Steam Deals - Good or Bad?

[Country_Gravy]

I know that a lot of folks around here do not like steam much, but I have been buying a ton of stuff from them for dirt cheap. They have had deals on the total war games and I just picked up Rome: TW and Medeival II: TW for $2.50 each. I know that these are older games, but I have not played them and I like the TW games. I have purchased deals from them on Command & Conquer 3 and 4 (both for under $5) and several other games. I find this to be a great dea and I plan on checking back for other older games that go on sale for 50 - 80 percent offl, but I would like to hear the dissenting argument about why steam sucks and I am a total retard for buying anything from them.

Also, I don't not remove items from an inventory, so the pirate argument is old and tired and need not be discussed.

Thank you, and good day.

 

[Ermm]

Piratebay has a very good deals. Better than Steam of course.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Piratebay has a very good deals. Better than Steam of course.

Totally brilliant response for a retarded faggot.

Thank you for your input

 

[DaveO]

I'd say all of the deals are bad due to the fact if Steam goes defunct there goes your entire collection of games. I'd rather go to a site where I can purchase and download the game without having to worry about whether the site lasts for very long.

 

[Quilty]

I used to be a real proponent of buying games on CDs because that way you owned the game forever and didn't rely on the services of a third party, but since nowadays game boxes rarely contain anything more than the disc itself (and maybe a flimsy manual or a poorly drawn map), I don't think that's a valid argument any more. Ever since I got used to buying discounted games on Steam I stopped buying games in shops, and the only thing that I consider buying are collector's editions (Witcher 2 looks nice). But I've bought maybe two or three of those, while I have over two dozen games on Steam, all of which cost me maybe 60-70 dollars all together.

LAME EDIT: The poster above makes a good point, but then again if you end up losing all your games in a couple of years you'll still have wasted a very small amount of money (if you only purchased them when they were discounted). I can't see that as a major loss, and apart from that I very often choose the convenience of downloading a game on Steam rather than having to torrent the game.

 

[Metro]

Little point in making a thread like this -- it will just devolve into a flame fest from those seeking Kodex Kreds arguing you're a sucker for spending $5 on a 'license' to play a game whereas they can get a box copy complete with a manual and cloth map (not that anything other than overpriced collector's editions contain something other than the disc and maybe some one-page instruction leaflet) they can jerk off to... Of course, never mind the fact I just spent $5 at Pet Co. on cat treats. Bottom line is if you are like most gainfully employed/independent people then the money you spend on Steam games on sale is so inconsequential compared to your other daily expenses that it's not worth getting worked up about.

Unfortunately that doesn't make for very lively message board discussions vis-a-vis DRM and property rights thus people will always argue the theoretical issues over simple pragmatism.

Edit: So I guess to address the OP's question, theoretically speaking there are several drawbacks but practically speaking there are zero. It just boils down to what type of person you are and whether or not you want to have super principled stances over the matter of five bucks.

 

[Rogue]

Let's presume that you only buy really cheap games (for $3) and that your time is valuable. Let's compare Steam and TPB:
- Download from steam and play the game when done; or
- Search for a torrent; make sure it's legit and not virus infected; make sure it's seeded; download the files; install the game; look for updates; download updates; update the game; look for crack; make sure it's not infected; install the crack; play the game.

Yeah ...

 

[Topher]

Let's presume that you only buy really cheap games (for $3) and that your time is valuable. Let's compare Steam and TPB:
- Download from steam and play the game when done; or
- Search for a torrent; make sure it's legit and not virus infected; make sure it's seeded; download the files; install the game; look for updates; download updates; update the game; look for crack; make sure it's not infected; install the crack; play the game.

Yeah ...

Um... torrenting games isn't nearly as hard as you're pretending it is.

*It does piss me off to buy a game in box only to find out that it's little more then the steam version on disk, I'm looking right at you DoW2. My boxed copy of DoW2 installed straight to steam which might not piss me off so much if steam games didn't install to god only knows where on my drive and always end up being a pain in the ass to mod.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Cool. Thanks for the replies. It seems that I am in the same boat as Quilty...the price of these games is so low that if they are gone in 2-3 years, why do I care that much if I paid less than $10 for them? As far as AAA titles, I can't see paying $60 for a game, so I am OK waiting a while until the price comes down.

As far as the game not being around someday, hasn't steam been around for quite some time? What are the chances of them going out of business? Aren't they one of the more profitable online retailers around for games? I guess these are some of the questions that I forgot to ask in the original post.

As far as TPB, I did gank FO3 mainly because I don't like bethsoft at all and I love fallout so I wanted to try it out. I felt guilty about it. I tried to download operation anchorage and got a call from my ISP saying that they received a call from Zenimax that said they were able to download operation anchorage from my ip address. I played dumb to the ISP and told them a friend must of downloaded it becuase I didn't know what they were talking about. They told me that if I am going to pirate games to make sure I just download and don't upload or the companies get ticked off. I think with BitTorrent you have to upload in order to get the software, so I am done with pirating. It's lame anyway...it is still stealing so I felt sort of shitty even though it was Bethesda that I was abusing. I guess I am just not a thief.

I am going to continue to buy cheap games from steam since it seems like a good deal. I didn't know if they installed any invasive DRM or anything.

 

[Forest Dweller]

I'd say all of the deals are bad due to the fact if Steam goes defunct there goes your entire collection of games. I'd rather go to a site where I can purchase and download the game without having to worry about whether the site lasts for very long.

I wouldn't ever worry about that, since I consider piracy a safe recourse if those circumstances ever arrive.

 

[J1M]

I'd say all of the deals are bad due to the fact if Steam goes defunct there goes your entire collection of games. I'd rather go to a site where I can purchase and download the game without having to worry about whether the site lasts for very long.

I wouldn't ever worry about that, since I consider piracy a safe recourse if those circumstances ever arrive.

Shocking news for retards: you can play steam games offline. And make offline backups.

 

[Zed]

I used to buy shit I kind of knew I wouldn't play just because they were on sale, and a good friend called me a huge retard for doing that. So I stopped buying steam games even if they went for like half a dollar. I haven't played more or less games since then, and I've saved money. This is a good lesson for everyone - don't be huge retards.

 

[Rogue]

Yes, imagine the huge savings by not buying those $2 games. My, that must be like $10 saved per annum. The things you could do with all that money. Oh, I know! You could get like 4 cups of coffee - OR - fill your car's gas tank by 1/10. Woowww so awesome, I'll start saving RIGHT NOW!

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'd say all of the deals are bad due to the fact if Steam goes defunct there goes your entire collection of games. I'd rather go to a site where I can purchase and download the game without having to worry about whether the site lasts for very long.

I wouldn't ever worry about that, since I consider piracy a safe recourse if those circumstances ever arrive.

Shocking news for retards: you can play steam games offline. And make offline backups.

Gotta launch the games once in online mode to activate them. Even if installed via offline backups. Doesn't really bother me but worth mentioning.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

I'd say all of the deals are bad due to the fact if Steam goes defunct there goes your entire collection of games. I'd rather go to a site where I can purchase and download the game without having to worry about whether the site lasts for very long.

And ITZ could happen and there would be no electricity left with which to play games, so clearly buying video games at all is a waste of money.

People bring this argument up all the time, but honestly, how likely do you really think it is that Valve will go belly up any time soon? And even if that were to happen, why do you think Valve wouldn't unlock your game collection to no longer use steam after they're gone? All the game content is on your harddrive, so I would imagine that it would be very easy to untether it from Steam.

 

[Country_Gravy]

I'd say all of the deals are bad due to the fact if Steam goes defunct there goes your entire collection of games. I'd rather go to a site where I can purchase and download the game without having to worry about whether the site lasts for very long.

And ITZ could happen and there would be no electricity left with which to play games, so clearly buying video games at all is a waste of money.

People bring this argument up all the time, but honestly, how likely do you really think it is that Valve will go belly up any time soon? And even if that were to happen, why do you think Valve wouldn't unlock your game collection to no longer use steam after they're gone? All the game content is on your harddrive, so I would imagine that it would be very easy to untether it from Steam.

The tranny speaks the truth!

 

[Frau Bishop]

You cheap 2$ steam whores keep on destroying the abandonware/software history pool. And guess who earnes your money? People who created the old software? Guess again. Keep on filling the war chest for legal actions, they may have missed a spot on the net where old software was appreciated and shared in the past. For free.. ohh noooes, the horror! But I suppose you would be ok letting them license games like movies and music, for about 200+ years from now on? Whatever man created.. it shall never be consumed for free? Yea.
That stupid western net starts to suck. I'll try to look more in the direction of Russia and Asian territories, they seem to resist the copyright brainwashing far better.

 

[Lesifoere]

- Search for a torrent; make sure it's legit and not virus infected; make sure it's seeded; download the files; install the game; look for updates; download updates; update the game; look for crack; make sure it's not infected; install the crack; play the game.

Yeah ...

You're really that dim and slow? My condolences.

 

[baronjohn]

Torrenting is much faster and more convenient than STEAM. Not that that would matter if Valve were worth supporting, but they aren't. They can all starve for all I care.

 

[Zeus]

You cheap 2$ steam whores keep on destroying the abandonware

Grr! No one is selling my favorite game anymore!

I know! I'll pirate it. But I won't just pirate it like a normal person. I'll make up a fancy name--how about, abandonware. Like the software isn't just out of print, it's been abandoned, like a little baby.

Wait a minute? The hell? They're selling it again?

It's my baby! Mine! Don't take her away from me! Waaaaah!

 

[Norfleet]

- Download from steam and play the game when done; or
- Search for a torrent; make sure it's legit and not virus infected; make sure it's seeded; download the files; install the game; look for updates; download updates; update the game; look for crack; make sure it's not infected; install the crack; play the game.

You say this like Steam is somehow "hassle free". However, Steam isn't exactly hassle free: In order to get stuff safely from Steam, you have to go through all the hassle of establishing an entirely separate billing identity, or else you've compromised your security. TPB doesn't require that you do anything like that. Just download and go. No one knows you were there or what you got. Even Ye Olde Games Shoppe is safer than Steam: Go in, give them your payment in small, nonconsecutive bills, and get your goods. On a convenience and privacy level, when Steam offers a method of payment equivalent in privacy and security to "small, unmarked bills", I will consider it. Until then they are evil spyware.

 

[Fowyr]

You cheap 2$ steam whores keep on destroying the abandonware/software history pool.

 

[J_C]

Torrenting is much faster and more convenient than STEAM.

HAHAHAAHAA! No.

Steam: Click on buy, use paypal (or credit card). Download game. Play. Future updates are automatic.
Torrent: Search for torrent. If the game is not new, you might have to search longer for a torrent with enough seeds, unless you want to download with 10 kb/s rate. Download. Unrar iso file, use deamon tools, install, crack. Future updates: repeate the whole process.

You can hate Steam as you want, but saying that using torrents is faster and more convenient is bullshit.

You say this like Steam is somehow "hassle free". However, Steam isn't exactly hassle free: In order to get stuff safely from Steam, you have to go through all the hassle of establishing an entirely separate billing identity, or else you've compromised your security. TPB doesn't require that you do anything like that. Just download and go. No one knows you were there or what you got. Even Ye Olde Games Shoppe is safer than Steam: Go in, give them your payment in small, nonconsecutive bills, and get your goods. On a convenience and privacy level, when Steam offers a method of payment equivalent in privacy and security to "small, unmarked bills", I will consider it. Until then they are evil spyware.

I don't really get what you are saying here. Steam offers the same ways for paying as GOG.

 

[Zeus]

And even if that were to happen, why do you think Valve wouldn't unlock your game collection to no longer use steam after they're gone? All the game content is on your harddrive, so I would imagine that it would be very easy to untether it from Steam.

That's incredibly unlikely. Maybe, *maybe* Valve games would be stripped of DRM. But third party games?

Imagine that going down in a meeting:

"So our games are protected by Steam DRM, right?"

"Right. Unless we go out of business. Then, before packing our things, we'll be sure to remove all copy protection from your game, allowing users to freely play and share it with their friends. It's something we have to do, because we're awesome."

 

[Norfleet]

Steam: Click on buy, use paypal (or credit card). Download game. Play. Future updates are automatic.

You're forgetting something: These factors are NOT convenient to do out of the blue. Paypal is a royal pain in the ass, and getting a credit card involves having to go all the way to some store that sells these things so you can prepay them, and this part has ALSO become a pain in the ass as of late. A significant amount of effort is involved in setting this up.

Torrentry, on the other hand, has minimal setup cost: You get your torrentry application of choice, and you start running.

Torrent: Search for torrent. If the game is not new, you might have to search longer for a torrent with enough seeds, unless you want to download with 10 kb/s rate.

If your game is not on Steam at all, you're completely SOL and must resort to this anyway. This is, of course, AFTER you have already invested all this effort in getting on Steam in the FIRST place. And it is not as if Steam downloads will somehow magically teleport themselves to your computer the moment you click on them. You're still going to be waiting for your download, and that's still going to take a bit, even on a fast connection. Unless you are in the habit of staring at the download progress, which, incidentally, makes it go slower, you're going to wander off and do something else anyway. Speed has thus become largely irrelevant. You queue it, you forget about it for a bit and check back later.

You can hate Steam as you want, but saying that using torrents is faster and more convenient is bullshit.

No. No, it isn't. Torrents let you acquire your goods in a secure and anonymous manner, much like going to an actual store, but without the hassles of having to dodge gunfire and psychos with knives on your way there. To do the same thing in Steam requires that you engage in a lengthy mirror dance which ends up taking you to a store to acquire some kind of prepaid card that you can use on the Internet...and frankly, I don't trust those that much either, since surely they know where those things WENT, so at minimum, they can find your general location, unless you travel a very long distance to acquire one.