Why does Steam get such a bad rap?

Another great thing about steam is if you owned an old copy of half life 1 and put that cd key in you got all the expansions and mods for it for free. Pretty good :D Plus the gift idea is pretty good. I managed to get garys mod off a mate for free. (i also have hl 2 + ep 1 for free if anyone wants it)
 
Its been over 3 years since i gamed on PC, i have no discs left anywhere. I boot up a new PC with a 4750 in, load steam, redownload all my old games, HL2, HL source, darwinia etc and play away, couldnt be happier, definately the future of gaming!

On a side note, my HL2 was retail bought, i didnt even need to loacate my key to play it from download, that doesnt seem draconian to me, lets not forget its against the EULA to sell games on anyway, thats ANY game on ANY system.
 
bloodline76 said:
I think over the past few months since they introduced the £ into buying we have seen some great deals. I have never had any problems with it and some of the offiers like left4dead are amazing for weekend specials./QUOTE]

Agreed, since they introduced proper pricing the prices have been far more sensible. Still too expensive for me, most of the time; if I can find the retail version cheaper (even if it's a few pounds), I'll get the retail version. They need to be a bit more competitive.
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One of Steam's biggest selling points back in the day was cheaper than retail prices on digital products direct to your PC. Gabe said so himself. Sounded great, shame the pricing went the opposite to what was promised...

Obviously selling in £ now helps us in the UK these days but still too pricey at times. Quite often I'll buy the retail release over the Steam version, cos its cheaper.
 
The price isnt that bad. Considering you dont have to pay bus/petrol fees to the local shop. The convenience is nice for the sake of a couple of quid!
 
Hedge said:
The price isnt that bad. Considering you dont have to pay bus/petrol fees to the local shop. The convenience is nice for the sake of a couple of quid!
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But compared to online mail-order, usually with free day-of-release delivery, Steam still fails on most releases.
 
Hedge said:
The price isnt that bad. Considering you dont have to pay bus/petrol fees to the local shop. The convenience is nice for the sake of a couple of quid!
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But that convenience is offset by the fact that you don't get physical packaging or media, so if you want to re-install you'll need to wait for it to download rather than just install off a disc.

Pricing really is the only thing stopping me from buying more games from Steam. Obviously they can't keep a constant track of every single retailer's pricing, but when you can get something like Far Cry 2 for £15 from a well-known online games retailer, who is going to pay £35 for it on Steam?
 
Hedge said:
The price isnt that bad. Considering you dont have to pay bus/petrol fees to the local shop. The convenience is nice for the sake of a couple of quid!
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I meant buying from online retailers mostly, altho some of my local retail gaming stores have often beaten Steam prices too.
 
Hedge said:
The price isnt that bad. Considering you dont have to pay bus/petrol fees to the local shop. The convenience is nice for the sake of a couple of quid!
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Haven't been to a game shop to buy anything since PS2 was about. Mail order mostly, followed by Steam whenever it's cheaper.
 
Have I got this right? Apart from the fact the games are more expensive, you can't sell them or give them away, the downloading is slow and games are Steam specific and can't be used with standard updates, it is great? Well I'm sold. :)
 
We already had a discussion about prices, they can't really go round undercutting shops and usually stick to their RRPs unless they decide to have a special on or a sale.
 
Steam is great now, i must say i use it just about everyday (playing games of course :rolleyes:). But i do remember that is was pretty awful at time of release, it seemed like it should have been a beta still. Very tedious trying to get hl2 (boxed copy) to work with it without getting some kind of error message when trying to register it. But now and easily for the last 2 years if not more, i have not had one single problem with steam or any of the games :)

They are a good company and easily the best online games delivery system around :D
 
bledd. said:
when steam came out, many users were still on dial-up, for them it was a horrible thing
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Or didn't even have their gaming PC connected to the net. The amount of hassle i went through lugging my PC downstairs and installing the modem, installing steam, updating, getting it working Ok, uninstalling modem and putting it back in the family PC, taking my PC back upstairs, setting it up again, playing it twice... then it stopped working and started demanding an internet connection.:mad:

Until I got a wireless network and broadband i hated Steam. Love it now like.
 
Steams great, overpriced on new stuff. But great for catching up on old games you missed out.. The special offers rock and I don't have to go to the shop or wait for the post.

Trouble is people have long memories and are unwilling to try it again.

I especially like the ingame web browser.. now I can surf and play..
 
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