Board 8 > Doesn't this poll go against what Vlado said a week ago about digital games

(+) Yeah! (+)

what happened, man

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ninkendo posted...

what Vlado said

There's your issue.

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like I remember what Vlado said a week ago

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While not sure about the specifics of the topic, can I use this to complain about Steam?

It's weird to me that everybody digs Steam with open arms, every gamer I know loves Steam. But it's essentially DRM-tastic, you have to be logged into Steam to play. Thus, no more sharing games, not even with say your brother or somebody you live with. Not the same as weird Starforce or whatever DRM, but having to be logged into an online thing to play games is not a great innovation.

If you live with somebody who likes TF2 or any online game through Steam, you're not gonna be able to share any games on that account. =P It's a problem.

Historically, a PC game me and my bro could always install on two computers buying one copy, it seems fair. With Steam, that's not the case (unless you both game sparingly). Luckily you can still work that with gog.com and other cool places.

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From: Psycho_Kenshin | #004

you have to be logged into Steam to play

No you don't, you can definitely run most games by themselves if you find the executable, and they can be played offline when steam is offline.

But I think the main reason everyone forgives steam cause they practically give the games away. In my case, when I got the golden potato, I was given every single Valve game, including Portal 2 on the day of release, for free.

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And your friends can also play the games off the account assuming you're not logged in on your account.

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From: Psycho_Kenshin | #004

a PC game me and my bro could always install on two computers buying one copy

If you are trying to play a single player game on multiple computers at the same time, you can do that with offline mode. I did this to play Bioshock 2 on my friend's account. You lose all the Steam Friends, Achievements, Cloud saves, Community, etc., but that's the trade you make.

For online games, historically, you always needed separate CD keys anyways, so nothing changes there.

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I believe Vlado's exact words were, "mumble-mumble, something-something, Xenogears", in which case I feel compelled to defend him against this slander.

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Last thing I remember Vlado posting was in that best RPG series about Xenosaga and/or Pokemon.

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From: Psycho_Kenshin | #004

but having to be logged into an online thing to play games is not a great innovation

The innovation is that there is a huge incentive to be logged into this extra client and always be online. That given the choice between a 100% DRM-free version of a game, and one that runs through Steam, most people (including myself) would choose the Steam version. That is genius.

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There are good deals from time to time, especially with Valve stuff sure, but the majority of games are normally priced. Right now you could get Telltale's Sam & Max or Monkey Island games at a much much better price at gog.com (there's a sale, granted). Various games I'm interested in still cost as much as anywhere else. For older games actually boxed copies can be cheaper sometimes.

Just saying, when the norm before was you buy a CD or DVD and installing it on two computers was fine, it'd be cool if steam could say let you link two accounts so that you could share single-player games. Since that's the modern equivalent of installing a game on two computers.

As for the clicking on the .exe thing, I just tried that for say Secret of Monkey Island SE, clicking on MISE.exe, and it then launched steam and said connecting to my account.

So, I imagine, if I installed games from my brother's account, it'd try to login to his steam account. And have I mentioned he's always playing online games on steam? =P

Steam has a lot of drawbacks.

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There are good deals from time to time,

Feel like you've never heard of steam sales.

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Let me rephrase, there are good deals on games that I want that I don't already have from time to time, not all that often really.

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From: Psycho_Kenshin | #011

So, I imagine, if I installed games from my brother's account, it'd try to login to his steam account. And have I mentioned he's always playing online games on steam? =P

Offline mode

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That's not really a steam problem than is it?

I see where you're coming from, but it's not even as bad as your making it. Log into your bros account, go offline, play his games while he plays online games.

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i dislike steam. it's great for getting free stuff from people because it's always like one cent or two bucks or something trivial, but i've never bought and will never buy anything from it on my own.

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In 7 minutes when his Tribes Ascend match is over I'll test this out and get back to you.

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From: Psycho_Kenshin | #004
Thus, no more sharing games, not even with say your brother or somebody you live with.
People accept this as a trade-off for free cloud storage, optional social features, and insanely low prices.

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Rad Link 5 posted...

People accept this as a trade-off for free cloud storage, optional social features, and insanely low prices.

I've been using Steam all along myself, and it's not terrible, but I don't get why people are gung ho for it. Sure, we can message eachother while playing like AIM, cloud storage I haven't used, but this doesn't make it a better status quo than PC gaming was before.

As for insanely low prices, that's just not true as a general assessment of steam. From time to time with their sales sure, but on average when I look through their catalog of games, the prices are not insanely low, and better prices can often be found elsewhere.

Just saying, I'd like more games to be on say gog.com, since it's so much better in every way.


As for the sharing games thing, sent an email to my brother to add my computer to the steam account etc, currently downloading Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines since you can't download games in offline mode I'd assume, then I'll try out this offline thing while he goes back to Tribes. That is nice that there's a way to get multiple PCs on a single player game, that's something.

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I've always maintained Steam is poor, buggy software. Given how much trouble I've had with it in the past, I can tell you it does not handle corner configurations well.

Excellent business model, however. I switched over to it once I got a configuration that was closer to "standard" (last year or so?).

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From: Psycho_Kenshin | #019
cloud storage I haven't used
Surely you don't keep all your games installed at once.

Oh right. I forgot about automatic updates. Das cool, too.

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Rad Link 5 posted...

From: Psycho_Kenshin | #019
cloud storage I haven't used
Surely you don't keep all your games installed at once.

That counts as cloud storage? Well in that case gog.com has got ya covered as well. Gog.com everybody.

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steam essentially is glorified DRM. The main reason why people dont complain about it, and even people like me (who hate almost all things about this gen of gaming) don't completely hate steam is because you do see lower prices on it.

My main beef with the future of gaming is that the consumer is getting less power, but is still paying very similar prices, sometimes even higher. I would never use steam to buy a new release game day 1. Why pay the same price to get a non physical copy and miss out on some extras (such as the paper map in skyrim)?

But aside from day 1 big budget releases, steam is actually a great platform. Yes, we lose some freedom, but we are at least seeing some advantages. Hell, if i didnt buy skyrim day 1 and waited a few months, i might have gotten in on steam when it was cheaper.

gog.com is a better digital distribution platform imo, but im sure a lot of people will disagree with me on that.

Agreed on most points there, just not sure why everybody agrees steam has great prices for all but new games. Hitman 2 is 10 bucks, the physical version is 5.29 on amazon. Available as low as $1.50 new. A lot of physical PC games become completely dirt cheap. The Telltale games mentioned are better priced elsewhere, as are most adventure games. Steam prices aren't really wowing me lately.

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Psycho_Kenshin posted...

Agreed on most points there, just not sure why everybody agrees steam has great prices for all but new games. Hitman 2 is 10 bucks, the physical version is 5.29 on amazon. Available as low as $1.50 new. A lot of physical PC games become completely dirt cheap. The Telltale games mentioned are better priced elsewhere, as are most adventure games. Steam prices aren't really wowing me lately.

oh by all means, amazon has some great deals too. I'd always recommend you look around before just committing to steam. Overall though, steam is a pretty good platform for seeing lower than the norm prices.

From: Psycho_Kenshin | #022
That counts as cloud storage? Well in that case gog.com has got ya covered as well. Gog.com everybody.
Yes. Gog, in fact, has you covered. And I use Gog.

But Gog is severely lacking in the other areas I listed, which is why I opt for Steam when possible.

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digital games are great (but most pc games are 'digital' anyway if you just pirate); steam specifically is not. extra client no thanks.
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Anyways, thanks for that info on the offline mode sharing thing, very cool! Now I'm playing Vampire offline while he plays Tribes, only downside being if I wanna turn it on while he's playing something would have to coordinate that or it'd boot him off, unless there's a way to start in offline mode. Still, very cool.

Rad Link 5 posted...

Yes. Gog, in fact, has you covered. And I use Gog.

But Gog is severely lacking in the other areas I listed, which is why I opt for Steam when possible.

The other areas you listed are cloud storage (uninstalled games they host which you can download), which is the same as steam, and the social thing. So the only downside is you can't talk to people via an ingame inlay while playing a gog game. For me that's not a biggie, plus i could have steam on anyway and just switch to it if that's what I'm using to chat.

Goggles 4 life

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it's obvious why people like Steam

-one program to buy and launch all your games
-sold at a reasonable price
-easiest way to install a bunch of games on a new computer. don't need to go find the installers or discs for all your games, just copy your Steam folder over.
-easy and universal friends list and community features
-DRM is mostly non-invasive compared to the alternatives

it's pretty telling that people buy things from the Humble Indie Bundle and then install it in Steam. DRM sucks but the benefits outweigh downsides in this case for most people.

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OmarsComin posted...

it's pretty telling that people buy things from the Humble Indie Bundle and then install it in Steam.

So it says people like having all their games in a list from one place I guess? I can dig that, but I'm fine with icons in a folder on my desktop, just as easy as clicking on steam. Different strokes different folks, but I don't want a steam-opoly.

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No. I mentioned the insanely low prices and automatic updates for games. Gog does get the prices pretty low, and sometimes even beats Steam, but for the most part (especially considering they're primarily a service to provide you with old games) you can't get AAA budget titles at the same kind of ridiculously low prices as on Steam.

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Well, I disagree on that pricing thing, since I don't feel I'm getting ridiculously good prices on steam. But hey. Especially since most of the games I'm into just don't happen to be on sale most of the time.

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This result is not surprising and doesn't go against what I said. If anything, 46% not minding digital distribution is a huge step forward.

And people love Steam (mostly) because of the sales. People like cheap stuff. I can swallow having to be online if I can buy a game for 2.50 Euros instead of the 25 it costs at the store.

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I think Steam kinda coasts on a low price reputation because of their sales, but I'm more about what the prices normally are. You know, I just feel like playing a game when I get the idea to play that game, and I'm not really into keeping up with checking on sales. And when I do, it's usually not for games I want and don't have.

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Well, I only buy Steam games during sales, so those are the Steam prices in my eyes. I imagine it's the same for many people.

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That does annoy me, ha, same with xbox live. Any time I feel like getting a game or DLC, I read that it was on sale for very cheap like a year or two ago.

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Well yeah... I guess my case is different because my backlog is huge and I don't just get an urge to play a game and then go buy it. I already have a ton of games and I choose among them. And, during sales, I just add to the pile. -_-

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I think DRM is just a necessity if you want any PC games at all at this point, and the best way to accomplish this is via some online client.

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There's an active push to make drm free games actually, so it isn't exactly a need yet. And I don't mean smaller but still notable places like gog, who I agree is better than steam, but from amazon.

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From: Metal_DK | #023

steam essentially is glorified DRM. The main reason why people dont complain about it, and even people like me (who hate almost all things about this gen of gaming) don't completely hate steam is because you do see lower prices on it.

The main reason is that it isn't DRM for the sake of DRM to make stockholders happy, like most other DRM systems. Every DRM system in Steam is implemented to either provide a service that wouldn't be possible without that, or to provide convenience for the customer.

That's why it can compete with 100% DRM-free products. You're not just getting a game with DRM slapped on it, you're getting a game with the extra features of Steam, some of which have copy-limiting side-effects.

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Amazon is becoming pretty awesome in the digital download market, though, yeah

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