Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

is it good or bad, what are the pros and cons (if there are any)

It's great, there are no cons really unless you see having to download the games after you've bought them as a con.

It's a really useful service, but as corpses said having to download games you've bought on a disk is a pretty big con (it took me 18 hours to install Empire: Total War, for example).

Get it soon, you might just want to get one of those lovely steam sales

Sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, sales! .......Sales.

Yeah... Unless your into illegally downloading games for free Steam's got to be the cheapest (widely known) place to get your games. Admitedly their sales are a little flippant, and they might not always have something that you want, but the sheer volume of them will probably turn up a jem eventually. Yes you will need a disposable income to fuel this habit once you pick it up (all those £2 games at up eventually), but your a wargamer, so I doubt that that's going to be a major concern.

The only problem I have with their service, and this point has already been mentioned, is that they have diabolical download rates. I've had games downloading for the better part of a day at times, whilst others can only takes an hour or two (and that's not including the installation of bloody Direct X with every game ¬¬). I've been told that if you have decent download speeds this isn't a problem, but personally I've found that even at best I'm getting in the 400 -550 kb/s (if your installing from a disk however your download time is cut to a half hour at most though).

So they are fantastic for sales (most new games have their prices cut by 25-60% at this time of year), but I'd advise upgrading your internet connection or finding a dvd to watch if your not into sitting around watching a 15000mb game to download. =P

...Oh and @TrollPie .......I'm not even going to try and install that series now. ...Its just going to sit there and look pretty on my game list forever. ^^

Pro's everything

Con's, you'll spend a lot on sales.

Sometimes it wont let you play your games when you are offline, and sometimes it takes an abnormally long time to connect, but other than that it is a pretty good service, mainly because you can sometimes find awesome games for like 5 dollars.

so if i buy the disk for the game shogun 2 do i then have to download it from steam as well to use the steam service


Automatically Appended Next Post:
*if ive already downloaded it

iC_D wrote:so if i buy the disk for the game shogun 2 do i then have to download it from steam as well to use the steam service


Automatically Appended Next Post:
*if ive already downloaded it

No, you only have to download games if you buy them from steam.

If your installing a game through the disk, and it requires steam to run, then you will have to go through a short download process. It is, as I mentioned, short though.

I like the idea of steam, but I don't like steam. For one reason, which I believe violates at least one dakkadakka rule.

Samus_aran115 wrote:I like the idea of steam, but I don't like steam. For one reason, which I believe violates at least one dakkadakka rule.

Way to totally explain your point there.... 0.o'

Samus_aran115 wrote:I like the idea of steam, but I don't like steam. For one reason, which I believe violates at least one dakkadakka rule.

What.

I'm guessing he can't say the reason as it isn't polite.

As previously said, sales are amazing. I've picked up AVP, Crysis and Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, Dead Space, Deus Ex 1 and 2 (bleh), Doom 3 and all of its expansions, the Doom pack, HL2 Ep 1 and 2, Portal, Section 8: Prejudice, Terraria and Torchlight all for less than $5 USD each.
Downloading games is great, but off disc is faster. MW2 took less than an hour and it was 12gb and Portal 2 at 6gb took about 20-30 mins.

A few things suck, though. Having to install Direct X and Microsoft C++ Super Redistributable Abloogy Woogy Woo every time you get a game makes me want to kick a puppy.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:A few things suck, though. Having to install Direct X and Microsoft C++ Super Redistributable Abloogy Woogy Woo every time you get a game makes me want to kick a puppy.

I've installed DirectX about 150 times now. Maybe one day it'll actually stick.

If you buy a game on a disc, you can activate it on Steam and then install it off the disc. Steam won't let you play straightaway in all likelihood, however, because the disc won't have come with all the updates between the game's launch and now. If it's a new game that's just coming out, I would totally recommend buying it from a retailer, especially if the game doesn't allow preloading (when you can download the files before the game is released, so you're ready to go the minute it goes live). Otherwise, the deals make it worth the long download times.

It's worth noting that Black Friday/Cyber Monday and the Holiday Sales will just wreck your wallet. Damn near every single game is on sale on Steam right now, and I've bought a vast number of games for $5-$10 each.

I really begin to enjoy not having to store all that game discs in my shelf and always have a nice list of all mygames on a view, even the unistalled ones.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:A few things suck, though. Having to install Direct X and Microsoft C++ Super Redistributable Abloogy Woogy Woo every time you get a game makes me want to kick a puppy.

That's actually saving you time on your download. All games need those files to run and usually have them in their files when installed of disc. Steam saves D/L time be taking those files which already exist in the DirectX and C++ directories and installing the necessary drivers and run times files. You'd just have to download them anyway if it didn't. It's a little confusing I know. it's not really "installing" just coping the files into the games directory where they're needed to run.

It's basically redefined PC gaming as we know it. Steam is excellent. The sales, the built-in community, the ease of connecting with friends, all are great things. Also being able to store all your games on the service (and with Steam Cloud, sometimes savegames and so on) is a great feature. I love Steam, and I can't think of any cons whatsoever unless you're really starving for RAM.

Pros:
All games you buy are owned for life, no broken disks to worry about.
The massive sales.

Cons:
The Sales! They slowly bleed money from your wallet.
Download times.

I never really have problems with download times anymore, I can usually get full games downloaded in less than an hour...

For everyone mentioning being annoyed at reinstallations of Microsoft XNA, Direct X, and other similarly shared functions, you can actually just hit cancel when it pops up if you've already got it installed once before. The game will just move on with booting up.