Hold your breath, count to five

[cyrano]

Does anybody have experience or anecdotal exposure to Steam the 'download your game' game portal?

Comments

[reluctantgenius.livejournal.com]

There are, in fact, a great number of people who use Steam. It's quite popular. But, I suspect, that's not really the question you want answered.

[reluctantgenius.livejournal.com]

Does this help?

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

It certainly serves as an anecdotal point, yes. (:
But $10 for a game is way cheaper than $80, and so I was attracted.

[reluctantgenius.livejournal.com]

And you won't be able to play it without an internet connection. Also, if Steam needs to update itself, you'll have to wait for that. On the other hand, it will patch your game and, these days, your video drivers, automatically, which can be nice.

For me, it's the need to have an internet connection that makes me hesitate to buy things on Steam. I prefer DRM free games.

[flit.livejournal.com]

Unless they've changed something recently, you don't need a connection to play, just to download. You put Steam into offline mode to do it. I'd use it to update games on one system (in live mode) while playing the game on another in offline.

I've never had any problems with Steam, personally, though I come and go on games -- haven't played a Steam game for a while now, but I like that they're waiting for me, and that I can download them again if I vape my computer. Cloud save games make it even easier to switch systems.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I was playing DA2 through Steam without an active internet connection at times, from start-up of Steam through shutdown in a session, when I first got it (after I got back from Canada, it wasn't an issue)...so I don't know how universal the need for a constant internet connection is.

[reluctantgenius.livejournal.com]

I need to find the offline mode switch on Steam, evidently.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I didn't do anything, I don't think, to play in offline mode. Just started the Steam app, logged in, and it let me go.

Maybe it's game variable?

[reluctantgenius.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried starting Steam with my internet connection down, but I couldn't get it to start Portal 2 without loading Steam first and it wanted to update Steam before launching Portal 2. But there might be a switch somewhere to let you disable the on-line part of the service and just play.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking you'll find an explanation in the wall-o-text below. :)

[likable-lemur.livejournal.com]

I played Portal 2 while my cable modem cut out this last weekend. It stays at the "updating Steam" screen for about a minute, fails out to the "Steam can't establish a network connection, do you want to play in offline mode," then you hit "yes I would" and life goes on. There is no special offline mode switch.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Once Steam is updated, though...I'd be curious to see if you can play it without the internet connection.

(Someone else posted after this thread corroborating my suspicion that the internet requirement is on a per-game basis. Steam's need to update, OTOH, would need the internet, but shouldn't be too huge a demand.)

[likable-lemur.livejournal.com]

I think the "Updating Steam" is a generic/default state. It isn't actually updating Steam, and there is no update to apply (You can prove that by reconnecting to the Internet later and seeing no update to apply).

[jakejr.livejournal.com]

My man uses it a fair amount, and I played a game off it at some point.

[elo-sf.livejournal.com]

I am not jake's man, but I am a valve/steam user and generally happy with it.

[simonepdx.livejournal.com]

Seems fine to me, and marginally less annoying than the EA one, which seems to take AGES to find out that you've actually bought, downloaded, installed, and registered a game IT SOLD YOU.

[likable-lemur.livejournal.com]

Hiya CJ,

Steam is, to use the colloquialism, "fuckin' awesome." I've used it since inception, and after the initial rockiness (in like 1998), it's been a solid, powerful platform ever since.

While you can't sell or lend games through Steam (which is a sticking point for some people), you get the convenience of never having to remember serial numbers (in most cases), and the instant gratification of digital delivery. Steam games are also generally less expensive than physical media (Portal 2 was 40 bucks when I bought it), and your "games library" can be accessed without hunting for CDs or things like that.

Overall, I really, really like Steam. Note that you do NOT get away from draconian DRM schemes with Steam; the service has its own rather-relaxed DRM, but publishers can choose to add their own on top of it. This has been a problem with EA games for some folks (SecuROM does not play well with other children), but in my experience it has been a non-issue, even with additionally-protected games.

You generally CAN play your games without a 'net connection, so long as you have activated them first (download the game, open it, the game will say "completing installation," then you are done). Steam will show a 'net connection failure, but if you have an offline game, you can generally play it if you're not online (I played Portal 2 and Fallout New Vegas while my 'net connection was down just the other day). The caveat to this is that, again, if the publisher has mandated an Internet connection (this is a separate requirement from Steam and would affect you even if you bought the physical copy), then you're boned anyway. This is getting less and less common, and if you spend a few minutes looking around, you can find *cough* perfectly legitimate *cough* ways of circumventing the 'net check on games lumbered with particularly horrible copyright controls.

Steam will update itself occasionally, and this takes about a minute. It's a total non-issue.

Patches for games are delivered automatically, but they are downloaded and applied when they are available; this may lead to a few minutes of staring at a progress bar when you open your game. Then the game will launch, and life will go on. I have never had Steam update my video drivers.

Your games are tied to your Steam login, so if you ever replace or rebuild your computer, you can just sign back into Steam, download your games, and woohoo, you're back in business. Saves are generally kept locally, so you'll want to back those up, but the game data itself will just flow through the series of tubes and install on your computer.

For online gaming, Steam is very difficult to beat. The platform supports very robust social networking (from instant messaging to player groups that can organize events), which is helpful if you want to bug your buddy to see if they want to play some Team Fortress 2 or Left 4 Dead. This all exists in the Steam overlay, which does not intrude meaningfully on your game experience, and is instead accessed by a key combination from inside the game you're playing.

You can even register games you already own, on physical media, through Steam (Provided the game is also available on Steam). If, for example, you bought Portal 2 on DVD, but you want to have it in your Steam library, that ability is supported, at no cost to you. It gives your physical copy of the game all the advantages of the Steam platform, without having to buy it again.

I guess the short version of all this rambling is: Steam is great. It's the future of game delivery and content management, and Valve have done an amazing job of making the service excellent. It is objectively better than Impulse, GameSpy, and EA's half-baked offering. If you want an analogy, it is the iTunes of gaming: Digital content delivery at low prices, in a reliable package and a good user interface. It isn't perfect - but nothing is, now is it?

Cheerio!

[reluctantgenius.livejournal.com]

And I totally don't work for Valve at all

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I can vouch that he doesn't. Although I sort of wish he did, since then we'd be living in Washington instead of Arizona. :)

[likable-lemur.livejournal.com]

If I worked for Valve, not only would I probably have gotten a deeper discount on Portal 2, but I probably would have spent the whole time talking about the snack bar.