Why steam sucks

Ahh Steam… Valve’s brainchild. DRM at it’s best (or worst). Where to begin? Let’s quote them:
First of all: digital rights management. Bad! I’m not apposed to basic copy protection schemes. The basic CD-Key is tried, it’s true, and it works. If people want to pirate something, they’re gonna pirate it. All DRM does is annoy the consumer, and thus, the consumer may become a pirate. Secondly, digital distribution. I bought the Half-Life anthology pack at Circuit City a few years ago for $4.99. And how much is it on Steam? $14.99. That is $10 more for less! I buy it in a store I get the case, I SHOULD get the manual, and I can install it from the CD. If Valve actually wants me to buy games via Steam, please lower the prices. I’m ok with the multiplayer and communications part of it. Hell, I kinda like their little community feature. Now onto November 16, 2004, the day Half-Life 2 was released. The system requirements for HL2 (at the date of its release) were (I know I probably got a few wrong, but I don’t feel like going on Wikipedia right now):

1.2GHz Processor
256MB RAM
DirectX 7 graphics card
Windows 98/ME (We’ll get to this a bit later.)
Those of who did buy it on that day (me included), had to activate it via Steam. Valve wasn’t anticpating on the load and the servers crashed. BOOM. Some, the people in Europe (WHO PAID FOR IT, MIGHT I ADD), couldn’t play the game. Not to mention that the Steam client itself was slow and bloated. Wheres the option for me to turn of the special effects? There isn’t one. While I will admit the client has gotten more stable (in recent months), it still shouldn’t be called “stable”. Hell, I don’t even think it should be called a “Beta”.

Let’s flash forward to June 30, 2007. Users who still ran Windows 98 or Windows ME couldn’t play the games they bought. While it said that in the EULA, it still is NOT right. When are they gonna stop support for 2000, citing that “Microsoft no longer supports this operating system”. As long as it supports XP, it should buisness as usual.

Now time for the big reason I wrote this:


I can not play Team Fortress 2. I bought.. err I mean “rented” it. I should be able to play it when I damn hell feel like it! I tell you, the pirates have it good.

STEAM is just another EA

Please do not try to pass off other people's work as your own(unless you are STOP error, and i don't think you are). plagiarism is lazy and in many cases illegal. Here is link to the original site http://stoperror.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/steam-sucks/[/COLOR]

It doesn't work.


While this may be true of some DRM, Steam isn't annoying at all.


I find and I think a lot of people will find that Steam pricing are generally a lot cheaper than retail bar silly region priced games. Also did you see their recent sales?



Stop being so impatient and also there is a thread for Steam Discussion!

As much as I don't think this needs it's own thread, I'm sure Steam Discussion doesn't need a massive whinge/flame war going on.

Suffice to say, I refuse to buy any game which requires Steam to activate.


How so? I've never had a problem with a CD key ever.


In your Opinion. I find Steam to be excessively annoying.


And what's wrong with being mad when you can't play the games you paid for whenever you wan? I honestly don't think that's unreasonable.

You're right, no game with Steam can be cracked, if you're an idiot. It takes a tad more work (Maybe a half hour as opposed to 5 minutes) but it is extremely possible and not that difficult to get around Steam.

This is, by far, the silliest thing you said. And believe me, you said some silly things.

Steam is almost always commended for its extremely competitive prices when it comes to both older and new release games. The HL: Anthology pack you bought was most likely on sale.

Lets take Bioshock 2 for example:

- Retail: $79 and $74 at JB and Game respectively.

www.jbhifionline.com.au/game/pc-games/bioshock-2/426118
www.game.com.au/bioshock-2/pc-games/BIO2PC

How much is it on Steam? US$44.99 with the original game, which can still be found for upwards of $50 in shops.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8859/

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Steam prices are amazingly cheap compared to most other retail outlets. And when the weekly sales roll around, the value for money shoots through the room. In face, I bought 7 games for US$4. Thats ~40 hours of gaming for the price of a coffee.

I bought Bioshock and Oblivion double pack for $50.

You can... Its called offline mode.

File - Go offline

Now you can use it whenever you want......

war-eyes I dunno, maybe you are just ******ed (a lot of your posts are really shit, thought I may as well add that in)? He said Bioshock 2. Not 1. Olbivion with all the DLC is US 25, US 20 without DLC.

The reason you got HL1 cheap OP is because it was on a throw out table. In the past steam have run deals were you could get HL1/its expansions for US $1 each. I am interested in what you mean re TF2 though. You are aware it is an online multiplayer game only right? So you need to be online to play it?

I missed the Bioshock 2 comment, perhaps my dyslexia more than anything. I'll thank you not to resort to petty attacks in what is supposed to be a coherent and sensible discussion.

As for Offline Mode, even when playing Offline I have found that Steam still fluffs up. It still wants to patch my games when they are working perfectly, it still wants to interfere with how and when I want to play them.

Suffice to say that there is much hate for Steam across the internets, and it is indeed justified. When I bought Dawn of War 2 I couldn't play it for 3 days thanks to the undernourished Steam servers. I then got to play it once, after which it decided it was 'updating' for a week, in offline mode I got the same message box Hard-kore did.

There are many forms of DRM. STEAM is just one, and by no means, the worst. In fact, it is probably one of the better systems. If you want a BAD system, go look up a little thing called StarForce, then come back, and tell me STEAM is shit, okdoky?

Also half the time I find the "Game is Unavailable", it's because the source game didn't shut down properly the last time you played it, if you go into task manager you'd see hl2.exe and gameoverlayui.exe still running- Just end the hl2 process and you'll be able to play tf2 again.

Its not a petty attack. Your posts, I find them lacking across the forums. Just pointing it out now as this is the first time (from memory) I have replied to you. Take it on board, or not given I don't really come on here much these days except for the TF2 threads. The others may find you to be an outstanding posting dude, w/e.

To your second point,

Right click your game - properties - updates - Do not automatically update this game.

Does anyone read the manual/help files these days?

Steam is the best thing that has ever happened to PC gaming and I wish every game used it.

STEAM is good, but we don't want Valve to rule us do we?.....

There will always be other options on the PC, I just wish that every game had the option to be purchased through Steam. I would never buy PC games any other way.