Steam: For or Against

[Unholypaladin]

Personally i am Strongly against steam!

For one thing, when steam malfunctions, i won't be able to play the games i have that are forced to run on it, not to mention that if your not connected to the internet you can't play games because you can't access steam. Now i don't know if that last statement is fully true, but if it is I am highly upset about it. Single player games are usually a good option when you don't have internet, so if your forced to have your games on steam than you won't be allowed to play it at all if the internet goes out or you are on a laptop on a 10 hour flight and want something to do!

 

Another thing too, and i know this is a very delicate topic on the nexus, but in this case must be addressed, Piracy.

I don not promote piracy in any shape or form, however i have noticed that due to steam, more games are being pirated in order to make it easier to get around having to use steam. I've brought this topic up to a number of friends and they told me to pirate it in order to get around steam. I disagree and feel people should support the companies, so this program is actually increasing an already prevelant problem in the gaming community! If game companies dont make money on their games they will stop making them, plain and simple.

 

My question to other people of the nexus, what is your take on this matter?

[micalov]

Personally i am Strongly against steam!

For one thing, when steam malfunctions, i won't be able to play the games i have that are forced to run on it, not to mention that if your not connected to the internet you can't play games because you can't access steam.

This is not true there is offline mode and believe its every 3 weeks you have to sign in.

 

 

more games are being pirated in order to make it easier to get around having to use steam.

 

After being in the Nexus chat for just over a year, from my experience this is FAR from true, the amount of ppl who come in asking for help with there New Vegas "disk versions" that have NO IDEA the legal disk version also uses steam. It seems they just use that excuse any every other under the sun after they are discovered to be pirates, I am sure in the overall scheme steam does have a tiny effect, but I am also sure there are many ways around steam that obviously would/could not be discussed here, instead of just pirating the entire game.

 

I recently also decided to check YouTube after looking for a FO3 mod tutorial for CRAFT and it lead to a pirated user video about New Vegas, so for curiosity sake I checked other New Vegas tutorial vids like installation ones and a good 70-800% were using pirated copies. In my honest opinion the piracy excuse is just one of many the pirates who think they are Robin Hood come up with.

 

On Steam itself in a perfect world you should not have to run steam once its been verified and personally I do not like that you cant, but also steam itself gives with what it takes. The browser is nice and comes in handy, it has some good deals that are on allot, backup feature, cloud, gifts for easy giving gifts to other users. Its also better then many alternatives out there.

[Aurielius]

Well first off I dislike Steam also and unfortunately have several steam driven games, but you can play a Steam game off line. as long as you are not trying to play a multi player game in multi player mode it is possible, go to your steam settings and set it to Offline Mode. My objection to steam lies more in the patches that have to be steam specific and it's auto update function that has invalidated old saved games which was a hassle until I turned off the update function.

 

If TES V is steam only..then I'll being taking a pass on that too.

[CommanderCrazy]

Me? Im against. Not strongly against however.

Its fine for online games. Ones which are multiplayer only, or are built for it with a short and boring SP tacked on the side (Lookin' at you, CoD MW).

But for singleplayer only games, why put it on there? The only real benefit for an SP game is that you get achievements, and in order to get achievements you need to run the program through the internet. Why in the hell would you need a platform that shines so well for MP games for SP only? It is, quite frankly, retarded.

Another thing. Steam never uses all my download speed. Ive got a 75mpbs Fiber Optic broadband connection. If i download from a direct source, or from Origin (Really? Steam obviously has to lift their game now) at almost that whole speed, but with Steam im lucky to push 60kpbs. Thats while leaving the computer on overnight as well. Not doing a thing on it.

 

The plus side: it gets indie titles noticed. I would like if steam effectively became the Valve game / Indie Title platform, and not what it is now.

 

Now, to the delicate section.

There is a degree of truth in Unholypaladin's words. Things like Steam, Ubisoft DRM, Origin and the like all DO promote piracy. Simply because half the time it IS easier to play the cracked versions.

For a cracked game, you could be into the main menu before an actual person who purchased it has logged into steam yet. Not to mention that you dont even have to hint at using an internet connection.

Edited October 10, 2011 by CommanderCrazy

[ub3rman123]

I like Steam but I did get locked out of it once when my internet was down. Couldn't set it to offline mode because it wanted to update (Which was impossible because there was no connection) and I couldn't play anything until it updated. Meh.

[tylitalo]

I don't like steam any better than anyone else, but when I consider that it's a delivery *and* drm system for.. 3 of my most favorite "recent" games that have been released.. if I had the choice between Skyrim being 'steambound', installing yet another DRM system, or needing to keep the disc in my drive to play.. 'll take Steam.

[marharth]

My only real issue with steam is they can ban your account for any reason pretty much and have you waste a ton of money on games. Edited October 10, 2011 by marharth

[Unholypaladin]

marharth, that is the killing factor in the steam problem.

 

When you have hundreds of dollars on games, and than for any reason what so ever steam decides to ban your account, than what? You just spent hundreds of dollars on... nothing!

It is rediculous that they have the power to simply repossess hundreds of dollars of PAYED FOR games, than that is just simply wrong! I could see preventing online play, or even

preventing the purchase of further games, which in itself is pushing it, but being able to simple pull the plug on all the games you own?

 

and honestly, I own my own disk copy of new vegas and still have to go through steam. There have been times when i tried to play new vegas and steam wouldn't let me! sure i eventually got

on but i can honestly see the motivation for piracy here. Once again i do not condone piracy, but let's be honest here, most of the time if someone does not have a steam version of a steam game,

than it's probably pirated. Some people just pirate for boycotting the game company because of the steam, its not that they find steam inconvenient, but because they don't agree with

the concept at all.

 

Not lets look at the other side of the argument. Steam isn't all bad. It helps eliminate cheating, it allows you to play games on multiple computers even if you lost or damaged your disk.

Its a fairly easy way to purchase pc games and has a fair bit of fun features, its great, for online games, and online games only!

If you want to play cod on the pc, steam is pretty good way to do it, but for single player rpg games, steam really has no place at all, its inconvenient, it's annoying, and it makes

actually getting to the game harder.

 

My argument stands, you shouldn't have to have a third party watching every little game you play. We play on the computer to get away from the big brother staring over your shoulder

you get with XBOX. On the pc you can do whatever you want with the game once its on your computer as long as its legal. Its freedom, and the last thing we want is to have this

freedom restricted by some program that threatens to take away our games if we misbehave. If i buy a game, i want to feel its mine, not valves, valve never paid for the game, hell

for most games valve didn't even make it! So why should we have to bow down to them?

[lukertin]

When you have hundreds of dollars on games, and than for any reason what so ever steam decides to ban your account, than what? You just spent hundreds of dollars on... nothing!

It is rediculous that they have the power to simply repossess hundreds of dollars of PAYED FOR games, than that is just simply wrong! I could see preventing online play, or even

preventing the purchase of further games, which in itself is pushing it, but being able to simple pull the plug on all the games you own?

 

I don't think that's accurate. If, for example, you bought Mass Effect on Steam, and then got banned from Steam, you could simply contact Microsoft and demand your full rights as a licensee and get your game back. Valve, as a vendor, has no authority to meddle between a relationship between you and a 3rd party. If the game in question was Half-life 2 or whatever then you're SOL.

[Aurielius]

When you have hundreds of dollars on games, and than for any reason what so ever steam decides to ban your account, than what? You just spent hundreds of dollars on... nothing!

It is rediculous that they have the power to simply repossess hundreds of dollars of PAYED FOR games, than that is just simply wrong! I could see preventing online play, or even

preventing the purchase of further games, which in itself is pushing it, but being able to simple pull the plug on all the games you own?

 

I don't think that's accurate. If, for example, you bought Mass Effect on Steam, and then got banned from Steam, you could simply contact Microsoft and demand your full rights as a licensee and get your game back. Valve, as a vendor, has no authority to meddle between a relationship between you and a 3rd party. If the game in question was Half-life 2 or whatever then you're SOL.

Just don't hold your breath when you ask Microsoft for your money back..... :confused: