Personal computing discussed

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Airmantharp
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jun 26, 2014 3:46 pm

Savyg wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
And you're absolutely correct; my AV was doing something to it. Of course, the AV had no logs to show what it was doing, and the game provided no logs, and there were no logs from Origin (which was oblivious).

The solution was to go back into the AV and add whole folders to the exception list in addition to the .exe exceptions that I already added, and then to restart the system. So thanks! I didn't get much sleep last night :D.

Bitdefender? (Just guessing...previous experience heh.)


Other, but I'm not big on detailing what security suites I'm running on the internet :)

(of course, that means that you have one less to guess from, but that's okay :))
 
Airmantharp
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:33 pm

Buying games in a store on discs really does make one a minority these days. I know that people have to deal with caps in some places, but as fast as broadband connections are one can usually get the game in an hour or two.
 
Aphasia
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:51 pm

I mostly buy my games in the store, at least Origin games, because they are usually 25% cheaper there. Then I just enter the code and download em as usual. Steam, don't buy games there except on sales.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:58 pm

Aphasia wrote:
I mostly buy my games in the store, at least Origin games, because they are usually 25% cheaper there. Then I just enter the code and download em as usual. Steam, don't buy games there except on sales.


Your stores might be a bit different than ours :).
 
Kougar
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:54 pm

Aphasia wrote:
I mostly buy my games in the store, at least Origin games, because they are usually 25% cheaper there. Then I just enter the code and download em as usual. Steam, don't buy games there except on sales.


I've not examined every game box, but I can safely say I've yet to find a store that sold games cheaper than steam with the exception being new release promos.

For almost a decade I can remember walking into a BB or the PX and spotting those tired old Counter-strike boxes still on the shelf, or old copies of Battlefield, CoD etc... stores just stop discounting them beyond 50% off (some don't even discount beyond 10%) but Steam will frequently keep dropping the price as games age. Especially if a user waits a week or two for Steam to put the game on sale... and I haven't even mentioned the discount coupons people trade around like steam trading cards yet. Steam users don't even have to wait for a sale, just trade two tf2 weapons or something for a 50% off coupon and go from there.
 
Aphasia
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:39 pm

Might be a european thing, because the reason I don't buy full priced games at Steam, is because it's the same issue there. A game that costs $60(€44) in US, will most often be €50-60 on either Steam or Origin, and most probably €45-50 in a physical store which.... tada.... get you the Steam / Origin Code in a DVD-case and sometimes a dvd. And yet, it seems that the Store's are often better at discounting older titels compared to Steam, until it hit's a sale. At least Activitsion basically never discounts titles like CoD enough to be worthwhile. Heck, CoD-MW is still €25($34), as is MW2. MW3 €40 ($55).

Guess it might have to do with Games in stores taking up shelfspace so it's better to discount and have newer inventory using the space, while on the digital download arena, shelfspace is cheap.
 
JohnC
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:43 pm

Aphasia wrote:
Might be a european thing, because the reason I don't buy full priced games at Steam, is because it's the same issue there. A game that costs $60(€44) in US, will most often be €50-60 on either Steam or Origin, and most probably €45-50 in a physical store which.... tada.... get you the Steam / Origin Code in a DVD-case and sometimes a dvd. And yet, it seems that the Store's are often better at discounting older titels compared to Steam, until it hit's a sale. At least Activitsion basically never discounts titles like CoD enough to be worthwhile. Heck, CoD-MW is still €25($34), as is MW2. MW3 €40 ($55).

Guess it might have to do with Games in stores taking up shelfspace so it's better to discount and have newer inventory using the space, while on the digital download arena, shelfspace is cheap.


You can't buy license keys from G2A? Last I've seen they were also offering keys which could be activated in EU countries :-/
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puppetworx
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:56 pm

Yeah there are loads of alternate key retailers to Steam(GameFly, GreenManGaming, GamersGate, Get Games, Amazon.com), I hardly ever buy games directly on Steam these days.
 
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:58 pm

puppetworx wrote:
Yeah there are loads of alternate key retailers to Steam(GameFly, GreenManGaming, GamersGate, Get Games, Amazon.com), I hardly ever buy games directly on Steam these days.


Yea, I don't pre-order anything on Steam anymore. Still a good platform for managing all your games and giving out gifts ;-)
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End User
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:05 pm

sweatshopking wrote:
happened to me a few times

I'm not surprised.
 
Mark_GB
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:50 pm

Someone needs to come up with a way to setup an encrypted file system that tracks what has been both installed and verified by the party that is selling it (in the examples here, that would most likely be steam), that allows a game to be able to run offline after its been installed and verified by the company. Somehow it needs to be keyed to the machine it was on at the time it was installed, so that people cannot just make images and copy it onto another system. If the game could run for 90 days, or maybe 180 days after being installed, before it needed to contact the server again, I think most people would be agreeable with that. But there are always going to be a small number of people who live in very rural areas that pretty much have no access to the internet. Something should be worked out for those people.

I'm a programmer. I've never written a game that has been released to the public, but I might someday, and if that day comes, I would sure like to see people having a blast playing it, but I would also like to know that I was paid for every copy that is being played.

BTW, I finally got around to buying Skyrim on DVD when I ordered all the parts for this box when I I was building it 2 months ago. This building only has wireless internet access, and while they support every band except ac, they limit all connections to 512Kbps. So you can imagine my displeasure when I discovered that while I had this DVD in front of me, I was expected to sit there and Steam to download its update, and then I had to allow that Skyrim download to hog my tiny little pipe for 2 days. And yes, this was my first experience with Steam. Until I get back to where I have a nice fat cable connection, its most likely the last thing I will purchase through Steam. Once I do have a fat pipe, I'm looking forward to seeing what else Steam can do for me.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:34 am

Nice idea, but you have to remember that the most ardent anti-DRM advocates here believe that the physical possession of a DVD of game data or a download of game data obviates all license terms and grants them copyright-free access for all time to said data.

To quote Wolfgang Pauli, not even wrong.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Forge
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:02 am

Mark_GB wrote:
Someone needs to come up with a way to setup an encrypted file system that tracks what has been both installed and verified by the party that is selling it (in the examples here, that would most likely be steam), that allows a game to be able to run offline after its been installed and verified by the company. Somehow it needs to be keyed to the machine it was on at the time it was installed, so that people cannot just make images and copy it onto another system. If the game could run for 90 days, or maybe 180 days after being installed, before it needed to contact the server again, I think most people would be agreeable with that. But there are always going to be a small number of people who live in very rural areas that pretty much have no access to the internet. Something should be worked out for those people.

I'm a programmer. I've never written a game that has been released to the public, but I might someday, and if that day comes, I would sure like to see people having a blast playing it, but I would also like to know that I was paid for every copy that is being played.

BTW, I finally got around to buying Skyrim on DVD when I ordered all the parts for this box when I I was building it 2 months ago. This building only has wireless internet access, and while they support every band except ac, they limit all connections to 512Kbps. So you can imagine my displeasure when I discovered that while I had this DVD in front of me, I was expected to sit there and Steam to download its update, and then I had to allow that Skyrim download to hog my tiny little pipe for 2 days. And yes, this was my first experience with Steam. Until I get back to where I have a nice fat cable connection, its most likely the last thing I will purchase through Steam. Once I do have a fat pipe, I'm looking forward to seeing what else Steam can do for me.


Basically, you just re-re-reinvented the idea of perfect DRM. It's a pipe dream. You're better off using a model like many current indie games use: some basic, minimalist copy protection coupled with some subtle and distinctive sabotage for the most obvious cracks of your DRM.
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LostCat
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:23 am

If perfect DRM could be accomplished without a performance penalty I wouldn't care at all, but we are definately nowhere near there yet.
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Aphasia
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:31 pm

The thing is that games are no longer an actual product, it has basically become a subscription model. More so for multiplayer, but that's basically the truth of it made possible by broadband. I don't like it, but that's where it's at for most things.

Even back in the days when you got a box with the game on a magnet tape in the form of an MC you had various tricks to allow a boatloader to load but not a system to copy... all easily broken, same with 5.25" and 3.5" when they came around. Any locally accessible encryption to which you have access will never be fully secure. At bes't you can make it very obfuscated, but any people determined enough could get the data out as long as they are entitled to an unlocked copy from the start. The other option is never having any keys to the encryption in local memory, but I can't easily see any way around that if you do want to be able to decrypt the actual data.

All copy protections has been easily broken from people in the know how, but the trend that happened the last 10 years was that cybercrime was being made lucrative and entitle huge sums, so today you are as likely to get a hidden trojen from somebody getting kickback as only a cracked game. On top of that, as a working consultant, I generally feel that good developers should get a nice payoff for doing great stuff, of course, at a time when I had no money I might have thought differently.
 
Forge
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:18 pm

The closest anyone has come to perfect DRM were hardware dongles, and they were awkward and obnoxious, and could be cloned, just no one bothered. Easier to crack out the software that called the dongle instead.
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Aphasia
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 6:27 pm

Well, a Local two-factor authenticator might actually work instead of a dongle. But as you say, not if the software piece that call's it can be cracked.
 
travbrad
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:45 pm

puppetworx wrote:
Yeah there are loads of alternate key retailers to Steam(GameFly, GreenManGaming, GamersGate, Get Games, Amazon.com), I hardly ever buy games directly on Steam these days.


Yep Greenmangaming is usually my first choice nowadays for newer games. They ALWAYS have a promo code for 20-25% off. I don't know how they do it (and stay profitable), but they have saved me tons of money. Steam sales are pretty much the only time I buy stuff directly from Steam. When a game isn't on sale, Steam rarely has the best price (at best their price will match other online retailers)

http://isthereanydeal.com/ is a great site that aggregates all the price info too, in case anyone hasn't heard of it. You can manually look up games, or you can have it send you email notifications when a game on your wishlist drops below a certain price. It even has price history graphs so you can see when the last time a game was on sale, and how cheap it was.
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puppetworx
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:37 pm

travbrad wrote:
http://isthereanydeal.com/ is a great site that aggregates all the price info


I use that site too, the price history function is really good. Another interesting site is cheapshark.com, they use some algorithm to try and rate how good a deal is at a given time which is useful for checking deals at a glance.
 
Sabresiberian
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:35 am

In my opinion, Steam is a service that should be better than what it is. It has been around for more than a decade, but it is still a problematic service that simply doesn't do it's job well. It is convenient. It helps gamers do things they would have to use several other services to do. But it is heavy-handed, invasive, and can be unstable if you use it to play co-op. It is an unreliable back-up for your save files. And, if you require assistance be prepared to wait days for someone to contact you with the first automated response.

It is also a lie. People make a big deal about Steam sales - but the fact is, those sales rarely offer games for prices you can't find other places. If you pay attention to the games you want to buy, you can often easily find prices as good or better before Steam decides to put them on sale. Steam is essentially the impulse-buy capital of the gaming world (Look, I can buy this game I'll never play for $4.99!")

Yes, you can make sure Steam doesn't install games and/or update them without your permission, but if you don't know before-hand how to set it up it could be a problem. And, why would it automatically start downloading without knowing the speed of your connection anyway? That's just bad design. There are millions of gamers - most of us - that have service which is slow enough that installing by disk is much faster. Yes it is very convenient to let Steam do it, if your connection is fast enough. I personally don't install from disks anymore, I'm lucky enough to have good, fast service where I'm at (and don't get me started about how the U.S. still has terrible internet for most of it's people, about how it's politically controlled business system thwarts true capitalism and allows bad service to stay operational in much of the country), but assuming people do demonstrates a lack of understanding that I find mystifying.

All that being said, Steam IS improving. It is overall a good service, I freely admit that my dislike for it comes from the days when it was a terrible service. It is no longer terrible - and, truth be told, what piece of software you have to deal with, whether it is an operating system of any kind or something professional level, doesn't have something just weird about it? Steam is convenient, provides some nice benefits, and is mostly something that doesn't bother me when I 'm gaming. I rarely buy from Steam, I prefer Green Man Gaming or Gamestop (more because there are some nice, helpful guys that work at the one close to me than any other reason), but there may come a day that I think Steam is so good I'll support it by buying my games from Steam/Valve instead.


As far as games shipping incomplete - no. Back when all our games came on disks there weren't any patches or fixes, the games just stayed buggy. Now, developers continue to support their games after they have been released. Games are much larger than they used to be, made by much larger teams, and for those reasons alone are more prone to having problems not discovered until after they are shipped. But the biggest reason we see patches shortly after a game is released is that the majority of us have a good way to receive those patches. Not all that long ago, most gamers couldn't get a fixed game without a new disk being shipped to them. It isn't fun to have to wait another hour or two -or longer - to play a game after you finished installing it, but in my opinion that's better than being stuck with a less functional game.
 
Glorious
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:25 am

Sabresiberian wrote:
It is also a lie. People make a big deal about Steam sales - but the fact is, those sales rarely offer games for prices you can't find other places. If you pay attention to the games you want to buy, you can often easily find prices as good or better before Steam decides to put them on sale. Steam is essentially the impulse-buy capital of the gaming world (Look, I can buy this game I'll never play for $4.99!")


lolwut?

Where is the lie?

The fact that steam has higher prices, perhaps even during sales, is not in any form a lie. In the history of "predatory pricing" or product segmentation, this complaint is ridiculous. We are taking a few dollars for video games, purchased on the very same machine that you can, with two clicks, look for better deals with!

It's even more ridiculous because steam even allows you, a lot of time, to take those keys from those other sellers and then activate them on Steam. If anything, those overpaying customers are actually subsidizing your use of the platform! :wink:

Sabresiberian wrote:
(and don't get me started about how the U.S. still has terrible internet for most of it's people, about how it's politically controlled business system thwarts true capitalism and allows bad service to stay operational in much of the country)


:roll: Take it to R & P. :roll:
 
dashbarron
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Wed Jul 02, 2014 8:23 am

I remember when paying for a new game meant ponying up $60 or waiting a year and half for the discounted $30 or $20 if you were really lucky. Steam has completely changed the way we price games and how far we're expecting it to stretch our buck in digital purchases. It has definitely changed the market.
 
The Egg
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Wed Jul 02, 2014 10:40 am

Well....certainly $40-50. The bump up to $60 is still a relatively new development (in my world at least; it's probably been 10 years). But yeah, in the past you'd be lucky to find a game discounted to $30, or $20 at best. In addition to other things that have been mentioned here, Steam has hugely benefited PC gaming by:

  • Dramatically lowering the overall cost of games for consumers (especially older titles)
  • Delivering a higher percentage of the revenue to game developers (instead of middle-man publishers and retailers)
  • Dramatically increasing sales of indie titles
  • Dramatically increasing sales of older titles
  • Decreasing piracy by an unknown, but probably significant amount (not due to DRM, but price)

Of course all of these things are true of other digital distributors and not limited to Steam, but Steam paved the way.
 
Kougar
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jul 03, 2014 3:25 am

puppetworx wrote:
Yeah there are loads of alternate key retailers to Steam(GameFly, GreenManGaming, GamersGate, Get Games, Amazon.com), I hardly ever buy games directly on Steam these days.


That's the hilarious thing... I've bought the occasional game off Amazon or Newegg when they ran some crazy sale that way undercut Steam's price, then activated the key on steam. Best of both worlds really, and I think it's pretty nice that Steam is fine with allowing that. I also think it's cool Steam is willing to accept old CD keys for some games, then download and support a dusty boxed game from a bygone era that they probably won't receive any compensation for supporting.
 
Forge
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jul 03, 2014 3:18 pm

Actually, all of the old games that you can add to Steam made deals with Valve way back when, or they use Steamworks as their auth service. Valve is a company, like any other, and they're not doing things just to be cool. I like them plenty, but I'd never consider them altruists.
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slowriot
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Re: Steam SUCKS!

Thu Jul 03, 2014 3:53 pm

Forge wrote:
Actually, all of the old games that you can add to Steam made deals with Valve way back when, or they use Steamworks as their auth service. Valve is a company, like any other, and they're not doing things just to be cool. I like them plenty, but I'd never consider them altruists.


I'd love to know your source about these "deals." I'm not sure what Steamworks would really have to do with those old games, since Steamworks itself wasn't launched until 2008 and really has't been widely used until the last 3-4 years.

There's value in being seen as cool, unlike many companies Valve seems to realize that.

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