gabe Newell and Valve. If it's just something like some hardware specs and how many hours I've spent playing a game, I don't really care...as long as somebody is checking that's all they take and that they haven't started taking more.

I wouldn't bother with Steam at all, but I'd really like to buy Fallout: New Vegas.
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If you're using Windows it's entirely possible that Microsoft are stealing your personal datas right now!

If you're using Linux it's entirely possible that whoever compiled that distro is also stealing your datas right now! (Unless you happened to personally code the OS you're using, in which case kudos :p)

Your browser could be sending personal datas to Nigeria (or Nigella), and your firewall could even be doing the same, all the while pretending to be your friend and protect you from the data stealers.

While all of that is extremely unlikely, if you're going to be paranoid about privacy, you might as well do it properly.

Angilion said:
That's a point, assuming there is an unsteamed ( :) ) pirated version of it and I find it and how to download it. I've never pirated a PC game, but I'm sure it requires more than two tape recorders and a lead :)
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The irony being that you're far more likely to get actual malware from finding/downloading/installing a pirated copy, completely negating the reason for doing so in the first place :D
 
As for Steam:

Safe, they ain't gonna **** you, and the rental agreement is only to stop people trading in digital copies (and for good reason), they aren't going to randomly cut your access to a game off. However that's a double edged sword! If you buy a game from them, and cannot get it working or if it runs appallingly on your hardware (i.e LotR War of the North cannot run on any AMD hardware, CPU or GPU, despite Steam not warning you) you'll never get a refund, and the customer support is lacking severely, although you can contact Gabe directly and he does fix your issues, but he wouldn't give a refund either.

As for the program, it's clunky and slow, and becomes unresponsive a lot of the time, but Google something called Less Annoying Steam Experience Revised. It's a custom Skin and layout that fixes Valve's attrocious coding and makes the client extremely fast and responsive, whilst also giving it many desperately needed features for incredibly quick navigation.

As for OP:

tfh007.jpg
 
Checking my Steam account details it says I first signed up for steam on 17.5.09 in order to play The Orange Box which I had bought on dvd. The first actual game I bought on steam was the XCOM pack for £2 on 30.1.10, thought it was earlier than that tbh. What was your first purchase on steam?
 
Steam is pretty comparable to a console to be honest in terms of DRM. You don't really notice it as Steam becomes a great tool for storing and playing your games from. There's a reason people are willing to buy games they own physical copies of again on Steam because it's a great convenience.
 
Angilion said:
Steam ticks the two major boxes of why I dislike modern DRM - it's spyware because it takes information from your computer and sends it to the publisher and it makes all game "purchases" game rentals because it leaves the publisher in control of when or if you are allowed to play the game you've paid for.
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Ok, first thing is first... Steam does NOT, repeat NOT, take information from your PC unless you say it can do so. This is usually by responding to the hardware survey it might ask you to do. You do not have to complete or do the survey, and unless you do do the survey, Steam does not transmit your information. If information is sent to the publisher, it's the actual publisher PROGRAM, that does this, it is NOT Steam.

2ndly. *ALL* games have an EULA which states that you don't own the game, regardless of whether it's on a disc or downloaded. However with Steam once you've authorised the game you can quite happy run Steam in offline mode, and provided the game doesn't require net access you can play it until the Sun explodes.

Angilion said:
So...does anyone know what information Steam spies from you?
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All the information it sends can be found here. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
 
kthula666 said:
Only thing I hate about steam is the bandwidth hogging speed of the downloads, there is no capping option. Cant do anything online unless i pause steam D/L. Apart from that never notice the DRM.
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Install Netbalancer, it's free software that can limit the upload/download speed of individual applications. Helps me to download from Steam & use iPlayer etc. at the same time.
 
I've a question for the charming and insightful people babbling about tinfoil hats:

Where are my claims of conspiracies and cover-ups?

Where are my claims of wildly implausible things with no evidence to support them?

Where are my claims of things being true even though they're proven false by the available evidence?

If you're really seeing any of this in my posts, then you're not seeing my posts. Perhaps the Illuminati Alien Lizards are feeding you false posts instead?

If I had said that Valve was a front for the Illuminati/New World Order/<insert your conspiracy group of choice here> and that Steam read your mind or controlled it, or something silly like that, that would have been tinfoil hat territory. But I didn't.

Steam gathers data from your PC and sends it to Valve. This is not a secret. It is not a conspiracy. It is not covered up. I just asked what data it gathers.

You are behaving like the most knee-jerk theists, outraged at any perceived slight to your faith in Valve.
 
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I've a question for the charming OP, why so defensive?

You asked a question and most people gave you the best answer they could give, it turned out to be the answer you had come to a conclusion about yourself prior to posting and such is the nature of internet forums you proceeded to get slightly trolled due to an increasingly defensive and may i say slightly rude attitude towards the responders, what exactly did you expect?

At this point you may aswell stop posting here because your just going to get trolled into the ground for been a bit of an arse.
 
You posted a thread asking about steam & the majority seem to think it's worth putting up with the bad (whatever you perceive it to be) for a great service, so either get it or don't but don't get shirty when some people take the mickey out of some of you're concerns which do seem a little over the top to be fair.
 
Angilion said:
Steam gathers data from your PC and sends it to Valve. This is not a secret. It is not a conspiracy. It is not covered up. I just asked what data it gathers.
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Once again, Steam only collects PC spec data IF YOU WANT IT TO.. otherwise all it collects is game usage data (and it doesn't even do that in offline mode.)

And once again, the data it collects is here. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
 
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