Opinions on Steam?

[Khronic]

What are your guys' opinion on Steam as both a digital distributing company as well as a community? I know that it's almost impossible to play CoD games on the PC without it, at least for multiplayer, but do you favor it or do you not like it?

I think Valve is a great company that makes great games, but I'm still not yet sold on how they operate their services. One big thing for me is the ability to play offline, which for Steam it can be a real hassle sometimes, given how you have to be online first to go into offline mode. Of course, this is easily done by installing a modified version of Steam, but really think it's unnecessary

What do you guys think?

 

[visto]

Honestly, I wish there was a way to organize what games are exclusively Mac. I know, I know, if I wanted to game I wouldn't have gotten this thing. But sometimes I just want to play around on something.

As far as selection goes, Steam is unbeatable. And their sales, which happen quite often, are ridiculous. Get on it if you haven't already.

 

[chrislyons88]

Are you insane Steam is the best thing ever to grace this planet. I remember the good old days of ICQ and typing in an IP into the console. Now I can easily join games with my friends. BEST PROGRAM EVER. Mark my words that years from now there will be a STEAM statue in every city to show how cool it is.

BRB killing newbs

 

[apriapism]

I started using steam back in 2008. I really love it's accessibility, all of my friends have a steam account so It's a good way to communicate with them rather than having several programs open. I used to use skype to voice chat with friends, but I find it just as fine to use the steam voice chats. The main reason I started using steam was for the amount of sales they have. Most of my games I've bought were under $10 each.

 

[GreenCamino]

Steam is great, it keeps everything nice and organized and it's easy to keep up to date with all the updates for the games since it does them automatically. You can have a friends list and message them just like with Xbox Live or the Play Station Network. Plus, it's a lot easier to find games to buy through the Steam Store and they have great discounts on a lot of games as well as sales that come around every couple months or so.

 

[visto]

I also love the idea of being able to gift steam games to other people. It's convenient, it's encouraged. Great mentality.

 

[NasAssassin]

Steam is one of the greatest pleasures of PC gaming. It is very efficient, what with the ability to chat to friends, and browse the in-game browser they provide, whilst not disrupting your actual game. It has so many nice features, and encourages you to make new friends!

 

[Vali07]

Steam = PC gaming for me, it has everything you could want from a service. If you can find the game you're after for cheap on there, you can check out another site and enter the code and activate it on there.

 

[RetJoSek]

Steam is fantastic. Without it I don't think PC gaming would've hit off as well as it did. And the offers which it does are simply fantastic.
I have heard rumours about a console called the "Steambox", I'm not sure if that has been confirmed, but I would love it if it was, and I'd prefer it to any other console.

 

[Khronic]

Steam is fantastic. Without it I don't think PC gaming would've hit off as well as it did. And the offers which it does are simply fantastic.
I have heard rumours about a console called the "Steambox", I'm not sure if that has been confirmed, but I would love it if it was, and I'd prefer it to any other console.

I'm pretty skeptical over the Steambox. I think it just wouldn't work because it would be drawing away from what makes Steam so great. I don't think Valve would go into uncharted waters like that with a dedicated console. They already have a pretty firm grip on the PC market and I think they intend to keep it that way.

 

[dowdyrich]

I really like Steam for the accessibility to games. I like that I don't have to find discs or anything. And like someone else mentioned, the deals and packs they have are great! A friend of mine showed me Steam about a year ago; then he tried to get me hooked on a lego looking game that you can build your own environment. There are a lot of great indie titles, that I would have never heard of but for Steam.

*I did have one issue install FFXI and its expansions, but it was because I didn't read before I proceeded and already had it installed. Was weird trying to launch it and had to start all over

 

[Arutea]

Honestly Steam is such a great service man.

The thousands of games that they have on Steam plus the easy accessibility for your friends and joining friends games and what not just makes everything so easy for everyone. The daily sales they have on different games in the store is just fantastic too. Not to mention the STEAM SUMMER SALES. COME ON.

 

[NasAssassin]

Honestly Steam is such a great service man.

The thousands of games that they have on Steam plus the easy accessibility for your friends and joining friends games and what not just makes everything so easy for everyone. The daily sales they have on different games in the store is just fantastic too. Not to mention the STEAM SUMMER SALES. COME ON.

Now you've reminded me of something I missed out on.
The sales on Steam makes it the title taker in DRM, as it's opponents like Origin tend not to have such large discounts or offer free weekends on popular games.

 

[xlSynergy_imported3]

Steam is amazing. It's so easy to organize your games, it has a nice interface, the community hub is pretty cool, and of course, the sales are awesome! I got GTA 4 for $5 last spring, and this year, they have every single GTA to ever come out for $12. Not a bad deal at all. There's not even one thing I don't like about Steam.

 

[Thatguy1232123]

I think steam is a really well put together site. Valve did a great job with making it and most people are pretty satisfied with what it has to offer. Considering it has things like the Humble Bundle and Green Lights, it's very friendly to the lesser known devs out there too, which is only a plus. I like the way it works as well. It's pretty sweet.

 

[thethirdeye]

Steam is the best thing to come out for PC gamers and developers as well. First of all, it fixes the huge piracy issue for PC game developers. For gamers, it's easy to have the ability to connect with friends easily, and to have a lot of games without worrying about installing discs.

 

[Kumara]

It's a very good program. the main reason is most games cost a lot and just the sales they have on, I mean 75% off? that's a amazing deal. Some people have there disk's broken and it's just good to have it stored digitally stored. Indie games have had a big impact on gamers since minecraft? I think maybe further back since minecraft was made in late 2008 - 2009. Steam allows indie games to get out especially with the indie pack sales they have. I have really enjoyed super meat boy, terraria and binding of isaac. overall steam is a I help you. you help me program for indie game developers.

 

[thethirdeye]

It's a very good program. the main reason is most games cost a lot and just the sales they have on, I mean 75% off? that's a amazing deal. Some people have there disk's broken and it's just good to have it stored digitally stored. Indie games have had a big impact on gamers since minecraft? I think maybe further back since minecraft was made in late 2008 - 2009. Steam allows indie games to get out especially with the indie pack sales they have. I have really enjoyed super meat boy, terraria and binding of isaac. overall steam is a I help you. you help me program for indie game developers.

I was just thinking about that. Steam is basically the only real way Indie game developers can reach a mass audience easily. So many good games would be left under the dirt if they didn't have Steam as a way to market and sell their video game.

 

[GoodGorilla]

Steam is amazing! It does a perfect job on managing a library of games and is actually the base of every gaming community. Steam unites gamers. Not only that but the sales on steam are just amazing. On sales you can get games up to 75% off. I haven't seen any game store or other gaming platform that does that. Valve is doing a great job and improves steam often. They deserve all the money they make off of it and I am happy for a platform like Steam.

 

[kamy]

I think its rubbish although you can get all these awesome games it is too slow and annoying to work in my opinion if there software was a little faster i guess i would like it.