PC Gaming isn't locked in to one store, so why is the hate for Steam competitors?

wildfire said:
I guess you weren't around for the discussions pc gamers had about Steam during the first 2 years it launched. It was all about DRM back then. Steam offers more than that now but that's how they started. As a DRM platform devs could trust and we could tolerate.
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People bring this up all the time about Steam. Steam was released to the public in 2004 - that's 10 years ago. If these competitors are going to offer a viable Steam alternative, they've had a fucking decade to learn from Valve's early mistakes. They didn't.

GFWL was broken for years - and to top it off, Microsoft actually had the balls to try and charge people for that piece of shit service. They had years to learn from Valve's mistakes. You cannot give them the same pass that people give to Valve on this issue. It'd be like if a major console maker released a console with terrible online functionality in 2014 and then used the excuse "Well...the PS2 way back in 2001 didn't have very good online functionality either." Yes, I realize that Nintendo is a real company.

Origin isn't functionally terrible but they are where Steam was in 2007. They're basically just a storefront. Aside from certain exclusive games, they have made no compelling arguments as to why I should by games on their platform instead of Steam. UPlay is actually terrible because they have forced logins for a lot of their games and they don't work. We are now in 2014. These companies have had a god damn decade to learn how to be a good copycat and they haven't.

GOG is the one company that isn't hated. The reason for that is that they offer things that Steam doesn't and like Steam have continually worked to improve their service. Competitors like GFWL, UPlay and Origin haven't made any attempts to the value of their services ever.

In the time that Origin was released, Valve has added the following to Steam:

- Greenlight
- Early Access
- Rewards program that you can actually use to subsidize game purchases. No other digital service even comes close to doing this.
- Big Picture mode
- Linux support
- Steam workshop, a platform to deliver mods
- Mobile functionality - and to be fair, Origin has also added this
- Free to play games that actually reward the player
 
szaromir said:
a) it's a pointless system no matter how you slice it
b) even if you don't want to have anything to do with it, you're still pestered about trading cards so that someone else can complete his/her badges
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point·less
ˈpointlis/
adjective
adjective: pointless

1.
having little or no sense, use, or purpose.
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Even if it solely benefited valve or publishers it wouldn't be pointless. That's just objectively not true. But as others have argued certain consumers have found value within the steams trading card offering and thus even to some steam consumers it is not pointless.

Pretty sure you can set your inventory to private [or another setting that stops those request]

Leynos said:
I don't understand the unbridled love, and free pass that Steam, and Valve get. The client is constantly getting in my way with adverts, and notices, and is just annoying all around. I don't want achievements, friend non-sense, or a program that I have to run over my game. If I could, I'd get everything on GOG as there is no client, just the game with no DRM.
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While I don't probably use steam enough to complain about it, I certainly agree I would much prefer getting all my games on GOG
 
The other clients just aren't as good as Steam. Some of them will probably improve with time, and a lot of the ones I've tried actually aren't that bad (Impulse, GameFly, Desura, etc.), but Steam has kind of already become the Coca Cola or iTunes or Amazon in this situation.

Being Origin-only didn't stop me from getting Mass Effect 3, and I've taken advantage of cheap deals on other services (particularly for games that aren't on Steam), but for me PC gaming has pretty much become Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store.

Ideally, as many games should be available on as many of the services as possible. Ubisoft, despite packing UPlay into its games, still let's you buy and install those games on Steam. EA should do the same thing.
 
Leynos said:
I don't understand the unbridled love, and free pass that Steam, and Valve get. The client is constantly getting in my way with adverts, and notices, and is just annoying all around. I don't want achievements, friend non-sense, or a program that I have to run over my game. If I could, I'd get everything on GOG as there is no client, just the game with no DRM.
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you can turn all that off
 
I feel like the OP is trying to converge two separate arguments into one, and they are mutually exclusive.

The first argument is why do PC gamers want to be locked to one store? The answer is we don't and PC gaming isn't. You can go buy a PC game from virtually any web store.

The second argument is why do PC gamers want their games on Steam? The simple answer is this is where our friends are. Beyond this, there is the possibility of extra Steam features too like Steam Cloud, Steam Achievements, Steam Trading Cards, and Steam Workshop. Competitors have some of these features but not all. And definitely nothing coming close to being as great as Steam Workshop.

Other competitors just want to try and ride the wave of all the hard work Valve took into building up Steam without giving us a good reason why we should leave Steam to play PC games. A DRM free world is not a realistic one, so the solution is to migrate to the best one. If someone else had a better solution people would flock to it.
 
HP_Wuvcraft said:
Out of all the reasons you could come up with as to why you only want one store, this is by far the most ridiculous.
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every new unnecessary account you make for a game is another way your personal information and even credit cards can be stolen

EA and ubisoft have not proven themselves good stewards of this data either
 
PastorOfMuppets said:
In the time that Origin was released, Valve has added the following to Steam:

- Greenlight
- Early Access
- Rewards program that you can actually use to subsidize game purchases. No other digital service even comes close to doing this.
- Big Picture mode
- Linux support
- Steam workshop, a platform to deliver mods
- Mobile functionality - and to be fair, Origin has also added this
- Free to play games that actually reward the player
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Don't forget Steam reviews. That's already saved me a few times from bad purchases.
 
szaromir said:
a) it's a pointless system no matter how you slice it
b) even if you don't want to have anything to do with it, you're still pestered about trading cards so that someone else can complete his/her badges
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a) It's pointless, sure, but it allowed me to make over 50 bucks in Steam credit. If that's a scam, then that's the most attractive, useful and consumer-friendly scam I've ever seen.

b) You're right, I can't argue with that... Oh wait, I can. I have over 300 people on my friends list (99% of which are fellow GAFfers), and only once have I been asked to trade. I said no because I'd rather sell it, and they said "OK" and never asked again. Whoa, talk about annoyance!
 
PastorOfMuppets said:
People bring this up all the time about Steam. Steam was released to the public in 2004 - that's 10 years ago. If these competitors are going to offer a viable Steam alternative, they've had a fucking decade to learn from Valve's early mistakes. They didn't.
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This is a fair point, unlike when it is used for MMOs, since the barrier to entry isn't large. Why EA and Ubisoft didn't do things right from the start when they had a textbook to read is their own fault.
 
I dont hate Steam competitors and download plenty of games outside of it.

But at the same times Im not a big fan of EA or Ubisoft.. I never buy their games even when they are on Steam anymore. Nothing to do with their platforms.. just dont like how they run the industry. Stuff like GOG and such though.. totally fine and games that dont even use even any service is cool to.
 
wildfire said:
This is a fair point, unlike when it is used for MMOs, since the barrier to entry isn't large. Why EA and Ubisoft didn't do things right from the start when they had a textbook to read is their own fault.
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Hmm wasn't EADM in existence back in like 2005? EA ain't exactly a new kid on the block when it comes to trying to digitally distribute games
 
HP_Wuvcraft said:
Out of all the reasons you could come up with as to why you only want one store, this is by far the most ridiculous.
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If a legitimate reason is as crazy as it gets in your world you need to work on your imagination. Oh never mind, you're just creating a hyperbole that is more silly than the words in your reply.
 
I like GOG and others, I dislike needing to remember all sorts of different passwords to play my games though, so Origin and Uplay and Windows Games are annoying.
 
Origin and uPlay would be fine with me if:
  • I didn't get prompted for UAC access with every update
  • I didn't constantly have to re-enter my credentials
  • Patching wasn't basically a manual task (uPlay)
  • I didn't have to back up the installers for games myself. In fact why are these platforms using traditional installers at all?
  • Had fair pricing for my region instead of every new release being sold for $99NZD
  • Had feature parity with Steam (BPM, In-Home Streaming, VR support) etc. Obviously some if this stuff is in beta on Steam but it shows they are thinking about more than just a storefront.

Origin seems like something that was created so EA could avoid paying Valve 30% of their sales. uPlay makes even less sense to me as Ubisoft games can be bought on Steam.
 
PastorOfMuppets said:
If these competitors are going to offer a viable Steam alternative, they've had a fucking decade to learn from Valve's early mistakes. They didn't.
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I made a post addressing this yesterday.

HP_Wuvcraft said:
Out of all the reasons you could come up with as to why you only want one store, this is by far the most ridiculous.
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This is actually one of the most valid reasons to stay away from Origin and other Clientside DRM services/launchers.
 
RedSwirl said:
The other clients just aren't as good as Steam..
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I don't let a client keep me from buying a game but this is the reason a lot of people don't.

It's amazing how poor some of the other clients are for example origin (even before it was called that) i have had so many problems with even though i don't even own that many games for it. Like not being able to play mass effect 3 while bf3 was updating. Bf3 battle log simply not supporting my browser and not working. Sims 3 installer being completely broken even after re downloading twice. Bf4 licencing issues not letting the game launch... ect.

Steam's verify integrity of game cache feature alone makes every other client ballz in comparison, it will even check too see if the game is already there when installing it so it doesn't have to redownload everything.

The idea that steam is some how harming the pc gaming market is dumb as well. So many games would never have had a chance to succeed without steam's community. Just putting your game on steam has massive advertising benefits and word spreads quickly if your game is good. It really has become of the centralized hub of pc gaming benefiting developers as well as players with direct feedback and community support that are almost instant for most games.


Leynos said:
You can turn off the Steam client, and get bare games with no DRM?
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Yes, there are some games that offer that. The developer is free to offer that option so that's where the blame should lie not steam.
 
SwiftDeath said:
Even if it solely benefited valve or publishers it wouldn't be pointless. That's just objectively not true. But as others have argued certain consumers have found value within the steams trading card offering and thus even to some steam consumers it is not pointless.
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The same kind of people that finds value in scammy f2p games.

RionaaM said:
a) It's pointless, sure, but it allowed me to make over 50 bucks in Steam credit. If that's a scam, then that's the most attractive, useful and consumer-friendly scam I've ever seen.
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It's nice that 85% of money makes it back to other gamers, but it's still a system designed around exploiting whales, not Valve giving you loyalty rewards. I don't think people be supportive of such systems.

b) You're right, I can't argue with that... Oh wait, I can. I have over 300 people on my friends list (99% of which are fellow GAFfers), and only once have I been asked to trade. I said no because I'd rather sell it, and they said "OK" and never asked again. Whoa, talk about annoyance!
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Your experience does not match mine, cool.
 
Personally, I like all my games in one centralized place. Also, Steam is way ahead of the ball game in terms of features. And all my friends are there.
 
For me its functionality and convenience. imagine having to open a different browser just to view certain sites? It would be a hassle. For one thing its easier having my friends all in one place. I'm already heavily invested in steam and so are my friends. Another big deal for me was that recently my computer died and when I built a new one I had a hard drive with all my steam/origin/uplay games on one drive. When I went to reinstall steam i was pleasantly surprised to find that reinstalling steam on that drive automatically installed all my steam games onto my steam library meaning I could save days of downloading games. Origin wasn't as easy but using a trick I manage to fool the program into reinstalling all my previously downloaded games one by one. Uplay I was SOL. Had to delete all the games and re download them all. Also some programs simply suck. GFWL for me was one of them. I'd get constant errors when trying to update certain games.
 
szaromir said:
The same kind of people that finds value in scammy f2p games.

It's nice that 85% of money makes it back to other gamers, but it's still a system designed around exploiting whales, not Valve giving you loyalty rewards. I don't think people be supportive of such systems.

Your experience does not match mine, cool.
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The difference this time is that said whales can also take advantage of the system and sell the cards they get. The fact that they choose not to should be their concern and theirs alone.

And it's funny how you spinned around the fact that your friends annoy you so you could criticize Valve. Of course that's just my experience; I don't add complete strangers as friends and would defriend anyone who bothered me about cards or items. How is that a negative point for Steam, I have absolutely no idea.
 
Dolor said:
Says a person that must put no value on their time or annoyance.
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If I want to play a video game, it does not matter what client it is on. Or to clarify, if I find it worth it to download the client for said game, I will. I value my time too much to sit around complaining about how I can't play this or that because it is not on Steam. No offense to the thread.
 
szaromir said:
The same kind of people that finds value in scammy f2p games.
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I've saved like 15 realworld dollars from selling my trading cards. I play a game for two hours, my notification panel lights up when I exit. I go to my inventory and sell them for ~12 to ~25 cents apiece. That money goes into my actual steam wallet as a real dollar amount. I just bought Guacamelee with some built of trading card funds and didn't pay a dime out of pocket.
 
Gowans said:
So why the whole Steam or nothing approach from some?
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for UPlay and EA, the whole purpose is to get the most out of sales of their published games. I wouldn't trust either to handle a Steam-sized store. They are brute forcing it for the benefit of their games, which I mostly don't play. I don't think I have a single EA title and I just play my Ubi games on PS3 (blood dragon and, uh, beyond good and evil HD i guess?)

I love gmg, amazon, GoG, however.

Valve has just done a very complete job and aren't stopping. If someone can find a way to leapfrog and compete or sell from some other angle that Valve isn't offering, then I'd go for that too.
 
HP_Wuvcraft said:
If I want to play a video game, it does not matter what client it is on. Or to clarify, if I find it worth it to download the client for said game, I will. I value my time too much to sit around complaining about how I can't play this or that because it is not on Steam. No offense to the thread.
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Maybe these people value their time and money too much to waste them on a game that's locked to a client they dislike. It's not like there's a shortage of other games. Yes, they are not the same games and maybe won't scratch the same itch, but they'd rather skip it anyway.
 
PandaPedinte said:
Here's a list with games you can run without the need to launch Steam once they're installed.
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This needs to be spammed in every discussion on the topic. The one (very very shaky) leg anti-Steam zealots had to stand on was that Steam was an "always-on" DRM.

Now we know that:

1. Steam doesn't require you to be online and logged in to play a game unless the DEVELOPER chooses to put online-required functionality into the game.
2. Steam doesn't require you to launch games through Steam unless the DEVELOPER chooses to make it required.
 
All my PC gaming friends are on it, I love having all of my games centralised with their play-time recorded, achievements, sales, etc. It's everywhere you want to be.

I don't hate Origin at all, but it'd be good if EA games would activate on Steam.
 
In a lot of ways it is easy to view Steam as a singular object. Which is one of the best compliments you can give to the service. Steam is a set of features. Like iCloud. There is no one "iCloud." its a suite of features and services, some better than others.

If you want to break out the DRM of Steam and judge it on it's own.. its really not that much different that competing always online DRM services. Some would even argue its at a disadvantage. But thats only one tiny piece of what makes up the coherent whole of steam.

There are a lot of features in Steam that ape the best of the most popular social networks, there are some really forward thinking initiatives like greenlight and big picture that have their definite drawbacks. But are still incredibly and ambitious and important. And then theres stuff like the community market that is so futuristic and staggering in its implications most people don't even know how to respond to it.

At this point Steam is such a vast set of interconnected pieces that its literally becoming it's own operating system. Nine times out of ten Steam is going to make your gaming experience more pleasurable and cohesive. You can't say that about any other DRM platform/service, except maybe Xfire?


The successes like GoG and Humble Store just get out of your way. You only interface with them at the time of purchase. And thats rub. EA wants us to interface with Origin past the point of purchase. Which nobody wants, because it doesn't offer us anything.
 
The point of Steam was to unify everything: My library, my friend list, everything.
But with all those stores and softwares... I have to deal with multiple accounts, split library and other stuff like this.
 
It's not that I hate competition, it's just that I hate EA, who have no compunction to fucking me over. You think Steam is bad? Imagine if Steam was suddenly run by EA, PC gaming would happily jump into their grave.
 
TekGryphon said:
This needs to be spammed in every discussion on the topic. The one (very very shaky) leg anti-Steam zealots had to stand on was that Steam was an "always-on" DRM.

Now we know that:

1. Steam doesn't require you to be online and logged in to play a game unless the DEVELOPER chooses to put online-required functionality into the game.
2. Steam doesn't require you to launch games through Steam unless the DEVELOPER chooses to make it required.
Click to expand...

Let's be fair here: Steam's DRM is certainly an "opt out" scenario, not an "opt in" one. The DRM is there by default. It used to be required, now it's optional. But very few (as demonstrated by that tiny list) developers will opt out when there's no pressure to do so. I don't think this seldom-used option absolves Valve of all responsibility or blame.

In any case, though, as DRM goes, Steam is the best case scenario, and it's a good service on top of that.
 
TekGryphon said:
This needs to be spammed in every discussion on the topic. The one (very very shaky) leg anti-Steam zealots had to stand on was that Steam was an "always-on" DRM.

Now we know that:

1. Steam doesn't require you to be online and logged in to play a game unless the DEVELOPER chooses to put online-required functionality into the game.
2. Steam doesn't require you to launch games through Steam unless the DEVELOPER chooses to make it required.
Click to expand...

all this has been known for years, it's only ignored by ideological zealots
 
TekGryphon said:
Is that the exception that proves the rule? If so, you're making my point.
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What? How is that proving your point?

Steam has plenty of anti-consumer policies, the biggest being that you do not own the games you paid for.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty I like about steam and I do use it, but I'm not blind to its shortcomings and I will use DRM free alternatives if possible.
 
Jtwo said:
Come on, we're all ideological zealots in our own way.
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i'd say in this fight i'm certainly not. i'll acknowledge that steam has terrible customer service and return policies, i don't like the binding arbitration clause in their EULA, i think they've taken way too long to open the UI up to extensions like they said they would years ago, and there's features like twitch streaming support that should be built into the overlay.

i'm not a blind advocate of the service, i just think they're far and away the best option out there and valve as a corporation has proven over and over that they care about me as a customer (because it's in their own best interest, no less) and EA/ubisoft certainly have not.
 
rudieboy77 said:
If I cared about all my games being in one place, I would have bought an XB1 and placed my games in a bookshelf.
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What if half your library didn't use XBL but instead used something vastly inferior that prevented you from using the full featureset you've become accustomed to?
 
Jtwo said:
What if half your library didn't use XBL but instead used something vastly inferior that prevented you from using the full featureset you've become accustomed to?
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EA actually did exactly this on the original xbox if i remember correctly. they wanted a cut of the xbox live subscription fees and when microsoft didn't want to give it to them created their own competing (and inferior) online service just for EA games.
 
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding. Its not Steam vs Origin vs Uplay vs GOG etc. Its exclusivity vs nonexclusivity.

If Titanfall was on Origin and Steam and whatever else, what reasonable person would give a shit?

Exclusivity sucks.
 
aeolist said:
EA actually did exactly this on the original xbox if i remember correctly. they wanted a cut of the xbox live subscription fees and when microsoft didn't want to give it to them created their own competing (and inferior) online service just for EA games.
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Yeah, I do remember that. I remember having to make an account to play the Mirror's edge demo back in the day. And maybe burnout?
 
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