I haven't found myself playing many Steam games, as of late.

Too much of a hassle, having to wait for everything to update every six hours (patch it right the first time, you bastards).

That said, if anyone decides to actually run a game (I have the orange box and HL2 DM), I'd probably join in.

Eew. Steam.

Eww, digital distribution system that works almost perfectly?

Top Gun wrote:Eww, digital distribution system that works almost perfectly?

I doubt that'd be a fair description, given that the online requirement for playing previously downloaded and activated games. And other things relating to the general interface etc.

But it has had a few cheap things lately.

Any digital distribution fails. If you don't own a disk, you have to download it, taking hours, and if your computer crashes you lose the game because you dont get your credit back unless you uninstall it.

aldo wrote:I doubt that'd be a fair description, given that the online requirement for playing previously downloaded and activated games. And other things relating to the general interface etc.

But it has had a few cheap things lately.

I heard various complaints about Steam over the years, but when I finally installed and started using it for the first time after purchasing the Orange Box, I was incredibly pleased with the whole experience. The updating of the various titles you own is seamless, the mechanics of dealing with the individual games work just fine, and the integration with overall Steam profiles, user groups, and achievement lists adds a nice degree of competition and replayability. Hell, in certain ways, it's substantially more convenient than buying a bunch of disconnected retail releases, as all of the titles that use the service are grouped in one single location.

Matthew wrote:Any digital distribution fails. If you don't own a disk, you have to download it, taking hours, and if your computer crashes you lose the game because you dont get your credit back unless you uninstall it.

But the thing is, in the case of the Orange Box (and I'd imagine many other games available on Steam), I do own the disk, so the only downloading required after installing it was that of various patches and updates. Even if I didn't, though, which will presumably be the case for HL2 Episode 3, I wouldn't foresee any problems, as I get excellent download speeds from the Steam servers. I'm not really sure what you mean by your other complaint, though. I'd imagine that Steam has some sort of progressive downloading built-in that would enable you to continue from where you left off after a crash (though I've never tested it myself), and even if what you did download managed to get corrupted somehow, I can't see why you wouldn't be able to just delete it all and re-download again.

And by "any digital distribution," are you including something like GoodOldGames, where you can download your game as many times as you wish and burn it to disk as you please?

What I mean is, if I understand correctly, you can only install it once without uninstalling it (the game). So what happens if your PC crashes or something and you don't get a chance to uninstall it ebfore your hard drive is toast?

Well I have slightly off of a problem with ones that you can download as many times as you like, but I'd still just rather own the disk.

Matthew wrote:What I mean is, if I understand correctly, you can only install it once without uninstalling it (the game). So what happens if your PC crashes or something and you don't get a chance to uninstall it ebfore your hard drive is toast?

At least as I understand things, the games that you own are tied to your specific Steam account. So if your hard drive goes belly-up, all you have to do is install Steam on your new one, log in to your account, let Steam recognize that you don't have the games installed, and get to downloading them again. In fact, as I look at the Wiki article for it while typing this, "Content can be downloaded from Steam servers unlimited times to any number of internet-connected computers that have the Steam client installed." So that solves that problem, then.

Well I have slightly off of a problem with ones that you can download as many times as you like, but I'd still just rather own the disk.

But the thing is, there's no longer any need to purchase anything. If you want a physical copy of one of GOG's titles, all you have to do is stick the installation executable on a recordable DVD. Hey presto, instant game disk! And you can do that as many times as you like, to as many disks, portable hard drives, or flash drives as you happen to own. The content's completely under your control.

Some digital distribution has download limits, excluding additional DRM activation restrictions, though.

Top Gun wrote:

Matthew wrote:What I mean is, if I understand correctly, you can only install it once without uninstalling it (the game). So what happens if your PC crashes or something and you don't get a chance to uninstall it ebfore your hard drive is toast?

At least as I understand things, the games that you own are tied to your specific Steam account. So if your hard drive goes belly-up, all you have to do is install Steam on your new one, log in to your account, let Steam recognize that you don't have the games installed, and get to downloading them again. In fact, as I look at the Wiki article for it while typing this, "Content can be downloaded from Steam servers unlimited times to any number of internet-connected computers that have the Steam client installed." So that solves that problem, then.

Well I have slightly off of a problem with ones that you can download as many times as you like, but I'd still just rather own the disk.

But the thing is, there's no longer any need to purchase anything. If you want a physical copy of one of GOG's titles, all you have to do is stick the installation executable on a recordable DVD. Hey presto, instant game disk! And you can do that as many times as you like, to as many disks, portable hard drives, or flash drives as you happen to own. The content's completely under your control.

Well then I've been lied to. I was told you could only download it to once computer at a time. Apparently someone just didn't want to share...

It's still tied to your account. I don't know the "rules" on account sharing with Steam, though. So it might get the account banned if two people are on at the same time.

While disliking Steam and Valve in general too, I also, Aldo, Saw and was interested by these holiday deals of late. I was mainly interested by the Lucasarts Premier Pack and the KoTOR deal that has now passed. (Even though I own all of the games I want in there already)

I find it amusing though how they can only afford to sell you this download with a price reduction after a full year of selling the product at 120% of the High Street, Boxed, Disked, Manual'd price.

The main problems I have with Steam specifically are-
No box/disk/physical manual (w/o high street purchased valve games/some exceptions)
Poor VC quality
Ugly interface
Useless Community thing
High prices 99% of the time
It's buggy and breaks (in my case at least)
Downloading refuses to happen quickly for me, even when I can stream HD at the same time or without it at high speed
Valve decides that my 99% DL'ed EVE trial should be reduced to 23kbps and then terminated because too many people are playing TF2 (spits on floor)
And the fact that all of it's good points have been done before or better by something else.

I just got the THQ pack on Steam, and, apart from Dawn of War 1, made a nice little saving on the pack. £27 for about 15 games, including all the Red Factions, Saints Row 2, Stalker and Full Spectrum Warrior

I did once also own Titan Quest, but the disk got narked, so now I have Titan Quest and the Sequel as part of the pack.

You got a THQ pack and didn't get Supreme Commander? That's the best THQ game there is.

Which is probably why it wasn't included