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Personally, for me, the issue of buying a "license" the Steam way, is that I have no method of moving that around. I can take my disc with me and use it elsewhere. Going on vacation, with a new laptop? Take the disc with you, install when bored. Hell, I know folks like to use campus computers to LAN at my school. Its impossible to walk by the library and not find people playing WarCraft III.
I might not own the code on the disc, but I own the disc. Steam does not present a viable mobile method for the games I buy off it. GoG does, though. Nice little packages I can put on a USB. Steam should give that a try.
Personally, for me, the issue of buying a "license" the Steam way, is that I have no method of moving that around. I can take my disc with me and use it elsewhere. Going on vacation, with a new laptop? Take the disc with you, install when bored. Hell, I know folks like to use campus computers to LAN at my school. Its impossible to walk by the library and not find people playing WarCraft III.
I might not own the code on the disc, but I own the disc. Steam does not present a viable mobile method for the games I buy off it. GoG does, though. Nice little packages I can put on a USB. Steam should give that a try.
You can log in to steam on any computer and download and play your games*.
EDIT: You can also backup your steam games to disk that way you only have to download steam on different computers. Login, pop in the disk and install, play.
*baring companies who insist on using their limited install DRM which you'd get on the disc as well.
LittleBoots on
Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
I might not own the code on the disc, but I own the disc. Steam does not present a viable mobile method for the games I buy off it. GoG does, though. Nice little packages I can put on a USB. Steam should give that a try.
Steam doesn't restrict what you use it on, you just can't be logged in in more than one place at a time. So, either re-download or just move the Steamapps folder to your USB.
In my experience, I can't play 99% of the games I bought five years ago for one of three reasons:
1. I lost the disc
2. I lost the CD Key
3. It is incompatible with Vista
Steam solves all of these problems. So, on balance, if in five years I can't play them because the service randomly shuts down, it won't be such a great loss compared to if I'd bought all the physical discs ages ago. Furthermore, I reckon that the chances of Valve being forced to shut down Steam AND failing to provide a means to retrieve previously-purchased games are much less than the chances that I could lose a disc or, worse, a tiny slip of paper containing a CD key.
The fear of not actually owning the game is irrational anyway, as nobody actually owns the games they buy. They own a license to play play the game, which is exactly what Steam is selling in a non-physical format.
There's also the fact that Gabe has publicly stated that if for some bizarre reason, steam were to ever tank, Valve would simply notify all steam users, thus providing them ample time to download and backup their entire steam library. Valve would also release a patch for steam that disables authentication, thus allowing any backed up game to be played after Steam goes under. Gabe said said Valve has tested this patch and it works.
Yeah, except that while software companies engage in the fiction we don't own our software - mostly so we don't get any incidental rights to mess around the source code, we can resell the damn stuff. Steam and other digital download platforms are really about destroying our right to resell copyrighted materials by putting up technical barriers. I use steam a bunch for cheap things but I try to A) buy physical copies so i can give my games to other people when i'm done, and other retailers - my $ is evenly spread around steam and gamersgate & impulse (both of which are quite good. the real drawback is you don't have some OCD way of organizing your purchases. the plus with gamersgate is that there's no intrusive client to install and no DRM once you install).
I may be wrong, but I'm fairly certain I read an article recently where one of the future plans for steam was the ability to sell games in your library back to valve for credit to your steam wallet.
Steam might not personally reach out and stop me, but a lot of places (i.e. school or vacation) have shit for internet. Other places, like my house, have great internet, but with a limited bandwidth. Redownloading is not an acceptable method. I require a real manner for personal storage. Something I realized, with a deal of disappointment, after Steam ran away with my wallet this Christmas.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
Klash on
We don't even care... whether we care or not...
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Personally, for me, the issue of buying a "license" the Steam way, is that I have no method of moving that around. I can take my disc with me and use it elsewhere. Going on vacation, with a new laptop? Take the disc with you, install when bored. Hell, I know folks like to use campus computers to LAN at my school. Its impossible to walk by the library and not find people playing WarCraft III.
I might not own the code on the disc, but I own the disc. Steam does not present a viable mobile method for the games I buy off it. GoG does, though. Nice little packages I can put on a USB. Steam should give that a try.
Uhh, this is actually significantly easier to do with Steam because I don't have to carry a disk anywhere. I just have to login to Steam from whatever computer I want my game on. The only thing that stops this is if the game producer had put some kind of activation DRM in to their game, and the same thing would happen even if you had the physical media.
e: Put your steamapps folder on a USB drive then, how is this any different than carrying a CD around, except that all your games are on the drive?
Steam might not personally reach out and stop me, but a lot of places (i.e. school or vacation) have shit for internet. Other places, like my house, have great internet, but with a limited bandwidth. Redownloading is not an acceptable method. I require a real manner for personal storage. Something I realized, with a deal of disappointment, after Steam ran away with my wallet this Christmas.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
Personally, for me, the issue of buying a "license" the Steam way, is that I have no method of moving that around. I can take my disc with me and use it elsewhere. Going on vacation, with a new laptop? Take the disc with you, install when bored. Hell, I know folks like to use campus computers to LAN at my school. Its impossible to walk by the library and not find people playing WarCraft III.
I might not own the code on the disc, but I own the disc. Steam does not present a viable mobile method for the games I buy off it. GoG does, though. Nice little packages I can put on a USB. Steam should give that a try.
You can log in to steam on any computer and download and play your games*.
EDIT: You can also backup your steam games to disk that way you only have to download steam on different computers. Login, pop in the disk and install, play.
*baring companies who insist on using their limited install DRM which you'd get on the disc as well.
LittleBoots on
Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
Also, if you really care that much about reselling your games, then yes Steam is a big issue for you.
I neither sell, trade or loan my games, so this is never an issue for me. I don't even like loaning XBox games to friends, because people tend not to take the reverent care of the disks that I do.
Steam might not personally reach out and stop me, but a lot of places (i.e. school or vacation) have shit for internet. Other places, like my house, have great internet, but with a limited bandwidth. Redownloading is not an acceptable method. I require a real manner for personal storage. Something I realized, with a deal of disappointment, after Steam ran away with my wallet this Christmas.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
there's an untapped market out there. picture it: a service that, for a flat fee, will purchase a terabyte hard drive, download your entire steam library onto it, then ship it to you.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Steam might not personally reach out and stop me, but a lot of places (i.e. school or vacation) have shit for internet. Other places, like my house, have great internet, but with a limited bandwidth. Redownloading is not an acceptable method. I require a real manner for personal storage. Something I realized, with a deal of disappointment, after Steam ran away with my wallet this Christmas.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
there's an untapped market out there. picture it: a service that, for a flat fee, will purchase a terabyte hard drive, download your entire steam library onto it, then ship it to you.
Steam might not personally reach out and stop me, but a lot of places (i.e. school or vacation) have shit for internet. Other places, like my house, have great internet, but with a limited bandwidth. Redownloading is not an acceptable method. I require a real manner for personal storage. Something I realized, with a deal of disappointment, after Steam ran away with my wallet this Christmas.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
On your gaming PC:
1)Right click a game in your library
2)Select backup
3)??????
4)Profit
Steam might not personally reach out and stop me, but a lot of places (i.e. school or vacation) have shit for internet. Other places, like my house, have great internet, but with a limited bandwidth. Redownloading is not an acceptable method. I require a real manner for personal storage. Something I realized, with a deal of disappointment, after Steam ran away with my wallet this Christmas.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
On your gaming PC:
1)Right click a game in your library
2)Select backup
3)??????
4)Profit
Yeah, and this is even better than carrying around game CDs you buy because depending on the size of the Steam game you can cram multiple games onto one DVD that you burn, or stick a game on a USB drive or something.
Well, I admit my mistake. I overlooked that feature. I assume it backs up DLC, as well? Does it do a direct back up like a copy/paste or does it... do... something... that organizes things?
Well, I admit my mistake. I overlooked that feature. I assume it backs up DLC, as well? Does it do a direct back up like a copy/paste or does it... do... something... that organizes things?
Yeah, backs up the whole shebang. DLC and all. It backs up everything into about 4-5 files. One of them is a setup file that you run on the machine you want to restore to. Then just select the games you want to install from the list presented and it installs them to the steam directory on the new machine.
I think it's unlikely in the extreme that we will ever permanently lose access to our Steam libraries, for the same reason that Steam allows you to download your games multiple times, and doesn't just deliver it to you when you buy it: Loyalty.
The lists of Steam users, their libraries, and the proof that the users own licenses to their libraries, are worth millions of dollars, maybe more. The fact that you can come back to your library, that there's a permanent connection to Steam and not just a one-time delivery, means that every time Valve sells you a game through Steam you're more likely to come back and buy another.
If Valve were going out of business, companies would be lining up to buy the privilege of delivering your games to you in the future. I think it's far, far more likely that Valve will stop making video games than that they'll stop serving games on Steam. Support is another issue though, a time will probably come when very old games aren't compatible with new operating systems, and it won't be in developers' and Valve's interest to update them.
Until my cable goes out for a day or two (Charter in my area is usually pretty stable, but during the rare times it goes down, it's down for ages), and Steam refuses to start in Offline Mode.
Have you tried unplugging the ethernet cable from your computer or disabling your network connection? I've noticed when Charter has gone out here that Steam has trouble booting up in offline mode, just sitting there looking for the network, but if I just remove the cable it starts up in offline mode instantly.
Until my cable goes out for a day or two (Charter in my area is usually pretty stable, but during the rare times it goes down, it's down for ages), and Steam refuses to start in Offline Mode.
Have you tried unplugging the ethernet cable from your computer or disabling your network connection? I've noticed when Charter has gone out here that Steam has trouble booting up in offline mode, just sitting there looking for the network, but if I just remove the cable it starts up in offline mode instantly.
Yeah, do this. If Steam has even the vaguest notion that you might be online, it takes forever (or never) to prompt you to start in offline mode. If it knows there isn't any way for you to be online, it gives up trying to connect immediately.
1)Right click a game in your library
2)Select backup
3)??????
4)Profit
Whao.
I never knew that.
Does it backup your saves too?
nope.
saves are in never never land (usually Documents/whatever)
I don't understand why games started doing this. It's the most annoying thing. Is there some benefit I don't understand to throwing saves and replays and shit in some random Documents folder?
BloodySloth on
0
Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
Because proper application development techniques says you never put any user data where the application is stored. This is something important with the enforcement of user permissions and security in any modern operating system. The fact that the Steam installer alters its own directory permissions so the client (and by extension any game it services) can write to the application subdir without elevation is really Not A Proper Thing.
What's annoying is that games start throwing their fucking shit anywhere they please in your documents folder without rhyme or reason. Especially since Vista/7 offers a Saved Games folder that no fucking game uses.
When trying to copy a replay to Supreme Commander 2 once, I found it actually made two directories for itself, one bare in My Games and the other in Square-Enix. That was the stupidest shit ever ever and I almost uninstalled that fucking thing.
I don't understand why games started doing this. It's the most annoying thing. Is there some benefit I don't understand to throwing saves and replays and shit in some random Documents folder??
Yes. You have write permissions there. Windows Vista and 7 finally began enforcing the idea of system and program folders as places where user data shouldn't be. Which was only a good thing for security and the sanity of victims of pressed family tech support.
Steam is worth it for the indy games alone. During sales there is so much pure unadulterated fun for sale for only a few bucks. I have bought nearly all the indy packs during the christmas-sale. So much fun for next to nothing.
If you dont want steam for the big titles, get it to support those independent developers.
I don't understand why games started doing this. It's the most annoying thing. Is there some benefit I don't understand to throwing saves and replays and shit in some random Documents folder??
Yes. You have write permissions there. Windows Vista and 7 finally began enforcing the idea of system and program folders as places where user data shouldn't be. Which was only a good thing for security and the sanity of victims of pressed family tech support.
Yeah, it's better than it was but still pretty bad because there's no consistency between products. I wish the publishers and developers would put their heads together and just agree "Okay, we'll all put saves here." Generally backing up saves for everything is pretty simple (but not very lightweight, since the easiest method right now is usually to back up your whole user folder), and restores are downright nightmarish.
e: and steam is probably the best thing i like about the whole wide internet. i will buy games at retail or when there's a really silly sale from a competing online storefront or whatever then, if i like them, buy them again on steam just to consolidate everything into gabe newell's oppressive hive overmind
Also, if you really care that much about reselling your games, then yes Steam is a big issue for you.
I neither sell, trade or loan my games, so this is never an issue for me. I don't even like loaning XBox games to friends, because people tend not to take the reverent care of the disks that I do.
It's not like there's that many outlets for used PC games anyway. At least compared to consoles
I have recently been forced to use Steam because of a Christmas gift. For some reason, in the past, I haven't wanted to use the Steam system. I feel that if I buy a game, I shouldn't be forced to rely (for non-online games) on the internet to play them. Yes, I know Steam has an offline mode, but it still has always felt wrong in my gut.
If this makes you that uncomfortable, try Impulse or Gamersgate. Both of them require no client running in the background nor internet connection to play the game, though in Impulse's case you still need to download, install and update the game through the client.
I've been using it since before Half-Life 2 came out (Codename: Gordon, anyone?) and I have had almost no bad experiences with it. Mostly because I didn't have a computer capable of running HL2 until after all the kinks had been worked out.
I don't really see any danger in not "really owning" my games because I trust Valve almost implicitly. They've earned that trust with years of great service. I see no reason to be paranoid about it. Gabe has said that they've tested turning off Steam authentication for all their games if they were ever to go out of business, and it works. The fact that they even cared to test that says something about how they view their relationship with consumers.
Ironically, the last boxed games I bought were... Half-Life 2 and Episode 1. I happened to be at the store just after I got my shiny new PC and didn't want to wait for them to download. Of course, I had to fumble with installing them from 6 DVDs....
What's annoying is that games start throwing their fucking shit anywhere they please in your documents folder without rhyme or reason. Especially since Vista/7 offers a Saved Games folder that no fucking game uses.
Oh my god, this. So hard. Use the Save Games folder developers, seriously. And that Rich Saved Games thing? Why didn't you people use that? You had to go not using it and then have Microsoft deprecate it.
one path is Documents/Electronic Arts/Dead Space/stuff
and the other is Documents/EA/Mirror's Edge/stuff
two games, from the same goddamn company, in the same goddamn year
I've seen that happen quite a bit with EA games. But it doesn't annoy me too much as I use an external HDD rather than store anything I'll need in my documents folder. Games can clutter it up all they want for me.
But I can easily see how that would be infuriating for people who actually use the folder.
oh, i don't use it either. i wish you could specify where you wanted your saves to go, too. a little prompt for each game so i can have everything just save to a convenient USB drive or something.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
oh, i don't use it either. i wish you could specify where you wanted your saves to go, too. a little prompt for each game so i can have everything just save to a convenient USB drive or something.
Yes - you could do this with the first Playstation, for fuck's sake. If I'm expected to tweak my performance and control settings, how hard is a browser window for a savegames directory?
Regarding Steam itself - I have an uneasy association with it. At least in the UK, it is terrible for prices - frequently when a major title is on sale for 75% off, the retail equivalent is the same price or less. It doesn't stop the major sales being interesting, thanks to creative bundles and heavy discounting of budget and indie titles (which would not normally drop further). But 9 time out of 10 it is much cheaper to order a Steamworks game from Amazon for half or less of the Steam price, and then activate it - and you get a pre-backed up copy and a manual thrown in.
Given the choice, I would rather own a game not on Steam than on it - but due to more and more games being Steamworks or using pretty horrible DRM, and the majority of indie titles only being available for stupid prices when not bought on Steam or a slightly inferior competing service, there's often not much of a choice at all. GoG always gets preference to Steam when prices are roughly equal, and Gamersgate does when a totally DRM-free option is there (a la Recettear).
I also have a real problem with how Steam handles bundles. If you buy a bundle that contains one or more games that you already own on Steam, you lose those extra copies. This is totally fucking counter to the "you're buying a licence, not a product" argument that publishers love to trot out - you are purchasing multiple transferrable licenses to use a service/product, and are forced to make all but one invalid. Again, retail has the edge here - if you get any duplicates you can give the extras to friends or sell them.
Finally, I think we can all agree that the "if Steam ever fails, Gabe Newell will magically turn off the DRM on several thousand games from dozens of different publishers and that will all legally be okay" position just doesn't have a leg to stand on - it's a quote from years ago when Steam was primarily a distribution service for Valve games. But, as mentioned, you are pefectly entitled (morally, if not legally) to crack your Steam games in this event - it will just make backing them up and installing them a huge pain.
It's absolutely required to be a moderately serious PC gamer nowadays, but it is far from perfect and represents a tricky first step on the road to digital distribution becoming truly mainstream and painless.
Why do people keep saying Gamersgate is DRM free? It's not, GOG is DRM free but Gamersgate still requires online verification, at least according to their own FAQ.
Can i download a game on one computer and install it on another one?
Yes, you can.
* 1) Copy the download file and the temp folder as they are located near each other
* 2) Paste on another computer that has connection to the internet
* 3) Run the download file and fill in the login/password if necessary
* 4) The installation process will start automatically, if the temporary folder is in place, since it will find the install files.
NOTE: Internet connection is required for performing the installation process. Installation cannot be made manually. It is done automatically and it requires internet connection to be performed properly.
Can I download the game on my office PC and install it on my home PC which does not have an internet connection?
No, you cannot. Internet connection is required to install games. If the target computer has slow download bandwidth, then the game can be downloaded on another computer and then transferred in any way to your original computer. There you can use them to install, but connection is needed to sign in and start the installation process.
NOTE: You should move the download file and the temporary Gamersgate folder (GamersGate temporary files) as they are placed near each other in order to install the downloaded games. Otherwise the downloader will start the download process again. Installation should be started using the download file, and it cannot be done manually from the temporary folder.
Can I use 3rd party Download Managers with GamersGate?
No.
Do you use SecuRom or any other protection on the games?
Yes, some games got some kind of protection. This is done according to the agreement with the developers and publishers. However, the activation limit that may be on this protection is easily reset by an email to support@gamersgate.com. Any game bought on GamersGate is yours to download and install as many times as you like.
Addressing the "I don't own my games" fear:
3. It is incompatible with Vista
Since when does Steam/Valve make things work with Vista/Win7? Asides from attaching DosBox to things (which I assume the developers are doing, not Valve).
That's another one of the (few) big strikes against Steam: if it's an older game released before 2005 or so, and it has a lot of issues running on Steam/modern OSes? Valve does not give the first fuck. They'll sell it to you no problem, but if it doesn't actually work for people? You're kind of screwed if the community doesn't manage to find a workaround. See: the Commandos series and runspeed issues, the Max Payne sound bug, Jade Empire's framerate woes...
Until my cable goes out for a day or two (Charter in my area is usually pretty stable, but during the rare times it goes down, it's down for ages), and Steam refuses to start in Offline Mode.
Have you tried unplugging the ethernet cable from your computer or disabling your network connection? I've noticed when Charter has gone out here that Steam has trouble booting up in offline mode, just sitting there looking for the network, but if I just remove the cable it starts up in offline mode instantly.
Previously, it'd sometimes happen when I was on a shitty home wireless network that flaked out a lot, and I would try the equivalent of that and disable my wireless card. No matter what, it'd pop up some "Steam - Updating" window for a fraction of a second, then bring up a "Cannot find Network" error window, with an option to Go Online, or Start in Offline Mode; clicking Start in Offline Mode then brings up a box saying that the action could not be performed.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Why do people keep saying Gamersgate is DRM free? It's not, GOG is DRM free but Gamersgate still requires online verification, at least according to their own FAQ.
Gamersgate isn't intrinsically DRM-free, but DRM-free games released on it will have no additional DRM added to them. I used Recettear as an example - the game itself has no DRM (and is entirely install agnostic, so you can just copy the entire program folder directly from your desktop to your laptop or just run directly from a USB stick), and that's the version that Gamersgate sells. If you buy the Steam version, it will not run without Steam also running.
Why do people keep saying Gamersgate is DRM free? It's not, GOG is DRM free but Gamersgate still requires online verification, at least according to their own FAQ.
Gamersgate isn't intrinsically DRM-free, but DRM-free games released on it will have no additional DRM added to them. I used Recettear as an example - the game itself has no DRM (and is entirely install agnostic, so you can just copy the entire program folder directly from your desktop to your laptop or just run directly from a USB stick), and that's the version that Gamersgate sells. If you buy the Steam version, it will not run without Steam also running.
Plus, as mentioned in the FAQ, you can reset any limited-machine-activation DRM easily by contacting Gamersgate. I haven't personally tested it, but a few of my friends have, and it's just that simple; No fuss, no further questions asked.
Microsoft says the same thing about their install limits.
I guess we're working off of different definitions of DRM here. As far as I'm concerned, Gamersgate isn't really any less DRM than Impulse. From what I understand (haven't used Impulse in a long time, but this is from someone else who does), with GOO you can uninstall Impulse and still run the game as well. But you still need it for install, and patching. Unless Gamersgate can make use of generic patches and doesn't require specifically tailored ones, but as far as I'm aware that's not the case.
I am really hoping that DRM just finally dies, but unfortunately, I cannot see that happening in the near future. I suspect companies will keep trying to revise ways to keep it in, while telling us it isn't so bad as we think. It will eventually become some long-drawn out issue (moreso than it is now), and eventually be replaced by something sort of similar.
Posts
I might not own the code on the disc, but I own the disc. Steam does not present a viable mobile method for the games I buy off it. GoG does, though. Nice little packages I can put on a USB. Steam should give that a try.
You can log in to steam on any computer and download and play your games*.
EDIT: You can also backup your steam games to disk that way you only have to download steam on different computers. Login, pop in the disk and install, play.
*baring companies who insist on using their limited install DRM which you'd get on the disc as well.
Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
Steam doesn't restrict what you use it on, you just can't be logged in in more than one place at a time. So, either re-download or just move the Steamapps folder to your USB.
I may be wrong, but I'm fairly certain I read an article recently where one of the future plans for steam was the ability to sell games in your library back to valve for credit to your steam wallet.
I guess copy/pasting an entire Steam folder is a... method?
Uhh, this is actually significantly easier to do with Steam because I don't have to carry a disk anywhere. I just have to login to Steam from whatever computer I want my game on. The only thing that stops this is if the game producer had put some kind of activation DRM in to their game, and the same thing would happen even if you had the physical media.
e: Put your steamapps folder on a USB drive then, how is this any different than carrying a CD around, except that all your games are on the drive?
Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
I neither sell, trade or loan my games, so this is never an issue for me. I don't even like loaning XBox games to friends, because people tend not to take the reverent care of the disks that I do.
there's an untapped market out there. picture it: a service that, for a flat fee, will purchase a terabyte hard drive, download your entire steam library onto it, then ship it to you.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Cottage industry incoming.
On your gaming PC:
1)Right click a game in your library
2)Select backup
3)??????
4)Profit
Yeah, and this is even better than carrying around game CDs you buy because depending on the size of the Steam game you can cram multiple games onto one DVD that you burn, or stick a game on a USB drive or something.
Yeah, backs up the whole shebang. DLC and all. It backs up everything into about 4-5 files. One of them is a setup file that you run on the machine you want to restore to. Then just select the games you want to install from the list presented and it installs them to the steam directory on the new machine.
The lists of Steam users, their libraries, and the proof that the users own licenses to their libraries, are worth millions of dollars, maybe more. The fact that you can come back to your library, that there's a permanent connection to Steam and not just a one-time delivery, means that every time Valve sells you a game through Steam you're more likely to come back and buy another.
If Valve were going out of business, companies would be lining up to buy the privilege of delivering your games to you in the future. I think it's far, far more likely that Valve will stop making video games than that they'll stop serving games on Steam. Support is another issue though, a time will probably come when very old games aren't compatible with new operating systems, and it won't be in developers' and Valve's interest to update them.
Whao.
I never knew that.
Does it backup your saves too?
nope.
saves are in never never land (usually Documents/whatever)
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Have you tried unplugging the ethernet cable from your computer or disabling your network connection? I've noticed when Charter has gone out here that Steam has trouble booting up in offline mode, just sitting there looking for the network, but if I just remove the cable it starts up in offline mode instantly.
A few years from now most of them will be in the cloud.
Yeah, do this. If Steam has even the vaguest notion that you might be online, it takes forever (or never) to prompt you to start in offline mode. If it knows there isn't any way for you to be online, it gives up trying to connect immediately.
I don't understand why games started doing this. It's the most annoying thing. Is there some benefit I don't understand to throwing saves and replays and shit in some random Documents folder?
What's annoying is that games start throwing their fucking shit anywhere they please in your documents folder without rhyme or reason. Especially since Vista/7 offers a Saved Games folder that no fucking game uses.
When trying to copy a replay to Supreme Commander 2 once, I found it actually made two directories for itself, one bare in My Games and the other in Square-Enix. That was the stupidest shit ever ever and I almost uninstalled that fucking thing.
Yes. You have write permissions there. Windows Vista and 7 finally began enforcing the idea of system and program folders as places where user data shouldn't be. Which was only a good thing for security and the sanity of victims of pressed family tech support.
If you dont want steam for the big titles, get it to support those independent developers.
Yeah, it's better than it was but still pretty bad because there's no consistency between products. I wish the publishers and developers would put their heads together and just agree "Okay, we'll all put saves here." Generally backing up saves for everything is pretty simple (but not very lightweight, since the easiest method right now is usually to back up your whole user folder), and restores are downright nightmarish.
e: and steam is probably the best thing i like about the whole wide internet. i will buy games at retail or when there's a really silly sale from a competing online storefront or whatever then, if i like them, buy them again on steam just to consolidate everything into gabe newell's oppressive hive overmind
It's not like there's that many outlets for used PC games anyway. At least compared to consoles
If this makes you that uncomfortable, try Impulse or Gamersgate. Both of them require no client running in the background nor internet connection to play the game, though in Impulse's case you still need to download, install and update the game through the client.
I've been using it since before Half-Life 2 came out (Codename: Gordon, anyone?) and I have had almost no bad experiences with it. Mostly because I didn't have a computer capable of running HL2 until after all the kinks had been worked out.
I don't really see any danger in not "really owning" my games because I trust Valve almost implicitly. They've earned that trust with years of great service. I see no reason to be paranoid about it. Gabe has said that they've tested turning off Steam authentication for all their games if they were ever to go out of business, and it works. The fact that they even cared to test that says something about how they view their relationship with consumers.
Ironically, the last boxed games I bought were... Half-Life 2 and Episode 1. I happened to be at the store just after I got my shiny new PC and didn't want to wait for them to download. Of course, I had to fumble with installing them from 6 DVDs....
dead space and mirror's edge are on my PC, right
they have their saves in TWO separate folders
one path is Documents/Electronic Arts/Dead Space/stuff
and the other is Documents/EA/Mirror's Edge/stuff
two games, from the same goddamn company, in the same goddamn year
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I've seen that happen quite a bit with EA games. But it doesn't annoy me too much as I use an external HDD rather than store anything I'll need in my documents folder. Games can clutter it up all they want for me.
But I can easily see how that would be infuriating for people who actually use the folder.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Yes - you could do this with the first Playstation, for fuck's sake. If I'm expected to tweak my performance and control settings, how hard is a browser window for a savegames directory?
Regarding Steam itself - I have an uneasy association with it. At least in the UK, it is terrible for prices - frequently when a major title is on sale for 75% off, the retail equivalent is the same price or less. It doesn't stop the major sales being interesting, thanks to creative bundles and heavy discounting of budget and indie titles (which would not normally drop further). But 9 time out of 10 it is much cheaper to order a Steamworks game from Amazon for half or less of the Steam price, and then activate it - and you get a pre-backed up copy and a manual thrown in.
Given the choice, I would rather own a game not on Steam than on it - but due to more and more games being Steamworks or using pretty horrible DRM, and the majority of indie titles only being available for stupid prices when not bought on Steam or a slightly inferior competing service, there's often not much of a choice at all. GoG always gets preference to Steam when prices are roughly equal, and Gamersgate does when a totally DRM-free option is there (a la Recettear).
I also have a real problem with how Steam handles bundles. If you buy a bundle that contains one or more games that you already own on Steam, you lose those extra copies. This is totally fucking counter to the "you're buying a licence, not a product" argument that publishers love to trot out - you are purchasing multiple transferrable licenses to use a service/product, and are forced to make all but one invalid. Again, retail has the edge here - if you get any duplicates you can give the extras to friends or sell them.
Finally, I think we can all agree that the "if Steam ever fails, Gabe Newell will magically turn off the DRM on several thousand games from dozens of different publishers and that will all legally be okay" position just doesn't have a leg to stand on - it's a quote from years ago when Steam was primarily a distribution service for Valve games. But, as mentioned, you are pefectly entitled (morally, if not legally) to crack your Steam games in this event - it will just make backing them up and installing them a huge pain.
It's absolutely required to be a moderately serious PC gamer nowadays, but it is far from perfect and represents a tricky first step on the road to digital distribution becoming truly mainstream and painless.
http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/info/faq-10
That's another one of the (few) big strikes against Steam: if it's an older game released before 2005 or so, and it has a lot of issues running on Steam/modern OSes? Valve does not give the first fuck. They'll sell it to you no problem, but if it doesn't actually work for people? You're kind of screwed if the community doesn't manage to find a workaround. See: the Commandos series and runspeed issues, the Max Payne sound bug, Jade Empire's framerate woes...
Previously, it'd sometimes happen when I was on a shitty home wireless network that flaked out a lot, and I would try the equivalent of that and disable my wireless card. No matter what, it'd pop up some "Steam - Updating" window for a fraction of a second, then bring up a "Cannot find Network" error window, with an option to Go Online, or Start in Offline Mode; clicking Start in Offline Mode then brings up a box saying that the action could not be performed.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Gamersgate isn't intrinsically DRM-free, but DRM-free games released on it will have no additional DRM added to them. I used Recettear as an example - the game itself has no DRM (and is entirely install agnostic, so you can just copy the entire program folder directly from your desktop to your laptop or just run directly from a USB stick), and that's the version that Gamersgate sells. If you buy the Steam version, it will not run without Steam also running.
Plus, as mentioned in the FAQ, you can reset any limited-machine-activation DRM easily by contacting Gamersgate. I haven't personally tested it, but a few of my friends have, and it's just that simple; No fuss, no further questions asked.
I guess we're working off of different definitions of DRM here. As far as I'm concerned, Gamersgate isn't really any less DRM than Impulse. From what I understand (haven't used Impulse in a long time, but this is from someone else who does), with GOO you can uninstall Impulse and still run the game as well. But you still need it for install, and patching. Unless Gamersgate can make use of generic patches and doesn't require specifically tailored ones, but as far as I'm aware that's not the case.
GOG still remains the only real DRM free service.
PS - Go Steam.