AAAHHHHHHH

[Gorgon]

Well, you only have your steam games as long as there is a steam. If you have a game with an old fashioned CD check you could probably get that game to work in 10 years with a little tweaking.

 

That's not strictly owning anything. It's more like long term borrowing. If you are really interested in a game though, I don't see the fuss. Why limit yourself.

[Deraldin]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

 

Absolutely. I don't even buy Valve games on Steam. I still buy them retail.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

 

Yeah, boxes are great.

[Purkake]

What about awesome download only indie games? Do you just skip them?

[Deraldin]

What about awesome download only indie games? Do you just skip them?

 

Depends on the game. There are very few indie games that I've bought and most of them have disc version.

[Gizmo]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

I still have my Planescape box...

 

*(And Baldur's Gate 2, and even the original sideways, flip open Fallout box).

 

Well, you only have your steam games as long as there is a steam. If you have a game with an old fashioned CD check you could probably get that game to work in 10 years with a little tweaking.

 

That's not strictly owning anything. It's more like long term borrowing. If you are really interested in a game though, I don't see the fuss. Why limit yourself.

Agreed, but my guess is that if [in the future] Steam is expecting to shutdown permanently, that they have the ability to disable all protections.

(So provided you have your games downloaded; I'd bet there would be a final Steam patch to either remove it from the games completely or to remove its online dependency).

 

*Just a guess of course, but this is in fact Adobe's stated policy for protected products like Photoshop.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Gizmo

[Gorth]

I don't buy anything that requires Steam, but I've sort of fallen in love with gamersgate. Probably because the downloads don't require installing any proprietary software.

Does that mean there's no installing any software beyond the game file itself, or is it like GOG.com?

 

Either way, I could handle that...a lot better than Steam.

It just means that the distributor (in this case gamersgate) doesn't add anything other then what the publisher already included in the package (i.e. securom, tages, ubisoft online slavery, etc.). You download a small download manager (a 64k exe file iirc) which downloads your files into a temp folder on your desktop or whatever, then runs the autorun/setup/start whatever installs the program. You can delete the download manager after the download. You can keep the dowloaded files too if you intend to reinstall later.

 

The only funny thing it does is, it scrambles a few bytes at the start and end of the installer, but I usually copy the temp folder to my external hdd before running the installer. If not, you have to download that little 64k file and run again. It seems to check for missing files (redownloading damaged/missing ones) when I put it to the test. While I prefer physical media, I can see the attraction of having links to downloads, updates, keys, serial no. etc. in one list.

 

Edit to add:

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

I still have my Planescape box...

 

*(And Baldur's Gate 2, and even the original sideways, flip open Fallout box).

Got some of the original "large" Black Isle boxes (PS:T, IWD, BG2, Fallout 1+2), original Defender of the Crown for the Amiga (which cost me the equivalent of $130 back in 1986), Zork for the C64 plus a bunch of other old boxes...

[Thorton_AP]

I loved Defender of the Crown! I so sucked at jousting though haha.

 

The music in that game was pretty awesome.

 

Is that price adjusted for today's inflation?

[Gorth]

I loved Defender of the Crown! I so sucked at jousting though haha.

 

The music in that game was pretty awesome.

 

Is that price adjusted for today's inflation?

Nope

 

It was awfully expensive. Actually, so was most of the original Cinemaware games. The gfx and music just blew me a away though. Strategy game, throwing rocks at your opponent, romances, swashbuckling, jousting (which I sucked at too) and epic battles (simple number crunching iirc)

[Mamoulian War]

What about awesome download only indie games? Do you just skip them?

 

Depends on DRM... Steam only games without any other possibility of download/buy them is automatic skip for me...

[Luckmann]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

Well, yeah. Until all we got was cheap DVD cases. A game collection is like a well-sorted movie collection on the shelf, or a library of books.

[Raithe]

Frankly, I would never buy a brand new game from Steam when for a similar price it's available in disc format... I like actually getting physical products and having manuals to flick through if I need them..

 

What Steam is good for is picking up the bargain games on occasion that are a year or ten old...

[Purkake]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

Well, yeah. Until all we got was cheap DVD cases. A game collection is like a well-sorted movie collection on the shelf, or a library of books.

Except that they are, you know, video games.

 

Frankly, I would never buy a brand new game from Steam when for a similar price it's available in disc format... I like actually getting physical products and having manuals to flick through if I need them..

 

What Steam is good for is picking up the bargain games on occasion that are a year or ten old...

These days maybe 1 game out of 100 has an actual flickable manual.

[213374U]

Except that they are, you know, video games.

Huh? So what. People collect all sorts of weird things ranging from keychains to bottle caps. A VG box collection is somehow something not worth the space it occupies?

 

Outside of install speeds, I don't care about having a "physical" copy, as a physical copy is as likely to fail as an electronic one stored in a server elsewhere, if not more likely, perhaps. For me, it's a matter of control. I'm giving up a great deal of control over something I've paid for, to someone else, to accomodate commercial interests that likely infringe on my rights (first sale doctrine). I depend on them exclusively for access to the game, I depend on them exclusively for access to updates, and backups are useless. And, as far as I know, they don't have a contractual obligation to fulfill their promise to patch DRM out of games if they ever go out of business or otherwise close shop. And, on principle, I don't trust corporations.

Edited July 11, 2010 by 213374U

[Luckmann]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

Well, yeah. Until all we got was cheap DVD cases. A game collection is like a well-sorted movie collection on the shelf, or a library of books.

Except that they are, you know, video games.

 

[...]

That's exactly the kind of thinking that has put gaming in this cultural slump.

[213374U]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

Well, yeah. Until all we got was cheap DVD cases. A game collection is like a well-sorted movie collection on the shelf, or a library of books.

Except that they are, you know, video games.

 

[...]

That's exactly the kind of thinking that has put gaming in this cultural slump.

To expand on this:

 

 

Popular pieces of literature such as this one fill many a bookshelf

[Raithe]

In context.. hm, I have around 4,000 books on shelves in my room.. and carefully stored in boxes are around 30 or 40 pc games from yesteryear.. while the dvd game boxes of the more recent years occupy shelving downstairs with the computer...

 

Sure every now and then I have a search through and clear out of the things I will never ever play again.. but still, it's nice to keep a library in track.. whether it's books, games, or whatever..

 

Besides, if you get only Steam installed games.. you don't get to enjoy shiney cover art as much..

 

Plus. the physical copy actually lets you feel like you bought something. Electronic only still tends to feel like you're just.. 'renting' it rather then owning it. Maybe that's just a psychological thing, but it's there.

[Purkake]

So all you anti-Steam people are happy with dozens of boxes cluttering up your room?

Well, yeah. Until all we got was cheap DVD cases. A game collection is like a well-sorted movie collection on the shelf, or a library of books.

Except that they are, you know, video games.

 

[...]

That's exactly the kind of thinking that has put gaming in this cultural slump.

My point was that I'm not going to put Temple of Elemental Evil and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines next to War And Peace and Schindler's list.

 

Gaming can get out of the slump when it starts taking itself seriously.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Purkake

[Thorton_AP]

4,000 books?

 

4,000 is a very, very large number...

[HoonDing]

My point was that I'm not going to put Temple of Elemental Evil and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines next to War And Peace and Schindler's list.

 

Gaming can get out of the slump when it starts taking itself seriously.

They would fit in right next to Harry Potter & Twilight, though.

[Hurlshort]

The issue here was that you can buy a hardcopy game, and still have to use Steam to play it now. I get that some people don't like it when a game installs extra software on your computer, but you can see why a develop or a publisher does it. It is probably one of the cheaper choices for getting gamers to register and for DRM.

 

Given that Steam's offline mode actually works now, I'm not really worried about it. It is a lot better than the Ubisoft stuff.

[Hassat Hunter]

Given that Steam's offline mode actually works now, I'm not really worried about it.

I've got experiences to the contrary... so I won't trust being able to play the game if I may loose connection for a while...

[LadyCrimson]

4000 books is definitely a lot. I love to read but I probably don't own more than 400-500 or so. I'd love to have a library of 1000's! Count me in the camp of liking a physical object to collect and place on a shelf or in a box. It's satisfying in some strange way.

 

My point was that I'm not going to put Temple of Elemental Evil and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines next to War And Peace and Schindler's list.

So don't mix in the book collection, movie collection, and the video game collection together, then.

[Hurlshort]

Given that Steam's offline mode actually works now, I'm not really worried about it.

I've got experiences to the contrary... so I won't trust being able to play the game if I may loose connection for a while...

 

Have you tried it in the last few months? They completely redid Steam. I complained about it as much as the next guy before that.

[LadyCrimson]

But what if their next update/huge overhaul makes it worse again & it takes a long time for them to fix it? I don't like relying on that if I don't have to, that's all.

Edited July 11, 2010 by LadyCrimson