Anyone else think Steam prices are just way too high?

DDL on 20/8/2009 at 22:34

Quote Posted by Renzatic

I like to think that what I buy now will be playable 10 years from now. Like Unreal. I bought it back in 98, and I can still play it without a hitch 11 years later. Can I do that with Bionic Commando Rearmed? Trine? Half-Life 2? Will they keep the verification servers up that long? Will they release a patch so the paying customers can play it without said verification? I have no idea, and I am a bit doubtful most publishers will go through the effort to ensure I can.

A lot of the steam titles are happily playable offline, so you can just ..not connect to steam and they'll still play as good as ever. Still, nothing quite beats a nice CD/DVD, I admit.

Zygoptera on 21/8/2009 at 00:57

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

Until I see a reason it's just frothing.

(1) No control over something you've bought. "Ownership" can be revoked at any time for any reason. Not something which can be done with a physical copy.
(2) "Trojan" behaviour- sends data back to the mothership above and beyond what is required for any DRM purposes. What data? Who knows, they won't tell you. There's no choice but to put up with that from Microsoft but to play games?
(3) Need an internet connection, which is a pain if your one is erratic, slow etc. And of course you can end up with a horrendous usage bill if you're on a capped plan. But wait! there's always offline mode...
(4) Which doesn't work (by design), spontaneously reverting to online mode at the drop of a hat, and which you need to be online to activate.
(5) Then of course there's forced downloads for patches. Super? Sure is if you suddenly find your save games invalidated by an update. You can turn them off, of course, but that works as well as point (4)
(6) And of course the farce of things like your nice shiny new copy of Empire: TW deciding that its DVD isn't enough and it has to download the whole fucking 12GB from Steam, absolutely awesome if you're on a capped internet plan.
(7) Steam outages. Infrequent, sure, but there's nothing like deciding to fire up a game for a quick blast and finding that you can't because Steam's offline.
(8) The possibility of a shutdown. Unlikely, certainly, unless someone who wants to fuck up PC gaming happens to buy Valve (Hint: I'm referring to Microsoft here, you know, the people who've been trying to buy Valve for years) Of course, if that happens the games will be unlocked...
(9)...not. That would be illegal as their gated access would be considered an asset of the purchaser.
(10) The Steam client sits in your system tray using memory and stealing cycles, though this is a relatively minor concern unless your computer is geriatric.

There's probably more but I've already wasted more time than your question deserved.

Quote:

If you can't answer why Steam DRM is an issue you aren't helping and I suggest you shut up and wait for someone with an opinion on the matter to show up.

Seriously, you're comparing people who don't like Steam with people who want to string black people up from lamp posts because of their skin colour and expect to get a cogent answer rather than a "fuck off and get some perspective you gibbering cretin"?

Yeah so you did get one eventually, but that's because I'm basically a pleasant fellow who exists to enlighten my fellow man.

DaBeast on 21/8/2009 at 02:26

I bought the Fallout collection pack for cheap off play.com (maybe £5), now its up on steam for near £20. And they have the cheek to make out like they're doing us a favour by knocking a few quid off when buying all three games.

I hate bandwagoning, but this kind of sucks.

Quote Posted by Zygoptera

List-O-Stuff

Thats a nice list and does point out rather alot of stuff. But I doubt that will be enough for SubJeff. Not until you can show the DRM forcing itself on your youngest daughter.

Phatose on 21/8/2009 at 03:53

If Microsoft was really willing to sacrifice PC gaming completely for the x-box, they'd just keep direct X development limited to the level of their current consoles.

At any rate, DRM sucks, yeah. Especially when it doesn't work. But I figure DRM at least gives the publishers hope, enough to keep them publishing on the PC instead of acknowledging the reality that PC 'gamers' are mostly pirates, so they keep making games.

DaBeast on 21/8/2009 at 04:26

Quote Posted by Phatose

Microsoft and the rest either don't know or don't care that more piracy occurs on the xbox than pc. (probably debatable and I don't have figures to back that up). But game leaks seem to happen much more often on 360 than at least any other console platform. Just the other day Wolfenstien was leaked on 360, shortly before the pc version. Also, all I here these days about the xbox is that everyone I know IRL who has one, has it chiped and hasn't paid more than £3 for a game in ages, if ever. And thats only the ones who are too dumb to download thier own pirated copy.

You'd think Microsoft etc would do more to stop it but no, they keep ramping up the pc DRM and are only to happy to blame a drop in profits on the PC market.

(I'm aware this reads not so well but its 5:25am and I'm tired. I might tidy it up later.)

Edit: I forget why I quoted you Phatose, I'll figure it out after I hibernate for a while :P

Zygoptera on 21/8/2009 at 04:58

Quote Posted by Phatose

If Microsoft was really willing to sacrifice PC gaming completely for the x-box, they'd just keep direct X development limited to the level of their current consoles.

But then they'd have no beta testers for the new version for use on the nextbox! Going by their record with the 360's flaky hardware I'm sure they're happy to have dx11 on PC prior to console as the last thing they need is a shonky graphics API as well as bung dvd drives/ rrod hell.

In any case I'm not entirely serious about MS buying Valve just to shut them down.

Phatose on 21/8/2009 at 05:01

It's not exactly like the 360 is free of copy protection. Just requiring a mod chip is enough to keep a lot of it at bay, especially with the whole RROD thing scaring people off.

But it's probably more a matter of scale. Even if they were on par percentagewise - and I really doubt that's even close to the case - the market is larger on the console. In pure numbers, the consoles can have more pirates then the PC and still have a pretty large sales base.

At any rate, walk into any game store and you get a pretty clear picture where the people who make their money selling games expect to make money, and it's just not the PC.

SubJeff on 21/8/2009 at 07:40

Quote Posted by DaBeast

Thats a nice list and does point out rather alot of stuff. But I doubt that will be enough for SubJeff. Not until you can show the DRM forcing itself on your youngest daughter.

It is a nice list.

See, you do have reasons. Why you couldn't have said so in the 1st place...
i told you my kkk comment was partly in jest ffs

Those are all perfectly reasonable points Zygoptera. I wonder if everyone who hates Steam hates it for the same reasons.

The biggest thing for me would be if Valve went bankrupt/was bought out and one suddenly has no access to games. I personally don't mind auto-patching or data sending to the mothership or issues about CPU cycles. And I don't have any problems with my offline modes. I used to hate the activation issue because not everyone has or can have broadband but as broadband is getting more and more widespread its less of an issue.

Ownership and activation are the big deals for me.

Freddo on 21/8/2009 at 08:35

I think the prices are way too high. Buying the retail disc version of a game is usually 20% cheaper, at least. Around here it is anyway :p

I also dislike the whole DRM system with Steam.

Matthew on 21/8/2009 at 10:42

I tend to mostly buy the older, cheaper games on Steam - or else wait for the sale offers.

I have no real problems with the DRM though, or offline mode for that matter.