Steam!

[directhex]

So.

It's been a good four years since the Steam open beta first appeared, and people started to get to grips with what would happen to their old WON-based Valve games.

Four years where people have had to learn about deleting ClientRegistry.blob, about updates the night before a LAN party, or TicketID errors.

Four years ago, I was hailing Steam as a shining white hope for PC gaming, offering a low-price distribution point for independent and episodic games.

After 4 years, how do you feel about Steam? Still hate it with a passion (as a lot of forum members did), willing to put up with it, or actively enjoying using it? Miss WON and Half-Life Patch Day? How's Steam v36/336 for YOU?

[Pup]

Generally I like it, and think it's made the patch process a hell of a lot easier.. plus updates are more regular. Patchdays back then were a complete nightmare, with download servers being cained for a few days solid. The friends system is finally sorted out, and works fairly well, and the new community beta looks quite nice.

Steam and the offline mode was a pain for me to start with though. After a cs match, I could spend 20-30 mins the next day at work watching a replay, to look for cheats or just tactics etc, but could no longer do that without the firewall access to enable the game for offline mode. Having not played a match or admined for years tho, it's not really a problem for me anymore.

Generally I have only bought the valve games from it though, apart from Defcon and Geo Wars. I'm not overly happy about the fact that for retail they are only releasing The Orange Box, which means you get HL2 and HL2:ep1 again, even if you can hand them out to someone else. Meaning that if I just want to buy HL2:ep2, portal and tf2 then I had to buy it through steam. The reason I bought retail for HL2 and ep1 in the past was essentially down to retailer competition, I found that I could buy it cheaper from play than via steam. Making some stuff only available via steam (especially a big release such as this) is probably a bad thing for consumers.

[dangel]

Never really had an issue with it - it just works for me I don't think it's meant quite as low prices as we all thought though.

[JimNastics]

I quite like Steam to be honest, apart from the fact that it sucks on Vista x64 but hopefully they'll get to grips with that. One of the best aspects is how it gives developers another avenue to get their work out there. For example Psychonauts, one of the greatest yet criminally overlooked games of recent years, found a whole new audience through Steam for the bargain price of £9.99.

[kalniel]

It's nice, but it seems to be keeping prices higher rather than lower - games that physical retailers sell off cheap to clear stock remain at full price most of the time on Steam.

[kidzer]

I've never really had any problems with steam, and I quite like the method for content distribution aswell.

And, it seems to always give decent download speeds for me.

Although, occasionally the software will go a bit 'funny', and be unresponsive for a few seconds, although that might be a Vista/Steam issue.

Overall, I'd give it 8 out of 10 for the idea/implementation,

[Lee H]

It's okay - but I have had issues with the 'offline' sessions working occasionally, the last one being when I had no net access and as such could not play the games I have. I too have had the unresponsive boxes, but if you leave them for a while they start to work again.

[s_kinton]

Never really had any problems with. The updates after an initial install can be a pain though.

By the time they'd got round to fixing all the problems I'd finished the original HL2 game and haven't installed it since I finished EP1 - a long time ago.

I tried CS-Source a while ago, but absolutely hate it. In comparison to the likes of BF2 its awful imo.

[Flibb]

Have been using steam since release, cant believe its four years. Only had one problem with it in that time, that was solved with a visit to the forums. Most of the games I have purchased have been developed from mods (RO, DoD-S), am glad that some of crew that developed the mods managed to get some kind of job out of it. I have been extremly suprised at the the range of games comming out on steam lately, its not just valve using it now.

[Veles]

I love steam personally, but I don't like what was mentioned above, the prices of games rarely drop

[jackvdbuk]

I love steam personally, but I don't like what was mentioned above, the prices of games rarely drop

yeah and the fact that shops sometimes sell games cheaper stops the benifit of not having to buy from a shop and get it instantly, steam is supposed to save the companies money right? no production costs to produce a shiny new dvd case and manual etc...

[Veles]

Well, on a brand new game it's usually cheaper since we get to pay the RRP American rate instead of UK RRP - £5, which usually works out cheaper. But now that a lot more game companies are selling their stuff on steam, I'm hoping you'll be able to register new non-Valve games on steam.

[XA04]

Put it this way.. it's got a lot easier than it used to be.. when I wanted to patch CS originally.. I had to phone my brother up, get him to download it from his works fast internet connection, burn it to cd, send it off in the post for me.. then wait a few days.. now it takes a few clicks and a few minutes worth of waiting max really..

I like steam, there's not that much to hate about it really.

[2Cold Scorpio]

I haven't used Steam yet (my system is so outdated it fails to be funny...thats changing soon...). 4 years ago, I detested the idea, but now I think I like what I see. Only time will tell though.

I'm looking at picking up Doom 3 on Steam when I get my new system, but heard something to the extent that the retail version is better for some reason. Anyone know anything about this?

[danroyle]

i am overall happy with steam even if the vista performance is not brilliant was a nightmare first off getting half life 2 and having to download the patch on dial up and then get it to work in offline mode

but these days its getting better and the catalogue of games seems to get bigger everytime i logon

[Pup]

yeah and the fact that shops sometimes sell games cheaper stops the benifit of not having to buy from a shop and get it instantly, steam is supposed to save the companies money right? no production costs to produce a shiny new dvd case and manual etc...

aye, take a look at Bioshock. That's just been announced on Steam at $54.95 + vat, which if I payed by my credit card would work out to be a bit over £33. You can get the tin box edition on amazon for £25