ConfusedBuyer Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Hi, I got a Dirt3 promo with the Sapphire Radeon that's in my new system. But it requires me to install this "Steam" thinggy. What's everyone's opinion of it? I mean, harmless, or a pain? From what I've gathered, it's not spyware or anything but I figured I should also ask here since Battlefront has got games on Steam, too. I'd love to be able to keep my new system "clean," and don't know if Dirt3 is worth installing some other software just to have it for free. All advice appreciated! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gautrek Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 I used to distrust steam when it first came out.But since using it I have grown to like it(yes it sometimes has issues) .But i find it an easy way to keep games up to date and I use it to see who is online and what game they are playing. There can be major issues like when they have a sale and it slows down to a crawl when you are trying to download something.But i got Dues ex for £14 the other day in a 24 hour sale.So if you keep an ey on the store you can grab some bargains . But after seeing how the kids use X-box live its nice to have a similar thing for the PC. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noxnoctum Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Steam is amazing and has great deals all the time. I like having most of my games in one place where I can download them over and over. Their sales are also ludicrous. Many brand new games going for 50% off and more. Games that are a few months old will often go on 66% or 75% off sales. Really there's no reason to ever buy a game at launch . Gamersgate also have great sales. Steam is also pretty much the only reason PC gaming is experiencing a massive resurgence, because they allow indie games to have an enormous customer base looking at their games (Steam recently topped 5 million concurrent users), and because games sell long after they have been released, pretty much perpetually. For example, the X-com series was on the top 10 sellers for several days recently, and that game is two decades old. That sort of thing appeals a lot obviously to publishers, so PC gaming is doing better than ever these days despite it looking for a while like console gaming was going to kill it off for good. Valve in general has much more customer-friendly policies than the other gaming giants (EA, Activision, Ubisoft...) EDIT: If you don't have always on or close to always on internet though I imagine Steam could be a hindrance rather than a help. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 As others said, Steam is great. When it first came out it had a lot of bugs and issues, but now it's very smooth and relatively glitch free. There is nothing "spyware" about it. A couple times a year they will do a system survey which scans your system so they can gather stats on what kinds of PCs everyone has, but you can opt out. Most people opposed to it have simply never used it and are stuck in their old ways. "Get off my lawn" and all that. If you really are opposed to it, Gamersgate and gog.com are nice alternatives, they simply give you a download link to a .exe with no DRM at all. That is all you get, however, no automatic updates or in-game social aspects. If you choose to install it be sure to join the CMBN group and feel free to add people to your friends list. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 What they all said above. The only problem I had with it was when I moved house and had to change ISP. In order to change my details I had to confirm the changes by responding to an email.....sent to my old ISP account. Which I couldn't access. And there didn't seem to be any way around this apart from me finding a security code from a CD of a game that I bought two years ago and had barely played.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Steam is good, I think. One thing I'm less than pleased with is it seems to be feature-creeping. It now saves saves in the cloud, which I don't see the point of. I'm not going to be playing games on two machines and, for the fraction of the user base that will or will lose their saves, they're inflicting a system and bandwidth overhead on everybody. But you can turn it off. So I have. FWIW, I think the PC resurgence may be more to do with the current console generation being >5 years old. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Only a few games use the cloud saving to my knowledge. If you are like me and do use multiple PCs, it is awesome. You can even uninstall a game and then months later re-install it, *boom* saves and custom settings are right there good to go. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 I was reluctant to use it but now I'm used to it and it seems to work pretty reliably. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 I'm a user from the first month they released steam. It always worked reliably for me except that before I bought Skyrim I didn't use it for a long time and my account was wedged (couldn't log in) and I needed a rep to reset it. I didn't see any evidence of what happened that caused that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destraex1 Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Does anybody know what happens when steam folds? Does the license\rental agreement say "you lose", too bad? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gautrek Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Does anybody know what happens when steam folds? Does the license\rental agreement say "you lose", too bad? Probably.But then it would be the same as me buying a game from a shop.I have thrown away most old games i have bought and played over the years.I have kept a few.but most are now in landfill somewhere.So for me its not a major issue.Yes i may lose a current game i am playing but most of my older steam games are un installed any way to stop them from keeping updating. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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