I applaud your rejection of Steam, a 100% DRM platform. Too many people here have Gabe's balls gently nestled in their mouths, so your stand will be ridiculed by the Steam fanboys. Don't listen to them, stay strong.

While your rejection might sound heroic to some people out there, but from what i see it's all for the wrong reasons. Most likely your system is the culprit there.

* grabs popcorn *

Even if soime points here are valid, I support you in your rejection of steam.

And I don't agree about steam sales being good. It's not a good thing for the industry AND the gamer in my opinion, not even for many of our wallets. At all.

* sits next to ne_zavarj with a beer in hand *

Ignore everyone who irrationally defends a huge corporation and blames the consumer. This mentality is a huge part of why it is so difficult for people to get progress, fight through hardships, and overcome oppression. In fact, the mentality around here is probably the same mentality that plagues societies, preventing them from getting equal rights, civil rights, basic freedoms, overthrowing dictators, establishing good societies, etc.

Mindless fanaticism and defense of bad business practices due to ego-centric perspectives (It doesn't effect ME negatively, so it MUST not be bad!) keeps humanity back from achieving greatness. Of course, this mindless fanaticism also helps when the thoughtless masses side with the revolutionaries, so I guess it isn't all bad.

Those with a stage of moral development past the average 13 year old (a rarity in humanity, as anyone with even a basic knowledge of Kohlberg's stages of moral development know that most humans, at least in western society, have the moral development of a teenager) are much more willing to understand your viewpoint and agree with you. Unfortunately the majority have the mentality of a child and thus see things in black/white, failing to comprehend beyond that (and beyond their tiny, ego-centric worldview). Steam is considered a good guy, so they can do no wrong. You must be a bad guy, because you oppose the good guy.

So... ignoring the children, you have a very valid complaint. No rational, fiscally responsible individual thinks it is okay for a company to take your money in exchange for a product which doesn't work. Steam's business policy is to not care about any of their customers, and blame them as if they are at fault for their selling of a bad product. Also, Steam has changed from a smaller company that cared about its customers, selling only QUALITY products, to a money-hungry greedy oversized faceless corporation which makes so much money they can laugh at their customers for wanting refunds for faulty products. Faulty products which they know they sell. I mean, come on, they don't even TRY to hide the scamming of your wallet. They sell WAR-Z, one of the biggest scams in PC gaming, and sell it on the front page. They do not care about you, or anyone here.

However, these trolls believe Steam is innocent and altruistic, some even claiming it is the savior of PC gaming, but Steam is taking your money and giving you a faulty product. If this weren't digital distributed software, people would be telling you that you are a good guy for making your complaint. They would tell you to take the product back to the store and get a refund. Other businesses (non-digital) give refunds for bad products, or even dissatisfaction with a product. Steam could do this just like any other business, but is too greedy to. Seeing as how it nearly has a monopoly on PC gaming, they can tell customers to goto hell and won't suffer very much for it. Especially when they are treated as a business too holy to insult. These trolls don't think for themselves, and simply mirror what society tells them. And society (the internet) tells them Steam is a good guy.

As ironic as it may be, people who mindlessly defend Steam without considering its numerous flaws and bad business practices & policies, are equivalent to any other religious fanatic. Since these are most likely young western males age 13-20something, they are probably constantly insulting or thinking little of monotheistic religious fanatics while failing to see the irony that they themselves are religiously fanatic.

Of course, it takes intelligence to recognize itself, so of course they are oblivious to all of this.

This is why I support GoG.com.
GoG.com doesn't sell crap. They sell high quality products.
They actually make sure the game will run on your system BEFORE they sell it to you.

GoG.com is a revolutionary, an intelligent business, and a saint among businesses.
Steam is an oversized monopoly who would rather steal $20 from you today, than to do the right thing and keep $1000's overtime in business with you over the long haul.

I for one would gladly pay Steam's competitors x2 the price for a video game than to buy it from Steam during a sale. Not only do the developers of good games deserve the extra money for making a good game (which encourages them to make more good games) but also the websites deserve money for competing with Steam just for the sake of preventing Steam from being a completely, literal monopoly. GMG is a place I buy my games from when I want one that Steam sells that can't be found elsewhere. While I do not think GMG is a good business either (their policies are equally moronic) it is not a bad one like Steam. Although it's sad we have so few choices, I go with other companies as a literal protest to a much larger evil (a monopoly, a business too big, a business too powerful, too controlling of the specific market).

Only a sell-out with no integrity buys from businesses that have bad policies, global harm, or enslave employees from other countries. Unless you are literally dying of stress because of the lack of financial security so you need to squeeze every penny (in which you shouldn't be buying games ANYWAY) you should never pay a company for the sole purpose of "it's cheaper" when it harms society and the direction of business practices. If we as a collective protested against bad policies like Steam's no-refund policy, they would buckle instantly and change the policy to benefit the consumer.

Yet the consumers don't unite in protest. They bend over and open wide, ready to accept whatever it is their corporate overlords wish to command on them. And if you object to the policy the overlord states is law? You are branded a fool, just like in this thread. Enjoy! :)

20 bucks, good lord. Summer Sale is around the corner. Sim City 4 will be 2.50

Why would anyone buy Sim City 4?

Supporting such horrendous business practices is like bending over, opening wide, and saying "Please screw me. Please screw me over. I have no integrity and don't care what you do to me, the consumer."

Anyone who spends a penny on Sim City 4 is a promoter of all that its publisher stands for, such as always-online DRM and the Sim City 5 fiasco.

Anyone who buys Sim City 4 is either ignorant of what they are supporting, or shamelessly apathetic and self-destructive. I wouldn't suggest protesting EVERY game a publisher owns because of something small. However, the Sim City 5 overstepping is not something small. It's perhaps one of the worst things to happen to PC gaming consumer since WAR Z, and before that since...oh goodness I don't even know.

Steam of course, proudly sells WAR Z (scam) so I promise you they would GLADLY sell Sim City 5 if they could, simply to get a few extra dollars.

The faulty premise here being that Sim City 4 on Steam does not work. It does work. I've played it, many many other people have played it.

The game sold is a working copy of the game. The problem here is, as the OP already mentioned, his 'setup', which seems incompatible with the game. And he appears to blame Steam for that.

Between, or after all the ranting, could you elaborate on what you're actually talking about? What does Sim City 4 have to do with Always online DRM?

You prove my point exactly.

Just remember... your experience means that EVERYONE has the same experience.

So if the game works for YOU, it works for EVERYONE!

So if Steam sells a game that works for YOU, it is the fault of someone else if the game doesn't work for them.

I know it's hard to grasp but...try to go beyond your narrow worldview and realize that if Steam sells a game that doesn't work for hundreds of other people, they are still selling a game that doesn't work for hundreds of other people. When they refuse to give refunds, they are taking hundreds of people's money, giving them a product that doesn't work, and then telling them, "Sorry, it's your fault, not ours."

Realize that if a vendor sells a product that doesn't work, it IS their fault for selling that product. Just because it is digital contents and users systems vary doesn't excuse them from selling faulty products to those people with a policy that forbids refunds.

Just remember... your experience means that EVERYONE has the same experience.
Your worldview = reality.
Your experience = the same experience EVERYONE has.
If Steam isn't bad to YOU, then it must be a good guy.
If Steam is a good guy, then the people who complain about being given a faulty product MUST be bad guys!

Again. This product is working. Somewhere down the line of your complaints you seem to conclude the product doesn't work. That is simply wrong. It's the same product for everyone. The thing that differs is the hardware people use. That is not the fault of the game, nor is it the fault of Steam.

Basically he's coming back to Steam and saying 'My (specific) hardware doesn't appear to run this (working) game'. That product will run fine on hardware capable of running it/compatible with it. The problem is not with the game.

(actually, nowhere has he mentioned anything of a refund)

On a sidenote, not all games on GOG run as proper as you seem to think, there's several notorious examples even here. I'm sure, sadly, the number will grow as the service grows.

Ooo, I'm on the ignore list.

Ow see, this is something I can actually finally agree on to some extent.

So by extension of that argument, which programs/games are you aware of that are guaranteed to work on each and every single PC setup out there? Since, if they are not, then by your definition, they are a broken product and should not be sold, yes?

How will you live with the shame of being ignored by someone who talks down to others while rocking that username?

I am going to echo what others have said in that this thread is about just one game and compatibility problems with it rather than complaining about ALL AAA games. Personally, I buy games from GOG and steam more than I buy from Origin or Gamestop because of one little thing that adds up over time: sales tax. The latter 2 charge me my state's sales tax while the former 2 do not. Also regarding AAA games, many games on here were AAA games in their time so it would seem like you are a hypocrite in that regard. I buy my games where I can get them cheapest and in most cases that is steam. The last AAA game I bought I also got burned on because my graphics cards aren't DX11 compatible but I'm not calling up steam support for a refund of something I should have looked at before I made a impulse decision.