Why Steam is bad for you

[dannythefool]

Not really... One has to start Steam anyway to play the game, it's not completely independent, and with offline mode you miss the value of Steam as marketplace and update system.

You can start the game directly, it'll do everything for you. You don't have to run Steam manually and run the game from there.

As for missing the online benefits that Steam has... well duh. You still get the offline benefits like not needing a disc in your drive.

 

[Arrogant]

Check the support forum for the game. Something in there can surely help you: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1440616

I didn't find something about how to revert to a previous game version in that link.

 

[GoRy]

Sounds like an ID 10T Error to me. Maybe you should become more knowledgeable about your computer before you start looking for scapegoat software.

Big favorite of ours in work. EEBKC is another fav. "You have an EEBKC error sir. All is now working fine"

EEBKC? Error exists between keyboard and chair.

 

[lynxxyarly]

I didn't find something about how to revert to a previous game version in that link.

The only way to do that, that I know if, specifically, is to delete all the local content of the game and let steam recollect/install it. If the game isn't working for you, I guess you don't have much to lose eh? Maybe some files got corrupted.

Big favorite of ours in work. EEBKC is another fav. "You have an EEBKC error sir. All is now working fine"

EEBKC? Error exists between keyboard and chair.

Yup. Good times. I use that as well

 

[Venereus]

The only way to do that, that I know if, specifically, is to delete all the local content of the game and let steam recollect/install it. If the game isn't working for you, I guess you don't have much to lose eh? Maybe some files got corrupted.

There are corrupted files, but no amount of re-installing fixes them.

 

[mva5580]

I've bought and download over SEVENTY games on Steam since it has been released and I have never had one issue. Not one. I think it's an absolutely fantastic service; of those seventy games I am amazed at the deals I've gotten. $5 for the entire X-Com series; $2.50 for Knights of the Old Republic & all of the old GTA games, $12.49 for Batman Arkham Asylum, $5 for Bioshock, $7 for Oblivion Game of the Year Edition, $5 for Morrowind GOTY, and it goes on and on. It's a great service.

 

[duxup]

So the OP had some weird problem and I'm going to just ignore all the positive experiences I've had? Naw.

 

[falim]

steam didn't change your drivers.

 

[Vladesch]

And if valve goes bankrupt, what then? I believe you cant install it without "permission" from the valve server. *Thats* why people dont like steam.

Ahh of course, It'll never happen. People probably thought the same about Lehman brothers and GM. Funny how what seems unthinkable changes after a few years.

Not that it matters thanks to torrents. People who buy the game do it to support firaxis, not because they cant get around the copy protection. Publishers need to realize this (as Stardock have done) and stop playing silly games.

It wouldnt surprise me if tying civ5 to steam has lost them more sales than it gained. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who wanted to pirate it but couldnt because of the "copy protection". Like I say, people buy it to support Firaxis.

 

[zonk]

While I cannot speak to the specific issue that spawned this thread, you can count me among those that finds Steam inherently evil... Not being a half-life fanboy, you can also put me in the group of people that would love for someone to give Gabe Newell a really hard kick to the groin.

I love digital distribution - most of my favorite titles are digital licenses.... I play OOTP, which is only available via license. I've got dozens of titles from GamersGate, from Impulse, and even back to the old Stardock channel.

The difference between those channels and Steam is that Steam is the obnoxious "friend" that won't go away and give you a moment's peace.

Hey- I'm sure MPers love it... Great - have fun.

I bought the damn disk. I enjoy customization - but steam makes this hard, if not impossible, because I'm locked into THEIR install paradigms. I prefer to play solo -- all Steam does is ruin a lot of that.... apparently, so they can be sure to spam me with ads when I end a game.

Go the @#!@#@! away, Steam. You got my license code, the game has been activated, now kindly go bother your fanboys who apparently love the attention and leave me the #### alone.

 

[deanej]

I think you're wrong when you say gaming is a solo activity for most people. Online gaming is huge nowadays. You're a very casual gamer. I have 93 games on steam myself and I have a lot of games that I didn't buy from steam. And I have a lot of friends online that I've never met IRL that I play games with. Steam is great.

I meant most of us at CFC. MP civ players comprise less than 10% of all civ players. Naturally the rest of the world is different.

So the OP had some weird problem and I'm going to just ignore all the positive experiences I've had? Naw.

So you're going to ignore his problem.

steam didn't change your drivers.

Steam does indeed manage drivers. And he coincidentally lost his driver at the exact same time he uninstalled steam? Yeah right.

 

[mattavich]

Just like to point out that it is more likely steam has sold more games for companies like 2kgames than they could have alone.

Don't see the problem with steam to be honest. Why even care. Play the damn game.

 

[Yfelsung]

Apparently defending Steam from unfounded criticism or outright untruths makes people Steam zealots.

Who knew?

 

[duxup]

So you're going to ignore his problem.

Correct. I do not typically help solve many of the problems I read about on the internet.

 

[duxup]

Apparently defending Steam from unfounded criticism or outright untruths makes people Steam zealots.

Who knew?

On another forum my opinion on the changes to Civ V raised some question of 2K PR employees posing as regular users to defend the game.

On this forum some folks got on me about being far too harsh about some of the issues I found with Civ V.

A lot of people would rather argue about other users whose opinion they do not like rather than actually address the topic of the discussion.

 

[Teejvan]

Now I can just imagine someone with less PC knowledge would just be pulling their hairs out with this. And I still don't know what else Steam did to my system

Someone with less PC knowledge wouldn't be uninstalling Steam, nor would they care in all fairness! And besides, people with less PC knowledge go and get their friends with PC knowledge!

You can blame Steam, and in this case it was at fault, however, it could have been another issue and we'd have a thread on how automatic updates are bad etc etc

 

[Yfelsung]

On another forum my opinion on the changes to Civ V raised some question of 2K PR employees posing as regular users to defend the game.

On this forum some folks got on me about being far too harsh about some of the issues I found with Civ V.

A lot of people would rather argue about other users whose opinion they do not like rather than actually address the topic of the discussion.

That's because belittling those different from yourself is funny and enjoyable.

I'll defend Steam up and down with facts and statistics. I may also insult the person I'm arguing with, on the side, but that's just personal pleasure.

 

[deanej]

Apparently defending Steam from unfounded criticism or outright untruths makes people Steam zealots.

Who knew?

You say anything negative about steam on this forum, no matter how true/false it is, and people say you're committing heresy for saying anything other than "steam is the greatest thing since sliced bread and Valve is God". The people that say that are worse than mac fanboys!

 

[Yfelsung]

You say anything negative about steam on this forum, no matter how true/false it is, and people say you're committing heresy for saying anything other than "steam is the greatest thing since sliced bread and Valve is God". The people that say that are worse than mac fanboys!

That's usually because the negative comments are untrue.

Here's some example of untrue comments I see a lot:

You can't play your games without a connection (False, Steam has Offline mode, it works fine)

It chews up all my memory (False, Steam uses something like 50mb at most. If this is a significant drain on your system, the problem is not Steam)

If Steam dies you lose all your games (False, Valve has said they would patch all games to no longer require Steam authentication if Steam did somehow cease to exist)

I've actually never seen a criticism of Steam that was not born of lies or misunderstanding.

 

[zonk]

I meant most of us at CFC. MP civ players comprise less than 10% of all civ players. Naturally the rest of the world is different.


So you're going to ignore his problem.


Steam does indeed manage drivers. And he coincidentally lost his driver at the exact same time he uninstalled steam? Yeah right.

Amen on Pt 1.... This isn't Halo or whatever FPS is all the rage -- this is Civilization and MP has ALWAYS been a very small segment of the community and game base. Civilization is an inherently solo play game. Doesn't mean you can't play MP - but that's ALWAYS been secondary.

Digital distribution is a great thing (except for the fact that the consumer's have gotten zero of the cost-break benefits).... but as I said above, for a primarily SP game -- Steam ought to have the decency to verify, drop a license locally, then go the #### away.

BTW - I have to agree that Steam does impact drivers... It's by pure coincidence that I spotted this, but due to another issue in a completely separate piece of software, I had to back out to a slightly older version of my GPX driver last week.

Sure enough - the driver was magically updated when I installed Steam/Civ5. I noticed this when I went into said other application and noticed the same problem I had previously, checked my driver and sure enough....

That, frankly, gives me even MORE concern -- since Vista doesn't even let you sneeze without asking for explicit administrator permission to do so. Is Steam exploiting a security hole?

I have zero love for Microsoft - and if I didn't have so many games that simply don't quite work right on Linux, I'd toss it to the curb.... but in the hierarchy of evil, I'm almost hoping to see the much larger, much more powerful evil I know (MS) squash the smaller, less powerful evil that I don't know as well.