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Steam: Our Present and Future Overlords. Preinstalled on Alienware

C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
Yes folks, Steam is and in the process of taking over our computers and becoming our overlords. Like it, hate it, fight it... it's happening.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/3154/

Steam News
Official Steam time: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 12:40 pm
Alienware Goes Digital With Steam
November 24, 2009, 12:03 pm - Valve - Press Release

Dell announces that its all powerful Alienware line of PC gaming systems, including the Area-51 and Aurora desktops and the M17x and M15x laptops, will now come pre-loaded with a free copy of Valve's award-winning game, Portal, powered by Steam, a leading platform for PC games with over 20 million accounts worldwide.

With Steam pre-installed on all these PCs, Alienware gamers can expect a higher level of service from their gaming experience right out of the box as existing Steam gamers may simply sign into their account to access all their purchased products. Customers new to Steam will find over 950 games at their finger tips, all supported by automatic updates, the Steam Friends Community of networking services, and more.

"With its automatic game updates, easy friend finding and the ability to play your Steam purchased games on any PC, Valve has helped simplify PC Gaming to make it more enjoyable." says Frank Azor, Senior Manager of Product Planning for Dell's Gaming Group. "It's for these reasons; we selected Steam to compliment the Alienware experience."

"Entertainment, specifically gaming, is a primary use of PCs in the home and on the road," said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. "Alienware is a household name among PC gamers who want the most out of their hardware. The combination of Alienware hardware and Steam equals a superior gaming experience."

For more information, please visit www.steamgames.com/alienware
 
As long as you don't visit Steam Tues - Thur and Fri - Mon you'll be safe from all of their addicting special deals on games.
 
sk3tch said:
As long as you don't visit Steam Tues - Thur and Fri - Mon you'll be safe from all of their addicting special deals on games.
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You mean, Tues-Monday morning lol. Pretty much Monday morning through Tuesday is your only safe day as that is when the weekend deal ends and before the midweek deal is announced.
 
This doesn't really seem like a big deal in my mind. I mean, a free copy of Portal with every Dell computer or every copy of Windows 7 or something, that's big. But a copy of Portal being given free with what are basically gaming rigs.

Steam is taking over though, for better or worse (worse being Weekend sales impact on my wallet).
 
LovingSteam said:
You mean, Tues-Monday morning lol. Pretty much Monday morning through Tuesday is your only safe day as that is when the weekend deal ends and before the midweek deal is announced.
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Nah, I was trying to say basically every day...a joke. :)
 
TheExodu5 said:
I welcome our new overlords.

Steam completely turned PC gaming around for me.
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It's the reason I'm going to build myself a new PC. That dual core with 7800 isn't good enough anymore.
 
Cheeto said:
A trojan horse of awesome deals, consumer beneficial drm, and no discs!
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Steam's only good because all the other alternatives for PC gaming are all so bad.
 
Cheeto said:
A trojan horse of awesome deals, consumer beneficial drm, and no discs!
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Come again?

and I like discs. Having to download a whole game every time you want to install it is ridiculous.
 
obonicus said:
Consumer beneficial DRM?
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Steam's DRM sucks about as bad as all other PC DRM schemes, but it massages some people's steam-induced OCD , so apparently that qualifies as consumer beneficial.

Nothing fucking beneficial about software with non-transferrable licenses. It's just a different sort of terrible than resident device drivers and phone-home DRM schemes.
 
Zenith said:
Come again?

and I like discs. Having to download a whole game every time you want to install it is ridiculous.
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I would typically expect that when someone calls something a trojan horse, they reeeeally didn't mean to paint it out in a positive light.
 
Name another DRM scheme that allows publishers(or at least has convinced a publisher to allow), to provide free weekends to consumers. Not demos, but entire weekends of playing the full game. It's the ultimate demo, and probably does the most of any DRM practice to curb piracy, and you wouldn't have that feature without some sort of DRM.

Edit: I want to add that I'd prefer, no drm... I'm simply pointing out that at least you get a benefit out of Steam... sharply contrasting other schemes that do nothing more than inconvenience or destroy the legitimate consumer's experience.
 
Zenith said:
Come again?

and I like discs. Having to download a whole game every time you want to install it is ridiculous.
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You don't have to download every time you want to install? Just back up to a disc.

Fragamemnon said:
Steam's DRM sucks about as bad as all other PC DRM schemes, but it massages some people's steam-induced OCD , so apparently that qualifies as consumer beneficial.

Nothing fucking beneficial about software with non-transferrable licenses. It's just a different sort of terrible than resident device drivers and phone-home DRM schemes.
Click to expand...

I have never been able to resell a PC game my entire life, so the non-transferable license is a non-issue. Also, any intelligent individual could see the problems with having such a system, and how it could be easily exploited to the point of destroying sales.

Steam's DRM is beneficial to me. Being able to download the game anywhere I want to (as many times as I want to), backup my games, play in offline mode, play without the disc...these are all advantages for me.
 
Verilligo said:
I would typically expect that when someone calls something a trojan horse, they reeeeally didn't mean to paint it out in a positive light.
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He's poking fun of what Direct2Drive called Steam. D2D called Steam a Trojan.
 
Zenith said:
Come again?

and I like discs. Having to download a whole game every time you want to install it is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

It's not fun if you have a 100+ strong PC library on disks.
 
That's great news. Steam already is my overlord, as it made non-Blizzard PC gaming relevant to me again.
 
I like steam and what it's done for pc gaming, but I goddamn loathe steamworks. It's got no place in retail discs. If I wanted the game on steam I would have bloody bought the game on steam! Valve seems to be riding a wave of good will into dangerously anti-consumer waters.

I have about 130 games on steam, but there are a lot of games that I'd prefer having a disc option.
 
luka said:
I like steam and what it's done for pc gaming, but I goddamn loathe steamworks. It's got no place in retail discs. If I wanted the game on steam I would have bloody bought the game on steam! Valve seems to be riding a wave of good will into dangerously anti-consumer waters.

I have about 130 games on steam, but there are a lot of games that I'd prefer having a disc option.
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I do agree with this. Personally, I would LOVE if Valve could partner with publishers to allow more games to offer the option of activating the game through Steam without making it mandatory. Unfortunately this probably will not happen or if it does it will take years and years. The ultimate goal obviously is to one day have Valve surprise us all and remove the need to have Steam running in the background to play the games. However, it's a double edge sword because I have a hunch that one reason Steam continues to grow and gain more publishers and games is due to this very type of DRM.
 
I honestly have not found a reason why Steam is not totally and completely awesome. I have experienced some of the most amazing gaming odysseys in my life because of games I have bought off Steam thanks to their fantastic deals.

Where exactly is there an issue? It's completely awesome.
 
I welcome my Steam overlords with open arms. If only those infidels at Blizzard would 'Jump In'!
 
Fragamemnon said:
Steam's DRM sucks about as bad as all other PC DRM schemes
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i don't have to call valve after installing and uninstalling the game a few times and it doesn't fuck up my computer like starforce so no, you're absolutely wrong.
 
I sincerely LOVE steam/valve, from the bottom of my heart. They're the best DD distribution service out there, and they're everything BUT evil.

But i couldn't stop hearing the Empire Song while reading that newsbit. :lol
 
Fragamemnon said:
Steam's DRM sucks about as bad as all other PC DRM schemes, but it massages some people's steam-induced OCD , so apparently that qualifies as consumer beneficial.

Nothing fucking beneficial about software with non-transferrable licenses. It's just a different sort of terrible than resident device drivers and phone-home DRM schemes.
Click to expand...
Steams DRM has been transparent to me, so I would say it is slightly better than for example the safedisk 2.9 protection of raven shield that prevented the game installing on any of my computers because they had the rare and dreaded device known as a DVD±RW drive.
In fact Steam DRM allows me to register some of the games I purchased from retail, and even rival DD services, so it is actually beneficial in some cases.
 
Rubezh said:
It's not fun if you have a 100+ strong PC library on disks.
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The two hours it takes to transfer my steamapps folder to move my 140 games to a new pc/os is A LOT more fun than the time it would take to install 140 games off of 200+ discs. In fact, I only have to be there for 10 seconds when I let steam take care of everything.
 
i fucking hate steam. why does it have to update itself every other day it seems? what kind of piece of shit software design is that? every other day, "STEAM MUST UPDATE ITSELF BECAUSE WE ARE A BUNCH OF HACKS WHO USED POOR SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE WHEN WE DESIGNED IT SO NOW YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS MESSAGE FOR THE REST OF YOUR GODDAMN LIFE PRESS OK TO CONTINUE"
 
Fragamemnon said:
Nothing fucking beneficial about software with non-transferrable licenses. It's just a different sort of terrible than resident device drivers and phone-home DRM schemes.
Click to expand...

You'll never get a DRM solution with transferrable licenses, especially when the developers are trying to cut back on the amount of second-hand sales.
 
diddlyD said:
i fucking hate steam. why does it have to update itself every other day it seems? what kind of piece of shit software design is that? every other day, "STEAM MUST UPDATE ITSELF BECAUSE WE ARE A BUNCH OF HACKS WHO USED POOR SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE WHEN WE DESIGNED IT SO NOW YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS MESSAGE FOR THE REST OF YOUR GODDAMN LIFE PRESS OK TO CONTINUE"
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diddlyd_small.jpg

Linux-Babies-Angry.jpg
 
I don't like this.

Many people don't remember it, maybe because they've jumped into the DD bandwagon recently, but the reason why Steam is doing many good sales lately is because its competitors were being very aggressive with promotional sales.

Steam already owns 70% of the DD market. I hope its market share gets reduced soon. And no, Steam is not the only decent DD service.
 
diddlyD said:
i fucking hate steam. why does it have to update itself every other day it seems? what kind of piece of shit software design is that? every other day, "STEAM MUST UPDATE ITSELF BECAUSE WE ARE A BUNCH OF HACKS WHO USED POOR SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE WHEN WE DESIGNED IT SO NOW YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS MESSAGE FOR THE REST OF YOUR GODDAMN LIFE PRESS OK TO CONTINUE"
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ONO those 15 seconds of your internet life WASTED in an update, i'm sure you can turn off auto updates somewhere if you don't want to update steam every other day, which doesn't happen often.
 
Fio said:
I don't like this.

Many people don't remember it, maybe because they've jumped into the DD bandwagon recently, but the reason why Steam is doing many good sales lately is because its competitors were being very aggressive with promotional sales.

Steam already owns 70% of the DD market. I hope its market share gets reduced soon. And no, Steam is not the only decent DD service.
Click to expand...
I fucking love it. Now all the other smaller DD services will fight tooth and nail for more marketshare and consumers can only benefit. Again, the weekly sales Steam has are wonderful. DD services better imitate so the customers start to appreciate foo
 
I do agree that competition is needed however when one takes into consideration of the community features, the weekend/mid week deals, the unlimited downloads, etc... imho pushes Steam ahead of the competition. But hey, I am not unbiased lol.
 
Plants vs Zombies is $5 today until Nov. 27th on Steam. I welcome our competitively priced digital overlords.
 
Jenga said:
I fucking love it. Now all the other smaller DD services will fight tooth and nail for more marketshare and consumers can only benefit. Again, the weekly sales Steam has are wonderful. DD services better imitate so the customers start to appreciate foo
Click to expand...

If you go to D2D's site, they have this bigger notice how there is unlimited downloads on their service, ofcourse if you look at the fine print they admit that this is only possibly by contacting them. This is one of IF NOT THE biggest problem with other services. I shouldn't have to contact anybody to re-download a game, NOBODY. Unfortunately there are a few games on Steam that still have this type of DRM but they are far and few between. D2D has some very nice sales but imho this is the huge chink in their sales pitch.
 
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