Steam sucks

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: rosseau
It's funny, 120+ Steam games and not one problem. I find that astounding considering the OS and NET add-ons required by each game, etc. I must just be lucky - and using XP can't hurt.

^ same - almost....

2 things have cropped up in my time using Steam.

1. GTA IV - no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to run. Contacted Steam...and as quick as their response was, it was totally useless and a "shrug off" - basically contact the developer. It did get sorted by me surfing the net and I think something just "fell" into place and it worked. That took almost 2 weeks. I think in the end it was some old version of a third party piece of software - so it was actually more to do with the crap the dev had included in the game as opposed to anything Steam. Still - it's always nice to know your point of contact for purchasing is your point of contact for support - with Steam it's not so be prepared to surf if you have a problem with a game which does not seem to be Steam related.

2. Recently bought Skyrim and Batman Arkham City and when I was directed back to Steam from the Paypal page, there was an error. The two items showed in my cart and I looked in my library and the games were not there. I rebooted Steam and the same thing...so I contacted Steam. The advice was to restart Steam. In the end, I had my Library set to "Installed Games" - when I set it to "All Games" they were there but showing as not installed (obviously) so I installed them. Those two items stayed in my cart though. In the end I just removed them from my cart.

Two problems in about 100 purchases and hundreds of hours gaming - across platforms (Win XP, then Win 7 64bit). That's not a bad record.

I'm not saying Steam isn't without it's problems and people do not have problems...but I think it's generally painted in a much worse light technically than it really is.

I not a fan of their policy though - still, I take the view that until I come up against it, I'm not fussed with it. When you hear me cry because I've been bitten in the arse with their policy, you can laugh and point to this thread...I won't be offended

[demyansk]

I have used Steam and it works for me.  How about just uninstalling the entire series and doing a complete re-install?  I have this game Heart of Iron and its a bear, never really got into it.  I sort of like the interface of battlefront.com Global Conflict type game with Strategic Command etc.

[jbunnelle]

I second demjansk.

1. Delete entire thing
2. Reinstall
3. Enter Steam settings for the game and do a complete verification of game cache; let it download any missing files.

One more idea. I had a game that refused to launch and someone recommended that I delete the file ClientRegistry.blob from the Steam folder. This worked for me. I honestly have no idea what the file does so back it up before you delete it. It recompiles itself when the client is restarted I think. Worth a shot anyway.

ORIGINAL: demjansk

I have used Steam and it works for me.  How about just uninstalling the entire series and doing a complete re-install?  I have this game Heart of Iron and its a bear, never really got into it.  I sort of like the interface of battlefront.com Global Conflict type game with Strategic Command etc.

[Jeffrey H.]

I've been wary of Steam and it's starting to taint things a little for me. I need to uninstall and reinstall a game and I don't want to do it b/c I'm sure the gremlins will sprout out of the woodworks.

DLC as a whole is not something I want either, not exclusively.

And, I'll say it expecting trouble, I don't like Plimus.

[2ndACR]

I never tried Steam, but I do not like any form of DRM that does not let me play my game when I want. Internet connection or not. No phone home for permission for me.

[jbunnelle]

Not trying to be a PR toady for them, but there are a lot of misconceptions about Steam that get repeated from its early days. It does now have an offline mode that allows you to play with no internet connection, which I use a lot when I travel with my laptop. And you can set games to avoid auto-updating. To their credit, they have listened to the bitching and have made changes since the ugly days of Half Life 2's launch. I like to fire up games and play on the fly, and ironically, I can now do this more easily with Steam than I could needing discs in my drive, or messing around with cracks.

For older games, go GOG. They are superb.

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
, m
I never tried Steam, but I do not like any form of DRM that does not let me play my game when I want. Internet connection or not. No phone home for permission for me.

[planner 3]

Steam BAH!

[2ndACR]

That is why I play Matrix games only basically. No need for discs, and never any cracks.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: jbunnelle

Not trying to be a PR toady for them, but there are a lot of misconceptions about Steam that get repeated from its early days. It does now have an offline mode that allows you to play with no internet connection, which I use a lot when I travel with my laptop. And you can set games to avoid auto-updating. To their credit, they have listened to the bitching and have made changes since the ugly days of Half Life 2's launch. I like to fire up games and play on the fly, and ironically, I can now do this more easily with Steam than I could needing discs in my drive, or messing around with cracks.

For older games, go GOG. They are superb.

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
, m
I never tried Steam, but I do not like any form of DRM that does not let me play my game when I want. Internet connection or not. No phone home for permission for me.

Exactly. Only the other day my daughter was playing my Steam purchase of Plants vs Zombies whilst I played Skyrim.

I'm not a massive fan for Steam - but I'm a satisfied customer who's had very, very few issues.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

I never tried Steam, but I do not like any form of DRM that does not let me play my game when I want. Internet connection or not. No phone home for permission for me.

Yeah, I seen no point of stuff like this.

[Lützow]

Come to Germany, where Steam solely offers censored games, and then you'll start to hate this provider.

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

Come to Germany, where Steam solely offers censored games, and then you'll start to hate this provider.

It was my understanding that was because of your local laws...? So Steam is forced to only make censored games available.
(Censored games... [:@] [:@] [:@] )

[gunny]

I bought Civ 5 DVD from wal mart. Steam never even factored into the equation. I installed Civ 5. Low and behold now steam is on my computer. It initializes each time I turn on my computer. Pops out the odd advertisement. I uninstalled steam and Civ 5 doesn't work. I cannot install the game without steam. I unistalled reinstalled thinking I missed a check box. Nope, steam must be loaded to get the game to work. Truth is, If I knew this, I would not have bought it. I figured by buying a hard copy game this would not occur as this would only occur if you order online from steam. Wrong.

[Jevhaddah]

Yoo can set Steam not to start with computer in the settings, I did this when I was experiencing slow startups to see if Steam was the problem.

Cheeers

Jev