You just own an access license not a copy of the game.
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That was always the case, even with physical copies. You never owned the software, just the right to use it. That being said, it was far more difficult to remove your access to a license you bought back when you had a physical copy of the product on hand.
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At least you had something. Right now you have nothing. At any point you can lose your entire collection, no matter the reason. So it's better to enjoy it while it lasts :D.
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Yeah except if Steam shuts down for any reason, hypothetically they could just say "all right guys, that's it", you lose your access to said games, however if you own a physical copy of the game, even if Steam/the developer/publisher/etc shuts down, you can still play it using the disc or the installer.
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The main problem with that is that even if steam shuts down and you have said games on physical form you can't play them. Because they're aren't installers. Look for example at games like GTA V (forget that you can purchase the game in the rockstar online shop).
Do you think they can compact 50+GB in a blu ray? No.
But if you buy the game, they only provide you with 1 DVD (not even blu ray)
What they do is DVD with compact shit so you don't need to download it, but that data isn't enough to actually play the game.
So if the internet really shuts down, I can say good bye to my Dishonored 2/Borderlands 2 physical copies :'(
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Look for example at games like GTA V (forget that you can purchase the game in the rockstar online shop).
Do you think they can compact 50+GB in a blu ray? No.
But if you buy the game, they only provide you with 1 DVD (not even blu ray)
That's just incorrect. GTA V actually gives you 5 (or was it 7?) disks with the entire game on it (except that you still need to download a ton of patches to actually be able to play it). But it's not for Steam either. The only way to get it on Steam is by buying it from Steam.
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It was just an example, but it stays true to the core.
You are unable to play a game nowadays with just its disk
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Sad but true. I honestly don't mind it that much, but it is annoying if you just want to quickly install a game to play but have to wait for the other half to download...
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I think he means not having a physical copy of the game. And if steam even stops there is a chance you can't play the games that you have on steam anymore.
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That's true of music, books, anything both creative and non-unique really.
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That's true of music, books, anything both creative and non-unique really.
Not quite. I have mp3s, FLACs, PDFs, etc. I can access them anytime I want and without the need to have an Internet connection. In other words I own a copy for them not just a virtual license that gets verified each time I try to access any of the content.
You may not own the rights over the content and that is an obvious thing, but you own your copy of that content.
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No, difference is, books, music, movies - you buy your own license to them.
With Steam (and other digital products that require you to run some software before it allows you to access stuff you bought) you buy access to GabeN's license of a game, he can take it away at any moment notice and without any explanation.
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Your conversation above just gave me a mini heart attack. Is this really a possibility?
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In theory, yes. Steam Subscription Agreement gives Valve ability to terminate your account without any notice.
Now, that's theory. In practice, doing something like that would kill Valve in few hours, so they will not do anything like that - at worst they block people's ability to use Store and Community tabs (so, kinda like forcing someone to be always-offline).
But there was one game, that people had to buy-to-play, but it was some Multiplayer-Only game and publisher decided to stop supporting it (aka, kill servers) and since that made game unplayable they deleted that game from everyone's account - after some outcry game was returned to libraries.
And yes, any digital-stores (Steam, Origin, PSN, XBL) reserves right to delete your account just like that. Nobody will do it without some serious reason (and I really mean some serious reason - not just some cheating, as they would just block it into "always-offline" mode), so you shouldn't worry about that, unless you're doing some criminal stuff using those...
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Valve can terminate your account but only a games developer/publisher can revoke your license. The end result may still be "no game" but they aren't quite the same thing.
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+1
That's why I love GOG, although GOG Galaxy lacks so many features...
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This is a flawed argument. Whilst much less restrictive you still only own a license at GOG.
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Yeah, but on GOG the games are DRM-free and you can even choose to download the actual installer, instead of the game files, and the installers don't need an internet connection to work.
That means you could burn them on physical supports and keep your collection even if you lost your GOG account or even if GOG went bankrupt and closed the store.
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I hate the fact that they let about any game enter their previous greenlight program while most of them can't even be considered games. The developers just want profitz from cards.
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That they're a monopoly, and therefore do not need to compete for your business via, among other things, decent customer support.
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They are effectively a monopoly, even if they aren't literally a monopoly. And uPlay and Origin are vendor-specific...others cannot get published there. I agree that it's because people refuse other options. I'm not "blaming" Valve/Steam for being so popular, but the question was "what do you dislike about steam." :)
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Seem like you just don't like their customer support though. Would you care if they were "effectively" a monopoly if they had good customer support in your opinion?
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Well, I did say, "among other things." I guess the issue is that they can do pretty much anything they want. If there were any legitimate competition, this would not be the case. Overall I love Steam, though. But the question was what did I dislike about it.
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I guess I just don't really get your argument. There are legitimate competition, they're just not as popular as Steam. I guess I'm just letting my autism show though :P
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+1 Customer Support.
Sometimes you receive a reply to a ticket that makes no sense at all, sometimes it feels like customer support is just a bot that strings a bunch of random words together.
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No nudity or sex. That's a problem for many visual novels, for example.
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Most games have patches to allow nudity content. I personally like having the choice of playing with or without nudity content because the same game can be enjoyed by different categories of people.
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This is why I wish Early Access required Contracts. Devs would have to finish / fix their games, otherwise people could get all their money back if the game was abandoned.
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While it sounds great, there are problems, starting with most obvious - who will pay money back from bankrupt company?
And no"Valve will keep all the money untli game is released" doesn't fix it, since that means EAcc developers get none of the money so they go bankrupt anyway.
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There are cases of similar shady practices with just about anything. Early Access isn't a bad thing (some really good games started off in early access- cough Darkest Dungeon cough), it's just that people abuse the shit out of it just like they like to abuse the shit out of everything else. <.<
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I like early access. I've loved seeing games like Starbound and Nuclear Throne grow (I bought both of those very early :), and I usually just buy E.A. games when I'm really wanting to play them. Sometimes I play for a bit then completely forget about them until their full release, lol.
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All of the above except "Steam being the only platform" (GOG should be the only platform as it is DRM free)
For "Other" I have to say Support, it's filled with idiots who don't understand English or Technical Aspects of programming.
Currently trying to get Valve to fix a buffer overflow / memory leak in Portal 2.
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games can get taken down or removed from store with no notice
That would be the same for every other digital store when the license expires.
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As ectra said to a degree, for me because it causes a lot of small indie gems (especially non-kickstarters) to fall into the cracks and never really get the right exposure.
Also agree with UltraMaster to a point. Think it would be nice to have a system where you can give up your license for at least games you bought directly from the steam store for a reasonable amount of credit (like 25%) based on how much you got it for (radioactively the lower price, if you paid $60 and it drops to 20, you'd get $5. If you bought something for $10 and it goes up to $20, you'd get $2.5). Obviously not a perfect idea and has a lot of potential issues with it, but it's my flawed opinion which works in my mind :)
Also my own thing: It costs next to nothing to distribute a digital license compared to producing a physical copy, yet they cost the same? This is bollocks, as you cant sell a digital license currently on top of it. If digital copies cost even 10% less I'd be fine with the previous point by ultra never being a thing.
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Unfortunately that's not Steam's fault. As much as I don't like many things on Steam, they do some things right, like games made by Valve are actually cheap even when just released (aka they have the right price for a digital download) and they become cheaper as time goes by, even as low as over 90%, but it's the publisher which decides upon the game's price, that's why Activision titles (for example) are even more expensive than the physical copies of the past and they never get a better discount than 50% or maybe 75%, which considering their full price never get lowered, it's still not acceptable for games of many years ago.
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Yeah, Activision is a very nice example here. Even the very first CoD never goes below 15 euro...
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Servers, bandwith, etc.
Whilst it may technically be Valve paying that cost it's also why they take a cut of every sale.
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There were ways to re-lock achievements... Does SAM not work anymore? I may or may not have used it to make a different achievement my last achievement earned from Nekopara Vol. 0...
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still not having a possibility to sort games in library by tag...
thats just sad...
(f.ex.: "show all tag" -> every coopgame -> all shooters -> every horrgame....)
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+1. hate to have to put my own tags and even then when I'm done with thee categories, I cant filter 2 categories at the same time
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You can in Big Picture mode, at least, but I guess that's not too helpful.
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Yeah, i know but is just too much work. I simply select the installed section and then on the search bar i search for a category so that way I can filter at least 2 categories but it should be way simpler than that.
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I tend to just tag them right after I get them or if I when I come across one I haven't tagged yet, but I mostly use Big Picture, which I think has a better tagging system and stuff...
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as the guy above said..
you cant filter by 2 categories
plus.. i use this feature mainly to 'sort' out finished games.
yes its possible in big picturemode.. but the problem is... its big picture mode
usefull tags or a usefull interface for the library would benefit everyone!
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Voted for "games can get taken down or removed from store with no notice", but "being no 18+ - allowing blood and violence but not nudity or sex" is a good contender as well. Mostly because of consistency and less because I would be all over those games. I also wish trading cards, badges levels and achievements never existed. They're just unnecessary clutter in the way of what gaming should be about.
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All the new trading rules. Can't trade gifts for 30 days, can't trade items for 7 days, need to have mobile authenticator installed if you don't want to wait 15 days, can't store gifts from vac-protected gifts in the inventory, and other sh@t. I only understand their decision about the region locks, but other than that, steam is full of stupid excuses when creating new rules in order to destroy the traders once and for all. They also removed the EU2 region, like if all European countries have the same wages. xD I just hate a lot of changes that steam has done. :(
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I like steam when everything works. But when something goes wrong, you have to contact support and they suck.
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The very, very unhealthy quasi-monopoly (which allows for other things you cited to happen: games can get taken down or removed from store with no notice, no 18+, being able and de-activate games from Steam accounts, etc)
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No fancy boxed copies anymore. Back in the day, they were always nice with all the extras included like maps, comics and all the other nick-nack...
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+1 I always read the little book included while installing (even if it wasn't much more then installation instructions). I kind of miss that, especially the ones with a lot of detail or back story.
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Age verification. Once should be enough or at least an option to never ask again
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This still happens? It has been skipping the age verification for me.
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+1 It's so annoying to constantly have to verify my age. How hard can it be to save that data? (Actually, I know how hard it can be (I'm a software engineering student) and considering they already save a lot of data, the answer is: 'not hard at all')
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The horrendous chat system that cannot keep logs, has issues with alerts when someone is using the mobile app, and prevents group chats from anything but the client.
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Yeah, forgot about that, guess I tend to factor negative things out... might be the most abysmal function by far.
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Broken achievements, not showing achievements on the 'All Games' page like on the 'Recently Played' tab.
Basically this and more achievement related stuff.
Edit: And nearly impossible/absurd achievements, like Stanley Parable or Universe Sandbox.
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30% is pretty much industry standard by now; even GOG, a site usually praised for many things, takes the same cut. Consoles are still way worse.
Regional prices are actually set by the publisher, Valve has nothing to do with it. They just offer the option to set prices for different regions, otherwise they use the default US dollar price.
The terms of service point out that technically you pay for an indefinite lease on the licenses of the games, not for the games themselves. Although there is an ongoing debate about this in the EU, which doesn't accept this. It is not Steam or even video game specific, companies like Apple spearheaded this kind of commerce for some time now.
Their monopoly state is actually more like a catch 22. Many publishers sell exclusively on Steam since it is the largest, but it is the largest because many publishers sell exclusively there. And EA and UbiSoft were not enough to break the deadlock.
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Those are secondary effects though. Good points, but the problems lie deeper, sadly.
30% is a pretty great deal for publishing, by the way. It used to be much higher up until the early 2000s, in some cases it could be as high as almost 90% for the publisher or actually 0% for the developer in the even older system.
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Paperwork, distribution deals even with online services, and especially marketing are all areas most developers get lost easily, if not flat-out don't know anything about it. It is easier and often better to sign a contract with a publisher. The question is sometimes finding one that can be trusted. On the level most Steam games are, the scene is not particularly bad. Outside, in the world of publishers specialising in small indie games and casuals, it is a lot, lot worse, with many devs ending up with no money or just a fraction of the supposed amount. (Although these publishers do have a foothold on Steam as well.)
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I'm going to ask a question or two I have no knowledge about so shoot me down if they're ridiculous or unfeasible.
Is there a world where Valve would act as a 'publisher' in the traditional sense of the word for indie game developers and the trade off would be Valve taking a much bigger cut of the revenue from the game?
Would that partly solve the issue of really good games going unnoticed if they had a more trustworthy publisher behind them saying ''Hey we think you'd like this game'.
I'm guessing the answer is it's too much of a workload that Valve wouldn't want to take on. Especially given they're pretty successful as it is without having the pressure to do more. I should probably take more time and come up with better wording and what not but just wanted to ask. :)
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Is there a world where Valve would act as a 'publisher' in the traditional sense of the word for indie game developers and the trade off would be Valve taking a much bigger cut of the revenue from the game?
That is essentially Portal, Counter-Strike, Dota: games made by others, but Valve acquired them in some form or another and published them, for a much,much higher cut.
Would that partly solve the issue of really good games going unnoticed if they had a more trustworthy publisher behind them saying ''Hey we think you'd like this game'.
No, because the problems is too many games and publishers putting too much money into flagship titles. Sam as for the movie industry. So only games with good marketing background can have the limelight, and marketing departments rarely dare to try a new series, as they nowadays tend to flop incredibly hard.
There are rare exemptions and zero-to-hero independent game hits (like the Isaac games), but the gaming scene has been too much movie-fied by now.
Additionally, Valve is raking in massive profits now with this setup, and they enjoy a market monopoly. With no shareholders to satisfy (Valve is a closed and privately-owned company), they have zero incentive to change anything as long as their profit margins remain untouched. This is why they are this slow to react to anything and usually do that when the press gets bad enough.
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Ahh right, I've only been using steam for around 2 years so didn't know they weren't actively developed by Valve so that's interesting.
And I'm aware of the unwillingness to stray from proven IP's in movies and gaming, I guess in the back of my mind I had a thought where devs could approach Valve and get that push of marketing in exchange for giving up a bigger piece of their pie.
Yeah I understand Valve's side of things they have no reason to push the boat out or take unnecessary risks because they're killing it as it is. I was just coming at it from a saturation point of view, which in the real world is just a 'tough luck kiddo' fact of the market type deal.
It's pretty disappointing though that it's all so stagnant. I'm a big Crash Bandicoot fan. Would I like to try a new, modern Crash Bandicoot game? Yep. Do I want a remaster of the old 3? Nope. Will it be successful regardless? Yep.
Thanks for the reply btw. :)
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(even when digital should be cheaper, since it doesn't cost to manufacture or ship).
But there are other costs as well. They have to pay for their servers, constant maintenance of their client etc. I don't doubt it's still a bit cheaper then retail copies, but don't act as if those costs are not (partially) elsewhere.
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The whole store, starting with the fact that you can't easily exclude stuff. Seriously, I've got my account preferences set to NOT include VR content (because you can't filter on that on the store front, so you have to look in a less obvious location) and I still get that listed everywhere anyway. In it's current state it's just a broken pile of mess, and it gets more broken with every new feature they slap on without fixing the fundamentals.
Games disappearing without warning can be annoying, but that's mostly due to publishers not warning that some licenses for music/franchises etc. are expiring and they can't be arsed to renew those so they will lose their rights to sell the game. But that's not really a Steam issue.
Well, these days they can also just disappear because Valve's cracking down on bullshit "devs" who are gaming the system and violating Valve's rules. But that's a scenario that does not annoy me at all.
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Not totally wrong about that, indeed i was totally afraid of playing VAC games because of user's feedback but never had any messy trouble. I think they should listen the involved on VAC ban, as well the others problems that users can have through the platform.
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It sucks that I can't give away a game that's already in my steam library. Like what if I finish a game, decide it was good, but also will probably never play it again and would like for someone else to have the experience of playing it without them having to pay for it or me having to pay for it again? If it were to happen, it could be removed from my library and put into theirs or something, but alas, that's not a thing.
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I think that's a problem with digital media at all, not only steam. It protects Steam from users that seek for reselling a game and make more profit than they do. But it's not only a Steam problem.
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O yea tru. Didn't think of the whole selling thing. Just giving something away for free.
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I know, if it was possible, i'd like to transfer all the junkies that i have for another acc to get rid of them hahaha.
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If you just want to get rid of them, you can. Of course you still can't transfer them to another user.
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It's a "problem" but it's also the reason why prices are lower (sure, price tags start high but the discounts are fast and furious).
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