Why steam is bad

Here's Valve's Doug Lombardi still in the job, btw prior to the game's release:. All versions require an Internet connection upon installation. Once this has been completed, the owner of either the retail or the Steam version can play Half-Life 2 single player in offline mode.

So Steam was mandatory for everyone buying Half-Life 2. Everyone was buying Half-Life 2, and when Half-Life 2 launched Steam fell over. So badly it even made the BBC.

Valve's servers simply weren't ready for the flood of users trying to play the game at launch, and for days, people around the world struggled to even start the game, a real kick in the teeth considering they'd waited over five years for the oft-delayed sequel. We accept server issues at a game's launch as an unfortunate standard today, but that's for multiplayer games, and that's in In , the idea that a singleplayer experience had to be "unlocked" remotely, even though you held the discs in your hand, was seen by many as an unnecessary intrusion, a roadblock to their enjoyment of a game.

It was SimCity , before SimCity. Only for a new Half-Life game. If you weren't involved or around at the time, doesn't matter, I'm sure you can imagine. This left a bad taste in people's mouths. While Valve swiftly sorted out the server issues, and most people had got their games working after only a few days, the memory of that forced installation and subsequent failure would linger for years.

For the discerning gamer, there are ways of spotting these bad apples. Every game has a section on their store page that shows how often the developer updates, and more often than not what their plans are for the future. On Steam, prices can drop way, way sooner, usually mere months after release. I know that nowadays being completely without the internet is like being without power or water - something increasingly rare and possibly fatal. But most also know their internet connection isn't nearly as reliable as power or water, and sometimes it goes down.

No interwebs, no game. How big? Well, according to Steamspy as of the time of this writing, there are 14, games currently available on Steam. To put that into perspective, Xbox Marketplace has a pathetic total under 5, Playstation Store has a similar offering. Even competitors like the Humble Store ranks in the thousands. Steam is the only core gaming platform to break ten thousand games.

Steam has more games than there are species of mammals or birds on Earth. If Steam games were miles, they would be wider than the planet.

There are more Steam games than I have had failed relationships! There are a few stalwart holdouts that are trying to turn back the new world order, and that really blows.

Staring through a dazzling window at that one, shining title you long for but can never play. I take solace in the fact that, historically, console locked titles have eventually found their way to Steam, and many more games are being made with PC in mind.

PC gaming has always had one giant advantage over their lesser console brethren: mods. The ability for enterprising game enthusiasts with a little programming knowledge to reach into the guts of a game, tweak a few things or a lot of things , and then give it away for free to the wider world is something truly magical.

Some games can be made to be something so much more than what the original developers envisioned. With mods, the world of Skyrim comes alive with added sounds, sights, and textures. Modders get access to whole new stories and experiences. Many PC games are made with Steam Workshop in mind with the hope their title will become popular enough to have hundreds or even thousands of mods created for it.

Steam has a huge selection, and its massive sales mean I can get tons of games for less than the price of my lunch. Players began noting that was Valve was doing was wildly illegal , pointing out quite accurately that under European Union law , consumers were entitled to a refund on all purchases — even for something as simple as changing their mind. Eighteen months of drama unfolded in the Australian Federal Court from through , as the Washington software giant used every trick in the book to stall the ongoing, inevitably damning case against it.

The implication is that, were anyone to find out how incredibly lucrative Steam had become, they might negotiate harder. Those matters include that Valve has approximately 2. The language was damning. Even when Valve finally did get around to launching a refund program a full two years after the supposedly evil EA did it! It's almost like Good Guy Valve just The language Valve uses on Steam to this day reflects the pouty attitude the company has towards its loss in court. European law principally provides a right of withdrawal on software sales.

However, it can be and typically is excluded for boxed software that has been opened and for digitally provided content once it has been made available to the end user. This is what happens when you make a transaction on Steam: The EU statutory right of withdrawal ends the moment the content and services are added to your account.

At the same time, Steam voluntarily offers refunds to all of its customers worldwide in a way that is much more customer-friendly than our legal obligations. There is arguably no single phenomenon that more exemplifies the lopsided and abusive relationship between Good Guy Valve and its customers than the Steam Sale. We love the Steam Sales and the discounts they bring.

But perhaps even more than we love the low, low prices, we love The Sale Event itself. We love the pre-sale videos that we carefully cut together to hype each other up for the imminent spending spree.

We love the in-jokes and the memes , the constant banter about the bleeding wallets and the screaming, tortured credit cards that just can't take any more. But in the world of Good Guy Valve we give that marketing away, for free , to a billion-dollar corporation every year sometimes twice a year, if he asks nicely , doing our bit to help that corporation make more money during a sale event.

This is the terrifying power of Good Guy Valve. We do our part with the memes, the articles and the social media posts, and our good friend Valve does the rest. The rest meaning taking our money. And then, after all that, we don't even play the games.

Back in , Good Guy Valve tore up the playbook again, showing us once and for all that they weren't an uncaring corporation — in fact they wanted nothing more than to open up their Steam Workshop and let us play around in their magical worlds of Dota 2 , Team Fortress 2 and, later, Counter-Strike GO. And you can earn real money from it, they told us! Buy these items, and the 3D artists who made them will get 25 percent of the profits.

We're all in this together! Talented 3D artists surged out of the woodwork, and the airwaves were saturated with feel-good stories of creators making very decent, livable wages off the sales of Demoman swords, machine gun skins and wacky couriers.

As far as Valve is concerned, it's a fantastic arrangement: You do all the hard work for free, knowing that you might never be paid, but hoping you will at some point. Valve sells your work to other people, and they take the overwhelming majority of the money from each transaction. Everyone's a winner Valve has lost nothing other than the sunk cost of the employee time spent maintaining the store, while gaining a lot of revenue.

The agreement itself states that you have no specific right to any payment, outside of the ability to upload the item. The specific Workshop agreement also forces you to keep the sales data itself confidential.

Want to tell someone how well your items are selling? Too bad. Valve has just recently slashed royalties for Dota 2 creators to almost nothing , right on the eve of the next massive International tournament. This artist has made tens of thousands of dollars from Steam Workshop item sales, and is still in love with the idea of content creation and modding, even if they're not overly optimistic about the future of the Steam Workshop. Or, to look at things in a more cynical light: Valve is eager to provide the tools that enable you to work for free