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caps lock generation
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StingingVelvet: Well one, disc check, will work underground after a nuclear explosion when I am the last man on earth, as long as I have a generator and computer. The other, Steam, will not work without internet, or Valve, or if I piss Valve off.
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stonebro: Oh, here we go again ...
BATT IF THERES LIEK A NUCCULER WAER, AND THE STAEM SURVERS GET NUKED, THAN I CANNOT PLEY MAH GEEEEIMS !!!!!
THARFOR, PIIPL BUYING GAEMS AT STAEM SUCK AND ARE STUPID.
I R SMRT, I TAEK PRECAITUTIONSES

U STOOPID I PLAY XBAWKS
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StingingVelvet: Well one, disc check, will work underground after a nuclear explosion when I am the last man on earth, as long as I have a generator and computer. The other, Steam, will not work without internet, or Valve, or if I piss Valve off.

You might have heard of that thing called an EMP that takes place during a nuclear explosion and wipes all infrastructure and electrical equipment that isn't shielded. So if by any chance you haven't building a little bunker for your PC and generator then you really should.
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StingingVelvet: Well one, disc check, will work underground after a nuclear explosion when I am the last man on earth, as long as I have a generator and computer. The other, Steam, will not work without internet, or Valve, or if I piss Valve off.
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stonebro: Oh, here we go again ...
BATT IF THERES LIEK A NUCCULER WAER, AND THE STAEM SURVERS GET NUKED, THAN I CANNOT PLEY MAH GEEEEIMS !!!!!
THARFOR, PIIPL BUYING GAEMS AT STAEM SUCK AND ARE STUPID.
I R SMRT, I TAEK PRECAITUTIONSES

I was comparing a disc-checks ability to stop me from playing a game to Steam's ability to. Do you deny they are vastly different? I was not saying I legitimately worry about Valve being burned in nuclear fire.
Glad you forced your witty commentary in there though, I am sure many enjoyed it.
My main issue with Steam is not so much fear of losing games, rather I just dislike asking permission to run a game on principle. I bought the game, I have a box sitting here, but I have to ask Valve if its okay to play it. It takes power from the consumer and gives it to corporations, even if they are nice about it that rubs me the wrong way.
Plus I find the client annoying.
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/215288/impulse-reactor-gets-facebook-connect/
Yup, more from Brad showing his envy for Steam. They also propose using Facebook connect as an alternative to the Steam community. Don't know about others, but that's something I would avoid using given how Facebook are in a fair bit of bother over their lack of privacy.
GamePro: Stardock talking about Valve's monopoly again and how Reactor's connectivity with Facebook will challenge Steam.
Is Facebook Connect feature really that significant? For casual gamers and Farmville crowd, maybe...but it's hard to see Stardock/Impulse focusing on casual gaming :|
Facebook might have caught me as a cursory user - but so many times I run into FB links that say you must be logged in. So I have never bothered to get a FB account. Their privacy policies are just a side annoyances.
Brad needs to focus and fixing what he currently has; whining about steam does him no credit. On another site I frequent a new Impulse user was trying to use impulse. It turned out that Impulse had gotten rid of the "orb" but didn't bother to update their FAQs and of course the publisher only had the old instructions as well. Thats just stupid.
I bought GalCiv II from Impulse when it was on sale and they charged me twice, $10 and then $2 for no reason at all. This is their response:
Hi,
The $2.00 that you see is not a charge- it's a pre-authorization. It holds money for a short amount of time (depending on your bank's policies) but it doesn't actually take the money. It should drop off your account shortly.
Thank you,
Angela

WTF? they didn't do this pre-authorization before unless it was a pre-order. If they are going to keep making stupid shit like that then I have to think twice before buying from them because it is a bother to have to contact my bank everytime I buy a game.
Why do they even need to pre-authorize anything if the purchase is made in one single step?
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OmegaX: WTF? they didn't do this pre-authorization before unless it was a pre-order. If they are going to keep making stupid shit like that then I have to think twice before buying from them because it is a bother to have to contact my bank everytime I buy a game.
Why do they even need to pre-authorize anything if the purchase is made in one single step?

The pre-authorization thing has been a long running joke for a while now as Impulse despite what they claim about it being a natural thing are the only company that do it. The fact they are now doing it on standard purchases now just makes the joke even worse. It inconveniences the customer for no reason and actually sends the message that they don't actually trust any transactions outside the US. Why even bother with the international market then?
I don't really see the big deal? Either just use Paypal which WON'T do that, or just accept it. It's not a huge amount of money after all. I haven't had a single negative experience with Impulse - quite the contrary. Compared to the pile of shit that was (and partially still is) Steam, the Impulse client has been nothing but smooth sailing.
Heck, this week I've had trouble starting Steam four days in a row. I have to delete some registry file before it will properly boot. It's crap like this that I've experienced for 6 years now. All fun when you don't need the client to play the game like with Impulse but with Steam you DO.
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Red_Avatar: I don't really see the big deal? Either just use Paypal which WON'T do that, or just accept it. It's not a huge amount of money after all. I haven't had a single negative experience with Impulse - quite the contrary. Compared to the pile of shit that was (and partially still is) Steam, the Impulse client has been nothing but smooth sailing.
Heck, this week I've had trouble starting Steam four days in a row. I have to delete some registry file before it will properly boot. It's crap like this that I've experienced for 6 years now. All fun when you don't need the client to play the game like with Impulse but with Steam you DO.

This isn't about who has the better launcher. Thats obviously Impulse. This is about inconveniencing people needlessly. Sure, use PayPal but then why do you have to do that when no other DD service needs to? Some people simply don't like using PayPal. Let me give you an example:
You see a game on sale on both Steam and Impulse. The game is $10 on both. You have $10 on your credit card. YAY. You choose to buy it on Steam and happy days. You buy it on Impulse and you get a message back from Impulse saying "Sorry your card has been declined". You examine your online statement and find there was a $2 payment made to Stardock leaving your balance at $8.
Just for the record, Valve have been known to charge $1 holding fees as well.
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Red_Avatar: I don't really see the big deal? Either just use Paypal which WON'T do that, or just accept it. It's not a huge amount of money after all. I haven't had a single negative experience with Impulse - quite the contrary. Compared to the pile of shit that was (and partially still is) Steam, the Impulse client has been nothing but smooth sailing.

Ok, I didn't know that PayPal won't do that but at this point I won't risk trying. It may not be a huge amount of money but is is quite arbitrary, why $2 or is it 20%? why not $1 or 1 cent? I use a virtual credit card so most of the times I don't have more money than what I know I will need and my bank doesn't like me spending more than what I deposit so I may end up losing the card. Anyway, they DIDN'T do the pre-authorization unless it was a pre-order before so I don't see the reason why would they do it now.
Sorry, but when they do something stupid and unnecessary I can't just be a conformist like you say I should be =/
@Bansama: Steam has never charged me the $1 holding fee. I use my credit card with Steam and Impulse but only Impulse has gave me trouble.
Edit:
Second reply:
Hi,
It is coded on their side as a Pre-authorization, so they know to drop it.
We have always done a pre-auth system (almost everybody does) so that we can verify card data. However, we used to verify the full amount, which was a huge issue for people who bought pre-orders or had a declined charge. We switched to the $2.00 amount (which is the least amount that international banks will accept) so that people wouldn't have a large hold on their account for long, like what you experienced with the pre-order that you mentioned. We have to do fraud checks on credit cards, which requires a pre-authorization so that we can verify that the person is using correct card data (name, address, security code, etc.).

Now this is outright lying to your customers. They didn't ALWAYS do it because I bought from them before using that same credit card and other than my pre-order of RE5 they never double charged me before.
What would really infuriate me is if they do this only to international customers. Can anybody confirm this?
Post edited May 27, 2010 by OmegaX
@Bansama: Steam has never charged me the $1 holding fee. I use my credit card with Steam and Impulse but only Impulse has gave me trouble.
I've never seen such charges on my statement either but they do charge them. The Steam forums are often filled with complaints about it around the time of the year end sale.
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Red_Avatar: I don't really see the big deal? Either just use Paypal which WON'T do that, or just accept it. It's not a huge amount of money after all. I haven't had a single negative experience with Impulse - quite the contrary. Compared to the pile of shit that was (and partially still is) Steam, the Impulse client has been nothing but smooth sailing.
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OmegaX: Ok, I didn't know that PayPal won't do that but at this point I won't risk trying. It may not be a huge amount of money but is is quite arbitrary, why $2 or is it 20%? why not $1 or 1 cent? I use a virtual credit card so most of the times I don't have more money than what I know I will need and my bank doesn't like me spending more than what I deposit so I may end up losing the card. Anyway, they DIDN'T do the pre-authorization unless it was a pre-order before so I don't see the reason why would they do it now.
Sorry, but when they do something stupid and unnecessary I can't just be a conformist like you say I should be =/
@Bansama: Steam has never charged me the $1 holding fee. I use my credit card with Steam and Impulse but only Impulse has gave me trouble.
Edit:
Second reply:
Hi,
It is coded on their side as a Pre-authorization, so they know to drop it.
We have always done a pre-auth system (almost everybody does) so that we can verify card data. However, we used to verify the full amount, which was a huge issue for people who bought pre-orders or had a declined charge. We switched to the $2.00 amount (which is the least amount that international banks will accept) so that people wouldn't have a large hold on their account for long, like what you experienced with the pre-order that you mentioned. We have to do fraud checks on credit cards, which requires a pre-authorization so that we can verify that the person is using correct card data (name, address, security code, etc.).

Now this is outright lying to your customers. They didn't ALWAYS do it because I bought from them before using that same credit card and other than my pre-order of RE5 they never double charged me before.
What would really infuriate me is if they do this only to international customers. Can anybody confirm this?

Why not $4 or $3? Like you said, it is arbitrary.
As for getting an overdraft for $2: Honestly, that is probably a bad habit. Never spend your last penny. And if it is just an account you use for online transactions and the like, you should still probably have a buffer on the off chance you misread something or catch it during the last minute of a sale (and don't read crap).
I am not saying I support (or am against) this practice. I don't know enough about it. I am just pointing out that it isn't too much of an inconvenience or a problem, and is mostly just an annoyance and a principle thing.