I'm fairly uneducated when it comes to Steam, and have lately developed an interest in it. However, a few minutes of Google have come up with quite a few complaints about Steam. Things like, "Steam is spyware." and such. Are these rumors true? Or are these complaints the product of a disgruntled, ignorant customers? Thanks for any help.
Looks like a fruit cake to me. - Brutus
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Originally Posted by Q
I don't want to get my hopes up, but it's like the planets are aligning or something.
it's one of the least intrusive or annoying drm schemes out there, however I don't buy any games except Valve ones via steam because I like to have boxes/discs and while valve promises to release fixes for their games if they ever close steam, no other companies with games on it promise the same thing.
It's much better than when it was new, it rarely crashes anymore and I doubt it's anymore spyware than other drms. And surely less than WoW's Warden, starforce, or any of the other really nasty ones. There are voluntary stats collection every once in a while about what your PC has, so then Valve publishes the stats for everyone one to see. Basically stuff like the percentages of people with proc speed/cores, gfx card generation/mfg, total ram, total hdd, type of internet, etc.
I'm not a huge fan, but there still isn't too much bad things to say about it, so I'd say try it for Valve games at least and if you like it, try it for the other games they offer too.
If you play games on your PC, you're kind of a freak if you don't have Steam. While not having boxes may bother some (not me, 'eff putting DVDs in), there is really no reason not* to use Steam. Tons of games, great prices, no installs, seamless patching, community support, in-game chat, in-game web browser, achievements, etc.
*You're welcome ~IG-64
Kindle Reading List (163,457 Locations Completed) Finished: Aquariums of Pyongyang (2535), Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader (24,074), The Lone Samurai (4753), Nothing to Envy (5349), Shogun (26,263), Eating with the Enemy (9170), Fight Club (3218), River Town (7524), Don Quixote (21,430), The Party(6492), Bravo Two Zero (7340), Rogue Warrior (7602), Mao's Great Famine (11,059), His Dark Materials Omnibus (20,766), Moon Lander (5882)
I love Steam. I've never had a problem with it. The ability to pre-install games before they even come out, while arguably pointless, is still a nice feature when it lets you play new games instantly. I've also gotten some good gameplay out of achievements (nearly vital for Left 4 Dead). Probably the most useful feature though is the ability to just log in to a computer and install whatever game you want, without worrying about anything. I recently accidentally broke my install CD to Jedi Academy, and now I'm thinking about getting it on Steam for $10.
In fact, I don't really remember the last PC game I bought that wasn't on Steam; unless you count the Indie Bundle... which I wish was on Steam for the achievements.
The only consistent complaint I ever hear about Steam is that they have a monopoly on digital distribution methods, and whether that's true or not you won't hear me complaining about it.
While Steam does collect information about your system, it always asks you beforehand and Valve uses the information to further tailor their products to current hardware trends.
The only thing that ever once sucked about it was when I formatted and didnt backup any of the game files. So I had to download all my games again. Which is about 250gb. With a 95gb monthly "cap" in which I get charged if i go over.
I use Steam to buy cheap games. I don't buy AAA titles on Steam though, since I want discs. However, you might also be interested in Impulse, which only requires the client to be on / internet-connected when you're downloading the game. I have several games through Impulse, and frankly I'd rather have them through that than Steam.
I re-did my system a bit back, upgrading to a retail copy of Windows 7, and bringing over all my games was really easy. Just re-installed Steam and then copied over my old Steam apps folder, so I didn't even need to re-install or download. But I lost saves on a few games, not too big of a deal, though.
Kindle Reading List (163,457 Locations Completed) Finished: Aquariums of Pyongyang (2535), Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader (24,074), The Lone Samurai (4753), Nothing to Envy (5349), Shogun (26,263), Eating with the Enemy (9170), Fight Club (3218), River Town (7524), Don Quixote (21,430), The Party(6492), Bravo Two Zero (7340), Rogue Warrior (7602), Mao's Great Famine (11,059), His Dark Materials Omnibus (20,766), Moon Lander (5882)
I re-did my system a bit back, upgrading to a retail copy of Windows 7, and bringing over all my games was really easy. Just re-installed Steam and then copied over my old Steam apps folder, so I didn't even need to re-install or download. But I lost saves on a few games, not too big of a deal, though.
When I upgraded to Windows 7 all I lost was my progress on the silver and gold achievements for portal challenge maps since I had never actually finished those.. which I admit kind of pissed me off but que sera, sera.
Steam is fantastic. I don't remember the last time I've bought a videogame any other way.
And they have incredible deals every weekend, and they sell some great bundles. Black Friday on Steam is absolutely horrible because I want to purchase every deal they offer.
Calling Steam spyware is stupid.
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Originally Posted by Tyrion
MrWally eats fresh babies in order to maintain his unnatural level of talent.
Steam is probably the best thing to happen to PC gaming in 15 years. No lie.
This
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Originally Posted by TiE23
I re-did my system a bit back, upgrading to a retail copy of Windows 7, and bringing over all my games was really easy. Just re-installed Steam and then copied over my old Steam apps folder, so I didn't even need to re-install or download. But I lost saves on a few games, not too big of a deal, though.
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Originally Posted by IG-64
When I upgraded to Windows 7 all I lost was my progress on the silver and gold achievements for portal challenge maps since I had never actually finished those.. which I admit kind of pissed me off but que sera, sera.
When I upgraded, all I really had was the games from the Orange Box, and L4D, and pretty much everything saved over, except, like IG-64 said, my Portal Challenge Map achievements and the progress on some L4D achievements.
I like to advocate Impulse. It's DRM-free and lets you play games without having to run it in the background. This also means that you can run the same game at multiple places, at the same time.
I've decided to make all digital purchases off Impulse from now on, unless it requires Steam to run in the background (like Civilization 5 or Empire: Total War). The pricing tends to be the same or similar. Just got Company of Heroes: Gold for $14.99 off Impulse this Thanksgiving Break.
But Steam is alright. I abhor the lack of profiles for games and the lack of running a game in multiple places at the same time, however.
- PR-0927
- Former Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Star Wars: Battlefront II modder. Used to go by the name "Majin Revan."
I forgot my steam ID. Bleh, I'll just open a new one.
Not big for MMO, but yeah...I like computer games especially b/c of mods.
How could anyone NOT have steam and call themselves PC gamer material? Sure one can call it being a rebel, but 'a rebel' usually has sense, and a cause. The people in the 'PC gamer> non steam' bracket...tend to have neither, or have little interest in said area and are not game-r material to the core.
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Or they're spending most of their time whacking off to whatever--not that there's necessarily anything wrong with fappage. Buuuut I digress...
Just my opinion, it doesn't really jibe to be mostly a computer gamer and not be on steam. Just my two cents on the issue.
Love me, I win.
Hate me, I win.
Ignore me, I've got exactly what I wanted.
Love me or hate me, you're still thinking of me either way.
I only buy games on Steam that are either super-cheap and I know I won't find it anywhere else for that price or for games I just can't find anywhere. I'm still not too comfy with downloading huge-ass games but running Steam to play my games is not that much of a big deal.
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Originally Posted by PR-0927
I like to advocate Impulse. It's DRM-free and lets you play games without having to run it in the background. This also means that you can run the same game at multiple places, at the same time.
I like to advocate Impulse. It's DRM-free and lets you play games without having to run it in the background. This also means that you can run the same game at multiple places, at the same time.
Nope, just like Steam, the game installs itself to your computer, but not in any obnoxious Steam folder - it the folders that would have been created if you had the disc.
- PR-0927
- Former Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Star Wars: Battlefront II modder. Used to go by the name "Majin Revan."
Nope, just like Steam, the game installs itself to your computer, but not in any obnoxious Steam folder - it the folders that would have been created if you had the disc.
Can you play it without an internet connection? What must you do to play it on another computer?
Can you play it without an internet connection? What must you do to play it on another computer?
No Internet connection needed, and Impulse does not have to be running. You just install the Impulse client on any PC you want the game on, and download and install it. Only DRM you'll encounter is anything already in the game from the developers (like the nonsense 3-installs-limit for a very small handful of games). Stardock (the company behind Impulse and the brilliant game Sins of a Solar Empire) doesn't believe in DRM usage, at least in the contemporary sense - you can't get game patches for games published by Stardock from anything other than Impulse, but that's the only thing.
- PR-0927
- Former Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Star Wars: Battlefront II modder. Used to go by the name "Majin Revan."
No Internet connection needed, and Impulse does not have to be running. You just install the Impulse client on any PC you want the game on, and download and install it.
So, you can install the client, download the game, and then uninstall Impulse and still play the game? What about playing it on other computers?
So, you can install the client, download the game, and then uninstall Impulse and still play the game? What about playing it on other computers?
Exactly. And unless the game has some in-game check on running it on multiple computers at the same time (like BFBC2, which will boot off one player from being logged into the game if it's running in two places and logged in with the same account - this kind of thing pretty much happens only in games with log-in features), you can run it for LAN or whatever. My roommate, brother, and some friends all like to LAN up Sins of a Solar Empire. Impulse doesn't even need to run.
Only disadvantage is that you need Impulse for patches for all games published by Stardock, but that's not too much of a problem. And the games store is smaller than Steam's, but it's pretty decent nonetheless.
- PR-0927
- Former Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Star Wars: Battlefront II modder. Used to go by the name "Majin Revan."
I got a few things... but just today I bought the star wars collection and the id super pack... XD yay... trying to decide if I want to get the 2k collection or just get borderlands goty...
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