Battle.net makes you have wet dreams! :p

Started using steam.. It's not so bad. At least we get in steam some kind of community. I caucht (is it a word) up in wings of prey. Also I have one dude that is from my country, so, it was good but it was really trough gog.
Anyway.. Lame that it wont give statistics about non-steam games.
Propably going to try that free rpg.. at some point. (forsaken world or something)
I love gog, because, perhaps this is the only forum which is helpfull, not an ass.. (hole)
And I've bought some games here that I did not even think that I would never play.
But, that's life.

-buy it when it stinks gog.. I mean old-

And I still say.. Witcher 2 was originally only reason that I even registered.
But I was blind and now I see.
I see fine people who also likes old and new games.

I used Steam. It turned me into a newt. I got better...

That really sucks, I'm sorry. I couldn't play Portal from Steam offline, either. I don't mind Steam much. Their downloader is very annoying and invasive, but I love how cheap their games can go in sales. I never buy full priced games, but I can't say no to some of those sales. :P

Love the "Red Dwarf" reference there, Ace. ;)

If you want to use the network libraries that valve has created you will need to use their DRM as well AFAIK. And programming a multiplayer component as rich as steams is not easy lol

I never jumped the Steam boat.

I think that from a customer's perspective, what annoys me about Steam is that they didn't decide whether they were gonna sell products or sell a service.

Like a service, you need constant access to their servers, but like products, you need to buy things in a piecemeal manner.

I think examples of a cleaner separation of the 2 are GOG and Netfix.

GOG sell products. You buy each game separately and once you bought it, it's yours. They provide a way to re-download it, but really, if you did a backup, you don't need their permission to play your game offline.

Netfix sells a service. You need internet access to their servers, but for a monthly fee, you have access to their entire movie collection which is a fair tradeoff.

From a customer's perspective, I think it would be better if Steam adopted one of the 2 models.

Steam = Fail since the first day, simply because i have to install the crapware luggage on my PC to play the damn games. I'm borderline to boycotting non-steam developed games that use the crap <_<

And as long as people go along with the illegal monopoly it's not going to get any better.

I broke my normal boycott of Steam with DNF and a really cheap copy of FO:NV, but in general I won't buy anything from them unless it's way discounted, and it pretty much has to cost me less than $5.

It's not just the rental aspect of the service it's the dickish moves and the habit they have of taking away entire accounts over a CC error that may or may not even be the customer's fault.

I obviously prefer GOG's model (who wouldn't?) but I don't mind Steam and it has never caused any problems for me. Also, if you're skipping games like Fallout: New Vegas or Valve's own titles just because they require Steam, you're shooting yourself in the foot IMO.

Oh, but I *DO* store the login information. It's just the steam client who happens to forget them from time to time, for no obvious reasons.

I do not buy ANY DRM games it is as simple as that. Why should i shoot myself into the foot ? Most new games are poor anyway and have a boring gameplay. Since they introduced multiplattforming and even worse DRM i almost bought no more new games.

Look, I generally prefer older games as well and a lot of new releases these days seem rushed, uninspired or too heavily influenced by their publishers (ie. the guys with the money), and some definitely suffer from multi-platforming. But it's not like they stopped making good games altogether... There are definitely some really awesome titles out there with great gameplay, story-telling, immersion, and so on.

DRM is a means to an end, and it's not always pretty, but it's flat-out impossible for DRM to turn a brilliant game into a bad one -- bad games are made by bad design decisions and rushed development, not by DRM's. So yes, it's my opinion that, if you're not buying/playing certain titles because they have DRM, you're not doing yourself any favors -- you're only denying yourself an awesome gaming experience.

As soon as a game has DRM i do not buy and i stay with that no matter what.
DRM is a scam of the highest order and i also did not buy starcraft 2 because of DRM. Certainly a game i was interested in but no need ty.

I get it. You have your opinion and I have mine, let's just leave it at that.

I don't understand how exactly DRM is a scam. Didn't we used to have CD-checks on lots of games in the past? Those code manual thingies? How is Steam worse than those? I mean, they're all trying to protect a game from theft.

I suppose technically the difference is that in the past you owned a physical CD or a codebook, but the whole philosophy behind them isn't really any different from DRM. I'm not saying there isn't any bad DRM, but Steam isn't much more invasive as a DRM than a CD-check.

Btw, I'm pretty sure you can stay offline if you log online first and then select the option to go offline. As long as you don't exit in online mode it shouldn't be a problem.