Why Steam is the CHIT

[fuzzykiss]

Steam is unlike anything else. I love the idea of forever games...no c.d.'s..no serial numbers to file away..thats it dude..you own it..forever. plus not ever having to load a c.d. is fking awesome..from arkham city to everquest 2..steam covers my needs. the only hard copies of games that i'll ever own in the future would be the collector editions..just for the extra swag. just mho.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Sadly, there's a lot of games that use the Steam platform and input their own DRM system on top of Steam's DRM. i.e. TDU 2. The idea of owning a game forever is long gone my friend. Although unlikely, if Steam went bankrupt, you would lose all your games.

No matter what platform you're on (Steam, discs, digital downloads, etc.), with Cloud computing and DRM merging together, there isn't much you can OWN forever.

 

[AntiZig]

lets just say, nothing is forever

 

[Gothams Finest]

Steam is unlike anything else. I love the idea of forever games...no c.d.'s..no serial numbers to file away..thats it dude..you own it..forever.

Sadly, this is not true. Steam will not last forever, and neither will our steam games...

 

[fuzzykiss]

close enough to forever..at least the foreseeable future

 

[iGGY-101]

I dont see steam going anywhere any time soon in future years? maybe it will get even bigger? but true it wont last FOREVER.

 

[skaz]

That was a quick poll.

I honestly still have all my cd/dvd games and not one of them is useless.

 

[SRRAE]

I personally think digital downloads are going to ruin PC gaming in the end for the following reasons.

Games pulled because of licence disputes
We have already seen this on Steam and its only going to get worse.

Historical games being pulled because of their age -
In future years I doubt they will keep older games available for re-download.

The minimal spec of steam will surpass some older games -
At some point steam will will have a min spec of Windows 8,9 or 10 for example for the client to run which may not be compatible with older games made for Windows XP, 7 etc.

Multiple clients needed -
With each of the large publisher wanting to keep tight control of their own games it wont be long until we have to install a number of different clients to play our games.

Phisical discs are still cheaper.
Here in the UK, Skyrim is £34.99 from Steam. Good old fasioned disc I have found for £26.99.


I also like dusting off an old game and playing it for a few hours. Many times I have to run a virtual machine or dos box but its possible.

 

[Gothams Finest]

I agree. Evan though I enjoy steam for its convenience and sales, you just can't beat physical copys. Steam is the only digital download service I will use, I refuse to download music and films as I love to own physical copys.

PC games I make an exception for because of the steam sales, steam is very convenient (auto patching, chat to friends, games all in one place) etc, and hard copys of PC games are not worth much anyway.

I did buy a physical copy of Skyrim however, for the same reason as it was cheaper to buy in store than on Steam in the UK, It also requires steam so it was a win win, I'm tempted to buy more physical copys of games now, but only ones that can be used on steam.

 

[fuzzykiss]

I agree. Evan though I enjoy steam for its convenience and sales, you just can't beat physical copys. Steam is the only digital download service I will use, I refuse to download music and films as I love to own physical copys.

PC games I make an exception for because of the steam sales, steam is very convenient (auto patching, chat to friends, games all in one place) etc, and hard copys of PC games are not worth much anyway.

I did buy a physical copy of Skyrim however, for the same reason as it was cheaper to buy in store than on Steam in the UK, It also requires steam so it was a win win, I'm tempted to buy more physical copys of games now, but only ones that can be used on steam.

interesting..steam supported games as disc..i like that..
p.s. i tried to re-add you on steam..says you are ignoring me...huh?

 

[Gothams Finest]

I haven't got any invites....
Whats your steam name?

 

[fuzzykiss]

I haven't got any invites....
Whats your steam name?

the floydian slip

 

[HippyMitch]

You Got it right. Steam sucs.
When STEAM is no longer providing support for an older game what are you going to do about it.
The management of Actavision for one have made it clear they are in it for the money, when they are selling the next product there is no point in having you happy playing the older product.
I loved ZORK NEMESIS - if it had been on STEAM I wouldent (couldent) be revisiting the old stompong ground with DOSBOX.

 

[iGGY-101]

With future windows versions and support for current today games... Windows is developing in a more smart way than before, instead of ditching the old architecture and writing a new one that does not support the old architecture is a thing of the past. Every windows is backwards compatible and has support for previous versions, every version supports compatibility of older versions and I am sure the future windows versions will continue to keep the architecture and not just leave the old one behind (& all of the software written for it) with out any support.

 

[cpc143]

Steam sux. Period. Today is a good example. I bought Portal 2 from Amazon ($16.99) and started installing at 3:45 PST. It, of course forces Steam's involvement. It is now (5:45) finally patching and still has 1.5 hours to go. That's 3.5 hours just to install. Without Steam, it would take 15-30 mins. I'm an old gamer. Over 30 years. I'm a solo player. I want nothing to do with the foul-mouthed teens with 4x my reflexes playing online. I friggin' hate these 3rd party DRM servers. I could care less about "social media". Steam and others like it (Origin Uplay, etc.) are ruining one of the few things left that I can enjoy at 67 years old. The fact is, the developers & publishers don't care a fig about their customers anymore, unfortunately like most corporations these days.

Love Tom's site. Keep up all the good tech work boys!

Chris

 

[fuzzykiss]

this was from 2014, it's now 2020, I still own ALL the games on steam I did then plus many more, say what you like steam basically is forever.