Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?
Deozaan:
Yay! Thanks wraith! :D
iphigenie:
* I cannot run steam on two machines at once. Even though I have 100 games on Steam. Connecting on one immediately closes the other. I cannot download on one machine while playing on another, even though this is a common scenario since Steam forces all games on the same 1 partition and most of us have non infinite partitions...
-iphigenie (August 29, 2011, 03:49 PM)
--- End quote ---
An annoyance that I run across to be sure. But how is this so different than when we had physical media? And how is this assuming you are a criminal?
-wraith808 (August 29, 2011, 04:38 PM)
--- End quote ---
Well I have 100+ games in Steam, so I might be downloading for one of them, playing on another. Why is this not possible? Because Steam assumes that 2 computers = piracy
With physical media I of course could be running 10 different games on 10 different machines if it so struck me. I also could be playing Game 22 on my PC while my husband plays game 47 on his PC and perhaps a friend visiting or a nephew could be having a go at Plants versus Zombies. With Steam doing that could result in account suppression and losing all the games! I should buy an additional copy of the game for my nephew before he can play it - or make my nephew register (he's probably too young...) and send him a guest pass (if the game allows)
I have no problems with the requirement that I cannot play the same game on 2 computers in two locations at the same time, especially in multiplayer/online play. My husband and I routinely bought 2 copies of any game that clicked with both of us, even if the game didn't enforce it (Call it "doing our bit so the developer has a chance to do more great stuff". Doesn't work, though, publishers are stupid.)
But I should be able to play two different games in 2 different locations while logged in. Especially when I have bought 100. And especially when the games cost more than the retail version.
Heck, just launching raptr forgetting I have steam chat enabled can shut down the 12Gb download running on my home computer. How annoying!
I can't really comment, other than to say that the statement should be that it doesn't work reliably for you. I use it quite a bit on my netbook and on my other computer previously mentioned. Both of them stay in offline mode, and both of them have never had a problem with playing any game in offline mode- including MMOs.
-wraith808 (August 29, 2011, 04:38 PM)
--- End quote ---
Glad to know it does work - I will keep trying. The same things that causes the validation email reoccurrence must wipe whatever file Steam checks when starting a game or steam in offline mode - but since Steam won't say what files I need to protect, I cannot do much about it
The other one that &%รง me is that I can run steam shortly before I leave work, just to make sure all is ok, go offline. Then at the hotel I try to start a game and get "steam detected that there is a client update available, you must update before you can play". Of course by then I am offline... That's just mean :'(
If I let my husband play one of my 100 games, I am a steam-criminal. I am supposed to buy a separate copy of each game... Sorry Steam but the natural unit of a game played is the household. Now we have always bought two copies of games we both wanted to play a lot, or play online. (we have 2 copies of all Half Life games, Portal, Portal 2, Dungeon Keeper, Kohan, Din's Curse, Defense Grid etc. etc.) but there are many games which we might just dabble in and it should be possible to NOT have to buy two copies...
-iphigenie (August 29, 2011, 03:49 PM)
--- End quote ---
Not a Steam criminal- it just doesn't work in the way that we'd ideally like it to work. But it's understandable when compared against the limitations of physical media that it would be this way. I don't like it- but I don't see where the assuming I am a criminal comes in. Their business model is not as I would like it (and this is the reason that they have a lot of games that GoG doesn't), but it is what it is.
At the end of the day GoG has chosen to limit their catalog by sticking to their guns on DRM, and I do appreciate it, especially for the unique offerings in its catalog. But I also like the convenience of downloading and firing up Deus Ex on launch day, and not having to use media for it, so Steam offers me something other than the assumption that I'm a criminal, IMO.
-wraith808 (August 29, 2011, 04:38 PM)
--- End quote ---
There's not just gog though. There's Impulse and Gamersgate and D2D and greenmangaming and the eurogamer store and many others. GG and Impulse are able to sell most of the games Steam sells without forcing this limit on the client (well Impulse is changing and focusing on North America only, so it leaves Gamersgate). In many cases they have the games before Steam does, especially many of the indie and smaller titles.
As for physical media, very clearly my husband could play Deus Ex while I play Section 8 Prejudice - and we could swap later - without buying two copies. Only if we like the game enough that we want to play it at the same time or both online do we need to buy two copies..
Don't get me wrong, I love digital distribution, I just think that Steam has some short sighted "single user" ideas that aren't adapted to the reality of gaming, and that makes a game on Steam less valuable than a physical game or a game in another download service. I'll explore in another reply what would make sense :)
iphigenie:
Sorry Steam but the natural unit of a game played is the household. Now we have always bought two copies of games we both wanted to play a lot, or play online. (we have 2 copies of all Half Life games, Portal, Portal 2, Dungeon Keeper, Kohan, Din's Curse, Defense Grid etc. etc.) but there are many games which we might just dabble in and it should be possible to NOT have to buy two copies...
-iphigenie (August 29, 2011, 03:49 PM)
--- End quote ---
I love this quote as there are so many truths to it in just 2 sentences.
Unfortunately, Steam, and many companies like them, still seem to believe that the only gamers in a household are the 12-25 year old males. Couple that with only 2.4 kids/household (in the US) and that makes 1 or less in that market per household on average. And we ALL know that the US is representative of the world market, right?
-steeladept (August 29, 2011, 04:22 PM)
--- End quote ---
It is incredibly short sighted and what is annoying is that Steam is announcing that it is looking into trade-ins (another teen focused feature) before it is looking into couple/household sharing or the issues people with large number of games face.
The average gamer age is above 25 (that is the average!) and the gender balance is about 45/55 many places. It is not uncommon to see couples in their 20s or 30s where both play games, and families with 2 or 3 generations of gamers...
The focus on teens is not uncommon in the US since they have high disposable income, and it might work for the movie theatre industry because teens need to hang out the way other ages don't. I think it hurts the games industry - and it is sad that so many games websites (and steam) focus on an adolescent image of gaming
Let's look into "perfect steam":
- allows me to designate people as "in my household" so they can play my games but under their user name (for achievements and chat while they play)
- totally happy to have to jump through some hoops for this, at the point of account "tie-in" and approving computers who can be used
- also ok to have some sort of limit above which one must explain via support that indeed one has an 8 people household..
- games have to be installed while logged in on owner's account, but can then be played by a tied-in user
- doesnt allow the same game to be played in multiple locations at the same time unless we have two licenses for the game. but instead of disconnecting the person already playing, it might prompt the person trying to play that they might want to buy another license
- can give a person guest access to games on a designated registered computer
- allows for children accounts with some form of parental safety
This would then mean you can have a game shared in a household the way a physical/console game might be, without losing the advantage of the steam social graph.
And on another note, further features of "perfect steam":
- allows installing on multiple partition
- tells us where the saved games/user settings are on each game so we can back them up (or, better yet, comes with a built in backup option for the saved games and configs. the normal backup does not back these up, just the game files)
- allows us to show/mark which games we already own. I don't mean that we then can download them in Steam, but just that our friends know we have them and don't gift them again to us...
wraith808:
Well I have 100+ games in Steam, so I might be downloading for one of them, playing on another. Why is this not possible?
-iphigenie (August 30, 2011, 03:57 AM)
--- End quote ---
It is. If one is in offline mode and you're playing, and the other is connected and you're downloading, doesn't that solve the problem? I do it all the time. Like I said, one of my gaming machines is never connected; however, I do play on it. In a lot of cases, it's because my other machine is downloading something, and I don't want to play on it while it's downloading. And truthfully, I prefer the steam way of doing things (i.e. consolidation) even if it doesn't lend itself to playing multiple copies. That's why I buy from them whenever possible, because I don't have multiple packages/launchers like GG or D2D. And it does seem that on quite a few games, when compared to these other services, the DRM that's on the individual packages on GG/D2D isn't present on Steam.
Again, I'm not saying that some of the features that you ask for might not be nice to have. But I do like a lot about how they are doing things now, including:
* how everything is consolidated under one platform
* the fact that having its own DRM system makes many that would include other DRM change their mind
* the fact that there is even an offline mode that makes working around some of the limitations easier
* the fact that they've even added the social media features. no other platform has them integrated to the degree that steam does
Are there things that can be improved? Yes. But to ignore the advantages given thus far, especially as its evolving undercut the efforts that have been made, that I for one appreciate.
wraith808:
GG and Impulse are able to sell most of the games Steam sells without forcing this limit on the client (well Impulse is changing and focusing on North America only, so it leaves Gamersgate). In many cases they have the games before Steam does, especially many of the indie and smaller titles.
-iphigenie (August 30, 2011, 03:57 AM)
--- End quote ---
I just had the strangest experience with GG... though I like it, I suspect you won't. I bought Darksiders on sale for $4.99 from GG. Then I downloaded their installer, and it downloaded all 13.1 GB of the installer, and started it up. I ran the installer, and was a bit perturbed when it didn't ask me where. But then at the end, I realized why. Steam started, and asked me for my activation code. I entered it, then steam took over, and installed Darksiders into Steam from the files that GG had downloaded.
Giga-what?
I did a double take at that... and I wonder what that means... but it's truly installed in my Steam account.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version