Steam - love or hate?

mjamie14 said:

If a code doesn't work, I can in fact return a game to Best Buy to get another copy of the game.

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If deemed defective. Typically that just means that customer walked up and said "This doesn't work!" and going through the motions of giving you the proper replacement media. Actual key codes are further regulated however and new ones aren't issued unless specifically by the game maker folks themselves. Any sort of exchange/return where a code is involved is always limited to a disc swap, nothing more.

That's how it is supposed to be handled. If it works out another way for you during your adventures to various retail stores then awesome, but you're lucking out as your sales associates don't seem to be aware of how to handle an instance such as that without going "OMG customer, gotta make them happy no matter what!" Commendable, but not the proper course of action given the EULA terms of today and the ever looming threat of piracy that every software developer out there is attempting to combat.

I tried to get a new code from RTW a number of times. (I think it was around 20 emails to just them). Due to the fact that their support was a bit lacking, they continued to tell me to buy the game, which I had already done. At one point, I was told to contact the retailer, so I did. Steam told me to clear my cache. That is all they would tell me. They would not give me a new code, nor would they refund my money. RTW would not refund my money as they did not sell the game to me. Additionally, their support did not speak English, so relaying my key issue was no small feat. (I am not attempting to sound ethnocentric. RTW support for the U.S. was in India and the many times I "spoke" to someone via chat, I got copy/paste responses that had nothing to do with the issue, so I am guessing that there was a language barrier).

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That sucks big time, but that's just part of life. Things just aren't fair sometimes. As far as Steam is concerned, there wasn't anything wrong since RTW were the ones saying that everything was checking on their end as far as the digital sale went. Not Steam's fault.

The merchandise in my analogy was not defective. It was, however, missing. I also have to disagree with you in that I do believe that it was Steam's responsibility to issue a new code. Their merchandise may be intangible, but as a retailer, they should have some responsibility to ensure that they delivered the correct merchandise. They had multiple keys. They gave me the incorrect ones. I was asking that they give me the correct keys, which they would not do. They only attempted to fix an issue that was entirely unrelated to my problem.

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They didn't blackmail me. It was more along the lines of extortion since no crimes were committed by either party. It is their policy to cancel your account if there is a chargeback. However, I didn't realize that this, combined with their "no refund" policy, gave them the right to not deliver on orders, take your money regardless, and tell you to stick it. It is my policy, (as a consumer), to get my money back if I paid for something and didn't get it.

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Steam provides a set of tools to studios for which to publish their games via the Steam Platform. Any and all content and access barriers that are put up and maintained are the responsibility of those that are using the tools for which to put the material on Steam. All Steam does is ask that a demonstration of some sort is provided to them before giving the green light for they allow you to start using their SDK tools to publish that game on Steam.

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/

Your plight stemmed from a really crappy customer experience with RTW, something that Steam has no control over since the publishing part of the entire setup, down to the sale of keys on Steam and other products provided by that company, are the responsibility of the company. Steam didn't directly sell you the key, it was RTW that used Steam to sell you the key.

None of this was a fault of Steam, but RTW putting it together in a poor manner where you are now in your current situation of being out $100 and sitting on a disabled Steam account.

The only thing you could fault Steam for is perhaps a lack of ongoing quality control since RTW was the culprit here, but it wouldn't be any different if another retailer, digital or not, were in Steam's place in that case. However, Steam does hold you accountable on it's marketplace which is something that a walk-in shop can't quite do. It's another hoop to jump through to try and get your money back if you felt slighted in some fashion, but one that shouldn't come up as long as you bring the complaint to the right people. In your case, it was the late Realtime Worlds. They were the ones that didn't deliver, not Steam.

Steam wouldn't have any problem helping you get this whole thing cleared up so as you can carry on with your Steam account. You'll probably just have to dig a little deeper and get some results.

Were Steam really so cumbersome to the point that resolution via support couldn't be obtained, it would've died out years ago in it's infancy.

Hyspasist said:

Were Steam really so cumbersome to the point that resolution via support couldn't be obtained, it would've died out years ago in it's infancy.

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Lot of stupid things survive because someone is forcing them to survive. I could say: "If USSR had really been so cumbersome and inefficient it would have died out in it's infancy."

Generally bigger the company grows more it will abuse it's power.

Right, because Steam is battling for global control

Let me rephrase then for something more palatable...

Were Steam really such a terrible tool, would so many companies, big name and independent alike, be using it to distribute their games online? Would consumers be using it in turn were it so bad?

Steam is in growth, not decline.

Hyspasist said:

Right, because Steam is battling for global control

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Why not? It'd just be following on Google's steps.

Definitely love. I live in Brazil, so buying PC games around here is expensive and there is usually a big delay until it's in local stores. With steam I pay the US price and get it on release. It's extremely convenient for me. Not to mention the auto updater and the deals, I love those.

The requirement that steam must be running for me to play a game is a bit annoying IMO but I prefer it much more to a CD check.

Google is merely a puppet, as would Steam were they to enter that sort of arena.

If anything, Steam would be battling against the Google agenda in favor deregulating the web so as to allow for a larger client base, both developer and consumer. Google thus far has been lobbying for net neutrality and tiered internet. Anyone want to pay an additional fee on top of their current connection costs?

Namel said:

Lot of stupid things survive because someone is forcing them to survive. I could say: "If USSR had really been so cumbersome and inefficient it would have died out in it's infancy."

Generally bigger the company grows more it will abuse it's power.

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ma bonne amie. Keep giving them logic, It's bile in their mouths.

I've gamed for decades without Steam and never batted an eye. That I'm forced to use this product to play a game in my own home is both invasive and offensive to my sense of self determination.

I just don't like being told what to do by Big Brother; That's mostly what it comes down to. The hoops, adverts and lag are annoying but the forced usage is extremelly grating.

If I want to use a bloody corporate product then I'll darn well ask for it!

Wallet vote anyone?

If you don't like Steam then don't use it?

"But I want to play my game!"

That's what this really boils down to, lack of conviction to actually stick to your guns. If it's really so distressing for you to use Steam, then don't perpetuate it's use by buying games that require Steam.

Hyspasist said:

Wallet vote anyone?

If you don't like Steam then don't use it?

"But I want to play my game!"

That's what this really boils down to, lack of conviction to actually stick to your guns. If it's really so distressing for you to use Steam, then don't perpetuate it's use by buying games that require Steam.

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Makes sense. Unfortunately, as we've seen over the weekend on this forum, many are choosing option C: piracy.

I suspect a lot of people are using their righteous indignation over Steam to justify being cheap.

ninjasinc said:

Makes sense. Unfortunately, as we've seen over the weekend on this forum, many are choosing option C: piracy.

I suspect a lot of people are using their righteous indignation over Steam to justify being cheap.

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All that will do is make 2k take a hint from ubisoft with their next game and use drm that is actually invasive, restrictive, and probably going to keep you from playing your game the first week after release...

Hyspasist said:

Wallet vote anyone?

If you don't like Steam then don't use it?

"But I want to play my game!"

That's what this really boils down to, lack of conviction to actually stick to your guns. If it's really so distressing for you to use Steam, then don't perpetuate it's use by buying games that require Steam.

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I think there's some middle ground between "I love Steam!" and "I refuse to buy Civ V because of Steam!" Just because I don't hate Steam enough to boycott Civ V doesn't mean I have to pretend that I like it.

My biggest problem with Steam is the client: it's a pig. It will try to update four or fives games at once any time it feels like it, and when it gets really busy the UI becomes completely unresponsive, if it even displays at all. My Civ V installation took over four hours to complete, because Steam was trying to update ten other games at the same time (I keep the Steam client off normally, and hadn't run it for a long time), and the Steam window wouldn't even display for the first three hours, so there was no way to tell the other updates to stop. If I didn't know how to watch the task manager and network activity indicators, I wouldn't have even known that it was doing anything. There's just no excuse for that kind of nonsense.

HATE Steam for a game I bought in a store. When I want to play Civ, I want to play it now, not sign into Steam, not get prompted twice for the version, just load the god damn game!!!

I also didn't like the latest patch downloading 500MB in intro videos after I deleted them. I don't need the intro video in German or Spanish, so I don't need them taking 100MB each on my drive.

Forcing the game through Steam sucks.

Namel said:

Steam is horrible.
2. I have to run Steam program before I can start game. It slows starting game a lot. For CiV 5 I spend more time waiting Steam than Civ 5 to load.
3. If my net is down or I download using all my bandwidth I can't start games.
4. Steam seems to like start updating without asking me and I can't play before it has updated. When there is 1 GB updates it really sucks that it doesn't ask. Download progress bars seem to be really messed up in Steam. I would much rather download my updates on separate files myself so I have control of how and where to do it.
5. Steam is useless against piracy. It is actually pushing me to pirate games since then I would get rid of Steam.
6. After buying couple games Steam is in position where it can blackmail me with threats of disabling ALL my games without any way to stop or complain about them. That happened to mjamie14 and will probably happen more and more often since there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop them.
7. At any time Steam can stop supporting any game and make it stop working. I want to buy games, I don't want to rent them.

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2. I keep Steam on all the time and add all my other
games to it via their shortcuts, when I launch non-steam games through Steam I can use the Steam Community ingame stuff which is sweet. However I realize not everyone does this, so I understand your point.

3. Untrue, you can run Steam offline.

4. See my answer to the quote below, there is a download page where you can pause downloads. Also you can right click on a game in Steam and go to its properties and disable automatic updates for that game.

5. Nothing prevents piracy, but Steam is a LOT better than some of the alternatives.

6. mjamie14 had a bad customer experience due to Real Time Worlds being crap, Steam/VALVe had little to do with it though their locknig of his account is an unfortunate result. I don't see VALVe/Steam gaining anything from blackmailing me either and if they were to try it is unlikely to be anytime soon and would be extremely out of character for those guys (they are not a huge company like EA or Activision, Valve has faces).

7. They COULD, but they don't and that would just be dumb. They aren't going to intensionally disable your games, that is just bad customer service.

AriochIV said:

I think there's some middle ground between "I love Steam!" and "I refuse to buy Civ V because of Steam!" Just because I don't hate Steam enough to boycott Civ V doesn't mean I have to pretend that I like it.

My biggest problem with Steam is the client: it's a pig. It will try to update four or fives games at once any time it feels like it, and when it gets really busy the UI becomes completely unresponsive, if it even displays at all. My Civ V installation took over four hours to complete, because Steam was trying to update ten other games at the same time (I keep the Steam client off normally, and hadn't run it for a long time), and the Steam window wouldn't even display for the first three hours, so there was no way to tell the other updates to stop. If I didn't know how to watch the task manager and network activity indicators, I wouldn't have even known that it was doing anything. There's just no excuse for that kind of nonsense.

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Oookay, we need to have a talk.

In the same 'Library" category of steam which shows your games there is a button for the page displaying all current downloads.

In fact, the downloads also show up on the list of games (or at least the middle one, upper right corner you can change how your list of games is viewed).

Not to mention steam makes it extremely clear there is a download in progress when it displays a large link to the download section at the bottom of the Steam window!

Upon going to the download page it displays all current downloads with pause buttons next to them.

As to why Steam wasn't displaying, I don't know because I can't go back in time to visit you to look at it, but it does have (unless you turned it off) a shortcut in the little area next to the clock on your start bar and you could have simply ended the task and restarted Steam. I've never had that problem when downloading something though.

dannythefool said:

All that will do is make 2k take a hint from ubisoft with their next game and use drm that is actually invasive, restrictive, and probably going to keep you from playing your game the first week after release...

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This.

Venger said:

HATE Steam for a game I bought in a store. When I want to play Civ, I want to play it now, not sign into Steam, not get prompted twice for the version, just load the god damn game!!!

I also didn't like the latest patch downloading 500MB in intro videos after I deleted them. I don't need the intro video in German or Spanish, so I don't need them taking 100MB each on my drive.

Forcing the game through Steam sucks.

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Except for having to run Steam (and even then) those are all caused by Firaxis, NOT Steam.

dannythefool said:

All that will do is make 2k take a hint from ubisoft with their next game and use drm that is actually invasive, restrictive, and probably going to keep you from playing your game the first week after release...

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No doubt. I suspect most of the people who complain about Steam aren't aware of just how bad things are outside of the Civ bubble.

Either that or they're just miffed they can't burn a copy of their buddy's Civ DVD.

Hyspasist said:

Would consumers be using it in turn were it so bad?

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Currently I got 3 choices with many games.
1. Use steam.
2. Don't play game.
3. Pirate game.

Forced Steam is actually hurting sales of Civ V since more will pirate it because of that.

PrinceScamp said:

Except for having to run Steam (and even then) those are all caused by Firaxis, NOT Steam.

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When starting CIV5, Steam starts up and I am prompted by a Steam window which version of Civ5 to run. That is not Firaxis. Firaxis gives me another prompt later. I am twice asked which version to run. It's aggravating.

AriochIV said:

I think there's some middle ground between "I love Steam!" and "I refuse to buy Civ V because of Steam!" Just because I don't hate Steam enough to boycott Civ V doesn't mean I have to pretend that I like it.

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Then you've already voted. The degree to which you like or dislike doesn't matter if you're using it since it's a simple statistic of "how many people are on Steam today." Just as "how many people bought Civ 5" is a statistic that is looked at. If sales of Civ 5 suffer, and it's found that using Steam as a platform for that is what caused it, then the next logical move would be to not release on Steam anymore.

My biggest problem with Steam is the client: it's a pig. It will try to update four or fives games at once any time it feels like it, and when it gets really busy the UI becomes completely unresponsive, if it even displays at all. My Civ V installation took over four hours to complete, because Steam was trying to update ten other games at the same time (I keep the Steam client off normally, and hadn't run it for a long time), and the Steam window wouldn't even display for the first three hours, so there was no way to tell the other updates to stop. If I didn't know how to watch the task manager and network activity indicators, I wouldn't have even known that it was doing anything. There's just no excuse for that kind of nonsense.

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As I write this, Steam is running in the background right now and using 134,136k of memory, so just over 130 megabytes. That's a pretty small footprint on your memory. Not so much perhaps if you're running only 512 megabytes of memory, but unlikely though since you've picked up a title like Civilization V.

As for updates, 2 things...

1) You can turn off automatic updates on your games, which I suggest you do next time you have a chance to go ahead and navigate your Steam client so as when you do start up Steam, it updates the games you only care to be playing at the moment. The better way to alleviate that though so as to not have to deal with the micromanagement of the various games you may have on your client is to simply leave it on. Updates will come when they come as opposed to having them dumped on you all at once because you haven't booted up Steam in awhile and all your games have been updated since then.

2) Boot into offline mode.

There are options available, you just have to pursue them.

Namel said:

Currently I got 3 choices with many games.
1. Use steam.
2. Don't play game.
3. Pirate game.

I think more and more are using Steam and other DRM as justification for pirating. Forced Steam is actually hurting sales of Civ V since more will pirate it because of that.

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Like I said, pirated or not, if Civilization V doesn't meet financial goals and it's traced to Steam being the reason, then business choice will dictate a shift away from Steam in favor of a different model. If you don't like Steam, then don't buy Civilization V. Not a piracy advocation by any means, but it's a matter of voting with that thing you keep tucked in your back pocket that has your credit card, walking around money, miscellaneous business cards, etc. in it that allows you to get goods and services in this world of ours.

PrinceScamp said:

In the same 'Library" category of steam which shows your games there is a button for the page displaying all current downloads.

In fact, the downloads also show up on the list of games (or at least the middle one, upper right corner you can change how your list of games is viewed).

Not to mention steam makes it extremely clear there is a download in progress when it displays a large link to the download section at the bottom of the Steam window!

Upon going to the download page it displays all current downloads with pause buttons next to them.

As to why Steam wasn't displaying, I don't know because I can't go back in time to visit you to look at it, but it does have (unless you turned it off) a shortcut in the little area next to the clock on your start bar and you could have simply ended the task and restarted Steam. I've never had that problem when downloading something though.

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I know all of this. You can't pause the downloads when there's no Steam window displaying. The reason it wasn't displaying was because it was choking itself with so many actions at once, but frankly there's no excuse for that from a programming perspective. You've never seen it do this because you leave it running all the time, so the updates never get backed up.

If I had been clever, I would have started Steam up beforehand and let it clear itself out, but I hadn't used Steam for about two years, and so didn't really think about it. It shouldn't be necessary; the client first of all shouldn't try to update games without asking you first (or at least it should be an option), and second the UI should always, always, always be responsive, no matter what it's trying to do. That's basic competent programming.

I think it's pretty clear that if you buy a game on Steam and you don't get what you paid for then you should be able to chargeback the transaction. That's the whole idea of using a credit card. I agree that it's extortion to threaten to take away all of your other legitimately purchased games just because you have a valid complaint that you didn't get what you paid for in one instance. However, I'm fortunate not to have run into such mistreatment, my own experiences with Steam have been pretty good. (I still prefer to use Impulse when I can, but that isn't keeping up as an alternative, especially now that Steam has Mac+PC support.)

AriochIV said:

I think there's some middle ground between "I love Steam!" and "I refuse to buy Civ V because of Steam!" Just because I don't hate Steam enough to boycott Civ V doesn't mean I have to pretend that I like it.

My biggest problem with Steam is the client: it's a pig. It will try to update four or fives games at once any time it feels like it, and when it gets really busy the UI becomes completely unresponsive, if it even displays at all. My Civ V installation took over four hours to complete, because Steam was trying to update ten other games at the same time (I keep the Steam client off normally, and hadn't run it for a long time), and the Steam window wouldn't even display for the first three hours, so there was no way to tell the other updates to stop. If I didn't know how to watch the task manager and network activity indicators, I wouldn't have even known that it was doing anything. There's just no excuse for that kind of nonsense.

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I have had Steam do that unresponsive thing to me before. It was when I first started using Windows 7 and Steam wasn't really working that great with Windows 7. It should work fine now. You don't happen to be running Steam in administrator mode or some other compatibility mode? That was what was causing my problems.

And just on a side note, dude, if you know you're about to want to use Steam and you haven't let it log in in a long time, maybe let it update a day or two before so you don't have so many updates downloading at the same time you want to play a game on it. Hey, it happens, but just something to think about next time. Just a friendly thought to make your Steam experience run a little smoother. I hate it when I haven't played a Steam game in a long time and that happens.