Widescreen Gaming Forum

I too like it for the cheap games. Weekenddeals are great. At first i only used it to play HL2 and CSS (which i bought in a store, not through Steam). But now i see myself buying more and more games through steam. Although i still don't buy my new games there. It's quite pricy. Modern Warfare 2 is € 60,00 on steam. In the store it was just € 35,00.

Upside
Never have to worry about scratched or lost disks
Always patched within a reasonable amount of time
The biggest sell for me
Reloading games after reformatting the HD is as easy click and wait...no re-entering keys, etc

Downside
Miss reading through a game manual for the first time (or re-reading for clues)
Box and disc artwork
The excitement of running home and loading up a new game (depending on the game and time of the day,
a new larger game can take forever to download!)

I do love finding the sales and getting cheap games, but fear just as CD's killed the art of the album, Direct to drive games sales will kill the art of the manual and even the box.

Anyone old enough to remember the amazing packages games came in before they standardized the boxes for retailers 'convenience'?

The biggest sell for me
Reloading games after reformatting the HD is as easy click and wait...no re-entering keys, etc

Better, yet copy paste launch =D

Anyone old enough to remember the amazing packages games came in before they standardized the boxes for retailers 'convenience'?

I do and I'm glad I don't have a truckload of huge square cardboard packages to worry about... My truckload of standardized DVD-boxed games is enough trouble. I love thick game manuals, poster maps and the casual artbook though. No pdf version can quite replace that, it's not just the "pixel content" that's so cool about it.
Can't blame Steam for the cons of DD as a whole, though. :wink:

[quote]Anyone old enough to remember the amazing packages games came in before they standardized the boxes for retailers 'convenience'?

I do and I'm glad I don't have a truckload of huge square cardboard packages to worry about... My truckload of standardized DVD-boxed games is enough trouble. I love thick game manuals, poster maps and the casual artbook though. No pdf version can quite replace that, it's not just the "pixel content" that's so cool about it.
Can't blame Steam for the cons of DD as a whole, though. :wink:
Remember when they weren't even squares sometimes? ie.: Tomb Raider's weird trapezoid thing
blerg

I miss some of the better boxes. I was replaying Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb earlier this year and it had an awesome booklet that mimicked Indy's writings and newspaper clippings and I said "I miss this stuff!"

I think the reason that doesn't deter me from Steam is because no one does it anymore anyway. I went through a boxed retail period for a while not long ago and everything I got basically was a disc in a plastic case with a two-page manual.

Manual art is not dead at all my friend (although marginal), and the pdf format helps it survive even through digital distribution. I do love poster maps and thick manuals and the casual glossy artbook, but I don't miss the big cardboard boxes at all - my truckload-sized collection of standardized DVD game boxes is enough trouble.

We can't blame Steam for all the limitations of DD anyway ;)

I very much like steam for non-subscription based games and would even be willing to pay a premium for a game on Steam VS a disc and CD key.

The ability to keep all m games "in the cloud" versus in a desk drawer is quite comforting. I feel like I can't loose them this way. Also consolidated automatic updates FTW!

But for a subscription based game like EVE Online I wouldn't dream of using steam. My account is already "in the cloud" and using steam just reduces the developers income. Not only this but there have been some problems with the steam version of the EVE client that are not experienced by non-steam users.

Steam would provide one benefit, auto updating/patching of EVE, while this is appealing it wont make a deal.

It's really annoying to me that I go back and forth on Steam. One month I love it and buy all my games there, the next I hate it and search for retail copies.

One big factor for me is that in 2003 I went through a "no more games" period and sold my massive collection of PC and Playstation games. I stayed away from games for a year and never even thought of playing them until the Doom 3 hype got me to play the game at a friend's and then I think Final Fantasy X-2 came out at roughly the same time and I was hooked all over again. I have been building back my old collection ever since and Steam offers me an easy way to do that with incredibly cheap sales at times that are hard to ignore. Does one pay $50 for KotOR on ebay or $10 on Steam? It is almost a no-brainer.

Yet I do love the packaging and more importantly the sense of actual ownership that comes with a boxed copy. So I go back and forth.

As convenient as steam is, I miss buying, racing home and loading up a new game. With the number stores carrying a decent range of PC games or the new releases, its not unusual for me to drive to a couple of stores.

Then if I do find it, it has to be registered or load up through Steam.......arrrrgh.

But you have to live with the times :roll: