Ian: I don't understand the irrational like/dislike of a software program - don't like, don't use - like, use it ?

Fred_DM: if they didn't feel like selling games at different prices in different regions, gamers in poorer (poorer as in lower average income) wouldn't be able to afford games (legally).

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.

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.

carnival73: Close to sixty of these don't run on my PC.

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.

Pheace: Sheesh, how crappy are your specs?

carnival73: 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.

carnival73: 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.

Neobr10: 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.

ydobemos: This video does a good job of explaining a lot of what is bad about Steam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo

Crassmaster: He posits that the hammer legion posters are in fact confused Steam haters who lash out against those who speak against Steam? Possibly the most bizarre argument I have ever heard. He IS right that Steam debates suffer a lot of irrationality...he just seems utterly oblivious to the fact that the irrationality comes from both sides. And he then displays that fully with bizarre rants about 'sinister underpinnings for the future'. Oh hey, and Valve killed first person shooters because of TF2! Sure, THAT makes sense! How dare these bastards offer good, free games...those sons of bitches.

If this is your best example of a good argument in your favor, you really need to keep looking. Because this is a mess.

Crassmaster: And he then displays that fully with bizarre rants about 'sinister underpinnings for the future'. Oh hey, and Valve killed first person shooters because of TF2! Sure, THAT makes sense! How dare these bastards offer good, free games...those sons of bitches.