Why do some hate steam?

[Wardly]

I'm not sure i understand this. i've got a person who is requesting that i create my mod outside of steam for those who don't use it. He requested this on steam. I've also seen this come up in a number of other games.

So why do people hate using steam so much? I mean this person obviously has an account since he asked on steam. So i'm not sure why he would want a non-steam version of the mod or anybody for that matter hating steam workshop so much.

I understand the people who didn't purchase the game through steam for one reason or another but it can be added to steam easy enough and even if you don't want to go through all the trouble of downloading and installing for a single game and/or mod. It's inevitable that games will eventually no longer be carried by stores. Slowly but surely they are finding online sales to be a much better alternative. It's cheaper and can offer some level of control over the game distribution. I mean where i live in the DFW area of Texas it's getting harder and harder to find a store with a decent collection of games to choose from. So we're forced to purchase online for the most part. Microsofts XBOX and the PS3 are pushing online sales via there respective stores harder then the in store sales since they don't have to pay for packaging, shipping and in store marketing (those life sized cutouts of <insert game character here> aren't free and they have to pay the store for the space they take up). With online distribution companies like steam, origin and a few others the consumer doesn't have to go to the store to make the purchase has a much larger selection to choose from and can do it from there own home. It's the evolution of digital sales and trust me if the clothing industry could sell you downloadable clothes, we'd all be wearing some form of downloadable clothing in no time.

So what gives? What am i missing here? Why is it people hate online game distribution companies? Are they pirated games? Do they just hate digital progress?

Also is it worth me finding out what i have to do to make a non-steam version of the game or is this group of people so small its not worth it?

 

[Lord Tirian]

On Steam itself: It means you no longer own the game. Steam provides great convenience but nevertheless: it gives you less freedom to play your game. Stuck without internet? Out of luck. Valve goes bust? Out of luck. Slow internet connection and Steam decides to push a 1 GB patch? Out of luck.

Just because you're happy with the trade-off (online requirement vs. never lose a physical disk again), not all have your opinion on where their personal sweet spot is. On top of that, Steam runs well enough these days but for some people, no fault of their own, it's really buggy (and it was even buggier in the past). Can't you see how people might be annoyed if they bought a game on a DVD... and then it doesn't run because Steam acts up? And there are no refunds these days for "I bought this and now it doesn't work".

Not to mention: many people have seen studios going under but can still play these games - many of the "classics" were made by studios that went under long ago (like Master of Orion 2). What will happen if Valve goes bust?

The Steam Workshop is a bit buggy in many cases and Steam's policy of aggressive auto-updating can easily break things - that's certainly a source of some enmity. Despite me liking Steam, I don't like dealing with the workshop, it's bothersome and is finicky. Give me a file I plug in and update at my own pace any time. Not some subscription service that sometimes doesn't download stuff properly, has no options, no readme and so on.

 

[Wardly]

I understand the concern of valve going bust and even that some don't have a constant or maybe a reliable internet connection and yeah it could be a pain if somebody has a dial up connection or has to pay a bandwidth fee.

But you can play your games without an internet connection, steam doesn't require that you are always online. Trust me i've done it many times. The always online requirement comes from the game manufacturer, ask Maxis how that went over with sim city or blizzard how the first month of diablo 3 went. Steam only requires you to have a connection long enough to download the game. All games on steam have auto-update options that can be turned on and off. I'm not 100% on the client itself but for the games i'm 100% sure there is an option to stop auto-updates. As for steam workshops auto-update it's not updated until you click the "update" button in the mods section for civ. It's only notifying you that an update is available. So i'm not entirely sure this particular point of your argument has a whole lot of facts behind it.

As for losing your games if valve bites the bullet. You might as well say i don't put my money in a bank because some day banks are going to become obsolete. Valve would sell before it closes any doors and as the largest and most profitable game distribution provider in the market it pretty much has a monopoly on the industry. So if it all of a sudden tanks, the industry as a whole would have to be experiencing major issues, mind you not because of steam but steam going down would be a result of the industry collapsing. Besides i'm pretty sure that if that was to happen there would be something done about the millions of people who just lost a ton of money in games. Valve is an american company if i'm not mistaken, there are a number of companies both american and none american companies that have been sued over such things even though they stated one thing or another in a terms of agreement.

I agree that some like having the DVDs in there hands and the books that come with them that they can thumb through while the game is installing or loading. That part is really the only thing i miss, the downloadable manuals suck i'll give you that. Even though they are the same thing one is just printed and the other isn't, it's not the same thing when you have to alt-tab to read something in the manual.

 

[whoward69]

You have to differentiate those that hate Steam, and those that hate using the Steam Workshop for downloading mods.

Integration between CivV/BE and Steam Workshop is poor. If you lose a connection, your downloads will hang and can be very hard to clear. If the game thinks Steam is "available" but it's unavailable (server load or whatever) the game has a tendency to delete mods, etc, etc, etc, etc.

It's nothing to do with piracy, and everything about being in control of what happens on your own computer when you want it to happen.

To upload a mod here, zip the .civbemod file and either attach the zip file to a post or add it to the CFC Downloads database - it's still digital distribution.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Doesn't change that the workshop frequently bugs out for no reason, see here and here for example. It's frustrating to debug it because sometimes it works flawlessly, sometimes it just stops working for no reason whatsoever.

If you install manually, you always know what's going on and make sure it's installed properly every time. I certainly prefer it that way as I like to tinker with mods as well. I just like to know what's going on in my install (as, repeat: I like Steam itself, just not the workshop).

Especially since I can keep my mods organised and the Civfanatics threads are much better than the Steam forums for discussing modding, might as well just stay here instead of jumping through extra hoops.

Everybody has a different workflow and how to do things.

 

[bouncymischa]

One thing I find somewhat amusing is that, when working on mods and wanting to examine other people's code for ideas/inspiration, I've found it a lot easier to grab a copy stored off of Steam. In order to download a mod from Steam, I have to boot up Civ, go into the mods page, go onto Steam, subscribe to the mod, wait for Civ to download it, and then exit out of Civ. On the other hand, it's a lot simpler to grab someone's mod off of civfanatics, unzip it, and dump it in my downloads folder to examine at my leisure.

All things considered, it is fairly simple to store a copy of the mod off of Steam -- just zip up the finished modfile and upload it somewhere. I've been finding the civfanatics database a pain to upload to, though, so for the time being I've been using my dropbox account. I really should get to putting my improvements on civfanatics, though, considering how much I've taken advantage of other people's work uploaded on here!

On the other hand, if someone really doesn't want to bother with uploading copies of their work outside of Steam, then I think it's rather silly to try and browbeat them into it. If you are happy with just keeping your stuff on Steam, then go ahead!

 

[Wardly]

I guess i didn't know about all the issues people have had with workshop. I've used it for a few games (mostly civ and skyrim) for years but have never really had any issues. nor has any of my friends or family (that i'm aware of).

LOL love the image reference. As a software engineer you have no idea how close that comes to reality. I've actually heard of people using the sticky key notice in windows as a trigger for a macro. Thankfully we don't have a sticky key notice on the web

 

[Lord Shadow]

It's quite a huge bit of doomsaying to go around seriously saying Valve might abruptly and catastrophically go under and deprive millions of their games with no possible recourse whatsoever.

And as for "owning" games, we never did. Even if you have them on DVDs (and nothing stops you from backing up Steam games to discs if you're so inclined), you merely own a license to play them. That has been so since practically the birth of software.

But anyway, yes, I suppose the Workshop can be troublesome at times, which is why I offer direct download alternatives for my mods.

 

[Lord Tirian]

It's quite a huge bit of doomsaying to go around seriously saying Valve might abruptly and catastrophically go under and deprive millions of their games with no possible recourse whatsoever.

Oh, definitely - but what about in 5 years time? 10 years time? 20 years? It's about the long-term, really (and as I said, MoO2, almost 20 years later, is still a game people fire up).

Even if you have them on DVDs (and nothing stops you from backing up Steam games to discs if you're so inclined), you merely own a license to play them.

But if I have them on DVD, nobody can take them away. Steam can. Again, not realistic in the short-term, but what about 20 years?

Dismissing the possibility that Valve might not be around in 20 years isn't doom-saying, it's a fairly realistic concern in an industry that has seen the rise and fall of large companies in a short time span, over and over again.

 

[Japper007]

It's simple: It's an extra inconvenience between me and getting to play my game, it may be a small inconvenience but there should of course be none.

For instance if I doubleclick on the shortcut for Beyond Earth, it first starts up Steam which takes about a minute, which almost always needs an update taking another damn minute, then and only then does it start the game proper (if it doesn't bug out in the previous steps, which also happens constantly). That's at least two minutes of waiting that are completely unnecessary.

And the only reason it inconveniences me is to prevent piracy, which it doesn't do. As anyone who is even slightly familiar with the Pirate Bay will tell you: most Steam games are cracked and available within a day or sometimes even less and as a bonus you can play them directly without any bull keeping you away from the game. So it doesn't even achieve what it sets out to do either.

As for mods, I wouldn't know, I rarely touch them.

 

[Gorbles]

Oh, definitely - but what about in 5 years time? 10 years time? 20 years? It's about the long-term, really (and as I said, MoO2, almost 20 years later, is still a game people fire up).

But if I have them on DVD, nobody can take them away. Steam can. Again, not realistic in the short-term, but what about 20 years?

Dismissing the possibility that Valve might not be around in 20 years isn't doom-saying, it's a fairly realistic concern in an industry that has seen the rise and fall of large companies in a short time span, over and over again.

In 20 years time you have no guarantee the disc you bought will still work. The fact that you still have discs that old that work is impressive in of itself.

If you have them on DVD, but do not own the rights to the game, and that right is legally exercised, people can indeed take them away. This is what the law is able to do.

Conversely, if Steam goes under and Valve renege on their promise to find a viable alternative, then you can also seek legal recourse against them (usually via class action) for false advertising. This is why it's pointless to debate basing your stance on a hypothetical "what if" that nobody can prove for half a decade or more. You should perhaps stop relying on them

It's simple: It's an extra inconvenience between me and getting to play my game, it may be a small inconvenience but there should of course be none.

For instance if I doubleclick on the shortcut for Beyond Earth, it first starts up Steam which takes about a minute, which almost always needs an update taking another damn minute, then and only then does it start the game proper (if it doesn't bug out in the previous steps, which also happens constantly). That's at least two minutes of waiting that are completely unnecessary.

And the only reason it inconveniences me is to prevent piracy, which it doesn't do. As anyone who is even slightly familiar with the Pirate Bay will tell you: most Steam games are cracked and available within a day or sometimes even less and as a bonus you can play them directly without any bull keeping you away from the game. So it doesn't even achieve what it sets out to do either.

As for mods, I wouldn't know, I rarely touch them.

That inconvenience for you (which isn't even an inconvenience, but more on that later) is a better argument than most, simply because it's hard to disprove because "inconvenience" can easily be argued to be subjective.

Also, it's not your game This has been covered already!

Steam exists for far more reasons than to prevent piracy, however that is an important factor when businesses decide to invest money in making you a game that they don't actually have to bother making. Games on Steam are, obviously, cracked. Everything gets cracked eventually, as sad as that is. Steam is, however, a barrier to that cracking. It delays it for however long. It lets publishers control updates to the product. It provides a way of identifying any possible cheaters or owners of an illegal copy. It's a safeguard, and one many companies think is worth the cut Valve takes from them.

But back to inconvenience. It shouldn't take 2 minutes to start Steam, if Steam is already running on your system. Steam doesn't always need to update. Steam doesn't "bug out" during these steps excepting issues with your own computer system and/or network connection. Why are ya blaming Valve for issues you have with your computer?

PS: pirates don't always get it right

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/for...FOV-Control-in-Far-Cry-4-You-Pirated-the-Game

https://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugg...-releasing-cracked-version-own-231401237.html

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/07/serious-sams-drm-is-a-giant-pink-scorpion/

(yes, these do get fixed by the pirates. But the notion that you instantly get a magical bug-free game is false)

 

[Wardly]

I don't think its sole purpose was to be a DRM. It's an online store that sells digital goods. I'm sure they pitch it as a bullet point in a list of other reasons a company should use them over the conventional store front sells. But as a major selling point? I don't think so. It's to easy to skirt any DRM.

If every time you open steam it has an update then you don't use it very often. As the game updates download in the background unless it's the game your trying to play then it's not steams fault at that point.

But to all there own, if having that middle man irritates you then by all means don't use it. You'll see more and more games coming out that will require you to have an account with some form of digital distribution client exactly like steam. So eventually you'll have to give up gaming, start using pirated games or give in and use the digital distribution clients.

As for the whole "20 years later people still play Moo2" yeah and people still listen to Phonographs too (trust me i know.. my dad drives me up a wall). But how large is that community? I loved moo2 but i wouldn't play it today. It's not practical to base an argument around what would be considered "collectors" or "die hard fans" when referencing "people still play...." (since now you aren't talking about your own opinion and why YOU don't use it) since that on a percentage is very small. (btw moo3 sucked)

But again if you don't like it then i understand why you don't use it. I don't agree with your reasons but who am i? lol i'm nobody in your world and i don't have to agree with you. But you should at some point realize that games being sold in stores will be something you tell your grand kids about. Since they'll have never seen that before and have gotten all there games via a digital distribution client aka steam, origin, itunes, etc..

 

[Japper007]

Why are ya blaming Valve for issues you have with your computer?

Because these issues do not exist in anything else but the games that I get from Steam (or any of these other "services"). My computer is fine BTW it can run the Witcher 2 on Ultra settings without so much of a hitch (a AAA game that comes free from DRM crap and runs right out of the box BTW, yes they still exist, thank god) and I've never had any connection issues when connecting to stuff outside of Steam, like League of Legends.

And I have nothing against Valve, they made some quality games back when they still made those, it's their so-called "service" I have problems with.

 

[Japper007]

But to all there own, if having that middle man irritates you then by all means don't use it. You'll see more and more games coming out that will require you to have an account with some form of digital distribution client exactly like steam. So eventually you'll have to give up gaming, start using pirated games or give in and use the digital distribution clients.

So because there is no choice in the matter, that automatically makes it OK?

 

[Lord Tirian]

If you have them on DVD, but do not own the rights to the game, and that right is legally exercised, people can indeed take them away. This is what the law is able to do.

EULAs aren't really worth the pixels they're displayed on. When I buy a DVD, I can use it (I'm just not allowed to re-distribute it), the EU courts pretty much said so:

Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy - tangible or intangible - and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right. Such a transaction involves a transfer of the right of ownership of the copy.

Despite what publishers try to make you believe, if I buy a DVD (or a digital game!) without a time-limit on the license, it's effectively ownership of it. I bought it, I own it and can use it, can sell it and they, in fact, can't take it away.

 

[Wardly]

So because there is no choice in the matter, that automatically makes it OK?

Well that depends on you, do you hate digital distribution enough to stop gaming? If so then to you it's not ok and you'll end up giving up gaming or result to pirating. If it's not enough to give up gaming then you believe it's ok.

I think there's just a particular level of paranoia that no matter how much discussion is put out there isn't going to change the minds of some. Thats just another way we're all so different. It's awesome that we are different the world would be so bland if we weren't.

I just can't help but wonder if the same exact argument was made when HBO made the first "converter box" for movies. People with what was it beta max tapes then or when the table tilted to when financing your home was the only way most people could get a home. Pick any number of items in the world that has evolved into what we know now as normal. Depending on where you live the laws are different, but in some cases it's regardless what the manufacturer says, if it pisses off enough people the people win. Ask coke how changing the flavor of coke worked out for them back in what was it the 80's? Coke was facing what was costing them millions. They changed the flavor back and they had even less to worry about then any digital distribution company.

 

[Gorbles]

Because these issues do not exist in anything else but the games that I get from Steam (or any of these other "services"). My computer is fine BTW it can run the Witcher 2 on Ultra settings without so much of a hitch (a AAA game that comes free from DRM crap and runs right out of the box BTW, yes they still exist, thank god) and I've never had any connection issues when connecting to stuff outside of Steam, like League of Legends.

And I have nothing against Valve, they made some quality games back when they still made those, it's their so-called "service" I have problems with.

It's not a problem with Steam, considering I have it running on my computer 24/7. Logically, if it works on my computer, then either Steam the program has a very specific issue with your computer hardware (unlikely, as the technology is basically a modified Webkit or similar) . . . or there's something up with your computer that prevents Steam from working correctly.

Just because a game, or multiple games, works correctly . . . doesn't mean they all do. Networking relies on a whole bunch of stuff that you could have managed to break.

EULAs aren't really worth the pixels they're displayed on. When I buy a DVD, I can use it (I'm just not allowed to re-distribute it), the EU courts pretty much said so:

Despite what publishers try to make you believe, if I buy a DVD (or a digital game!) without a time-limit on the license, it's effectively ownership of it. I bought it, I own it and can use it, can sell it and they, in fact, can't take it away.

You may find all digital distributors have been updating their terms and services in light of (semi) recent EU rulings. You don't get a time-unlimited license anymore.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

I don't hate steam. I just don't like it when someone decides for me when to update stuff possibly breaking my saved games with a patch without even warning me. As for mods, it's just buggy and annoying both for users who get their mods deleted for no reason and for modders who get to explain over and over again that they are not responsible for steam bugs.

When i find a mod i like here, i download it, put the file in my mod folder and i'm ready to use it whenever i want.
When i find a mod i like on steam, i have to subscribe, launch civ to get the mod downloaded, quit civ, copy the mod out of my mods folder, unsubscribe, launch civ so it can delete the mod, quit civ, copy the mod back in the mods folder and only then i have a stable mod that won't be randomly deleted from my computer.

What's the easiest way to get things done?

 

[whoward69]

But back to inconvenience. It shouldn't take 2 minutes to start Steam, if Steam is already running on your system.

Ummm. So presumably your computer also automatically starts ModBuddy in case you want to create/update a mod, FireTuner in case you need to debug a mod, a word-processor in case you want to write something, a spreadsheet in case you want to balance your bank account, a graphics program in case you want to draw something, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Steam should NOT auto-start. It should NOT auto-update. It should NOT tell me that a game installed on my computer is unavailable due to "server load". And it definitely should NOT activate itself when I've specifically told it not to. Oh yeah, that's the permanently recurring "bug" where the Steam UI doesn't actually save all the settings you choose.

 

[Gorbles]

If I could start all of my regular programs as a service on startup so I didn't have to manually find them every time, that'd be great

If you're wishing to optimise your startup time with limited hardware, fair enough, but I was talking to someone else (i.e. not you, with your specific wishes) who boasted his computer could run the Witcher 2 on Ultra. Certainly, no issues with resources there.

Furthermore, he said that this occurs every time he wishes to start the game, which means he's closing Steam every time he exits the game, which is completely redundant.

I mean, I'm not arguing with you on this. You chose to start talking about your specific issues with Steam (as far as I'm aware you can prevent automatic updates, not sure about the client itself though). The issue of debate is Steam as a program being necessary, which the poster I was talking to didn't quite understand the ramifications of.

Heaven knows I've had enough technical problems with Steam, and I don't praise Valve to be the gods others seem to do . . . but Steam as a platform is a necessary convenience in a lot of regards. If you disagree with me, answer the rest of the points I brought up instead of cherrypicking the one you can sarcasm over