Why Steam is bad for you

[Hiro]

I really like Steam for making my games available on different machines and keeping them up to date.
But there's a couple of serious drawbacks:

1. Most serious at the moment: How do I share Civ5 with my son (13)? While I'm at home I'm playing like mad myself. While I'm at work or travels my son could use the license for playing himself, like he did with Civ4. But that's theory now. Even sharing my Steam account (I guess its forbidden anyway) is not an option, or how do I keep him from checking out BFBC2 or L4D then? Any ideas?

2. The amount of money which went into my Steam account has got a size, when I start to feel uneasy about having it in a single spot. I know it's much safer physically than at actual DVDs there, but what if Steam - or more precisely its operator - starts to dislike me? All gone, in fact. Just imagine some vendor using the Steam platform is accusing you of DCMA fraud for whatever you've got to do with them. I guess that puts you in a very unpleasant situation, especially outside of the US.

3. I'm getting tied to the US legal system through the back door. At least here in Germany, when you bought a software (license) it's yours, and I did with Civ5. Period. So of course I should be able to resell it (although that's out of question, even without being tied to Steam ).

Hiro

 

[Superluminal]

Some people act like Steam raped their mother and sister. I just don't get it. Get with the times old people.

 

[Hiro]

... I just don't get it. Get with the times old people...

Ehem, sounds like you don't know the situation when _you_ _and_ _your_ children spending _your_ money. Where's the "transfer license" feature of Steam? If I overlooked it I would just shut up and be happy.

Hiro

 

[Jester Fool]

Some people act like Steam raped their mother and sister. I just don't get it. Get with the times old people.

Part of being older is that you are more painfully aware of consequences. I never just click on EULAs anymore. I read them. After all, they are *legally* binding. Maybe you can agree to Steam's EULA but I can't. That is why Steam will NEVER rape my mother or sister. Steam + CiV = no sale ever.

 

[Manifold]

i guess this is the right place to place my frustration about steam.

first i was shocked, because i fear that i need always a leased line to play civ5. so than after one hour i get civ5 started offline. but now there are always two steam windows, i had to pass through, before the game starts, this is a pain in the neck and not my expectations for a new bought game.

 

[Mivo]

Part of being older is that you are more painfully aware of consequences. I never just click on EULAs anymore. I read them. After all, they are *legally* binding. Maybe you can agree to Steam's EULA but I can't. That is why Steam will NEVER rape my mother or sister. Steam + CiV = no sale ever.

Looking at that "rape" line, "being older" must mean, "Hey, I'm sixteen now and oh, I'm so grown up and mature!"

 

[Samdari]

I hate Steam as a way of controlling licenses.

Copy protection is a necesary part of playing PC games. Without a reliable method of preventing piracy, game developers were heading to the consoles, and fast. Steam seems to me to be by far the best, given its relatively low impact on the user and effectiveness for the publisher.

What better scheme have you found?

 

[lovelyfunbags]

the Steam argument has been done to death everywhere, the bottom line is we're stuck with it. your only choice is not to buy the game (or get the pirated version of course). i am no Steam fanboy, in fact I dislike it for many of the reasons already stated however I've no choice but to accept if I want to play Civ 5, Just Cause 2 or Borderlands (to name but 3).

this kind of digital distribution and DRM is here to stay whether we like it or not and is repeated in some form or other on loads of new games and other hardware. battle net account to play starcraft (never played it tbh)? ITunes in order to be able to use IPhone or IPad?

Steam is incredibly popular and getting more so and unfortunately the fanboys far outweigh the naysayers. I am still in the middle, and unless someone comes up with a better solution then Steam is where it's gonna stay, whether we like it or not.

 

[Bad Brett]

I talked with a 21-year old girl yesterday. She didn't know what MS-Dos was. She had never seen Windows 3.11. She probably doesn't even know to manually write a *.bat-file.

That's when I realised. Most people don't care about how things work, they just want it to work. I want to be able to install my game wherever I want and whenever I want. You give me the executable, then I do rest, thank you very much. If I need new drivers, show me the location where I can find the *.dll-files, then lite me register them myself in the command prompt. This way I would have complete control over all files that enter my harddrive.

But Steam won't let me. It tells me "I don't care that you have 20 years of computer knowledge, I'm in charge now. I'll install the games, I'll decide where the games will be installed, I update the drivers for you and I decide when you'll play"

Oh, no Steam. You won't.

 

[mamba]

Exactly that is the point. It is not a flaky connection. The connection usually is stable, so I/we don't have to bother about "not being able to go online". But IF there's a problem for a day/weekend with the provider (what hopefully won't happen), it is a fact that Steam (and not our ISP) prevents us from playing our OFFLINE SINGLE PLAYER (*) game.

I agree that it would be preferred if you could change that on the fly. The fact that it happens on average once a year or less makes it a minor issue however. On top of this, if it is so important to you, you can set up Steam so you are able to do it on the fly, how has been posted on this thread repeatedly, so I assume you prefer to ignore that option.

 

[Romtos]

I just hope that one day the services which do a better job (from a customer perspective) than steam get rewarded by attaining the bigger market share.

 

[Namel]

Copy protection is a necesary part of playing PC games. Without a reliable method of preventing piracy, game developers were heading to the consoles, and fast

How it prevents piracy? Pirated Civ V has been available everywhere in net for days. Copy protection does absolutely nothing to prevent or slow pirates. It only hurts paying customers.

What better scheme have you found?

Good support, multiplayer and free downloadable content are few things to reduce piracy. DRM and paid DLC just make people more likely to pirate.

 

[Eejit]

I just hope that one day the services which do a better job (from a customer perspective) than steam get rewarded by attaining the bigger market share.

Steam has built up its market share through providing extra features to customers. Some may not want those features, fine, but lots of people do.
I'm talking about the friends/community features, plus all the SteamWorks stuff; Steam Cloud storing saves online as an option, Steam Play letting you install compatible games on both Mac and PC without needing to buy the game again, and for those who enjoy them - achievements.

Plus, their xmas and summer sales.

All this coupled with providing decent DRM to publishers? It's pretty easy to see why Steam has become fairly dominant...

 

[CivFanMUC]

But Steam won't let me. It tells me "I don't care that you have 20 years of computer knowledge, I'm in charge now. I'll install the games, I'll decide where the games will be installed, I update the drivers for you and I decide when you'll play"

Oh, no Steam. You won't.

this!

I just hope that one day the services which do a better job (from a customer perspective) than steam get rewarded by attaining the bigger market share.

Valve/Steam will do everything to prevent this from happen, that'll be sure.

Copy protection is a necesary part of playing PC games.

Copy protection does absolutely nothing to prevent or slow pirates. It only hurts paying customers.

Like Namel said. Steam doesn't prevent anybody from pirating the game.
Steam prevents caring customers from buying the game... so, Steam is more a "customer-protection" than "copy-protection"

 

[Eejit]

Valve/Steam will do everything to prevent this from happen, that'll be sure.

Valve really aren't as anti-competitive as you seem to think.

Like Namel said. Steam doesn't prevent anybody from pirating the game.

Actually since Steamworks is integrated it prevents people who want to play multiplayer with the rest of the non-pirating community from pirating and it prevents those who want access to the built-in online mod DB from pirating.
Singleplayer-only always has been and always will be much easier to pirate when it comes to gaming.

 

[Novem]

Like Namel said. Steam doesn't prevent anybody from pirating the game.
Steam prevents caring customers from buying the game... so, Steam is more a "customer-protection" than "copy-protection"

Only to people that are resistant to change. I've had steam ever since it was launched by Valve. It's a good platform that has made purchasing/downloading/installing games much easier than it's been before.

You don't like it? That's your right. But it is what it is and it's not going anywhere.

 

[zonk]

Some people act like Steam raped their mother and sister. I just don't get it. Get with the times old people.

Spoken like someone whose mommy or daddy is paying their $35k tuition and enjoying the perks of a truly wonderful network experience.

Believe me, my ISP gets an earful, too -- and I've also tried 3 different providers in the last 5 years. I like to work remotely a fair bit and I generally work at least one weekend day from home, so I'm by no means letting Comcast off the hook (AT&T was more reliable, but horrifically slow... RCN was even worse than Comcast).

I envy people in college settings - but out in the real world, "always on" is an oxymoron. ISPs have problems. US network infrastructure is horrifically poor, with chokepoints galore, and patchwork networks.

 

[Eejit]

blah blah unreliable internet blah blah

It's been said so many times now. Once more, with feeling: save your login details and that isn't an issue

 

[CivFanMUC]

I envy people in college settings - but out in the real world, "always on" is an oxymoron. ISPs have problems. US network infrastructure is horrifically poor, with chokepoints galore, and patchwork networks.

Not a problem. You just have to make sure, that you always switch to offline-mode, when you quit playing
Because, you know - not Steam is preventing you from playing - it's your ISP ^^

 

[Bad Brett]

Actually since Steamworks is integrated it prevents people who want to play multiplayer with the rest of the non-pirating community from pirating and it prevents those who want access to the built-in online mod DB from pirating.
Singleplayer-only always has been and always will be much easier to pirate when it comes to gaming.

You could do that by selling a cd-key number instead.