Something I’ve noticed in this community is that whenever I criticize Steam, or point out something I don’t like about the platform, I tend to get a ton of downvotes.
And honestly, I’m just curious why.
This is a piracy-oriented community, so I find it kinda interesting that Steam seems to have such a strong positive reputation here. I’m not saying people shouldn’t like Steam, obviously everyone has their own reasons for using it. Steam is convenient, has huge sales, supports Linux, has a massive library of games, etc. I completely get why people use it.
I’m just wondering where the line is for people.
For example, do you like Steam despite the DRM because the convenience outweighs the negatives? Do you see Steam as fundamentally different from other forms of DRM? Do you consider Valve one of the “good guys” in the industry? Or do you simply see Steam as a convenient storefront and don’t really think much about the DRM side of it?
Or maybe you actually agree with some of the criticism of Steam, but just think it’s being exaggerated.
For me personally, I don’t use Steam because I don’t really like having my games tied to an account and a platform. I’d rather have the actual files, be able to back them up, move them around, mod them and know that I still have them years later. That’s basically what I was getting at in that video I made about Steam as well.
But I’m not trying to start another “Steam bad!” argument here. I’m genuinely curious because sometimes the reaction seems surprisingly pro-Steam considering the nature of this community.
So what is it about Steam that you guys actually appreciate?
I’m one of the people that appreciates Steam, but doesn’t trust it because their good will can disappear at the drop of a cent. There’s no guarantee they can’t and won’t go evil.
They don’t want to moderate the rampant Nazis in their forum and games you “buy” are just actually loans. If steam shuts down today, every game you bought is gone. So I’m taking precautions and buying from stores that do provide games without DRM.
Steam isn’t perfect and won’t ever be. It’s pretty, but won’t always be. I can criticise the bad parts because I’m not some fanboy cuck.
Thats not quite true. Depends on the game, depends on Valve, depends on the publisher. Either way its on my harddrive with backups, so its not like I don’t have them.
How many people do you think have downloaded their entire game library? Will they be able to go to the publisher and say “I bought your game on steam, give me a copy”? How many games would continue working after stream goes down (especially online ones)? How do you install individual games you backed up to other computers and other people’s game library?
If you played it, you downloaded it…
Turns out there are thousands. There is a wiki about them.
Most of the time you can play direct from the exe if they dont require steam, or take offline, or since we are in a piracy forum, you apply a crack.
Why would i put things on other peoples game library or have any interest in those?
On a different note: I wonder how long a steam client could be offline? Once you play a bunch of games, you can go into offline mode and stay that way. I wonder how long?
It would be trivial to set up a linux box with all your games running, take it into offline mode and then simply image that. The image is your backup.
not actually true. few games have DRM, some of them can be broken, and all the rest uou can continue to play offline witg goldberg emu.
I have firsthand experience of a game I’d paid for on Steam being taken from me with no refund, so I’m def gonna push back on any “relax, guy” posts on this.
Your online games are going to continue working? All of them? You’ll be able to go to a publisher and say “I bought your game, can i download a copy”?
I don’t have my entire library downloaded to disk and a few things don’t even work offline. I’ve even been logged out of steam after not playing for a year and that required an internet connection. Without it, it wasn’t even possible to see my library.
If your online DRM free game store closes down do you expect to go to the publisher and say that same thing? Or do you have all your DRM free games downloaded and stored locally?
Same, although I wish I could simply pirate it all.
I already do for some stuff, pop it in sandboxie. But I don’t trust that entirely.