Queries about Steamworks

[duk3]

For the past few years, I've heard of Steam and Steamworks - separate but related things, and I've been lead to believe that it's bad, even though Steam is the best digital distribution platform available currently. Why is it that Steamworks gets a bad wrap? Some companies refused to sell Modern Warfare 2 years ago I think; boycotted it because it was a steamworks title. And I've spoken to some people over at NAG when they still had a DVD suggestion thread which I can't seem to find anymore, and they guys said that they refused to download anything from Steam for some reason, saying that in South Africa, Steam wasn't yet up to scratch, or something.

Because of these reasons, I've avoided steam and steamworks titles for years. I know there's a list of games on Wikipedia that tells you whether a game is a steamworks title or not, and I don't buy the ones that are. Same as I avoid games where there's an always online DRM (like AC 2 and SC:C years back - although I hear the issue has been fixed), or games where base content needs to be downloaded.

Any thoughts?

[czc]

Steam is awesome.

[mass09]

I love Steam. All my games on one account. I don't have to worry about scratching discs or losing serial numbers. The games are always up to date as well.

It just uses quite a bit of bandwidth when downloading and installing games. With uncapped ADSL it isn't an issue anymore.

[Rahl]

Or you can get a backup from a friend and restore your game.

Only problem I have with Steam is the summer sales. Its ruining my credit card!!!

[TJ99]

Well in the past there was good reason not to like Steam if you lived in SA. I hated it when games started making extensive use of it. It's not Valve's fault, we just didn't affordable uncapped connections (we still don't but at least they're cheaper than house payments now). Steamworks and the Steam platform itself wasn't designed to cater for 3rd-world African backwaters where you pay for data by the MB. They assumed everyone had always-on, unlimited connections. Now that we do, Steam works great for keeping your games up to date and getting the latest titles before the slowpokes in the brick and mortar stores finally wake up and decide to get them. Not to mention the massive sales that physical shops don't really have, and never like 70-80% off.

Yes, Steam is a rental service and it sucks that you don't really own anything, but it's the best one of its kind currently. GabeN saw what gamers really wanted, and gave it to them. Steam is the reason I haven't even bothered with torrenting a game in the last couple of years, I have plenty of legal, easily obtained games that I haven't even gotten to play yet.

[duk3]

Thanks for your replies. So it's mainly down to how good your internet connection is.