I hate Steam. For the record, I also hated UPlay, and since I purchased Battlefield 4, I hate Origin. I hate these "sites" (I don't know what else to call them) that force you to put their thing on your PC just to play the games you PAID for. And if they are "down" you can't play. You have to SIGN on, which feels sort of Communistic. All I want to do is pop a DVD into my machine, install the game and play. And the next time, all I have to do is turn on my PC, pop the DVD in again, and play. No forced sign on to a third party that controls whether you can even get into the game YOU PAID FOR. UPlay feels just as bad, but they have fewer games people want to play. I've already paid for the game now leave me alone! I don't want to go to your site. When I click on BF4, this stupid Origin thing pops up. I don't see a single benefit of signing on to Steam, Uplay, etc.

I have a game I paid for through Steam, downloaded, and it won't run (Assetta Corso). Worse, there is no solution in their so-called support forums and faqs, and no phone number to tech support. You're left to figuring it out yourself since Steam doesn't respond to email inquiries. So if you're not tech-savvy, you're S.O.O.L. This is beyond bad; at this point it's a rip-off. A company that sells you a DVD has a tech support phone number, but not these people.

This all feels very controlling, and I hate it. I'm glad I bought extra DVDs of FSX. I don't understand the love for sites like Steam.

I'm not hating Steam but I don't like it and since an (forced) update ~6 months ago it keeps crashing if I switch to full mode (prefer to run minimal, but some options are only available in full)!?

I avoid buying Steam games if I can (ED has got it right with DCS World). I can see some benefits and understand why ex. BIS decided to release Arma 3 as Steam exclusive (autoupdate and future integration and automatic DL of mods).

When it comes to Origin and UPlay I boycot both of them since I hate them and will not buy any of their games unless they are free from that crap!

/KC

From the other side of the fence I don't understand the hate for Steam. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has limited or poor internet access but that's about it.

I'm trying to think of any time in the past I was unable to play a game I owned because the service was down. Nope,I can't and I've been a customer for 10 years.

I have always received a response from tech support although sometimes not as quick as I'd like but then I've never had to ask for support that often,if at all to get a game running.Nearly all my tickets have been about account questions/refunds and similar.

The forums seem to offer good tech support from users and devs alike (on those forums that the devs frequent-another thing I like about Steam).

Overall,I can't think of a downside to the service for me personally.I'm sorry it's not for you and I hope you resolve your issues with Assetta Corso.

I like Steam and Origin, Uplay not so much because I think its still a little clunky. I like having my games updated when I sign in, it takes the hassle out of finding patches or waiting for the games auto-updater to kick in. I play games like Planetside 2, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous etc that have their own launcher/update systems and Star Citizen for example is really slow and would benefit from being on Steam where if one update location is slow I can opt to download from another but rarely - if ever have to do that. Having a unified friends list is also a bonus and I like not having to put a disc in the drive, call me lazy but it also means I no longer need to take up shelf space and I've now gone fully digital for all my PS4 games too.

Probably not.

Although for me personally Steam has been the best thing that happened to PC gaming in the last decade.

In all that time I can't remember the Steam services being unavailable on more than literally a handful of occasions, usually fixed in a very short time. A world of difference compared to services like Uplay. Steam only starts on my system when I launch a Steam game and uses next to no resources in the background. I actually like the Steam friends features and while I'm not a die-hard multiplayer fan I've actually used it quite a lot to meet up with friends in MP games.

I love game boxes full of goodies and manuals thick as a telephone book but I understand that the days of such things are gone and, a very few exceptions not withstanding, won't come back. Steam provides me a platform where I can safely browse through a vast offering of games and while the prices are usually a bit high the frequent sales on Steam often offer great bargains. I know people who only buy games on Steam during sales and have build a massive collection of titles for very little money.

Steam is also a godsend for indie developers since it enables them to sell their games without the need for traditional publishers and shelf space or the need to setup a store/server infrastructure.

OTOH I do try to steer clear of the Steam forums whenever possible. While I actually have found solutions to game problems there the forums on developers' websites are usually a more friendly and helpful place.

Oh, and I just checked my Steam account: 99 games. About 2/3 of them bought during sales.

No steam on my computer. All is well. Only online activated game I have is Star Citizen.

+1 to what Para Bellum said.

The key here is that you have options as the consumer. Hate Steam? Fine. Just stick to playing older games that pre-date Steam or newer games that don't require it.

Want to play a game that requires Steam and you don't like that? Too bad. It's called a changing marketplace. It would be like complaining that you can't find any movies on VHS from Netflix.

No Steam for me.
I wouldn't say I hate it but Dover was my last title on Steam for all foreeable future.
After 10 years core simming in ArmA I totally dropped Bohemia after ArmA3 Steam exclusive.

I Guess I'm the only one who knows how much that means, I did live and breath ArmA by spedning hundreds of hours in SQF code creating Warfare (CTI) from empty paper and all kinds of other missions (Counter Insurgency, Town Clash and last one was a Civilization style/inspired set).

It is painfully obvious that 103% of all Steam users have no idea that they actually don't buy gmaes at Steam, they just expand their license which will be revoked as soon as the decline the next EULA update (or by any possible mistake from Steam regarding their customer account).

It's actually a rental system, just with one time payments.

I do like steam have 70 or so games

However I am data transfer restricted and am not able to download some games due to their sheer size. My last hard drive failure lost me dozens and dozens of games.

I"d love to download Witcher 2 again, but I think it is over 40 GBs so this will never happen

It would not be so bad if Steam was just another buying option, but it's pretty well taken over the way we buy games. I go to ebgames and the pc games available is abysmal.

If it wasn't for the success of Steam, PC gaming would be dead or near dead.

As a retro gamer, services like Steam are irrelevant as I don't need them. I just didn't like the precedents being set by Steam and much production software ~10 years ago.

But that's over and done with while I've move on (or backwards as it were).

If Steam is helping keep MS Windows relevant, and as long as Windows continues supporting legacy 32-bit executables and older DX graphics, then kudos to Steam.

I just bought this a couple weeks ago and it's more like 15 GB I believe, but admittedly I didn't pay close attention.

I have a hard copy of witcher2 and the update is 21 GBs

I just had a look and the steam download is 18 GBs. Weird

Anyways at $2.50 per GB it's not economically feasible

I just checked and the update for Withcer 2 is only 10 GBs. Almost attainable

Thanks for pointing that out DBond

Ahh too bad Bisher. Do they still offer patch disks on CD? Maybe they'll send you one to update your hard copy.

That pretty well sums up my gaming status. Near dead. I exaggerate slightly but I have only 14 of my 80 steam games installed. So many sitting there unattainable

Good question, I'll have to have a look.

I've had pretty good luck with steam. Picked up a lot of inexpensive games that i enjoyed that I otherwise would not have ever heard of.

But the big plus for me? Patching. I just don't have time to chase patches any more and having steam update my stuff automatically is a godsend.

I love Steam.

Sorry. I do.

I'm too old to mess with .ini or .cfg files, patches. Boot disks are a game for teenagers (that takes me back!).

No steam games on my PC, but as they say, to "each his own".

I want to control the games on my PC, not someone else who will tell me when my games will be updated or what I can or can not add to them without problems.