Steam - love or hate?

These threads never get old.

You can just smell the ignorance and fear.

Steam is OK as long as you buy with HEAVY discount.

I like to buy used boxed games and being spoiled of the right to sell/buy used products bought at full price, seems not fair to me.

So i bought civ5 boxed but it still got associated with steam, dunno if i'll be able to resell if one day i will grew tired of it (don't think but still i quit purchasing from some publishers for the same reason >_> if i'll discover i won't be able).

LordByron said:

Steam is OK as long as you buy with HEAVY discount.

I like to buy used boxed games and being spoiled of the right to sell/buy used products bought at full price, seems not fair to me.

So i bought civ5 boxed but it still got associated with steam, dunno if i'll be able to resell if one day i will grew tired of it (don't think but still i quit purchasing from some publishers for the same reason >_> if i'll discover i won't be able).

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You can't resell Steam games, they are tied to your account.

Civ5 is my first Steam game and this far I have nothing to complain. I don't like that they forced people to use Steam but at least it hasn't been a nuisance this far (not that I can see any benefits either). Indifferent towards Steam sounds about right.

I love Steam. I've been using it since it was in beta and only had half-life and counter-strike. It has improved significantly since then.

PrinceScamp said:

You can't resell Steam games, they are tied to your account.

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yeah but i bought CIV boxed and not from steam >_>
it would suck.
....and on civV box is not clearly written anything about it.

That would be illegal in my country.

I'd simply stop to buy any fireaxis game and steam game from now on if that is true.

Had steam going on 4 years now. I love it to pieces, it's what got me into Civ in the first place.

I love it because I've had multiple drive failures and formats since I started getting games off Steam. I have a tendency to lose CD keys or CDs themselves, but because of Steam I have been able to re-download all my games whenever I needed to. With this latest drive failure I didnt even have to lose my saves.

snoochems said:

These threads never get old.

You can just smell the ignorance and fear.

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Hardly. Steam is pure garbage, its one of the buggiest programs i've ever used. I use my pc for music production, and have premium software like ableton and cubase running just fine. I also use photoshop 64bit and have no problems whatsoever.

Tried installing steam the other week, came up with a bunch of random errors, after reading a few forums and trying loads of things i eventually got it installed in safe mode. Only took me about an hour and a half. Then it took ages downloading the Civ V demo, said it was at 30% then suddenly let me play it. A really awful buggy load of crap, i've since uninstalled Steam and will not be using it on my system again.

For the record i was an IT professional for 5 years, and still keep up to date. I think it is you who is the ignorant one to post such a comment.

Kerosene31 said:

Steam is awesome.

Back in the day I preferred to buy physical copies. I had physical copies for Civ 4 and all the expansions. However anytime I had to format or got a new PC, it was a lengthy process of finding all my disks then a lengthy install and patching process. Essentially it took longer to install Civ 4 than to play a game.

Last time I went on a CD search it took me half an afternoon to find one. Turns out it was still in the drive of my old PC. Digital distribution??? Yes please!

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Firstly, perhaps you should put your cd's back in the box. That is what the boxes are for. Then perhaps some sort of a shelf to keep it on? Heres an idea, you could have a shelf that you put all of your games on, then they would be in the same place. That way it wouldn't take you a whole afternoon to find them. Also, you can download a no cd patch, then you don't have to keep your cd in the drive, thats what i use and it works fine.

Secondly, from what you're saying, your download speed is actually faster than the transfer rate of your dvd drive. Wow, i wish i lived where you do, the internet must be pretty fast there.

And to anyone who doesn't know... the quickest and easiest way to backup your system and not have to reinstall every game, is to image your drive. Keep an image on an external hard drive, and have a boot cd made with the image program. If you back up regularly, when your drive fails or windows fails or whatever, you can boot from the boot cd, and load the image. Then all of your games, files, settings will be just as they were without having to install everything again.

Instead of making valid comments, some here simply leave the same posts such as:
If you don't love Steam, you are ignorant and fearful.
You are a hater.
You are an Anti Steam-monger.

And a bunch of other non-sense. It gets old listening to it.

And then I remind them, that Steam is only a DRM software piece designed to advertise to people to sell software at prices that are Not better on average than anywhere else; but just made to look like they are (this was shown in another thread, and is true; higher reg prices with occasional sales).

It's the reason Valve hired mind doctors, so they could pull mind-jobs on gamers to get higher sales... I have no problem with that though, it's capitalism at it's best!

I don't understand where the 'love' is coming from? Do you love the DRM? or the ads? When I get a game, it's to play the game, not to love the Forced Digital Rights Management Distribution Platform.

tom2050 said:

Instead of making valid comments, some here simply leave the same posts such as:
If you don't love Steam, you are ignorant and fearful.
You are a hater.
You are an Anti Steam-monger.

And a bunch of other non-sense. It gets old listening to it.

And then I remind them, that Steam is only a DRM software piece designed to advertise to people to sell software at prices that are Not better on average than anywhere else; but just made to look like they are (this was shown in another thread, and is true; higher reg prices with occasional sales).

It's the reason Valve hired mind doctors, so they could pull mind-jobs on gamers to get higher sales... I have no problem with that though, it's capitalism at it's best!

I don't understand where the 'love' is coming from? Do you love the DRM? or the ads? When I get a game, it's to play the game, not to love the Forced Digital Rights Management Distribution Platform.

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You lost.

Are you here for the Civ5 these days or can you not let it go?

Steam is great. I buy twice as many games because of it, it delivers weekly bargains and all my updates, I talk to clan members on it, I get messages on my iPhone when stuff I'm interested in is happening, there is no disk to get scratched or lost (Civ4 disks, wherefore art thou???). Valve also get my vote because of the amazing games they make. They are a beacon of quality in a sea of mediocre crap. This gives them the street-cred something like Games for Windows lacks.

The comments about Steam increasing piracy are funny. At some point in the distant shameful past, I pirated all my games. I don't pirate anything any more because STEAM IS BETTER THAN PIRACY. It is faster to download, I know I'm going to get the thing I wanted and not GBs of random crap someone uploaded for lols, I can preload before release, and there are no virus/trojan trust issues. These are things I am willing to pay for! This is without mentioning getting around all the anti-piracy crap, which to be honest, can be irritating in itself, like trying to update cracked programs or playing online.

Speaking of Games for Windows, all the anti-Steam (as opposed to generally anti-DRM) nay-sayers should go try that and then report back on their comparison with Steam Steam adds to my gaming experience, other systems take away from it.

The people advocating piracy should take a minute to think about this... what else do you use that computer for? Logging into your banking? Ebay? Amazon? Private email? Is it really worth it? Does 1337dood123 have your best interests at heart? It could cost you a lot more than the pricetag of a game and a couple of hours lost screwing around trying to find the right thing and get it to work.

spoooq said:

Steam is great. I buy twice as many games because of it, it delivers weekly bargains and all my updates, I talk to clan members on it, I get messages on my iPhone when stuff I'm interested in is happening,

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You own an iphone, says it all. Enjoy your DRM!

And it seems that with Civ V, Firaxis has joined this sea of mediocre crap that you mention.

With Civ IV, I was able to play from the same DVD with my wife (start Civ on a PC with the DVD, when it is loaded put the DVD in the other PC and you can play together).

I didn't try but I suspect it would be impossible with Steam. May I ask, who will pay 2x for the same game just to play with wife/children ?

For me, Steam is just a useless bloatware used because of piracy paranoids.

I bought a box version of the game, why force me to use Steam ???

VirtualMark said:

You own an iphone, says it all. Enjoy your DRM!

And it seems that with Civ V, Firaxis has joined this sea of mediocre crap that you mention.

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I like my iPhone, it does the job and is nice. I wouldn't buy one and jailbreak it, I would have just bought an Android if I wanted a little computer. I haven't really met a real-life person who is so passionate about their phone as internet-people are. Curious

If you want to know why I bought this phone instead of that, it is because I went to the Apple forums and people were talking about the latest silly app they bought for 59pence, and then I went to the Android forums and people were talking about how to upgrade the OS from 1.023.56 to 1.023.57, and how their carrier didn't support that new version and so on. I deal with quite enough of that crap at work, thanks

Btw, what DRM am I restricted by on iPhone? I don't listen to music, so not quite sure what you mean.

I agree that Civ5 isn't worth playing right now. I reserve the right to my belief that it will be one day!

lcor1979 said:

I didn't try but I suspect it would be impossible with Steam.

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My understanding is hotseat should be out soon?

lcor1979 said:

With Civ IV, I was able to play from the same DVD with my wife (start Civ on a PC with the DVD, when it is loaded put the DVD in the other PC and you can play together).

I didn't try but I suspect it would be impossible with Steam. May I ask, who will pay 2x for the same game just to play with wife/children ?

For me, Steam is just a useless bloatware used because of piracy paranoids.

I bought a box version of the game, why force me to use Steam ???

Click to expand...

What you are describing is in fact piracy. Although my personnal opinion is its innocent enough. When you purchase a game, even from a brick and mortar, you are purchasing one license to play the game. And no, you won't be able to do that with Steam.

I often play MW2 and other games online with a married couple that DOES buy the game for each of their Steam accounts so they can play at the same time. I'm sure that's rare though.

I am pro-Steam, but my biggest problem with it is the games aren't available to other user accounts on the computer. For example, I have Civ IV installed and when my son wants to play it he clicks the shortcut from his user account and he has his own saves and settings in his own documents folder. With Steam that's not possible. I would have to buy him his own copy in his own Steam account. Even though he'd be using the same C:...\Steam\steamapps\.... files as I do.I just let him play what he wants to play under my Steam account. It doesn't happen much though because he spends most of his gaming time on his X-Box.

VirtualMark said:

Hardly. Steam is pure garbage, its one of the buggiest programs i've ever used. I use my pc for music production, and have premium software like ableton and cubase running just fine. I also use photoshop 64bit and have no problems whatsoever.

Tried installing steam the other week, came up with a bunch of random errors, after reading a few forums and trying loads of things i eventually got it installed in safe mode. Only took me about an hour and a half. Then it took ages downloading the Civ V demo, said it was at 30% then suddenly let me play it. A really awful buggy load of crap, i've since uninstalled Steam and will not be using it on my system again.

For the record i was an IT professional for 5 years, and still keep up to date. I think it is you who is the ignorant one to post such a comment.

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I've been in IT for 15 years and Steam has never been a problem for me.

McLMan said:

What you are describing is in fact piracy.

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Sorry to say it, but this is the industry try to make us believe.

In Belgium (and most european countries), you have for example the right to make a copy of a CD or a DVD while it's for use inside the family (ie peoples living with you). Same for games, but the publishers dream to make you buy 3 DVD if 3 peoples of a family want to watch a movie.