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[Dariush]

offline mode still requires steam to connect to the net.
Civ 4 piracy: 10%
civ 5 piracy(after steam): 60% say they did.

questions?

Well, I'd say that Civ 4 pirated rate was closer to 40-50% (since that's the general average for games), but in any case I completely agree with the 'raving asshole' definition. I tried to install Steam like four times (the last time like three weeks ago to get into the Planetside 2 B12 group) and every time I unistalled it 15 minutes later after getting pissed by yet another horrible fuck-up on it's part.

[Aseaheru]

thank you.

[BunnyBob77]

offline mode still requires steam to connect to the net.
Civ 4 piracy: 10%
civ 5 piracy(after steam): 60% say they did.

questions?

No, offline does not require steam to connect to the internet. It's called offline mode for a reason.  It lets you play any up to date game game without an internet connection. And Civilzation IV is on steam too. Disliking Steam is fine, but you seem to have a lot misconceptions about it

[Duke 2.0]

offline mode still requires steam to connect to the net.
Civ 4 piracy: 10%
civ 5 piracy(after steam): 60% say they did.

questions?

Source?

I dunno why I'm giving this post the respect of a reply, much less you.

Looking forward to this service, sort of a Steam Workshop for full games. It'll be another platform through which indie guys can try to make a stab at popularity. There will be some rough spots that will show when it first launches which Steam will hopefully work on.

[Frumple]

offline mode still requires steam to connect to the net.
Civ 4 piracy: 10%
civ 5 piracy(after steam): 60% say they did.

questions?

Source? Relevancy? Civ 4 is not Civ 5, nor is that saying much about where the numbers are coming from, piracy rates among non-steam users, how steam is causing it, etc. It'd be interesting if steam actually was causing a piracy upswing (extreme doubts But anything's possible, to a degree), but we need a bit more to go off than that.

As for offline, i'unno. Most of the stuff I've got from steam can be launched without the steam process even running (Dreadmore, SPAZ, and Star Ruler, ferex), much less in offline mode. The rest have been pretty trivial to find alternate methods, so to speak, to run sans steam. It's probably more anal about bigger titles, but I haven't exactly been mainlining AAA titles the past decade or so, so eh.

Anyway, I haven't had much trouble with steam, m'self. Most everything fancy (pop-ups, run on start, etc.) is disabled and when I'm not doing something with it I just kill the process, like I do most things that might fight about such. S'better than retail, anyway

[fenrif]

offline mode still requires steam to connect to the net.
Civ 4 piracy: 10%
civ 5 piracy(after steam): 60% say they did.

questions?

Civ 4 Piracy: 100%
Civ 5 Piract (after steam): 0% say they did.

Questions?

(Hey this is fun, I don't know why people bother with sources or evidence when they can just type whatever and then put a self righteous "questions?" at the end like it proves anything!)

And even if those figures are true (they're not though) there's a phrase you might want to look up, it goes "correlation does not imply causation."

Well, I'd say that Civ 4 pirated rate was closer to 40-50% (since that's the general average for games), but in any case I completely agree with the 'raving asshole' definition. I tried to install Steam like four times (the last time like three weeks ago to get into the Planetside 2 B12 group) and every time I unistalled it 15 minutes later after getting pissed by yet another horrible fuck-up on it's part.

Like what? I mean steam isn't perfect, sure. But it's hardly "a raving asshole" (that seriously makes no sense. You may aswell call steam a "flabberghasted teapot" and it's about as descriptive and usefull a term).

Steam has problems, but the pros far outweigh the cons. In a massive way.

[miauw62]

If steam was a horrid piece of shit, would so many people be using it or would so many AAA titles be distributed on steam?


I agree with fenrif's final sentence.
(and the other part of his post)

[Anvilfolk]

Well, getting into offline mode DOES require you have internet - which is dumb. Steam is perpetually updating itself, and it seems like if it is ready to update something, then it won't allow you to start in offline mode. I know this because I've tried repeatedly while staying at my grandparent's farm.

I love that I have an account that I can log in to, and play the games that I bought on any computer without having to worry about additional DRM. I am rather worried that Steam can just BECOME a huge asshole and deny me games I payed money for. If I have a DVD hardcopy, I can always install it. If Steam needs to provide me the game, it can also deny it. That's what I worry about sometimes.

Other than that, I love the constant sales and centralised approach to gaming (kind of like linux packages for software) It is starting to get overly bloated though.



On the subject of Greenlight, RPS has a point. It feels like if there is a criterion for automatic acceptance, it could flood Steam with "crappy" games and ultra-dedicated communities. Imagine Begin 2 on Steam. 99.9999999999% of the gamer population won't care for it, but it could be there all the same. It could dilute good games... although to be honest there's already so much crap on there that it probably wouldn't make a difference. Except we'd always get crappy sales instead of occasional good sales ^^

[Aseaheru]

excuse me while i cackle at idioticy.

bye

[miauw62]

Yay, we got him out of here!
Let the actual discussion start now.

[Dariush]

If steam was a horrid piece of shit, would so many people be using it or would so many AAA titles be distributed on steam?

Yes. Yes, they would and yes, there would be.

And I don't see anybody bringing up reasons people would choose Greenlight over Kickstarter I requested two posts ago.

[Aptus]

excuse me while i cackle at idioticy.

bye

Yes it is important to be able to laugh at oneself.

[miauw62]

Well, you are right that greenlight may not be good, the only reason one would prefer steam over kickstarter is the popularity that steam grants.

But imho, kickstarter =/= greenlight, they are different things that look a tad similar. kickstarter is crowdsourcing, where greenlight is basically aplying to enter steam.

[fenrif]

If steam was a horrid piece of shit, would so many people be using it or would so many AAA titles be distributed on steam?

Yes. Yes, they would and yes, there would be.

And I don't see anybody bringing up reasons people would choose Greenlight over Kickstarter I requested two posts ago.

And I don't see you responding to my asking you what exactly is so wrong with steam in the first place?

The reason noone answered your question of why Greenlight over Kickstarter is because they're two completely different things and it's kind of a non-question. But I'll answer you anyway, because I'm nice like that.

Kickstarter and Greenlight are two completely different services. Why do people choose to call the ambulance instead of the police? Kickstarter is a crowdfunding source. You post your idea, any work you have so far, and ask for funding to complete it. If you don't get the full figure you dont get any of it. After you've got the funding, and made the game, you still need to sell it. Steam is a distribution service (probobly the biggest digital distribution service for PC games infact). As a result, getting a game on steam will almost assuredly mean a huge increase in sales simply because so many people use steam. It's a captive audience for your game.

There's a series of posts by the developers of S.P.A.Z. where they talk about the process of developing their game. Quite a bit of it is focused on them trying to secure distribution deals with Steam, Gamersgate and another one I cant remember (I can't be bothered to search it out to link it, google if you're interested). They basically say that while getting on other digital distro services is a huge deal and well worth the effort, getting on steam is basically a make or break sort of affair. It's such a huge boon to the developer that it can literally make or break their games success.

Obviously a game that's allready been kickstarted will have an audience built-in... But I imagine most of them allready bought the game, or at least donated to it... I've not seen any kickstarter figures, but it would make sense. So with that scenario you're making a game which will pay for itself, but you still need to sell the game after it's done. That's why it's not a case of kickstarter or Greenlight. For a lot of developers it'll be Kickstarter AND Greenlight. And of course quite a lot of developers wont be able to get kickstarted, or wont need to be.

So can you answer my questions with regards to why steam is so bad now please?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

So I'm going to stick my fingers into this bee hive and say that I don't hate Steam. Steam isn't flawless but nothing really is. 

Pros:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First off the ease of use is great. Buy a game, click on download and you're ready to play. I've been a long time PC gamer and being able to skip all the installation, cd key checks and all the rest are great.

Quite a decent choice of games from a variety of publishers and developers, less need to have 50 accounts of various websites all over the web.

VAC Anti-cheat on certain games. Some people hate VAC but I personally adore it when it's used correctly. Forget the abortions that were Modern Warfare and instead the source based games where       it's used teamed with server admins.

Being able to use the platform no matter where I am is good. Of course it does mean if you're in an area with bad internet you'll have to download and prepare your games before hand.

Great prices on games. Steam has spoiled me to the point where I don't see a sale as worth while unless it's 70% +.

Good overlay/community features. Simple easy to use UI.

Achievement and game stat support, although personally I don't care all that much about this.

Steam Workshop is interesting and quite nice, I think the UI might need a little bit more work however,

Cons:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It is DRM. Simple as that. It should however be viewed that Steam should be looked at as a service and all developers/publishers should ALWAYS offer a DRM-free version for those that don't like steam.

Steam's support is crap. Just terrible. It needs a complete rehual.

Steam's offline mode can be wonky as times and should be improved. 

Should be a way to "rollback" DLCs/Expansions/Patches.

Steam can sometimes bug out downloading stuff, can even redownload whole games again, not cool.

Valve should be putting more pressure on Publishers and Developers to price games fairly per region, charging different prices on digital products is insane and stupid. Axe the Russian store completely and offer fair prices across the board.

So yeah. Remember to look at Steam as a "service" rather than DRM but always demand for a DRM-free release of all games for those that don't wish to use the service or when the service goes down. Paradox games upload their games to Valve but they don't have the DRM "forced to this account" mechanics which means you can download and play the game without using Steam, this is my personal favorite method.

As for Greenlight I think it can be both a blessing and curse. I'm going to wait until a release to have any real judgement on it however.


Also:

excuse me while i cackle at idioticy.

bye

Be nice.