Why would they use Steam?

[Tregarin]

I got burgled a few years back... they didn't take my desktops (too bulky) but they did take a shit load of game disks, most likely down to them being stored all nice and neat in a bookcase by my desk.

 

Best guess is about £700 worth of games lost... not to mention the damage caused by them breaking in and trashing the place. (and some of them were bloody hard to find... I still haven't replaced them all)

 

 

If I had been using Steam then, like I do now, I wouldn't have lost nearly as much... and I would've still had the ability to re-install a lot of them whenever my HDD died, without having to repurchase the buggers.

 

But hey... never mind that... at least I wasn't a slave to a system, right? Makes it all ok...

 

In other words, I've been on the receiving end of the bad side of having physical media (which does degrade over time... don't ever forget that!) and I've seen the bad points with Steam up close and personal... and you know what? The physical media option is nowhere near as good as people make out.

 

 

 

Oh, and one last thing... in the 90's it was Microsoft that was the Master to a lot of people, and they were very vocal about how the rest of us were Slaves... in the 00's it was Apple... it's now the 10's, and it's Steams turn. I've been hearing this kind of crap for more than 20 years now... and it's the same fucking argument every time. Any chance we could have something new?

[gregathit]

Calranthe, the patch effected everyone. The exe is a 32 bit exe that only allows for 2GB of memory to be used. Most advanced pc gamers immediately added the LAA (large address aware) flag to enable someone on a 64bit computer to use up to 4GB of memory which make the game quite a bit more stable.

 

The new exe won't allow this tweak and that was the rub. Fortunately a modder came up with a code injector mod that restored folks ability to go back to using 4GB of memory.

[gregathit]

I got burgled a few years back... they didn't take my desktops (too bulky) but they did take a shit load of game disks' date=' most likely down to them being stored all nice and neat in a bookcase by my desk.

 

Best guess is about £700 worth of games lost... not to mention the damage caused by them breaking in and trashing the place. (and some of them were bloody hard to find... I still haven't replaced them all)

 

 

If I had been using Steam then, like I do now, I wouldn't have lost nearly as much... and I would've still had the ability to re-install a lot of them whenever my HDD died, without having to repurchase the buggers.

 

But hey... never mind that... at least I wasn't a slave to a system, right? Makes it all ok...

 

In other words, I've been on the receiving end of the bad side of having physical media (which does degrade over time... don't ever forget that!) and I've seen the bad points with Steam up close and personal... and you know what? The physical media option is nowhere near as good as people make out.

 

 

 

Oh, and one last thing... in the 90's it was Microsoft that was the Master to a lot of people, and they were very vocal about how the rest of us were Slaves... in the 00's it was Apple... it's now the 10's, and it's Steams turn. I've been hearing this kind of crap for more than 20 years now... and it's the same fucking argument every time. Any chance we could have something new?

[/quote']

 

As you are aware there is nothing new under the sun...just a rehash of yesterday or the day before, or the day prior to that, or.......

 

By the way....how about them Yankees?????????

(sorry for the Tommy Boy quote )

[galgat]

The term slave is very relevant, if I attach a USB external drive to my Computer, this is a slave drive. It can not function with out the Computer, and the Computer only use's it, in any way it wants, the drive has no choice.

 

The Computer may add this to the drive, and that, and remove what it decides to remove. The drive has no say in the matter other than while it is attached to the Computer it can function, this is a slave Drive.

 

 

Now you can say My use of such a term is crazy, but it is not. You are attached to Steam, and as such you have become a slave. You may only play if attached to steam. If they decide that something you have added to your game is not acceptable, they will remove it, or shut down your game. They have all the control.

 

I no that because people accept such dependency easy, that yes Steam is the wave of the future. I just don't like the way the future is heading .

 

I see now your answers are to call me crazy for disliking steam, I understand, fall back on the "there loony thing it works" .

 

You who love steam fine.. I hate it..with a Passion.

 

I will keep my thought's to myself from now on..I am sorry I offended anyone.

 

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/281131,the-skyrim-shitstorm.aspx

[gregathit]

Ah I wouldn't worry about offending anyone Galgat. If people are so thin skinned as to be offended by a debate then they are the ones to have problems not you.

 

I'm fine with those that love it and those that hate it as long they don't go to the extreme of trying to make it either the antichrist or our savior. Either extreme is silly in my humble opinion.

 

Happy Gaming!

 

 

[Warrunner]

I'm not sure anyone was particularly insulted, I think there was some confusion about your vehemence, that's all.

[Spyder Arachnid]

I actually don't know why they did this with Steam. If their thought was to stop piracy, it didn't work. People are actually pirating this game even more now that it is tied to steam, cause the pirated versions don't use steam.

 

I personally made my own custom install of the game so I didn't have to deal with any of this crap. I don't like steam, and I will never use it for anything. My brother uses steam and tells me all the time of the problems he constantly deals with while using it.

 

It is sad when legitimate customers have to resort to pirating a game they already own, just to avoid having to use steam.

[GSBmodders]

There is a lot of mention of the popularity of steam, many of you think that because there are 4 million users online during peak hours that it makes steam popular, that is simply not true.

 

all that tells you is that 4 million people are potentially forced to use steam in order to play the game that they purchased. Use of a product does not all ways translate into popularity. Those who evangelize the product would like you to believe this is true when in reality most users probably do not care about steam one way or the other and if asked might say something along the lines of this "if doing away with steam would lower the products cost then I am all for it."

[chukkake]

Let's be generous and say half of those users are 'slaves' with 'no choice', while ignoring that having Steam installed is always a choice. That's still 2 million who use Steam because they want to. That's still popular.

[GSBmodders]

being generous would be to say that less then 10% of the total users who actually care about this issue think steam is awesome.

 

the majority of the users, you know those normal everyday people that are the opposite of us, they simply do not care.

 

Now out of that user group, which you can safely bet makes up the largest population of steam users. You can also safely bet that they would gladly see the end of steam in order to lower the products cost, to them steam is something that can be lived without.

 

 

 

[chukkake]

This lower cost thing you keep throwing out seems like a red herring to me. I'd lop off my left nipple if it'd lower the cost of games, and I'm fairly fond of my nipples.

[GSBmodders]

This lower cost thing you keep throwing out seems like a red herring to me. I'd lop off my left nipple if it'd lower the cost of games' date=' and I'm fairly fond of my nipples.

[/quote']

 

Steam is a service that is provided at a cost to the producers, that cost gets passed on to the consumers. To be fair it is not only steam that adds to the cost of games and other software products but all DRM.

 

Developers themselves acknowledge this, many have openly discussed the issue and some have talked of doing away with DRM as it simply does not work at preventing piracy.

 

possibly you enjoy paying the higher cost for game's, maybe you even get an adrenaline rush the moment you log on to steam.

 

Me I can live without it and I would prefer to be able to play the game that I spent 60 bucks on without crashing every 10 minuets or less

 

unfortunately this is not to be the case, since once again the producers have targeted the wrong group. The whole reason for the resurgence in strict DRM is the grey market area products.

 

Rather then target the majority, who purchase the game legally, producers and developers should instead be targeting ebay, craigs list, and amazon

 

 

 

[ronttu]

It is sad when legitimate customers have to resort to pirating a game they already own' date=' just to avoid having to use steam.

[/quote']

 

I pirate any movies I buy, just so I don't have to watch yet another "you wouldn't download a car"-clip that you can't skip. I'm also very much of the opinion that DRM as it is these days is impediment only to the person who actually PAID for the product.. Pirates crack it easy, those who use pirated versions don't have to suffer the quirks of it, and it's not really stopping anyone from making a crack, all it may do is delay the zero-day releases sometimes.

 

Now, as far as Steam works and doesn't give me trouble, I don't care. If it fucks up my stuff, I'll kick them in the nuts. Same with any DRM, really, as long as I don't notice it, I don't give a shit about it.

[Kashked]

It is sad when legitimate customers have to resort to pirating a game they already own' date=' just to avoid having to use steam.

[/quote']

 

I pirate any movies I buy, just so I don't have to watch yet another "you wouldn't download a car"-clip that you can't skip. I'm also very much of the opinion that DRM as it is these days is impediment only to the person who actually PAID for the product.. Pirates crack it easy, those who use pirated versions don't have to suffer the quirks of it, and it's not really stopping anyone from making a crack, all it may do is delay the zero-day releases sometimes.

 

Now, as far as Steam works and doesn't give me trouble, I don't care. If it fucks up my stuff, I'll kick them in the nuts. Same with any DRM, really, as long as I don't notice it, I don't give a shit about it.

 

I am of the same general view. I don't have any strong feelings towards Steam either way really really, since I haven't had any issues with it, and I think that it is kind of neat that it keeps track of how many hours I have played, it allows me to objectivly evaluate how much enjoyment I have gotten out of a game. Empire: Total War, 57 hours, Shogun 2: Total War, 26 hours, and Skyrim, 70 hours. I have had the Total War games for over a year, but haven't played them very much, maybe I wont buy their next title.

 

Having said this, that is really the only thing I have used Steam for. I don't really see why I should be forced to used it, and I have a small gripe about that. As a paying customer I would like a choice in the matter. I consider it a small matter, but there it is.

And as have already been mentioned, it might slightly inconviniate those the pirate the game, but it won't stop them. I have never heard of a game that has managed to stop piracy. Personally I think the computergame companies would gain more from dropping the DRM and thereby lowering the prices of the games to encourage people to buy them, but that's just my theory...