meh it is what it is,

I HATED Steam back in the day when they were first beginning to implement it as a platform. The client was slow as hell, downloads were slow as hell, and I could never understand why I needed to run a separate super-crappy client when all I wanted was to play Counter-Strike. Needless to say, I quit logging in to Steam for years after I stopped playing CS and never really checked on it, either, because I was busy playing MMOs.

Fast-forward to 2011, and I like it now. Sure the client is still slow and sometimes crash-prone, but the deals.... lol. Can't beat the deals. I like the deals so much that I'm willing to risk the possibility of not being able to play those games whoever-knows-how-much-later-in-the-future. By the time all hell breaks loose, GOG will hopefully be offering those games DRM-free for a low-low price and I'll re-purchase whatever I think to be still worth playing. If I'm still alive.

It depends on the game for me. If my reason for purchasing the game is multiplayer then I won't hesitate unless it's saddled with extra DRM other than Steam. There's already enough games in my backlog to keep me busy so If I'm interested in any other game, I'll wait until it's on sale for around five bucks. As far as features provided by Steam, they're great, but I don't think a person's games should ever be forced into Steam just to use them. Also, Offline Mode is not reliable for everyone, but it seems to be a minority so who really cares when most don't have a problem. I don't know if it's just me either, but it feels like the Steam client's gotten more slow as it has been updated. It takes longer to start and close.

if you really wanted the game then go and buy it. But be careful and read their EULA and decide for yourself if you accept their company policy.

Works great for Demos, Free Stuff, and FO: New Vegas

Thanks.

And speaking of win, I found this awesome place called GOG.com (Good Old Grilling). They've become known for their promises of providing healthy, tasty and classic ways to grill and season vegetables, and their recipes are supposed to be offered at low prices with plenty of extras like grilling tips and free bamboo skewers and packets of spices.

I hated it with passion when it came out. Ignored it till 2009. Then Dawn of War II game along for which I had to use Steam. Ignored it little less until the christmas sales. Bought a huge amount of games for ridiculous low amount of money. While I still don't "like" it (client to slow and offline mode driving me nuts) I use it regularely because I now have a big collection of games there and some deals are just to good to ignore. And having all your games backed up digitally on the internet is very comfortable.

Their pricing policy sucks, but it's easy enough to circumvent by getting gifts from the UK/US. I also never haf any problems playing games that werent' officially available in Germany, but others had more Problems with Steam in that regard. Steam also showed me lots of indie games I would have ignored otherwise. I have no problem with the DRM part of Steam, as it is way less intrusive than e.g. Starforce and can be cracked easely enough when push comes to shove.

If in doubt, I would buy on GOG and not on Steam even if it costs more, because I like GOGs way of doing business more, but the times I ignored games only because they are on Steam are long gone now.

It has good deals and is great for coop games, other than that I find it parasitic, some if not most games now come with it whether you like or not.
Well, it autopatched my CE edition of Empire Total War which had a patch that made the text extremely blur and I wasted the game because I couldn't choose what patches to install.
And offline mode? Let's just say I have to go online to go into offline mode.

Honestly, the only time I buy from steam now a days is when stuff is on sale (that's really the only up side). But ever since i found GOG I've been Steam sober for quite a while (purchasing I mean).

I mainly hate them because their MS-DOS games are pathetically inoperable and deserve to be killed with fire. The way they integrate DOSBox is as unstable as Window Millennium Edition! Wasted good money on the ID Software Superpack last holiday......

They don't even factor in things like Setup.exe for customizing controls and audio settings!

Steam's been my main purchasing portal for years now. I don't think I've ever had real issues with it, not sure if it has crashed even once over the years, although the friendslist has started dropping out sometimes for the last 6 months or so, but usually only for a short while. Never had any issues downloading/installing games, and I uninstall/install a lot.

And as above, you really can't beat the sales sometimes.

Me, I use it mostly for convenience. I like having everything in one place, it's easily accessible, I have a good overview of all my games, install/uninstall is nice and easy like my Sims 3 + expansions. One click + next and it installs all of it, patches and all. Same for NWN2 + exps + patches. Autoupdates, Cloud saves, etc.

There's some negatives obviously.
You won't be able to sell your game since it's linked to your steam account.
You can only log in once so only one person can play the games on that account (you), although that's only true for online games, you can put another computer in offline mode and then you can play the games installed on that one offline just fine.
Autoupdating isn't always good for people who install mods/want to stick to a certain version, or those who have bad internet.
Some people have problems with the offline mode, although I've never had any myself (make sure to have at least once saved your password during login)

I may be in the minority but I've had only one real issue with Steam. It was about a year ago when I tried to access Steam and it had to update itself. The updater though, continued to pause itself at around 43%. After a few days and much searching on the internet I found that others have had similar problems. I needed to uninstall Steam and then reinstall. All has been well since. Overall I was without access to my games for about 5 days. I also lost all data to games that didn't use the cloud. What a piss off.

Anyway, I still use Steam for all of the reasons mentioned above by others here. I have roughly 193 titles and haven't had any other issues. I do use GOG as my number 1 source with Steam as my number 2. I don't really need anything else.

steam is great for steamgifts or for steam sales (occasionally) but i would NEVER buy a new release from them... they're a ripoff.

take batman arkham city. $100 usd for my region. 100. freaking. u.s.dollars. there is no profanity big enough to describe that bs.

oh, and that was before i woke up today and saw that they'd flat out removed it from my region anyway, lol :D good thing someone gifted it to me a while back, else i would have been mightily pissed off about the whole thing.



so to me i just see steam is a company utterly in bed with publishers, artifically keep prices inflated and supporting their monopoly. i had HOPED that the advent of digital distribution would herald this beautiful age where prices would become more fair as there is greater competition. but alas, not to be.. steam is just another publishers tool to keep their unfair stranglehold on pricing... its not at all what i had hoped it would represent. its not cheaper, its NOT faster (there are STILL regional release dates rather than a one-for-all international release date ffs),

I don't buy much there.

Most of my games are humble bundle games, so I have a DRM free version.
Also have AI War which comes with a CD key that can be used on the DRM free version. I have no problem buying games like that from Steam.
I'd only buy a Steam only game if it was for multiplayer and it was heavily discounted. Even then I might not. Don't like the DRM.

I do use Steam often though, just because I figure I might as well be able to know if someone came online while playing a game.

If you end up using it just remember that you could lost access to your games in the future. Think of them as indefinite rentals, if you're okay with that and an iffy offline mode then you should be fine with Steam.

I only check out their sales, and while many of them are tempting, I almost always check if I could find the same game on GOG or on eBay for similar or slightly more money: DRM-free is a noble goal and certainly one for which I'm willing to pay, whereas physical copies can be sold away to compensate for the higher purchase price.