Posted August 29, 2012
tarangwydion
Lazy GOGer
Registered: May 2010
From Indonesia
mondo84
hwgr
Registered: Apr 2011
From United States
Posted August 29, 2012
I don't hate Steam.
hedwards
buy Evil Genius
Registered: Nov 2008
From United States
Posted August 29, 2012
think for 2.5 seconds. it's low enough to try and abuse regional pricing at the cost of somebody else's poverty. it's even worse to complain about it afterwards.
In general though, you'd be surprised how often the price on goods and services online here in China is the same as the US or even higher.
It would be nice if logic could come into this, but in practice, I haven't seen any evidence of prices coming down just because I'm in a less affluent nation. I'd like some cereal, but at $50 a box, I can't afford that.
Fraidnott
ASB
Registered: Dec 2010
From United Kingdom
Posted August 29, 2012
I've never had a problem with steam myself, although I don't have that many games on steam. If I do buy there again I'll need to be carful I'm not getting ripped off. The price list site you linked is really interesting, some of the price differences are massive. I knew steam practiced regional pricing, but I'd never really looked into it before. You being in Australia seem to get hit hard with the high prices looking at that site.
Magmarock: It’s no secret that GOG.com often gets compared to Steam and it seems that a lot of people prefer Steam. Anther thing I’ve picked up on is that there seems to be some sort of taboo on criticizing Steam. Well there are few things I don’t like about Steam and I’m going to tell you what they are.
Dark Messiah
First, Dark Messiah. Dark Messiah was game I bought on Steam a good while ago and for some reason I couldn’t get it to work after a Steam update. Since then, I have upgraded and reformatted my PC a few times over and no matter what the game still doesn’t work. However, since I bought it legally I have no issues admitting that I also have a cracked copy and guess what, it works perfectly.
People have told me that I should contact the Steam admins, but 3 things. A I shouldn’t have to, B I have contacted the admins about problems similar to this and they usually just give me the run around, by saying things like “contact the publisher.” I’m not going to waist my time on people who don’t care about their customers.
The incident with Dark Messiah served only to remind me that I don’t own my games. Steam does and I can only play them when Steams feels like letting me play them.
However, with GOG.com I pointed out a problem with Painkillers Loading times compared to the Steam version and the admins made a patch.
Wow talk about actually caring about your customers, so that point goes to GOG.
Forums.
Steam Forums are utter crap. First and foremost if you read the TOS you’ll find that you can be banned from the forums for just about anything. I found out the hard way when I posted a comment about regional pricing (which I’ll get into later) and got banned as a result. So I wouldn’t be surprised if someone got into trouble for pointing out that Valve haven’t really been doing anything for the past 5 years or so.
The forum structure of Steam is convoluted mess and it’s hard to keep track of topics.
With the GOG forums, it is very easy to keep track of topics. Not only that if you have a problem with a game, finding the solution is very easy. In fact I was surprised just how easily I could find the solution to some complicated problems.
So GOG gets another point for that one.
Regional Pricing
Finally, regional pricing, if you live in the US this isn’t much of a problem for you. If you don’t however, you maybe paying a lot more for a game then its’ worth because of how much the publisher thinks you owe them. Fortunately you can find out for yourself how much you’re being ribbed off by going here http://www.steamprices.com/us
However, before that site was set up, I did a little pocking and after I found myself having to pay an extra $80 USD for a game for no reason other then my region, I decided to take a screen shot as proof https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80908969/Both%20in%20US%20prices.png
After seeing this unconscionable display of greed I decided I was done with Steam.
On a final note I am fully aware that Valve doesn't control how publishers conduct busyness. However, they own Steam which makes Steam their responsibility. They are responsible for the polices that Steam bestows on it's customer as well as those looking to sell their product on Steam.
As it is Steam just plain sucks.
Dark Messiah
First, Dark Messiah. Dark Messiah was game I bought on Steam a good while ago and for some reason I couldn’t get it to work after a Steam update. Since then, I have upgraded and reformatted my PC a few times over and no matter what the game still doesn’t work. However, since I bought it legally I have no issues admitting that I also have a cracked copy and guess what, it works perfectly.
People have told me that I should contact the Steam admins, but 3 things. A I shouldn’t have to, B I have contacted the admins about problems similar to this and they usually just give me the run around, by saying things like “contact the publisher.” I’m not going to waist my time on people who don’t care about their customers.
The incident with Dark Messiah served only to remind me that I don’t own my games. Steam does and I can only play them when Steams feels like letting me play them.
However, with GOG.com I pointed out a problem with Painkillers Loading times compared to the Steam version and the admins made a patch.
Wow talk about actually caring about your customers, so that point goes to GOG.
Forums.
Steam Forums are utter crap. First and foremost if you read the TOS you’ll find that you can be banned from the forums for just about anything. I found out the hard way when I posted a comment about regional pricing (which I’ll get into later) and got banned as a result. So I wouldn’t be surprised if someone got into trouble for pointing out that Valve haven’t really been doing anything for the past 5 years or so.
The forum structure of Steam is convoluted mess and it’s hard to keep track of topics.
With the GOG forums, it is very easy to keep track of topics. Not only that if you have a problem with a game, finding the solution is very easy. In fact I was surprised just how easily I could find the solution to some complicated problems.
So GOG gets another point for that one.
Regional Pricing
Finally, regional pricing, if you live in the US this isn’t much of a problem for you. If you don’t however, you maybe paying a lot more for a game then its’ worth because of how much the publisher thinks you owe them. Fortunately you can find out for yourself how much you’re being ribbed off by going here http://www.steamprices.com/us
However, before that site was set up, I did a little pocking and after I found myself having to pay an extra $80 USD for a game for no reason other then my region, I decided to take a screen shot as proof https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80908969/Both%20in%20US%20prices.png
After seeing this unconscionable display of greed I decided I was done with Steam.
On a final note I am fully aware that Valve doesn't control how publishers conduct busyness. However, they own Steam which makes Steam their responsibility. They are responsible for the polices that Steam bestows on it's customer as well as those looking to sell their product on Steam.
As it is Steam just plain sucks.
carnival73
Zug Zug!
Registered: Sep 2010
From New Zealand
Posted August 30, 2012
For the record, this is my Steam library:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030027926/games/
Close to sixty of these don't run on my PC. Developers are the new Comic Book Shop guys - arrogant, pretentious and feel that if you can't afford their blessed Win 7 to run a quad core and eight gigs of RAM then they don't care if you can afford their games and artificially close access to low end computers for games that could've otherwise been played on a Super Nintendo from the 90's.
Today I had the option of purchasing The Bleed Pixels or Mutant Muds. I purchased They Bleed only to find that, even though it's a 16 bit game, it has been intentionally rigged to only work on modern day computers.
But even having said this, Mutant Muds might be the same situation - As primitive as Muds looks, I might purchase and find out I can't run it because I can't afford to Crossfire two HD 6 series cards.
Buying PC is definitely not as smooth as buying console but as long as consoles keep their games up to $120 a piece, it's cheaper to keep buying PC even though thirty percent of my purchases wind up flunking.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030027926/games/
Close to sixty of these don't run on my PC. Developers are the new Comic Book Shop guys - arrogant, pretentious and feel that if you can't afford their blessed Win 7 to run a quad core and eight gigs of RAM then they don't care if you can afford their games and artificially close access to low end computers for games that could've otherwise been played on a Super Nintendo from the 90's.
Today I had the option of purchasing The Bleed Pixels or Mutant Muds. I purchased They Bleed only to find that, even though it's a 16 bit game, it has been intentionally rigged to only work on modern day computers.
But even having said this, Mutant Muds might be the same situation - As primitive as Muds looks, I might purchase and find out I can't run it because I can't afford to Crossfire two HD 6 series cards.
Buying PC is definitely not as smooth as buying console but as long as consoles keep their games up to $120 a piece, it's cheaper to keep buying PC even though thirty percent of my purchases wind up flunking.
Post edited August 30, 2012 by carnival73
Pheace
New User
Registered: Jul 2010
From Netherlands
Posted August 30, 2012
Sheesh, how crappy are your specs? O_o And have you thought about putting money towards new parts first rather than games you can't play (yet)? You really don't need to crossfire/sli anything to be able to play even the newest games.
mzlanti: I've never had a problem with steam myself, although I don't have that many games on steam. If I do buy there again I'll need to be carful I'm not getting ripped off. The price list site you linked is really interesting, some of the price differences are massive. I knew steam practiced regional pricing, but I'd never really looked into it before. You being in Australia seem to get hit hard with the high prices looking at that site. UK pricing tends to be pretty close to US or at least almost always is closer to it than we are in the EU. It's even cheaper in the UK than the US in some cases.
Post edited August 30, 2012 by Pheace
carnival73
Zug Zug!
Registered: Sep 2010
From New Zealand
Posted August 30, 2012
Go look at the video for They Bleed Pixels (which apparently my PC is too under powered for) and consider that I can run Fallout 3/ New Vegas, the original Witcher, The Last Remnant, Alpha Protocol, Borderlands and Mad Riders.
BTW - I probably should hold off and save for a new PC, it requires a bit more self control than I've had so far though.
I'm just pointing out that most people purchasing PC aren't going to have the perfect experience they had with consoles with every game purchase.
And that some games for PC have even been made difficult to run intentionally.
BTW - I probably should hold off and save for a new PC, it requires a bit more self control than I've had so far though.
I'm just pointing out that most people purchasing PC aren't going to have the perfect experience they had with consoles with every game purchase.
And that some games for PC have even been made difficult to run intentionally.
Post edited August 30, 2012 by carnival73
Pheace
New User
Registered: Jul 2010
From Netherlands
Posted August 30, 2012
BTW - I probably should hold off and save for a new PC, it requires a bit more self control than I've had so far though.
I'm just pointing out that most people purchasing PC aren't going to have the perfect experience they had with consoles with every game purchase.
And that some games for PC have even been made difficult to run intentionally.
Neobr10
what's a paladin
Registered: Jun 2011
From Brazil
Posted August 30, 2012
Today I had the option of purchasing The Bleed Pixels or Mutant Muds. I purchased They Bleed only to find that, even though it's a 16 bit game, it has been intentionally rigged to only work on modern day computers.
But even having said this, Mutant Muds might be the same situation - As primitive as Muds looks, I might purchase and find out I can't run it because I can't afford to Crossfire two HD 6 series cards.
Buying PC is definitely not as smooth as buying console but as long as consoles keep their games up to $120 a piece, it's cheaper to keep buying PC even though thirty percent of my purchases wind up flunking.
And you are exaggerating. Games nowadays are nowhere as hardware demanding as they were a few years ago. Seriously, you can build a decent PC REALLY cheap. A Core 2 Duo with a 8800GTS and 2GB RAM can still run modern games. And that's 6 years old hardware. What else do you expect? Developers won't make games for outdated hardware forever. This is the catch in PC gaming, and if you don't like it, buy a console.
You know, things evolve and new techonologies come up really fast. You can't really expect developers to keep making games for 486 CPUs.
By the way, you got a nice games collection on Steam.
EDIT: I just checked the minimum specs for They Bleed Pixels and they're not that high. If your PC doesn't meet these, you should really think about upgrading.
OS:Windows XP or later
Processor:CPU 1.73GHz Intel Duo Core
Memory:1.5 GB RAM
Graphics:NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (XNA 4.0 Hi-Def compatible card, Pixel Shader 3.0, Vertex Shader 3.0) (Integrated Video Cards not recommended)
DirectX®:9.0c
Hard Drive:350 MB HD space
Sound:DirectX-compatible sound card
Additional:Controller Support: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller or or other XInput compatible controller.
It is high for a game with such graphical style. But maybe that's something to do with the XNA kit not supporting anything lower than that. I don't think that developers are intentionally making their game need higher specs.
Post edited August 30, 2012 by Neobr10
carnival73
Zug Zug!
Registered: Sep 2010
From New Zealand
Posted August 30, 2012
Games requiring newer equipment requires a newer Windows OS
Developers condone and support Microsoft's ongoing Cattle Marketing endeavors
by using XNA to develop their games when there are quite a few other SDKs out there.
Sometimes it's as bad as the developer programming the game to recognize older OSs and flash an error message telling you the game will not install unless you upgrade to Vista but on that same day pirates are distributing the same game and have proved that it works really well on Windows XP as well *coughhttp://www.joystiq.com/2007/06/26/vista-only-shadowrun-cracked-playable-on-xp/cough*
ydobemos
Existent
Registered: May 2011
From United Kingdom
Posted August 30, 2012
This video does a good job of explaining a lot of what is bad about Steam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo
Magmarock
New User
Registered: Jul 2011
From Australia
Posted August 30, 2012
Crassmaster
Right bastard
Registered: Sep 2008
From Canada
Posted August 30, 2012
If this is your best example of a good argument in your favor, you really need to keep looking. Because this is a mess.
Gazoinks
Is an AI
Registered: Dec 2011
From United States
Posted August 30, 2012
If this is your best example of a good argument in your favor, you really need to keep looking. Because this is a mess.
ydobemos
Existent
Registered: May 2011
From United Kingdom
Posted August 30, 2012
You do know what an anti-competitive practice is?