what Steam means for me

ragan651 · Nov 11, 2013

Mudrac said:
Thanks to Steam indie scene thrived and people are always ready to judge something instead of trying to see its good sides. Most of the people who hate Steam are forgetting that releasing a game as a retail and advertising it, is not really cheap. So if one man who makes a game or a small indie team with little money in their pockets who don't want to work for those big-ass companies and would have to bend to their stupid rules find Steam as great thing. It puts a small advertisement that their game is out, people see it and buy it and thanks to that we found out about great indie jewels and some of them became quite popular. I had Steam in off-line mode for more than a month and could play games with no problem just to tell people who seem to have a problem with that.

That's a good point. Now small publishers and indie devs don't have to fight to get their games in stores or go through expensive mail order stuff (some of those games are ridiculously priced).

And the Steam community is a good alternative to advertising. You find out what games are good not because of commercials ramming it down your throat, but because you see people playing them and get to talk about it. I've discovered so much great stuff that way.

Used to be anti-digital download and totally anti-DRM, but I've really come to like what Steam's doing.

Makavcio · Nov 11, 2013

Well, offline mode is not a perfect solution for any games with mods. Offline mode DISABLES ALL MODS. This is more than annoying. Other than that, I see no problems with Steam. I strongly prefer Steam games over non-Steam titles. Why? Installing and updating pre-purchased The Witcher 2 takes approximately 90 minutes, while getting it ready on Steam doesn't take more than 15 minutes for me.

You are all somewhat misguided when it comes to Steam's indie scene. I'm not familiar with all details, nevertheless, it can take years to launch a game on Steam. King's Arthur Gold has just been launched and afaik, its developers were trying to get it on Steam for over 2 years. I'm not really sure whether Steam is the right path for them, all things considered.

Magma_Dragoon · Nov 11, 2013

More on the benefits of vender neutrality.

Well, there are some Steam only games but, whatever. Let's say a few years from now Ubisoft is about to release The Game 2:The Sequel. But alot of people are still The Game. That's no good from a sales perspective, so they have an incentive turn off everyone's ability to play The Game via their proprietary uPlay DD/DRM platform. Steam, however, has very little incentive to force obsolescence onto older games, because Steam, unlike Ubi, can sell you games Ubi didn't make. This hypothetical game might be make or break for Ubi as a profitable company, but Steam has an enormous wardrobe of games to sell, so the sluggish sales of any one game isn't a big deal to them.

Besides, Steam is a young, hip company. They know you'd buy it eventually.

what Steam means for me

ragan651

High Regent of Candlewick

Makavcio

Prince

Magma_Dragoon

Reploid

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