Why is Steam still such a steaming pile of leper excement?

[matt0r]

I'm 27 and have been playing games since the 8k Spectrum. I've also owned a Commodore 64, Amigas and many PCs, starting with a 386. Steam has only improved my long-term hobby. In fact, I've even added most of my classic games collection to my Steam list.

I also used to play a lot of CS (pre-source) and having Steam back then would have only improved the experience. Apart from the odd 'Steam is already running' (very rare and easy to fix) I've never had any problems with it. You must just be unlucky.

I am also 27 and have been gaming since the speccy +2 and i must admit when i had to move from the WON network, i wasn't best pleased... steam was buggy and it took an age for them to get friends working correctly. However, steam is now great and i have no issues and if wasnt for the cost would have all my games on that platform.

 

[mdixson]

Another vote here for Steam being a great platform; really looking fwd to the save/config sync!

 

[neoboy]

Never had any problem with Steam, no real complaints here.

 

[Kainz]

I hate Steam, All the games were always so much better off as there own clients just own there own

Yer well I'm 34 and I kinda agree. My worst situation is firing up steam to play a game only to be greeted with the Steam/Client Update/Restart box. Of course I can hit cancel and then fire up my desired title but then it feels dirty...and that box is there in the background watching meh...

 

[llewellyn]

Steam is a decent platform, but it does suffer from the disadvantages that all digital distribution platforms bring to the table (potential lack of refunds for purchased games, unable to sell on games, potential permanent loss of games if distributor dies in the future, etc).

Steam is great until you try to login and it just hangs there (not even giving you the option to go into offline mode).... I've had some friends cursing it over that one.

My main beef with Steam is that purchasing from them is more expensive than say Amazon (in general), so unless there is a particular weekend deal on, there isn't too much of an incentive to get some games from them.

 

[Margaret]

Nothing wrong with Steam, I'm putting this down to user error.

 

[Jamesdavid3]

Well im talking about the Old days when Steam first came out...

You HAD to be online to play a game you have brought.. they didnt have no Offline mode or anything.

Those were the bad days of steam

 

[sckam]

I have 20 games on my account from e8400 8800gt sli and never had a problem for 2 years, upgraded to new build i7, hd5870 and now crysis warhead and company of heroes only only run 1080i, all other games 1080p. Spent several hours on google and on pc trying to fix it without success still running 50hz mode. My other none steam games all run 1080p no problem.

 

[grudas]

I think Steam is awesome.

 

[TAC4U]

I have over 200 games on Steam and find it incredibly useful. After a reinstall of Windows I can have all my games up and running by simply installing the Steam client, as I keep my Steam folder on a separate drive. It's got to the stage where I don't bother buying a game if it's not on Steam. Is it perfect? Most certainly not, but it's the best we've got at the moment.

 

[arc@css]

Steam works more or less perfectly for me.

 

[Jesus]

Steam rocks my world <3

 

[Reza86]

I personally have never really had problems with Steam. I use it pretty much everyday, only thing that ever goes wrong is when a new game is released it can be hard to connect but thats just down to the number of people accessing the content at the same time so it is to be expected.

 

[Haggisman]

I don't like Steam... it's far too easy for me to see a game on there and go "ooh, I want that" *buy* rather than having to wait till I get a chance to go to the shop, or having to wait for delivery, giving me a chance to think for a minute and realise I should really be saving my money for useful things =P

Actually in all seriousness, I think it's brilliant. Back when it was in it's infancy it was a real pain and I avoided it like the plague, come HL2 I didn't really have much choice, and was impressed by how much it had improved. It's now one of the first things to go back on my PC after a format =)

 

[Digikill]

Steam is a decent platform, but it does suffer from the disadvantages that all digital distribution platforms bring to the table (potential lack of refunds for purchased games, unable to sell on games, potential permanent loss of games if distributor dies in the future, etc)

This is a great point from llewellyn, what happens if DRM becomes a bad memory. Steam plus all the other digital distribution platforms may go belly up or get bought out and sold on, EA are allready saying they will only keep your content available to you for a limited period before you have to pay more. Are there any guarantee's that we will not be charged in the future to access our content on other services?

I prefer a nice DVD and manual tbh, i only use digital distribution to play the great games that have been unfortunately locked into the various scheme's.

Don't really have a problem with validation though, so long as it's not time or quantity limited.

 

[britboy4321]

I just love steam. I am so used to not having to have a CD-Rom in the drive that when recently non-steam 'need for speed shift' demanded it have a little peek of the CD before it ran, I actually felt insulted!

When I bought my new rig, new hard disk, steam was like absolute heaven. Log in -- choose the games you want installed from those purchased - kick it off - and go to work. Back from work -- all games 100% installed, latest patches, all work 100% perfectly.

Then I've got 3 hours manually installing and patching the games I bought on CD. Whish I'd bought absolutely everything on steam.

ADDITIONAL - I scratch CDs, lose manuals (with CD keys written on them), and all kinds of other stupid things. Steam has cured this as well -- with steam I'll always have the thing I bought -- I can't 'lose' it, or some essential component of it! When I come back to a game I last played 2 years ago I know it's bang up-to-date and ready to rock!

 

[UncleBensSauce]

I blame your pc.

 

[Fens]

It never ceases to amaze me how so many PC gamers are blinded by loyalty to Valve/STEAM because lets face it apart from Half Life2 and the HL2 Episodes most of Valves work in the last 5 years has been mod releases based on the HL2 source engine they have not made anything new in that time and STEAM is their company focus nowadays not PC games development.

I see nothing wrong with this...Valve initially made it very clear that after developing the source engine for HL2 they planned to use it and build on it for many years to come. Just look at what they did with TF2 and L4D, two of the best multiplayer shooters around which continue to be very popular as opposed to other 'big' FPS titles like ETQW, Q4 and UT3 which all but died relatively quickly.

I am not blindly loyal to Valve/STEAM, they just happen to make and continue to support games that I really enjoy playing! They actually listen to community input when making changes and I have lost count of how many updates and extra content they have added to TF2 and all for free - I doubt many other companies would have continued that level of support without charging for 'booster packs' and expansions

When STEAM was first launched I like many old WON network players initially hated it but they soon beefed up the servers, ironed out the bugs and 'won me over' I have not had any major bugs or stability issues in years, I consistently max out my connection speeds when downloading and the excellent friends system has pretty much made Xfire and other similar software redundant for me and everyone else I know that plays online.

As to the issue of poor support for non-valve titles, you have a point but surely this is an issue for the games developers and not Valve? Maybe I have just been lucky but personally I have had no trouble with any of the other games that I have purchased on STEAM. Sorry to hear things are not working out for you OP but for most people that I know STEAM works just fine and they like it.

 

[Nick1881]

Steam hater here, tried it a few times and I would really rather not have it.

 

[bledd]

I love Steam, but it's far from fine..

It really needs more download control, the ability to limit download speeds for each download (and all downloads)

The ability to force downloading even if you're playing an online game. (my 20mb virgin is wasted)