PC Gaming isn't dead after all

[SoupNazi]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/18/30-mi ... use-steam/

PC Gamer reports that Valve is fucking rich:

Valve tell us Steam now has over 30 million accounts, with new user growth up 178% over last year, and sales up over 200%. For reference, Xbox Live has 25 million accounts total.

When will developers realize this? I'll take Steam as a platform over PC gaming declining even further anytime.

 

[MetalCraze]

Eh... Steam sells multiplatform shit.

 

[Tails]

More like 30 million of people renting games from Valve.

 

[Rogue]

Steam is a nice idea, but useless. The games are insanely overpriced. The only thing worth getting are the special discounts. So yeah, I'm gonna wait forever and check in all the time to find the game I want (which is at the same time found cheaper in brick and mortar stores) under a discount.
Plus when something major happens, like a left4derp DLC release, you can't download anything for at least 2 days. By "can't download" I mean that your donwload either gets suspended or is running at 50-100kB/s, which is the same as 0 to me. As long as there will not be a universal store for PC games as a platform (with PROPER support), then can all just stick it.

 

[Scream Phoenix]

Age of Wonders appeared on Steam later than it did on GoG so I got it off GoG.

Take that Valve

 

[DefJam101]

Discounts and bundle deals are cool, everything else is mediocre.


Just remember how terrible Steam used to be.

 

[reaven]

Lets hear what the steam haters have to say about this...

 

[Topher]

Lets hear what the steam haters have to say about this...

I think we already did.

 

[SoupNazi]

It improved tremendously the past year or two. I don't buy that many games, but those I do seem to be decently priced on Steam. But that might be because games are grossly overpriced here in Czech Republic by default - I could actually earn money by buying games for Steam prices (somehow) and then selling them here for Czech prices. It's that bad.

 

[SCO]

Free market in action

Selling at the price that will be supported hur durrrr.

 

[Twinkle]

Well, I've used it for Alien Swarm Source, and as a multiplayer client it's serviceable. However, it still tends to crash, loads slowly, sports clunky consolified interface and a browser enjoy eating RAM like a fucking cake. Aldo, shitty tradition of forcing patches on user's throat without ability to revert is still in. Even in the current state it's far from being good for what it is.

 

[Annonchinil]

Well Shadow Magic is on Steam before gog. Very tempted.

 

[Achilles]

I for one welcome our new Valve overlords. Steam is great and if you don't like it...

...deal with it.

 

[made]

Why pay this man 50 bucks to download something that you can download for free somewhere else?

It just makes no sense to me.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Yes, well I can only wonder when Steam will shut down and what will happen to all of those assholes who has bought 100+ games through that service...

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I own 322 games on Steam.

 

[made]

I "own" 322 games on Steam.

 

[Destroid]

Yes, well I can only wonder when Steam will shut down and what will happen to all of those assholes who has bought 100+ games through that service...

Pirate server that unlocks all steam games for everyone?

 

[Yeesh]

Yes, well I can only wonder when Steam will shut down and what will happen to all of those assholes who has bought 100+ games through that service...

Valve tell us Steam now has over 30 million accounts, with new user growth up 178% over last year, and sales up over 200%. For reference, Xbox Live has 25 million accounts total.

Yes, sounds like they'll be shutting down any day now. Do you also think people who buy annual gym memberships are stupid? Because like what if the gym goes out of business TOMORROW?!?! Right?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Yes, well I can only wonder when Steam will shut down and what will happen to all of those assholes who has bought 100+ games through that service...

Valve tell us Steam now has over 30 million accounts, with new user growth up 178% over last year, and sales up over 200%. For reference, Xbox Live has 25 million accounts total.

Yes, sounds like they'll be shutting down any day now. Do you also think people who buy annual gym memberships are stupid? Because like what if the gym goes out of business TOMORROW?!?! Right?

Its unlikely for the gym to go out of business within the year, and in any case you are renting access so you aren't losing a large investment. Any given business is unlikely to last 30 years. Last I checked, when a book publisher goes out of business I don't suddenly lose every book I've bought in the last decade. Not to mention the reprehensible fact that Valve can summarily lock you out of your account for any reason or no reason whatsoever. There was already an incident where over 10,000 people were 'accidently' banned. Sure inspires faith in their system

 

[deshields538]

About 75% of the games I've bought through steam are from their awesome sales, especially the recent summer mega sale where tons of things had discounts ranging from 50% to 90%. The rest of my games are ones which require it to work, like Dawn of War 2, or games that are hard to find at my local store, like Mount and Blade: Warband (I missed the sale for it).

It's also very handy while I'm at uni as I can put steam games on my laptop without having to lug the discs around.

For me, Valve going out of business (unlikely at the minute) is just a small risk compared with all the pros you get with it.

 

[deuxhero]

Do you also think people who buy annual gym memberships are stupid? Because like what if the gym goes out of business TOMORROW?!?! Right?

Yes, because gyms tend to die pretty easily.

 

[commie]

People here forget that you actually pay twice for getting shit from Steam as you have to pay for the internets as well. This isn't so bad for just the odd activation, but in many places(fucking Australia) you pay through the arse for capped broadband and so buying and downloading a game from Steam carries with it a substantially higher cost than just buying a game at a store.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Not always the case, even in thirdworldia where there are download caps. I know an aussie who has capped downloads but he told me his ISP allows unlimited downloading from Steam.

So if we're saying that you have to pay for Steam games twice because some people somewhere might hit a download cap if they download too many games at once because they bought them pennies on the dollar, then we can say all of Australia downloads Steam games for free!

 

[Mackerel]

I own 322 games on Steam.

Employee discount? :D