Me neither. I didn't like Steam either, actually, but I backed down on that since I can buy games there 85% off during sales. And they run in offline mode too. I can just burn them to a DVD if I wanted (if I had a DVD drive 😜). So it's not too bad.

With the App Store it looks like you're not even remotely entitled to the game you just paid $60 for. Thanks, I'll pass.

I can't even buy from the Windoze Store, because I don't own a WinRT phone or tablet, nor do I run Windoze 8.1/10. Windows 7 was the last great version, and Micro$oft's gonna have to pry it from my cold dead hands.

Looks like my boycott of the PC gaming industry will continue unabated because of 'wonderful' ideas like this (yes I have a GOG account, but haven't found anything worthwhile so far) 😒

P.S.: To Gabe Newell and Valve - I sincerely hope you all fall into a black hole and disappear for good. That's how much resentment and contempt I have for both since the creation of Steam 😠

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Looks like my boycott of the PC gaming industry will continue unabated because of 'wonderful' ideas like this (yes I have a GOG account, but haven't found anything worthwhile so far) 😒

P.S.: To Gabe Newell and Valve - I sincerely hope you all fall into a black hole and disappear for good. That's how much resentment and contempt I have for both since the creation of Steam 😠

I know there are folks here who dislike services such as Steam, but those are some pretty strong words.

Overall, I too favor the old "I can hold the box in my hands" delivery system that we used back in the day. However, I'll admit to a rather large collection and backlog of Steam games in my account. I don't much care for the online delivery system that Steam uses, but I rationalize it like this: I'm also not paying $25-$50 per game like I used to either. Back in the day, it was pretty common for me to walk out of the computer shop with a nice PC game, box in hand, and ~$30 less in my wallet. With Steam, I don't think I've ever paid more than $4 for a game. In fact, if I averaged it out, I would be surprised if I'm paying more than 50-cents per title on Steam. It's mostly freebies and stuff from Humble Bundle, Indie Gala, Indie Game Stand, Daily Indie Game, Bundle Stars, etc etc etc. Many of my GOG titles are also extremely cheap or altogether free.

If I were paying $30 per title, I too would avoid Steam and other online services in favor of a physical box and printed manual. But I'm not, so I'll suffer a little inconvenience for 99% savings over what I used to pay yesteryear. There are tons of freebies out there to be had. Indie Gala and GOG have freebies very frequently. Origin has infrequent "on the house" freebies, but they're available too. The prices are so cheap with these online services, I find it very hard to complain.

Edit: I checked my Steam purchases and found that my most expensive game is Kerbal Space Program at $14. However, this is the only game that I've spent more than $5 on in over a decade. My next most expensive purchases, at the cost of ~$5 each, were Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect (and sequels), FTL, and Brothers. Everything else has been below the $5 mark.

I thought Valve had a really vague end-of-life policy that they'd somehow unlock the DRM if Steam ever were to shutdown. It's not ironclad but it's something.

Frankly physical media & packaging on old titles is cool, and since it's already been made we should try to preserve it - but I'm 100% pro digital downloads for new stuff. Anything that creates less useless plastic packaging and industrial waste is fine by me. It's 2016; we have the technology to mass distribute games without poisoning half of China, so let's use it.

The digital download versions of whatever will long outlast old floppies & probably even CD-Roms anyway. Bit rot is a bastard.

And yeah my average Steam purchase is WELL under $10. Probably more like $3 per game. Also Humble Store, GOG, others = digi downloads, no DRM.

You shouldn't boycott PC gaming just because someone is using a new service to release games.

Have never purchased anything from the Windows Store, can anyone tell on how many PCs can I install a program bought in this store?

I've never bought anything from the Windows Store for the simple reason that 99% of the stuff on there are cheap knockoffs of real products with dubious publishers behind them, and/or are designed to run as a live-tiles app which makes it extra annoying to deal with. :P

That said, Steam's never bothered me since the DRM they have in place is connected to the user account, not the computer, which makes it very easy to migrate games to another computer, provided the games in question don't have even MORE DRM thrown on top, but I avoid buying such games anyways. (Heck, most of what I play anymore are indie titles.)

Steam and GOG are not going anywhere and will always be superior places to buy games from in terms of PCs, so if some publisher/developer wants to support a less established and more dubious method of distributing their games, then... well... they're just gonna have to learn their lesson the hard way. :P

I have purchased a few tablet oriented programs and games from the Windows Store. They can be installed on multiple machines. I think I saw the limit is 10 machines at one time.

The only problem I see is you can't choose where to install them. Everything goes to the Windows drive. Could be a problem for big games. Maybe they will change this.

I'm like most here and still prefer physical or at the very least GOG style installers. The fact we are all members at vogons means we are somewhat different to mainstream though, as Dos freak said, most people consider games disposable after a while.
I don't think it is all bad though. especially for the average user. I was pleasantly surprised when I swapped out the HDD in my girlfriends MacBook, signed in to the Apple store and even had the option of which Apps she had purchased in the past I wanted to install, No trying to find CD's from when she got it back in 2011 and hadn't seen since.
Originally I was the same with music, insisting on CD's now I'm happy for online. But still 100% make a backup offline copy.

I knew the Steam faithful would come out in defense after I set those words in stone. Not that it matters much anyway, I have no intention of giving in or have a change of heart at all 😐

MrEWhite wrote:

You shouldn't boycott PC gaming just because someone is using a new service to release games.

So what should I do then, toe the line like others have? Sorry, that will never happen. I've always gone my own way when it comes to personal computers and intend to continue to do so now and in the foreseeable future - regardless of what happens or if anyone likes it or not.

Microsoft just wants its own iTunes store. With the 30% cut for them and all the nags that Apple already showed. If it is anything like the iTunes store, then people will love it for the convenience 😜
( Have to confess; I spend some money on software in the iTunes store. There was no other choice 🤣 )
Is there any scenario where digital distributors will not get annoyingly big and powerful?

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

So what should I do then, toe the line like others have? Sorry, that will never happen. I've always gone my own way when it comes to personal computers and intend to continue to do so now and in the foreseeable future - regardless of what happens or if anyone likes it or not.

Your loss. Now STFU and let us enjoy our games services 😀

I left my anti-Steam impressions behind 12 years ago, more because I was bitter about Valve's assimilation of mod teams for business and the insistent displacement of their id Tech origins.

Microsoft on the other hand is just trying to do GFWL 2 with some evil "you may not release on other platforms ever it's exclusive to us or it's ntohing" clause that is the real horrifying part of it all. Steam never did that shit

Seriously, JayCeeBee64, why do you hate cheap games? As long as Steam never requires me to have an always online connection for something that is not an MMO or has a single-player mode (I'm looking at you Blizzard with Diablo III), I could give a rat's ass about the fact that I have to download the game if it means that if I wait 6 months I can get a AAA title for $10-$20 instead of $60, and if I wait a year or more I can often pick it up for $5 or so. Between Steam and GOG I have more games than I'll ever be able to finish. With the exception of a few games like Fallout 4, maybe the Doom and Wolfenstein sequels coming out, I've more or less had to put a moratorium on new purchases.

And how are you not finding anything worthwhile on GOG? Syndicate, Syndicate Wars, X-wing, X-wing vs. Tie Fighter, Doom and Doom II, Space Quest I-VI, Kings Quest I-VI, Monkey Island, Loom, the SSI Goldbox games as well as the entire AD&D back catalog....I could keep going but you get the point. If you're not finding anything you like on GOG it's because you have really specifically narrow tastes or you're just not trying.

I sometimes miss the old days too. I used to like going into EB, Babbages and Walden Software to browse and seeing row after row of PC games, but those days are gone. Only EB is still around and has the tiniest of PC game ghettos, everything else there is console. And given that I can spend $100 a year on Steam games or GOG games and have more games than I could possibly finish, I can't say I miss the brick and mortar store where I have to deal with an angry teenager or nerdlinger manager that feels the need to tell me how the games I'm buying are horrible. Good riddance.

Fine then, fine. I'll stop. In fact, I'm going to take a slow walk along a long pier and reconsider my membership here at VOGONS. It appears that having and/or expressing an opinion different from everyone else here is not a good thing at all.

It's funny that some are suggesting a few games that I already have, but I suppose I must share blame on that since I didn't specify that I'm not interested in any from 2005 onwards; ah well, it's too little too late to do anything about it now. C'est la vie and all that.

If I do return it will be just to take care of any loose ends of my own; after that, who knows.

P.S.: Sorry about this DosFreak, I did not expect my personal opinion about Steam and its supporters would turn out like it did. I sincerely apologize for disrupting your topic so badly, and you are free to do with my posts as you see fit. Once again, I'm really sorry.

Did I miss something? 😕

I hope you'll reconsider your decision to leave. From what I've read here, nobody has insulted or flamed you. Sure, some folks have disagreed with you, but they're entitled to their opinions too.

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

It appears that having and/or expressing an opinion different from everyone else here is not a good thing at all.

I think your contrary opinions/comments sparked an interesting discussion regarding Steam and online delivery systems. That's pretty much the point of this forum, so I think it's a good thing. If we all agreed on everything, there wouldn't be much to discuss.

I hope you won't leave. I've enjoyed your comments and thought you had plenty of knowledge and insight to share. If you choose to leave, you will be missed. 😒

Yeah I'm going to avoid the Windows app store just as much as I'm going to avoid Windows 10. They also announced that they will bring the Console platform to PC and that XBone is basically dead. That's pretty much leaves Sony as the only console and expect prices to rise and quality to decrease due to lack of any competition.

I don't care about Steam going down, there are plenty of ways around that if required, and I seriously doubt steam is going anywhere anyways. If you don't like the service don't use it. You don't have to piss and moan your displeasure on a public forum and then attack the other users for not agreeing with YOU and be hypocritical to your own words... well have a good one.

I will continue to use GOG and Steam, and I even let Origin on my system now that they have relaxed their policies a bit, although I don't let it run all the time because it blocks me from using NOCD exes on my very very old games that they don't even sell (seriously EA?) but I can use them fine if Origin is not running. I was able to recover my games from my old EA Downloader account and they were very apologetic once I provided pictures of my manuals and discs and even gave me some free games. So I think they are at least trying not to be America's most hated company.

http://www.pcinvasion.com/quantum-breaks-wind … sivity-bad-news

... it’s pretty safe to assume that Microsoft want to use this game to drive as many as possible towards Windows 10 and their ow […]
Show full quote

... it’s pretty safe to assume that Microsoft want to use this game to drive as many as possible towards Windows 10 and their own storefront ...

... by keeping it to the Windows Store, the audience will narrow much further. Microsoft is actively sacrificing a significant number of sales in the name of pushing its digital shop ... ... No doubt the studio has received some financial renumeration (read: a fat wad of cash) to make up the inevitable shortfall ...

... This kind of aggressive rejection of straightforward tweaking and modding doesn’t bode at all well for future releases through the Store. One of the PC’s great strengths is the flexibility it gives players in adapting their visual settings, but the Windows Store seems dead set against allowing this.

I have started losing interest in new games. I've built the latest desktop system with a 980Ti, only to find... the emptiness feeling in new games. With some rare exceptions.

From Windows Store I download some Free games for my tablet. And that's it. If it's freemium-centred game, I uninstall it the next second. Other than that, not interested in WIndows Store based full-scale heavy weight games. Not interested in DX12 too. Fine if it's the future, but looking at the new games, nothing could hold my interest for long. Lack of innovations and focus only on graphics technology is driving me away.

I just want good gameplay ... just like the good old days. That's why I still have Dosbox installed even on my latest desktop.

I don't have any grudge against Steam either. Games are really cheap, especially when on sale. And furthermore, it's sold in my local currency. Just got the Hitman series during a past sale.

Windows Store has a lackluster roster of games and with the new problem coming up, it will be a real pain. But MS is known to backtrack on it's designs, like how it did with XBox One. It may be working with game companies to resolve certain issues, since the problems cropped up in the links posted by DosFreak are quite serious and it will backfire on Microsoft.