Games from Steam
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+1 I've been using it since HL2 and love the ease of finding and installing games. Recently installed the Mac version and it works just as well as on Windows. Decent supply of Win+Mac games. Playing Portal and World of Goo on the Mac. Good stuff.
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Anyone ever bought games from Steam? Any downsides? How massively are they DRMed?
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Playing Star Craft II. Don't bother me, eh? Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
Please note, you do not "buy" the games through steam, but, according to steam subscriber agrement, you "subscribe" to the "services, software and other content". Further, see paragraph 9c: C. NO GUARANTEES. VALVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S). On the other hand, there are events on the steam, which allow you to buy games very cheap. Keep remembering though, your steam asset is not actually "yours".
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Anyone ever bought games from Steam? Any downsides? How massively are they DRMed?
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Playing Star Craft II. Don't bother me, eh? Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
I have over 120 games on my main steam account (and about 25 on my media centre pc account - saves me logging in and out, and have duplicate copies for the occasional in-house multiplayer game) and I get on well with it. It has some flaws (what system, either virtual or physical, doesnt??) but its positives are good: Game always belongs to you (dont worry about losing that pesky cd) Use on multiple computers (not at the same time, but no install restrictions) Really good deals and "special offer" days Portability/backup (i know someone else mentioned this) I know the flaws exist: Have to download the game... games like GTA IV took a little while, weighing in at 16GB - and lots more games are being released with huge installs... but bandwidth is becoming more available, and driving to a store or ordering online for delivery also takes time... DRM - Steam oriented games (not just bought on steam but developed around it - e.g. MW2, TF2 etc) will ONLY work on the correct steam account, and some only with an internet connection. Other games (e.g. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) work once downloaded thru steam, and do not require steam to even be running. I backup my steam folder occasionally, and keep it on a seperate drive to my OS so i can reinstall without issue (my steam folder is 300+GB so i dont wanna have to download it all again in a hurry) and have no trouble with changing PC, or reinstalling windows. Can you imagine the agro of reinstalling 100+ games from DVD... not to mention your config's and save games all being lost. I have my issues with steam, but on the whole im for it. Hosey^
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Anyone ever bought games from Steam? Any downsides? How massively are they DRMed?
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Playing Star Craft II. Don't bother me, eh? Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
I live in Zimbabwe so therefore have a very slow, very intermittent link to the internet. When it comes to this setup, Steam is HORRIBLE. It's net code is shocking. It's continually updating and the download servers are so slow it's unbelievable. It takes somewhere between 3 and 15 minutes to log in when everything is up to date (which has only every happened to me once. It was a Tuesday...) I bought Modern Warfare 2, used my friends media to install it, then had to update the game. This took me 4 weeks. I finally got to play and the next day there was a 200 meg update. Well sod playing for another 2 days. The number of games I have bought on Steam and then pirated so I can play the offline, single player is not insignificant for this very reason. I guess (but don't know) if you live in a country with real internet, then these problems go away. Apart from that, I find the Steam interface somewhat buggy and it crashes quite frequently. You often have to wait a long time for games to load and Steam will just die on you for no reason. What I'm saying is, if you can buy a game from somewhere other than Steam, do so. It's worth paying extra to get the crap out of the way.
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Please note, you do not "buy" the games through steam, but, according to steam subscriber agrement, you "subscribe" to the "services, software and other content". Further, see paragraph 9c: C. NO GUARANTEES. VALVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S). On the other hand, there are events on the steam, which allow you to buy games very cheap. Keep remembering though, your steam asset is not actually "yours".
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Anyone ever bought games from Steam? Any downsides? How massively are they DRMed?
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Playing Star Craft II. Don't bother me, eh? Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
I may be old school, but I like having the box and the DVD of the game I buy. I guess the youngens are 100% fine with downloading everything and having no proof of ownership other than what's in the cloud, but I'm not into it YET. They do give great discounts if you know when to look. I still prefer to buy the hard copy and install it the old fashioned way. Plus, downloading a 5GB+ game isnt quite as speedy as loading up the DVD.
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Anyone ever bought games from Steam? Any downsides? How massively are they DRMed?
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Playing Star Craft II. Don't bother me, eh? Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
Steam was fine until my kids got old enough to start wanting to play the games I bought on Steam: Steam's DRM requires you to be logged in. There's an offline mode, but you have to be logged in to activate it, so if your net connection dies, you're stuck and can't activate the offline mode. The offline mode also seems to occasionally decide you need to log in again, at which point you can't use your Steam games until you've logged in. Further, you can only have one computer logged into Steam at any time, so if you log in from a second computer, your first computer is immediately logged out (and it'll usually kick you out of the game). So you can't play a game on Steam while your child/wife/girlfriend plays an entirely different Steam game on a different computer - unless you monkey with the offline mode on the two. Now imaging adding a 3rd or 4th computer to the mix.
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vsysolts wrote:
Keep remembering though, your steam asset is not actually "yours".
That's the same with any bloody software; software licensing is an absolute joke and a rip off.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Euhemerus wrote:
software licensing is an absolute joke and a rip off
Hey hey hey! Quiet down there, most of us here make our livelihood off of software licensing, there are plenty of good reasons why our industry has to operate the way it does if we want to make any money and avoid the clutches of evil lawyers who would cripple the industry if it wasn't for the licensing agreements.
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Steam was fine until my kids got old enough to start wanting to play the games I bought on Steam: Steam's DRM requires you to be logged in. There's an offline mode, but you have to be logged in to activate it, so if your net connection dies, you're stuck and can't activate the offline mode. The offline mode also seems to occasionally decide you need to log in again, at which point you can't use your Steam games until you've logged in. Further, you can only have one computer logged into Steam at any time, so if you log in from a second computer, your first computer is immediately logged out (and it'll usually kick you out of the game). So you can't play a game on Steam while your child/wife/girlfriend plays an entirely different Steam game on a different computer - unless you monkey with the offline mode on the two. Now imaging adding a 3rd or 4th computer to the mix.
Not all games purchased on steam need to be run thru steam. To find out which go to your steam folder (X:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps) and in there you should have a folder for each of your logins and a "Common" folder. Some of the games installed to the common folder can be run straight from that folder - once you have located the main .exe (so far i've done this with a couple of mine) without steam even running. Exceptions include games like Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 - that was built to only run through the steam network - but Modern Warfare 1 (COD4) will run like this. Worth checking out in case you can create some shortcuts for the games your kids like to play...
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Not all games purchased on steam need to be run thru steam. To find out which go to your steam folder (X:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps) and in there you should have a folder for each of your logins and a "Common" folder. Some of the games installed to the common folder can be run straight from that folder - once you have located the main .exe (so far i've done this with a couple of mine) without steam even running. Exceptions include games like Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 - that was built to only run through the steam network - but Modern Warfare 1 (COD4) will run like this. Worth checking out in case you can create some shortcuts for the games your kids like to play...
You may not have to *start* them via the Steam gui, but every one I've seen requires Steam to be running in the background, even if you are in offline mode. Steam modifies the game executables to require this so the games fire up Steam even when you directly click on the game executable. I have around 80 Steam-based games now and have yet to see one that doesn't work that way. Not even for indie games that would have no DRM or just a serial key if I had purchased them outside of Steam.
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You may not have to *start* them via the Steam gui, but every one I've seen requires Steam to be running in the background, even if you are in offline mode. Steam modifies the game executables to require this so the games fire up Steam even when you directly click on the game executable. I have around 80 Steam-based games now and have yet to see one that doesn't work that way. Not even for indie games that would have no DRM or just a serial key if I had purchased them outside of Steam.
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Interesting. I guess because its just me that uses this pc, and I rarely close steam I havent noticed that it wouldnt work without steam running. Thats a shame, still it was worth a try.
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Yeah, if it's just one person, it's pretty unobtrusive. It's only after my kids got in the act that I had any problems with it.
Seems like a basic "design flaw". Like you say, a game you purchase the media for (online or via retail outlet) you can install and all users of the pc can access the game under their own logins. Think that should be the next job of work for steam... local user security allowing authenticated "steam content" to be used on that pc. Once the game is purchased on your account, and downloaded successfully, that install of the OS can access the games regardless of the local user logged in, and steam login. Since you can only login to (and use) a single account at a time on a desktop PC, it shouldnt be a problem. Just my thoughts.