What would it take to convince Bethesda to abandon Steam?

[VanKrill]

I swear to god that Steam is nothing but a huge, complicated, malware, adware, computer virus that does absolutely nothing to improve Skyrim, but does everything to break my game in mid-play, causing hours of lost playtime, forcing the reloading of old save games missing half of the progress made and often interrupting a session of the CK just so it can paste a damn pop-up add in my face for some stupid game I never will have the slightest interest in!

 

I will NEVER, EVER, EVER buy a single game from the Steam web site, and only continue to play Skyrim because it is such an awesome game, but have thought on numerous occasions of abandoning it completely solely because its linkage to the VIRUS know as Steam!

 

I am so sick of having it lock up my system until I launch the damn virus so it can display it ads in my face I could SCREAM my HATRED of STEAM!

 

 

What would it take to convince Bethesda to abandon all use of Steam?!

 

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[Novem99]

More than you have in your pocket even if you live a thousand years.

 

Seriously I've been using Steam for more than a year and I never encountered the problems you are describing a single time.

[Rabbit1251]

Play it in "Offline" mode and you will never know that it's even there.

 

 

Rabbit

[Boombro]

Steam helped Skyrim a lot, even though it kind of a virus for you. For Bethesda, it everything but that and that is a good thing. Let me enlighten you.

 

Skyrim in the past three years has been in all kinds of sales. It one of the best selling titles in the past years. Do you know what that means? money. Bethesda is, first and last, a gaming company. They want to earn money after all. Telling them to leave steam because pretty much %5 of the users hate the platform is a dump idea (no offence.) more money for them, the better. It means a better, bigger developer team, more and better voice actors whole will do more lines, more and better writers, better equipment, better artists ect Money+ a good dev= a good game.

 

There are mods that saves every 2 min, allow 20 quick saves, log in offline and you will never see an ad, even though it just one window that don't force out of the game, and it will stop by next year.

 

And steam don't sell games, every game out there uses steam these days it hard to find one not. And I hope it stays this way, steam is great and saves a lot of money. So you will just play Skyrim and the new dragon age and that it.

[ripple]

What would it take to convince Bethesda to abandon all use of Steam?!-

An alternative, more invasive, digital rights management platform than Steam.

[bben46]

Get rid of all the rampant piracy that is wrecking games and they may consider it. They went to steam because they were loosing to the pirates. If a game company looses money - they stop making games - pirates win, you lose.

By going to steam, they cut their losses from piracy - They make money, they continue to make games - you win.

Bethesda is not a charity, it is a business in an industry that is being heavily damaged by rampant piracy. Take your pick - piracy and fewer games - or steam distribution. I am not a big steam fan, but I do know something about business. Find a viable alternative to steam before whining. - and anything that looses money for Bethsoft is not viable.

 

The owner of TweakGuides published a very good article on piracy explaining how it is affecting game companies and gamers - highly recommended if you really want to understand what is happening. http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

[Lord Garon]

EDIT: Lest the following be misinterpreted, its just my opinion on the topic at hand.

 

With all due respect to bben, Steam is not "DRM". It's a way to distribute a game without media production, distribution, and transportation costs, yet still charge users $60.00 for that game and not pass the savings on to players. It's a way to cut out middlemen (your local software store), keep their "cut", and not pass the savings on to players. Its a legal way to obtain a monopolistic (>70%, usually 100%) share of a market. Its a way to obtain all the benefits of selling something, with zero responsibility to consumers (read their fine print). Its a way to collect marketing data from software, ostensibly called "drm", on every gaming computer out there. Its a way to advertise and market to a captive customer base. Its a way to avoid normal market forces (competition) and dictate terms to a helpless market segment. Its a way to prevent the legal selling of a used game (yes, you can legally sell physical media).

 

OF COURSE they can have great sales; they generate huge profit margins compared to other distribution methods (CD/DVD at a local store). Their "sale" prices STILL make them money, and probably indicates how cheap their platform actually makes game publishing and distribution.

 

There may be ways to defend Valve\Steam, but its certainly NOT by calling them a drm provider; they are anything but that. They simply use "drm" as an excuse to get away with things that a real business would not be allowed to do. Especially by consumers with a choice. We have no choice, so Valve\Steam gets away with anything. Try to "return" a game and get a cash refund; their "products" don't even have to work. Neither does their "activation" system which allows you to play a purchased game (again, read their fine print).

 

All the benefits, no responsibility. Sounds like a good business model to me. All this IMHO, of course. Wait...what's that sound? Oh, its Gabe and crew laughing all the way to the bank.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Lord Garon

[AlexZander40]

So true.

 

Steam is not "DRM". It's a way to distribute a game without media production, distribution, and transportation costs, yet still charge users $60.00 for that game and not pass the savings on to players.

 

I still like to buy a physical copy of a game. But it isn't worth it anymore. There was a time you actually got some nice printed material with a physical copy. I am looking at Dragon Age Inquisition and then taking a look at my copies of Daggerfall, System Shock and Baldur's Gate. Then saying WTF? If publishers actually put out a physical copy like the previously mentioned games, they would be charging at least $100.

[Shadeybladey]

I swear to god that Steam is nothing but a huge, complicated, malware, adware, computer virus

 

I have often felt the same way, but only because of Stealth updates before the new SKSE version and new versions of mods were ready, so it would break games and mods for that reason.

 

ANY program that EVER does ANYTHING to my hard drive and it's contents without my specific, express permission is, by the very definition of the concept, a computer virus as far as I am concerned. End of.

 

But I have NEVER experienced the problems you describe, but I always play off-line. It is a single-player game and does not need Steam to be on-line to run it, especially if using SKSE. It did, however, sometimes refuse to work unless I went on-line and signed in again, which was infuriating as I could not play at all for a few days until the new SKSE was ready.

 

But I never get pop-ups, adverts or any of that daft "Steam Community" cobblers. Maybe because I disabled it in my Steam settings, or maybe because I always play off-line and launch the game using the SKSE launcher?

 

~

[notmyhome]

Yea, playing offline helps. But then you can't boast by showing people how many hours you've spent playing or messing around in the CK... Steam still says I've played a total of 17 hours of Skyrim.