Are Valve really playing unfair?

Zardon

Read Full Story Here.
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Stardock have said that Valve are trying to monopolise their status by integrating Steamworks into games, very early into development.

Chaos

To be quite honest Steam has become my game delivery system of choice. The ability to backup game content or basically store everything from Steam on a separate removable media source for use pretty much anywhere is so nice.

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IvanV

Promoting a DRM scheme which makes Valve's competitors from distributing games does sound like an abuse of dominant market position, except that the guy admits that there is actually no problem other than the fact that they don't want Valve's tech that potentially serves as an ad for Steam in the games that they distribute.

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Our Folding@home stats:

MitchRapp

Only reasons I like STEAM over all others:

1 - game updates delivered fast and without the need to go on any site to get a big old .exe
2 - half-life games got me to install STEAM ... end of story



that's about it.

Gastrian

But at the same time isn't that what microsoft fell foul of with intergrating IE into Windows.

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Gokou

Personally I use both Steam and Impulse; I have had Steam for ages now and just started using Impulse. There weekend Impulse buys are sometimes quite attractive and had some games on there for only $20 so I signed up.

I must say so far I actually prefer using Impulse over steam. It seems very low impact on the system and the main reason is because I noticed how many connections Steam makes in the background to their servers. It's quite ridicules that Steam makes about 50 Connection to various servers while just sitting there doing absolutely nothing in the system tray. I assume it's checking for update periodically and what not.

However from what I can tell Impulse uses one or two, this makes setting up firewall rules a lot easier if there based on IP addresses. Either way why does the Steam client really need to connect to like 50 servers anyway? Seems a little peculiar to me that if Steam is not doing anything and just sitting in the systray.

Also Competition is always a good thing, at least from a consumer point of view it is.

Mousey

Despite Steam's (mostly) good service and reputation, I've noticed a few things are amiss lately. A lot of prices have severely hiked, Was looking through the updates today and had numerous "HUUURK, HOW MUCH!?" moments

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BlueMak

I like Steam less and less. The main reason is the price for euro. The bleed us dry, thus I haven't bought a game from them for a few months I think and no intention on buying again from them unless there is some great offer or something.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

SeraphicSorcerer

the only reason I ever worry about steam is that If steam/valve were ever to "go under" what exactly would happen to all my steam installed games...

that is my only worry it seems to me they make new deals and get new games all the time.

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caqde

Well I prefer Impulse over Steam, for a few reasons.

1) Impulse puts the games where they should be.
and
2) Impulse lets me play the games without running impulse in my tray.

otherwise most of steams features like updates and backups are also a part of impulse so those don't matter for differences. Otherwise I use both and only use steam if I don't have a choice in the matter.

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BlueMak

The thing is, I doubt any of the major stores will just disappear. They make so much money (steam more than the rest of course, but still...)that even if they sell the business only a fool would shut them down.

I am not so much worried about that, although I am not 100% fine with it either.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

isaak

Originaly I didn't like it, but I had to install it to play MW2.