Demut said:
Why? What difference does it make to you? Oh, that’s right, NONE! Also, there are other, completely non-intrusive ways to ensure that (cf. Crysis Warhead, Game Dev Tycoon, Grand Theft Auto IV, Serious Sam, Spyro et cetera).
Online activation of your games is quite a hassle for some people.
... you hope.
That hardly means it won’t ever change. What about that TOS update? If you don’t agree to all future changes made to them you won’t be able to access your games anymore.
Where did you get the idea that they would make far less money? What’s with the false dichotomy?
I’m not from the U.S. yet nevertheless, I can think of a few reasons:
• coerced registration of your games → you cannot resell them
• your account can be hacked
• if Steam is discontinued you are royally fucked
• same if they change their already awful general terms and conditions to something you won’t agree to
• you cannot manually patch games (e.g. pick which version you want to play)
• you rely on their servers and if they’re down, overloaded and so on, bad luck, looks like you’ll have to wait for Valve to get their shit together to install your games
For international users there are a lot more problems such as pricing, region locks, censorship (especially here in Germany), legal issues and so forth.
Speak for yourself. Sales tell a different story.
Maybe 1% of the games in your Steam account, yeah, because Steam users have the tendency to buy shit they don’t even need and never play. What’s your played (let alone completion) rate? 1% as well, hahaha? Those of us who are more discerning in their purchases certainly will play a much higher percentage of our games in ten years time again.
Soothsaying ... you can’t predict black swans.
Seriously though, please tell us why you are okay with the gaming industry out of all industries fucking us up the ass like that? Do you love DRM on music, too? Or on books? Would you be fine if your car was also locked to your person so you couldn’t resell it? Why this cognitive dissonance, bro?
Don't have the energy to restate all of my points again but a few highlights. The false dichotomy - I don't know what the actual dichotomy is. What I'm saying is, if that IS the choice they face, then that's my stance on it.
As for my completion rate, I have about 120 (steam shows a few more because it counts some dlc as their own game). For the fun of it, I actually went through and totalled up the games I had *completed* (not just tried out for a few hours). I have about 50% completion of my entire library, which is a pretty solid ratio, since many of those games have multiple playthroughs or very high hour counts (800 hrs on Left 4 Dead 2, 600 on Warband, ~300 hours on Witcher 2, ~250 hrs on Skyrim, etc.) And most of those other games were picked up for pennies during Humble Bundles or Steam sales - games for literally a couple cents, or perhaps a dollar or two here and there. I have only one game I paid a full 59.99 for - Skyrim. I've only ever preordered perhaps 2 games? (Bioshock Inf and Witcher 2). So don't insinuate that Steam has made me a wanton purchaser, buying loads of useless crap and wasting tons of money.
I listed reasons why Valve and as a result Steam are stronger than ever before, and have no chance of just suddenly vanishing in the next couple years. So that's not soothsaying. It'd be soothsaying to claim that Square Enix will be around for another 10 years, since that's a company on a downward spiral.
You listed some points. I'll address them briefly:
• coerced registration of your games → you cannot resell them
Games bought for pennies, $2, $5 - I don't need to resell these. I'm happy to keep them. Would I like a resell functionality on the steam market? Sure, but it's not a pressing issue.
• your account can be hacked
So you do you only use letters because email accounts can be hacked? That's another false dichotomy. Also, Steam has added the SteamGuard functionality, which is a heavy level of bonus security against people trying to hack into your account.
• if Steam is discontinued you are royally fucked
Not gonna happen anytime soon, as I mentioned.
• same if they change their already awful general terms and conditions to something you won’t agree to
Their ToC are fine. Valve would not risk their good rep in this vicious kotaku-driven media culture that dominates gaming by changing their ToC drastically. Look at Origin. Tons of people were turned off the service because of stuff in the ToC which gave them legal access to scan your hard drive.
• you cannot manually patch games (e.g. pick which version you want to play)
Outside of some kind of rare glitch with The Witcher 2 version 2.0 or 2.1 or something back in the day that stopped being a problem pretty quick, this has never been an issue. And there are workarounds for that as well if such an unusual situation should occur.
• you rely on their servers and if they’re down, overloaded and so on, bad luck, looks like you’ll have to wait for Valve to get their shit together to install your games
Because I'm constantly buying and installing games...not. Valve's servers are almost always up and running smoothly, outside of the occasional update or supersale. And oh my god, worst case scenario, Steam's down for a day, I go and read a book or something and download the game a few hours later. Whoop-dee-doo. Steam doesn't inhibit the games I have once I've installed them, so it's not an issue.