campaigner, my guess is that we are a small market, and the publishers charge small market a huge markup  thinking that there is large costs in translating to the local language (which btw here IS english not americal(which is based upon english)).

harpo

By that logic, when someone is stabbed the government is to blame, because they allow people to buy knives and apparently the stabber is innocent.

It's much more fair to the developers that they allow them to change the prices. This way a developer could lower the price of a game in a given region based on low sales in that region. Don't always assume people will do the worst if they're allowed to, check out the regional prices of Stardock published games:

http://www.steamprices.com/us/search?sins

Steam isn't supposed to be the savior of PC gamers, they're the saviors of PC developers. It's up to the devs to be nice to their customers.

Considering they're a publisher...uhh...yeah, that's it, sure. 

Publishers certainly had their share of shifty business tactics in the 90s and still do somewhat today, but 90% of the time they're aboveboard now.

 Pretty much everyone knows what the hell is going on now, whereas back then it was all behind the curtain so to speak.  I'm sure the legal side of things has improved too for small businesspeople, and the no-name publishers largely went out of business.

 Hell most major publishers both publish and develop, considering their amount of wholly owned studios.

 Of course with digital distribution it hardly matters anymore, self publishing is no longer impossible. 

Unless they changed their terms of service from a few months ago... (read it back then) If they give 30 days notice they no longer are required to provide the game after that notice, even if closing their doors forever.  If you miss the notice for whatever reason, sucks to be you for the last chance to DL the game through them. 

So in my opinion I'm forced to use them for some games I want, like Sword of the Stars 2 as example, but keep a backup of the latest updated version offline on disk in the case of something happening to steam or my connection or PC and connection so that way I still have access to my game. The only down side is making sure you back up your activation information... forget that and you're S.O.L. if you catch my drift.

(No, not providing the credential backup process info. So please do not ask, it is a pain... It's already out there if you Google it.)

Personally, I would prefer downloading directly from StarDock like I use to in the past. It was the reason I purchased GalacticCiv 1 and 2.  No DRM, no need to be online to activate once you had it. It was it. Download, backup if you want, play, enjoy.  Everything has become so complicated these days for a simple enjoyment for a few hours.

Again, my basic reply is 'I use it because I'm forced to use it. I do not like it. Will avoid it if at all possible.' Even if it means going months without a game to get it from a retail location (cough) or another download provider like GoG.com or GMG (GreenMan Gaming) who try to avoid the DRM scene.

Let me preface this that as a former OS/2 user, I can out-kook pretty much anyone.

Now, that said, running a business is remarkably similar to playing a strategy game. Seriously. If an idiot like me can build a business from his dorm room into one generating tens of millions of dollars each year, you can probably assume that a lot of the so-called skills involved are very similar to playing a game like Civilization (or Rail Road tycoon).  The reason most businesses fail is for the same reason that most people lose at "Easy" difficulty -- they're just not good at the trade-offs.

When you use Steamworks, you're making a trade off.  You will lose some customers.  Similarly, not having your game at retail is a trade off. It's one we made with Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.  We lost vastly **vastly** more sales not having it at retail than we did by using Steamworks.  But the trade-off was that we were able to have a release date of our own choosing and frankly, if I have to choose between money and having a universally beloved game people like, I'm going to choose the latter every time.

Personally, I don't like games requiring to use Steam.  But, as a developer, my options are to either spend hundreds of thousands of dollars developing stuff ourselves or letting Steam do it.

The only reason Elemental isn't using Steamworks is because I personally vetoed it. The IT team just hates having to keep running the rather expensive infrastructure we have to add, update, and deliver games to users. They'd rather hand it all over to Steam and be done with it so that they can focus on other things.  That's the trade off we're facing.

The DRM thing that I've seen people mention is meaningless. That's not the reason companies use Steam.  They use it because Valve is willing, for free, to handle all the updating and distribution.  It costs us about $10k per month just for Sins of a Solar Empire dedicated bandwidth for the hundreds of thousands of users who are updating its various versions or reinstalling it each month.  That's a lot of money when Valve is ready to handle all that for free.  And that's just the bandwidth. Forget all the people involved that have to get the files updated, test the updates, handle customer issues, etc.

I couldn't find an option on the survey for me. It's not that I don't like Steam, it's that I LOATHE it.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept. When people say they like Steam because it puts your games in 1 easy location, helps the publishers/devs, helps indies, etc: I'm all for that. The problem isn't the concept, but Steam itself. It is a particularly terrible implementation of it all.

Take for instance this morning: I still haven't figured out what it was, but Steam refused to load for half of the morning. I had internet, but it would just sit at the "Connecting to steam account" window. Authorization never failed, it just sat there. The result of this? I couldn't play any of those games. Try to launch a game, and it forces Steam to try and load.

Yes, this finally fixed itself and steam is working again: But it is something that NEVER, not once, ever, should have happened. A problem with 1 program, should not cause a problem with dozens of other programs. This isn't the operating system, it's a digital distribution system...that is then denying access to my purchased products.

Imagine buying a car, and in the morning when you go to work you find the engine is sitting in the garage, a man standing over it telling you can not have access to your car because the dealer that originally sold it to you is at home sick.

When you add in Steam using excessive resources, sometimes slow to respond, crashes, etc. The previous problem is greatly compounded.

I have many other issues with Steam as well. Why is it so difficult to stick my games where I want them? I have 4 Hard Drives, with a total of 6 partitions for various things. They hard drives range from a large, but slower bulk storage, to WD Raptors, and even a SSD. While most of my games go on 1 partition, for various reasons others go on other drives. Obviously I am not going to let Steam anywhere near my SSD, largely because of how large my Steam library has unfortunately become. However, I bought the SSD for a reason: Many games see dramatic improvements from it, and I would love to put whatever games I feel like, when I feel like it, onto my SSD. Steam tells me no.

I didn't spend $7,000 I earned in Iraq for some company to tell me how I should use my computer. I'd buy an Apple if I wanted that stupidity. I spent a fortune on my computer so that it could be MY computer. Exactly how I wanted it.

These aren't rare issues either. I run into a problem or annoyance with Steam nearly every single time I try to play a game that uses it. This has been going on for years. Last few days, Steam has been enjoying preventing me from playing my games by forcing me to convert all of the game content on games after I try to launch them. They never asked me if I wanted to convert the games. There is no choice to skip it. It is not possible to play one of these games that need to converted, until after conversion is complete ( short of cracking the game that is. )

The worst part of all is simply being forced to use Steam at all. I loved being able to download games with Impulse...but launch the games freely. Impulse didn't try to get in the way, it was there just to help. I always felt like games I got off Impulse were MY games, not rent-a-games like with Steam, where I have to play by their rules.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have bought Rebellion if I had noticed that note about requiring Steam. Unfortunately, that is 1 more game stuck to that mess of an obtrusive program. In fact, I would go so far as to label Steam as a Computer Virus.

It's a program that can enter the computer without the users knowledge or authorization ( such as if you buy a game that requires it. This is where I first wound up with it. I bought Dawn of War 2, which I didn't know, but it requires and installs Steam. ), and causes undesired results, or performs undesired tasks.

The worst part is that I know Valve won't ever change any of that. Too many people are willing to blindly look past the problems, and Devs will continue to gladly use the service due to its wide availability and other advantages as mentioned by Frogboy. All the while, us the consumer, will be the ones hurt time and again.

Use SteamMover. I use it all the time to move games between my HDD and SSD. It's really just the click of a button and you're done.

Personally I'm happy with the conveniences Steam offers me and I've barely ever hit the downsides. The program almost never has a problem, I have a great internet connection and for the few times I didn't Offline mode worked fine for me, same as it does on my secondary computer. My download speeds are always close to cap my cap as well. And by now, even if I had a game that doesn't need Steam, I'd be running it for the overlay anyway so I can stay in touch with my friendslist while I play.

I agree being able to select where the install would go if so desired would have been useful, but with programs like Steammover it doesn't really bother me. Plus I can use it to move non-steam games off and on my SSD as well, so it's good to have anyway.

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Elemental on Steam. (I assume shortly before or on the release of Fallen Enchantress)

Strong words.

How exactly do you feel 'abused' by Steam?

Steam is not flawless but I already own over thousand games at steam and will happily continue to be one of their customers

Didn't you read the list:-

It corrupts perfectly good systems

It will stop you from getting a job

It will start to take photos of you to check it is you that is playing

It forces you to play Lord of the rings Online... Online

It will steal all of your games without any warning

Also since that post...

It is a virus

It installs malware onto your computer

....and one i missed off from last time.....

It won't let you use other peoples accounts.

Thanks for making it obvious you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Which is perfectly reasonable, since you also admitted you have zero experience with Steam.

Skyrim looking worse... lol. It even has an HD patch to make it look better than the console versions. The funny part is that even if you think it still looks worse than Oblivion, none of that has anything to do with Steam, they didn't design the game, nor does a game on Steam need to tone down graphics to be able to run on Steam.

Steam doesn't need to convert and dumbdown any game. Just a statement full of hot air and zero facts.

Needing to be online to go into offline mode is a myth. There's bugs with the offline mode sure, but the feature is intended to work if and when you lose internet, and when properly set up and used it works that way. I can pull my cable right now and I'll be able to go into offline mode without problems and play my games.

Compatiblity argument just seems a repeat of your argument before, that it might impede you playing, which it only does rarely at best. The conveniences it delivers far outweighs that for me, and obviously for a lot of others.