Aaaargh frigging steam!!!

[Tricky]

Just thought I'd share my frustration and why I hate Steam, all I want is a quick blast at L4D2 while my teas cooking, and it refuses to even open so I can play in offline mode, god knows when it will come back online tonight!! This kind of thing is ruining gaming for me, I'm sick of every game I buy having to be activated on or connected to the net before I can play it IN SINGLE FRIGGING PLAYER MODE!!!

[darth los]

Not to make light of it but just get an x box and you won't have that problem. I know you're set on pc gaming so you're probably just going to have to deal with it. Everything has it's pros and cons.

[LouCipherr]

Hell with that, just get the non-steam versions of the games. No offense, darth, but I just cannot play FPS games with a controller and analog sticks. I ned the accuracy of a mouse & keyboard combo. If I could, I'd be right there with ya, but I'm so entrenched with PC games now, there's no way out for me. I loathe steam too - and this is yet another prime example of how "cloud computing" (and copy protection in general) is NEVER going to work.

[MinionZombie]

Steam, and other such bullshit DRM that requires internet connection (be it one-time, or constant - !!!) just gets on my tits and makes me specifically avoid getting certain PC titles. I wanted to get Dead Space on the PC, but saw all the DRM bullshit about it, and avoided it like the plague as such - so, as you can see, that nonsense just loses them money instead of gaining it. Such an arse-about-face way of dealing with piracy - the pirates are having a great time, while those who pay hard-earned cash for it have to put up with all that bullshit. What nonsense. At least with Fallout 3 it was a classic code on a piece of paper - input that and away I went without connecting to the internet at all. Superb ... and updates via a downloaded .exe transferred via thumb stick. Because I'm sure there are many, many gamers who don't want to connect their gaming rigs to the internet, and also many who - like me - don't have wireless and don't have their rig (on which they game, in my case only on occasion as I have an Xbox360) in the same room as their internet connection. I've felt the useless wrath of Steam before as well. After getting back from uni (where we had a router and gigantic cables running to all our rooms) I discovered that Steam had decided to lock itself on me, so I couldn't play in "offline" mode, and I couldn't change it to "offline mode" without going online. What utter bullshit. Steam can go fuck itself.

[LouCipherr]

Steam, and other such bullshit DRM that requires internet connection (be it one-time, or constant - !!!) just gets on my tits and makes me specifically avoid getting certain PC titles. I wanted to get Dead Space on the PC, but saw all the DRM bullshit about it, and avoided it like the plague as such - so, as you can see, that nonsense just loses them money instead of gaining it. Such an arse-about-face way of dealing with piracy - the pirates are having a great time, while those who pay hard-earned cash for it have to put up with all that bullshit. What nonsense. Yup - this whole "trying" to copy-protect stuff by forcing you to connect to the internet is just giving people more of a reason to pirate the game (since the "connect to play" shit is disabled, at least for SP mode) so while they're trying to stop piracy and gain more money, they're actually costing themselves more and forcing piracy numbers skyward. It's fun to watch these people trying to prop up the Titanic as it sinks to the ocean floor, isn't it? Piracy - it's like putting a baind-aid on cancer, kids.

[Danny]

ive got steam for one reason tf2 on my mac. other than that its glitchy, crashes all the time and the download rates suck balls. I prefer the stand alone programs, usually going"muthafuckyou computron" when it tries AGAIN to synch starcraft 2 with steam.

[mista_mo]

Steam works fine for me, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with your copies of it.

[kortick]

[Tricky]

thats about right Kortick!

[shootemindehead]

Out of all the DRM shite, Steam has been the least problematic for me. That doesn't mean I like it though. But this DRM bollocks is typical of the fucking "guys in suits" mentality that ruining PC gaming. The absolute worst being the rigmarole needed to play GTA IV. This was a disgraceful port in the first place, but what added insult to injury was the fact that the user had to have Windows Service Pack 3 installed, an account on Windows Live and an account on Rockstar. All that was before you hopped in your first bleedin' car! Needless to say, I was incensed! I swore I wouldn't buy another Rockstar game again in my damning Amazon review Rockstar then brought out Red Dead Redemption and I buckled. I had to get it on the Xbox though...and I don't care what anyone says, playing games on an Xbox is NOT the same as on a PC. It's not even as close to being as enjoyable. The lack of anti-alias and anisotropic filtering can really dampen a game on consoles and the dumbing down of console games in general is making the passtime less and less interesting. This is in no short measure due to the fact that consoles force the user to use a joypad, which means that response time is severely hampered and generally the player has to resort to "automatic aiming" and such like, in order not to blow their top from dying for the 5000th time in a simple firefight. If I had the choice (and assuming it wasn't a rubbish port like GTA IV) I would have bought RDR on the PC. Using the mouse in those type of games is so much more preferable than dicking about with a console controller. But, as the gaming community at large readily agree, DRM in all it's stupid forms from "Starforce" to this latest load bollocks of forcing the player to be connected to the web all the time is utterly destroying PC gaming. Sometimes I think it's a deliberate and concerted effort by elements unknown to do so.