Steam

[Loony BoB]

After spending years without having much experience (if any) with Steam, I've recently noticed I will not be able to play many of my beloved future PC releases without it - Football Manager and Elder Scrolls to name a couple of series it would be painul for me to miss out on. So, with that said, discuss Steam and introduce the ups and downs of it to me. I'm reluctant to commit to a purchase without knowing how the game will (or won't) be affected by having to play it through Steam. I know there are people out there who get pretty upset that things are only released via Steam, and I'm interested in why this is, and if it will affect me in any way.

[Pike]

I like the way it tracks how much time you spend playing a game and I'm proud of my 412 hours of Civ IV.

I also like that it works in Linux with Wine.

I don't like that sometimes it bugs out or randomly decides to use up all of my CPU.

Overall, I'm pretty neutral on Steam. I have it installed, and boot it up when I need to use it. It's a good place to find deals if you don't feel like being a pirate.

[nik0tine]

I don't like that sometimes it bugs out or randomly decides to use up all of my CPU.

This, along with STEAM occasionally taking ten minutes to start and/or some of my games behaving the same way, are the only problems I have ever had with STEAM.

Well, aside from WON going down and dealing irreparable harm to the greatest community of modders that ever was. But we don't talk about these things anymore.

[CimminyCricket]

Someone explain Steam in detail to me please, I have never used it.

[Loony BoB]

Steam (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Bolivar]

Steam is a client made by Valve in around 2004 to act as an all-in-one application that brings their PC games to one launcher and runs certain things throughout them. You can buy all of their products on the Store page within Steam and eventually other developers put their products on the service until eventually it became the pre-eminent distribution and game client for all PC gaming. You have your own friends lists, groups, and communities on Steam, it has built-in anti-cheating software that runs throughout games, you browse game servers via Steam, and it even has the little perks like stat tracking and Achievements. The best feature is probably how you can store your saved data on the cloud, and even your game purchases. If you get a new computer, all you have to do is download Steam, log on, and select from your list of purchased games which ones you want to download onto that hard drive. They even let you pre-load games onto your computer so once midnight hits for the release date, you can officially start playing the game you already paid for and downloaded.

It's similar to Xbox Live, except far more robust, and free. It's also extremely popular because Valve restricts what kind of DRM measures developers can take.

When it came out, the immediate response was to bitch because it took longer to load into a game because of all the checks and stuff it does. But once you have a need to utilize some of the other features, we realized how powerful the bundle of services were, to store your purchases on the Cloud, streamline updates, and a decent amount of social features. There's an EoFF group on Steam, I'm a part of it and would actually like to see if any of you guys would wanna get in on some Counter-Strike soon.

If I could afford to keep up with PC gaming, I would probably game exclusively through Steam. My user name is the same here, Bolivar, with a capital B (i think).

[CimminyCricket]

I will download this eventually!

[Rostum]

I absolutely love Steam. They always have really awesome sales on, and I've managed to get some incredibly good titles extremely cheap.

If anyone wants to add me my user is ldowell.

[nik0tine]

When it came out, the immediate response was to bitch because it took longer to load into a game because of all the checks and stuff it does. But once you have a need to utilize some of the other features, we realized how powerful the bundle of services were, to store your purchases on the Cloud, streamline updates, and a decent amount of social features.

In defense of all the bitching, most of these features were not implemented until way later. In the early days of STEAM even the friends list wasn't functional.

[Bolivar]

When it came out, the immediate response was to bitch because it took longer to load into a game because of all the checks and stuff it does. But once you have a need to utilize some of the other features, we realized how powerful the bundle of services were, to store your purchases on the Cloud, streamline updates, and a decent amount of social features.

In defense of all the bitching, most of these features were not implemented until way later. In the early days of STEAM even the friends list wasn't functional.

True, but it was only a few months after launch I think I moved to my dad's and was trying to figure out how to get my games on their computer, and was all like "damn, I didn't bring the discs, how am I gonna.......................Wow."

[Iceglow]

Steam is ok, though for some reason my Civ 5 which was working fine doesn't want to load atm, might have to uninstall it and re-do that see if it changes anything.

The biggest issue for me is when a game requires both Steam and a Windows Live gamer tag (which btw can be your XBL gamertag, hence I have a couple of hundred achievement points on my XBL tag for Dawn of War 2 a pc only title) it's like massive overkill, though I haven't had any real issues due to the both of them being used for the game.

Steam is a bit of a process whore though and loves to take up way too much of my processor power.

[Nice]

I recently got into pc gaming, so Steam and I are best friends. I think the day I found Psychonauts was the day I cried a little - love that game.

[Yeargdribble]

I remember I was first introduced to Steam when HL2 came out. God did I ever hate it. It was the most annoying intrusive thing ever. At that time, still on dial-up in an area where that was the only option, I hated the idea of always needing verify an internet connection to play a game I paid for.

Years later I love Steam very much. I can play my games offline (with a little foresight) and I can happily have any of them pretty much ready to go in a short amount of time without actually having to keep them on my hard drive. I might just get in the mood to play something on my extensive list, I tell Steam to download it and in a fairly short amount of time, I'm playing it. I don't have to go to the attic, get the box, find the activation codes and do all of that crap.

As a result, I've actually bought second copies of many of my games just to have the convenience of Steam.

For games that have cloud saving, it's fantastic to be able to start up on another computer and pick up where you left off. I did this a lot with Torchlight moving between my desktop and laptop.

I also love Steam's sales which are nearly constantly happening. I picked up Limbo today for $2.50 and got my wife a copy of Duke Nukem Forever for $6 the other day.

I also love sending (and receiving) gifts through Steam as well as getting special deal when I can buy games in bulk at a reduced rate and send them to friends.

I like that Gabe Newell views Valve as a service company rather than a product company. I'm aware that Steam is DRM, but it's certainly DRM done right.

I used to be the kind of person that lamented the loss of the box. I loved having my beautiful collection of boxes on a shelf and I still enjoy it with my console games, but Steam has finally made me embrace digital distribution which is the inevitable future.

I love Netflix, but I'd much rather have a service that was like Steam for movies and TV shows. I'd love to be able to buy digital copies of my stuff and view them anywhere. I know Apple sort of does this and so does Amazon, but I can't say I trust either of them yet (especially Apple).

I also like the chat and voice chat functions within Steam. They've been great for friends and even for just playing a game with my wife in the other room.



As for the cons I can think of for Steam, the biggest one is that it might all end one day and my games will be gone. Theoretically, if that happens, they will unlock all of the games from their service to the people that bought them, but we can't really know. There is a certain piece of mind that comes with having a physical copy of a game and you give that up for convenience with a service like Steam and have faith that your investment won't be all for naught one day.

[Slothy]

As for the cons I can think of for Steam, the biggest one is that it might all end one day and my games will be gone. Theoretically, if that happens, they will unlock all of the games from their service to the people that bought them, but we can't really know. There is a certain piece of mind that comes with having a physical copy of a game and you give that up for convenience with a service like Steam and have faith that your investment won't be all for naught one day.

I sometimes think about this myself and hear it brought up by others, but something I realized quite a while ago is that it's really no different than buying any game ever. Eventually consoles die, physical copies deteriorate (like my copy of FFIV on SNES that doesn't go past the title screen anymore) and PC standards change. Not everything continues to be supported and re-released. Eventually you won't be able to find a used replacement for the console that stopped working on you last week, or you'll be left trying to emulate some obscure hardware, or an outdated operating system just to run your favourite classics.

Really, our Steam libraries face the same questionable future that every other title ever made faces. That question of whether or not we'll be able to play it in ten years. On the plus side, I think we can take some peace of mind from the fact that as long as Steam is making money hand over fist it isn't going anywhere. And while there may be people who hate it for one reason or another, it's still making them money hand over fist because they know how to treat their customers well.

[Yeargdribble]

Yeah, that really does calm me. I have some old systems and games that still work on them... even a Nintendo. I almost mentioned it in the previous post but I realize how actually transient even hard copies can be. Trying to install some of my oldest PC games by disc is a nightmare.

I'm sure that once upon a time I could've bragged that I had the hard copy of some game on 5.25" floppy, but what the hell good would that do me anyway? In 5-10 years I might feel the same way about DVDs and my collection of hard copy game discs will be even more worthless.

Emulation really made me aware of how technology will always change in a way I'm not expecting and so it might still with the games in my Steam library... for the better. They will always be accessible in some way.

And like you said, Steam is super solid and staying on top because of their service angle. So long as that's the case they will continue to be the leader and I'll feel safe about my library. I also have the feeling they will evolve with new technologies rather than get eclipsed by them.

And even if they don't, until the inevitable future, I'll use the service that's the best out there by a long shot.