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Antabus on 31 August 2010
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Scoobes said:

10 pages of material to read, seriously? On Page 5 I already gave a host of reasons as well as many people already:

  • Lack of an interface without starting up a game (No single startup program to chat, see what everyone else is playing, list all your games including non Steam/GFWL)
  • locking saved games and forcing you to sign-in for access plus you can't save without logging in (not only does Steam not do this, but it also allows you access to saved games from other computers upon install)
  • a poorly designed user interface for PC (looks like it was designed for low res)
  • a range of connections issues rarely encountered with Steam
  • bloated and buggy client with visible slow down and process heavy compared to Steam
  • activation limits (on Steam there are none bar a minute number of third-party games; most of the games you list in the GFWL are also available on Steam and the majority didn't have any extra DRM)
  • poor and unclarified DRM policies (see above)
  • slow to update and patch
  • region locking PC games
  • less games on Live than available on Steam (you already mentioned this one)
  • No user-mods for download (GFWL is a closed system, especially on PC)
  • Poor PC-baed community: Yes you have your X-box-Live friends, but for PC based games I want to communicate strategies with PC players, and the community features on GFWL are pretty mediocre by comparison. It's not like many games are cross platform play.

-  Maybe true for you, but on PC I really don't need that option. Other might but I don't.

- locking savegames is a good thing, people can't cheat with their GS so easily

- poorly designed? And steam is so great? :D

- I've had a lot of issues with steam. The usual "cannot connect to steam network" happens very often. Haven't had any problems with XBL/GFWL.

- So are you saying that there aren't games with securom/any drm on steam? I can't see how 5 times a month activation limit is a problem for anyone.

- Region locking games is a problem because of what? If I am on another region, I am on a vacation. I am not carrying my desktop with me or have any interest on spending my vacation on games.

- once again, mods mods mods. 99% of them are pure crap. Are those good mods available from steam?

- Do you use steam for communicating with other players anyway? I bet you don't. I use irc, ventrilo and some times messenger for that on pc. When I am working, I don't want to be disturbed by my friends. When I am playing, I can access the friends list.

And just out of curiosity, what are those community features on steam? I have noticed that there is a community tab but... there is pretty much nothing going on. I guess the only purpose of that is a make a boycott MW2-group or something as interesting as that.

And since you seem to know a lot of about steam, where can I find all of my achievements?

All in all, I prefer retail over any dd-service.