Postby marcan » Sat Dec 31, 2005 5:03 am
OK, Steam DOES suck sometimes - it depends on what you want to do with it. For example, the only reason I can't currently run CS / CS:S / HL2 (at least without some serious hacking I don't want to go through) is because of Steam. I run linux, and I know the games themselves work under the several emulators that are available (I've tried cracked versions - they run. Of course, they are cracked software which I do not want to run, plus it's a major PITA to keep "updating" them to work around anti-piracy measures). But I'd like to use (my brother's) legal account, and I can't. (I'd get an account myself and buy the games myself if I could actually USE them). Also, steam is extremely picky sometimes, even on Windows machines. On several networks I've gotten permanent "servers busy" errors when downloading some games, and those don't go away (you have to copy the game cache files from somewhere else - also annoying). Auth errors are also pretty commonplace. And it does crash sometimes.
For the average joe with the average windows pc on the average network, it works. Try anything slightly weird, and it breaks.
That said, I've just gotten Darwinia from the IV store, and I love how IV makes a linux version - kudos for that one! (you don't get to see many great games on linux - well done guys). Steam obviously makes sense market-wise - some people do hate it, but it's like Windows: not exactly perfect, but most people are willing to cope with it. And IV wins both ways since they also sell the boxed version.