If I hate STEAM should I stay away from PC gaming?

[Fenrir190]

Currently I have a PS3 and I'm on the fence about whether or not I want to upgrade my PC or just get the 360 back. A lot of the steam practices I just can't ignore namely
1.) If I have a single player game why do I still need to be online to install it or play it?
2.) Forced updates, I can do this myself.
3.) Not being able to resell games when I'm done with them. I understand why they feel the need for this, I just don't agree with it.
4.) Sharing a disk(which is none existent) to play offline MP, like 3 I understand why they feel the need to do so, I just don't agree with it.

PC does have a lot of games I like and is getting a lot of releases that I plan on getting in the future such as borderlands 2, AC3, and Bioshock infinite but for a lot of those games steam is/will be required to play them. Games like the witcher 2 which doesn't require STEAM are games I'm interested in playing on the PC but it's also for the 360 so not much incentive right there. While the 360 did get old for me, I realized that having people to play with online made it fun. Given how PC gaming is done now, I don't see STEAM leaving anytime. Being an RPG fan PC seems to be more way but I just don't like having to go through something like STEAM to play them. So like the topic says should I just stay away from PC gaming?

 

[casualcolors]

What you mean to say is that you and everybody that you know in the world of 6+billion people have the internet.

Not everyone has the internet.

Not even all gamers have reliable internet.

well if u gonna spend $700 + on a gaming pc get internet. its not hard. its not expensive. cannot afford it, get a 1 hr a week job, that will take care of expense. i mean really, come on

It's less about money and more about region. Even in the US there are plenty of places where getting stable internet just isn't a reality. There's no infrastructure to support it. Don't be dense, lol.

 

[HEXiT]

lol you hate steam but you have ps3 store , and what do you think psn is based on... its based on steams model of business.
if yuou can use psn then theres no reason to hate on steam. they provide pretty much the same service.

 

[Ariana kaviani]

Once you see the crazy sales, you'll fall in love with steam and Gaben . Honestly for me, whats the point of trading games when you get them for 5 dollars.

 

[Matthew Collins]

First of all there is a difference between not liking Steam's practices, and having to put up with Steam's totally corrupt and immoral business practices. The ongoing argument about how Game developers use DRM because of Pirates, and Pirates cracking games because the game developers is 100% pointless because both sides are right.

Lets look at the real problem that s caused by DRM Such as Steam. Of course it seems like this is a Steam bash reply but Steam is what almost every game developer uses so there is no other alternative. not sure how dense people are to think that people who have problems with Steam are only doing it to bad mouth Steam when who else are they going to bad mouth?

Anyway, the real problem is that game developers shouldn't be using services such as Steam because it puts it's consumer base through tons of unnecessary problems without any real valid reason to do so. Using the argument of it's DRM is a weak argument.

Using my personal experience, let me show people the corner I have been forced into and the ultimatum I have been left with because of Steam's corrupt and immoral business practices and because game developers use Steam and nothing else. Now when talking about Steam you're talking of course about VALVE as they own Steam.

It's a full known fact that any time anyone on Valve forum either voices their opinion about how bad Steam is or they post something that Valve Staff deems as negative in a post about a game, the topic/reply not only gets removed but the person who post it, usually gets banned. Even if there is no TOS/TOA violation in the topic/reply.

Now while it's one thing for Valve Staff to ban someone from the forum, however this goes beyond that. What happens is that the Staff on the forum don't like you and actually go out of their way to lock you out of your account so you cannot even play any of the games you purchased. Contrary to popular belief being posted by Valve reps and ass kissers saying that Valve has the right to do that and the person is at fault for having their account locked..IT is actually 100% illegal for Valve to stop you from playing games they do not own.

Because of the Valve reps and other meatnuts that flood someones topic about Steam problems, people actually think that because the game is for sale on Steam, that Valve owns it and thus allows them the authority to do that and that is 100% totally untrue. Valve is only authorized by the game developer to Sell the game, and because Valve doesn't own the game, they legally cannot prevent you from playing it.

Now in my case I actually have been IP blocked and thus now I cannot play Skyrim or A few other games I have on my account. None of which are owned by Valve. Now not being able to play the current games I have is one thing, however because I've been IP blocked by valve, that means I've been shut out from any developer in the furture who decided to use Steam as a distribution.

Now because the morons who Defend Steam and saying just create another account, let me in form you of something, while creating multiple accounts isn't against Steam's TOS/TOA when you've been IP Blocked, any further accounts are automatically flagged and also banned. But that's not relevant.

Here is the situation, in order for me to play any games that developers use Steam on I am actually forced to pirate the game because I have no choice if I want to play it, and you bet your ass I'm not going to be prevented from playing a game. And don't bother talking about theft when talking about piracy because if people want to talk about Theft you need to look at how many millions of peoples accounts Steam has locked out thus Stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from people.

The forum and the account have nothing to do with each other and even though Valve has done this, they actually don't have the legal grounds to pull what they've been getting a way with this. The only real reason Valve continually gets away with this is because people don't know how to fight back against this type of corruption.

In the end I cannot pay for a game even if I wanted to because I either cannot access the Steam Store or I cannot register the game Well I can pay for it but they're stealing money from me. So I refuse to purchase any games even if I could now because I cannot use the game as well as any features that game comes with. And purchasing a game and then using a crack is still illegal.

So the point here is that when this happens piracy is the only way to go. Because it's either pirate the game, or don't play and telling people to deal with it and don't play that is moronic It's exactly like telling someone they either have to pay 12K a month to live in their own house for no reason or don't live in it.

I strongly believe that if the correct legal council gets involved, (One that specializes in this crap) will actually be able to find something the normal legal council can't see and everyone that's gotten screwed over will come forward and the class action lawsuit immunization will not hold.

 

[computertech82]

pcs will always be better than any console. And a pc you can upgrade, a console you cannot.
Stream works extremely well for me. Had it for years now. Allows me to play 'offline' as well. The biggest thing is the discounts on steam. Some games i got for 70% off. Can't do that for a console game. Even new games can have discounts. And btw, you don't have to get all your games from steam, you can buy them online from other companies, or your local walmart. doesn't matter. YOU HAVE A CHOICE.

 

[teddymines]

I personally like not have to deal with CDs. I lose them they get scratched... load times are longer, etc.

Agreed. Loading off SSD is very fast, too.

 

[cats_Paw]

Personally, I love steam. First reason: prices.

I am a pacient gamer (I still didnt buy Syrim for example), so i can wait till those single player games drop in prices.
And then prices can be quite awsome (most games i bought over steam were under 10 euros).

Now, i dislike DRM, A LOT. But when i can get a game under 10 Euros, Id rather buy it legit.

Now, back in the days of Oblivion, crysis 1 and dead space 1, this was a problem since i had to wait maybe 2 years to get the game cheap.
But nowdays there is so much crapware made by big studios that you dont really need to wait long for a price drop.

About sharing games.... well it is sort of illegal? not exactly. If you led a CD to someone and while they play it you "CANT" then it is legal (you could check that even microsfot and steam are working on ways to make it possible).

However making a copy for a friend is rather not legal.

Now the internet thingy is like a double edged sword. From one side you have to connect to the internet to download/activate the game (total pointless DRM since cracked games dont need this at all), but then again as long as you have a good internet, is like having all your games with you.
I had to travel to another country last year to work, and Its been a very ncie thing to jsut get an Inet connection and leave my steam to download everything for the next day.

On the automatic updates you got me a bit lost... its obvious you can choose not to update a game, but normally if you dont, online services might not work

(for example i totally hate automatic updates from game windows live, java platform, acreobat reader and so on. They dont only create problems but also screw up your game configurations, your game settings, your mods, etc.
However, when it comes to the game itself, i rearly saw problems appear due to updates. More likely I saw mods saying "first make sure you have update X.xx.xx.X installed).


Now, Im not gonna get ANYTHING, EVER on Origin and probably other systems like that (anything where they want something more than an E-Mail adress can kiss my ***).


Steam aint perfect, far from it... but its clearly the lesser EVIL out there, and many actually dont think its EVIL at al (me for example).

However id be thankfull if they always included a note saying if you need an account at a 3rd party to play the game (for example, I get it that i can play dark souls online with Games Windows Live, but why do i have to have it ON to play the game offline (without it seems like you cant save games, ridiculous)).

The good part is that with all this hate, small studios can actually get a good chance to sell their products ( the witcher for example), with no DRM, no online accounts, etc.

 

[cemerian]

Currently I have a PS3 and I'm on the fence about whether or not I want to upgrade my PC or just get the 360 back. A lot of the steam practices I just can't ignore namely
1.) If I have a single player game why do I still need to be online to install it or play it?
2.) Forced updates, I can do this myself.
3.) Not being able to resell games when I'm done with them. I understand why they feel the need for this, I just don't agree with it.
4.) Sharing a disk(which is none existent) to play offline MP, like 3 I understand why they feel the need to do so, I just don't agree with it.

PC does have a lot of games I like and is getting a lot of releases that I plan on getting in the future such as borderlands 2, AC3, and Bioshock infinite but for a lot of those games steam is/will be required to play them. Games like the witcher 2 which doesn't require STEAM are games I'm interested in playing on the PC but it's also for the 360 so not much incentive right there. While the 360 did get old for me, I realized that having people to play with online made it fun. Given how PC gaming is done now, I don't see STEAM leaving anytime. Being an RPG fan PC seems to be more way but I just don't like having to go through something like STEAM to play them. So like the topic says should I just stay away from PC gaming?

if you hate steam buy pc games somewhere else or by a disc problem solved

 

[cats_Paw]

not really, many games nowdays require steam activation and using steam.