Opinion of Valve's Steam

[Parm]

I personally think Steam is great. Although, I may be one of few who has never had technical problems with it.

I think it's a great idea, and well executed for a first attempt at such a thing for such a big customer base. I really look forward to other things following suit.
I woke up the other day to find Lost Coast had been released, loaded up Steam, went and had a shower, came back and hey presto, Lost Coast ready to go.

A lot of people talk about Blue Ray and HD discs, and I for one am not particularly concerned about either. I don't think storage media is the thing of the future, I think streaming is.

I'm hoping in a few years time we'll all have 20mb+ broadband connections, and when new games are released, they'll be released simultaneously throughout the world for all to purchase online and download at the click of a button.
Unlike Call of Duty 2 for example, I run an online clan who are eagerly awaiting Call of Duty 2, our American counterparts have had the game for the best part of a week, and it's a few days away from our shelves yet.
How we wish it was available on Steam.

It doesn't just end with PC games either.
I'm hoping in a few years time we'll be able to upgrade our X360 hard drives and then download our games after buying on Xbox Live. If that could happen, there would be no need for a HD DVD drive.

DVD's in the future? Stop those trips to Blockbuster, have it streamed to your screen.


I think getting products to customers via the web is the way forward, and Steam is one big step for Valve, one giant leap for mankind. (How cliched is that lol!)

[unreal]

RE:Spud1
- It isn't as ultra irritating as StarForce (no where near)
Yes it is, and with starForce there are legal ways around it (albeit annoying) but you don;t neccessarily need to install starforce to play a game..
Well the two starforce games I have played/owned were really crud (Trackmania: Sunrise and SC: Chaos Theory). They demand to be installed before the game, then they demand to restart the computer (even the King Kong demo done this). And then the CD check is really strict when it comes to reading the disc, as it is fussy about scratches and it is such a system hog when it does CD checking that sometimes my Skype calls cut out etc.

- you don't need CD's to play the game every single time
True but then thats why no-cd patches exist and are legal
But No-CD cracks are technically legal, they are a taboo everywhere, and I wouldn't be suprised if Hexus disallowed discussion about it. And you have to go out of your way to find one, first see if someone has cracked it, and then some other games can't be cracked (B&W 2 springs to mind, that could have changed now but putting the DVD in requires far less effort, which is a bit poor).

- Valves fast servers make small and large updates (including whole games) really quick and easy
erm fast servers? what planet are you on. Have you forgotton how much of a pain getting HL2 was? With steam constantly trying the same blatently full content server for hours before deciding to move to one of the many empty ones...
Remember I said "I have never had a problem with Steam myself"? Well although I know of the famous problems at HL2 release, I have never ever had a problem. And I love the way I can download anything. I have practically every game on my list except for Rag Doll kung fu, DOD:S and Half Life: Source. I can download Half life 2 DM, and all the updates for CSS and HL2 at the maximum speed of my 2mb connection without the need to hunt sites like Gamers Hell or filefront for a free server. And even then, both of those sites rarely max out my speed. I love the way I can just double click on the game, and a new update is downloaded in 2 minutes that I didn't even have to be aware of its release.


- More money to Valve which means at the moment more customer rewards (well thats debateable, but they are certainly being quite kind with things)
Can't argue with getting more cash to valve, thats a good thing.
lol I don't really know if thats a sarcastic comment, but Steam or not every developer makes money from us buying games of them right?

- No need to keep entering CD Codes
Don't get this point? You only have to enter a CD code once anyway, and with some steam games you still need to use your CDkey...
I only entered two CD Keys ever... my Half Life 2 key, and Half Life 1. Now I have easy immediate access to all the mods and other free games, and I never ever have to put the CD key in ever again. One time when I was having trouble with my computer, I think I installed BF2 about 7 times in total in the day, and it was even more annoying after the repeated key entering that it wanted to restart too. What Steam game needs my CD key still?!

- Less piracy, and cheaper games online (via download)
No and No, Piracy with steam remains the same as without steam, and the games are not really much cheaper if you buy them from play or similar sites...
As far as I understand it's a massive effort to pirate steam based games, as well as the updates that are frequently required. I find that Valve games are supremely cheap, and its phycologically far easier to purchase a game via Valve for $18 or $9 whatever they are since its immediate download after you purchase, AND its forever registered to your account, AND you don't have that phycological barrier of paying for packaging and waiting for it to come through the door. Online purchases elsewhere are also cheap though, I give you that

Like Lee @ Scan, I would still like it though if Friends worked, its got good potential, although I use xfire for all my games it would be nice to rematch people I meet in games, etc.

[G4Z]

Well, I dont think steam is perfect but it is the future, I bought DoD source and rag doll kung fu from it, why? because it was easy, I didnt have to get off my arse and go to a shop or wait for delivery. The cost was pretty low so it was an impulse buy. (both games are great though. )

I have found steam to be getting more and more reliable these days and I think it really is the future for distribution.

[Mutley]

I would say on balance the comments reflect negative sentiment toward Steam, but the poll shows a postive response (narrowly).
As I said before, the poll doesn't really work, cos I didn't think it out very well!

Any one wanna suggest a more constructive/objective poll around this thread discussion?

Mut.

[Spud1]

RE: unreal

*tries to reply within the hexus rules*

the starforce thing - there are ways around it as I said, but i am not sure about the legalities of discussing it here so I won't.

The CD thing..it's not hard in the slightest to get hold of them. Either use one of 2 well known websites that have 99% of patches or ask google Ok so it may take a few days for someone to crack a certain game but apart from the 3 protections I have mentioned (starforce 3.5+, tages and a 3rd one i still cant remember) no-cd patches are possible..

You were lucky with your no-problems with downloading patches etc, but fair enough if you dont have a problem

I was being genuine about the valve getting more money thing, i think they deserve it

CDKeys...agree to disagree on this one, i dont see it as an issue

Piracy/costs - i still disagree about prices for current games, maybe for the back catalogue yes but then you can get them on ebay for 2/3 quid each anyway. Piracy wise well I havent personally ever tried the cracked version of steam but from what I have read it doesnt seem any more difficult to use than normal steam..prbably better infact as it can't auto-update

So we're probably best to just agree to disagree here i think, don't want a flame war over it but steam sux

[FrontSideBus]

Steam is cool. Do you want to know why? It allows the developers to ptach the game as and when bugs are found. How many steam & HL2 updates has there been so far? LOADS!!

How many patches for other games? 1 or 2 if your lucky.....

Steam

[Agent]

Steam is cool. Do you want to know why? It allows the developers to ptach the game as and when bugs are found. How many steam & HL2 updates has there been so far? LOADS!!

How many patches for other games? 1 or 2 if your lucky.....

Steam

Or perhaps its because of the lack of quality control of Steam and HL2 when they were released ? There were some seriously major bugs in both of them.

[Mutley]

I would have to question the quality control procedures the Valve employ for testing and delivering patches. Yeah, sure, they've been able to deliver many patches. But many of those patches have been to fix problems introduced in previous patches.

This happened alot when HL2 came out. They really buggered steam royally a couple of times, and HL2, trying to respond too hurriedly. This is another area that having a publisher is a benefit. They have the resources to fully regression-test patches before they go out. This is, I would suggest, why for off-the-shelf games, you don't see dozens of patches.

[zulander]

Steam is god awful, slow buggey and causes more problems than it solves

[dkmech]

Steam is cool. Do you want to know why? It allows the developers to ptach the game as and when bugs are found. How many steam & HL2 updates has there been so far? LOADS!!

How many patches for other games? 1 or 2 if your lucky.....

Steam

World of Warcraft does not run on steam. Receives regular updates and fixes. When you log on it tells you there is an update and gives you a download now button to press. You click it and it downloads a patch downloader that has p2p capabilities for extra oomph. It downloads the patch and applies it and restarts the game. Patched and ready to play. Steam is not necessary for that. At all.


We can argue that steam gives money to developers rather than publishers, and that is good. But HL2 cost the same on steam as it did in retail, so games didn't really get any cheaper.
Yes, things like dod and rag-doll kung fu are cheap, and in those cases when retailing those games the costs of media and packaging would make up a considerable portion of the cost. But they are cheap for a reason. Nice though DoD is - i would never pay £30 for a game with 4 maps. Which only looks better than the original and has a bit of physics frown in. I wasn't sure whether it was worth $20 either.

It is possible to distribute games online without steam. It has been done before And whats happening now is that Valve is becoming a publisher, as i am sure they take a cut of the sales. But i am not sure if valve puts money up front to make the game, as publishers do. So it makes more money for developers, if Valve is the developer, but not necessarilly for independent developers. And you still need publishers to fund new studios that have no money but a lot of new ideas.

[Spud1]

You can't really compare with wow I dont think, and it is a bad example anyway as its P2Pness is just a bad bad bad idea, would be happier if they used a steam type system (that worked though )

[Mutley]

I love DOD, and DOD:S as well. However, I wouldn't pay $20 for something that was originally a free MOD. Of course, there will be more maps along for DOD:S....apparently.

I don't think the point of steam was to make games cheaper, but to being more revenue directly to Valve rather than the publisher. I read somewhere that for a typical $50 (£30) game, the publisher would take most of that, and the developer would get something like $7. Now thats pretty bad, so you can see with Steam, Valve gets the whole $50 less the cost of steam per game.

But then, this goes back to my previous argument. Publishers take a good deal of the money, because they actually do a lot.

[dkmech]

It is a way to deliver updates automatically and it works. The fact that they haven't provided a sufficient amount of servers and rely on p2p is not related to the concept used. They could theoretically supply more servers and p2p does make it run a bit better i think.

[dkmech]

I love DOD, and DOD:S as well. However, I wouldn't pay $20 for something that was originally a free MOD. Of course, there will be more maps along for DOD:S....apparently.

I don't think the point of steam was to make games cheaper, but to being more revenue directly to Valve rather than the publisher. I read somewhere that for a typical $50 (£30) game, the publisher would take most of that, and the developer would get something like $7. Now thats pretty bad, so you can see with Steam, Valve gets the whole $50 less the cost of steam per game.

But then, this goes back to my previous argument. Publishers take a good deal of the money, because they actually do a lot.

Yeah, steam turns Valve into a publisher. It helps Valve with their future projects and it helps small developers who can make their game on their own without funding. If you need early funding however steam is no help.
Publishers don't just do a lot - they invest money into the game and they are the ones risking this money.

[directhex]

they are the ones risking this money.

how much risk to they actually make these days though? how many risky titles does EA publish?

[dkmech]

True to an extent.

If publishers gave money to anyone who asked for it - we would have a lot more rubbish games around. Yes we would have more risky innovative games too, but a lot of those would be rubbish. How many good innovative games would there be? We will never know.

The reason EA doesn't make risky games is because we don't buy them. And because they don't have to.