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General discussion (archive)Just when you thought Valve couldn't sink any lower...(120 posts)(120 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 19, 2014
But it's their business and they can do whatever they want with it!!! They have the right to do so. <-- Just kidding. :P

The argument above kind of reminds me of this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYJyVEUaC4
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Sogi-Ya: Ehh, sooner or later they will just start flat out renting games.

Honestly kinda surprised that they haven't come out with a Steam entrenched version of On-Live, but maybe getting that part to work right is what has put the Steam Box / Steam OS back into stealth mode.
Dude, they are just renting out games... Whenever you give money to Valve, you are just renting games until A) they decide to close your account or B) Steam goes out of business. That why a lot of the folks here at GOG general discussion, only buy GOGs.
Post edited December 19, 2014 by
Posted December 19, 2014
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MarioFanaticXV: snip
Nothing quite like over reacting is there. Valve is one of the few reasons PC gaming is booming for crying out loud. You might not like what they're doing but there is ALOT worse out there than Valve. Oh how dare I defend them! (just getting it out there first)
Posted December 19, 2014
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MarioFanaticXV: snip
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darthspudius: Nothing quite like over reacting is there. Valve is one of the few reasons PC gaming is booming for crying out loud. You might not like what they're doing but there is ALOT worse out there than Valve. Oh how dare I defend them! (just getting it out there first)
That is true. PC gaming is more mainstream than ever now
Posted December 19, 2014
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darthspudius: Valve is one of the few reasons PC gaming is booming for crying out loud. You might not like what they're doing but there is ALOT worse out there than Valve.
I'm trying to recall how my brother put Valve. He described gaming where you buy the discs, then the game can't be found anymore so every time you download a game from a site you take a risk at viruses and other issues, which made gaming a very shaky endevor.

Then comes in Valve which can sell you your games with the knowledge and trust that it isn't virus ridden, that it's clean.

I also remember him talking about having some 20 games on hold he hasn't played yet, and some of the games he played are now games i have or have played. Dungeons of Dredmore, Terraria, Qube (to name a few).

To be truthful, Valve has done some good things, and there are worse things out there.
Posted December 19, 2014
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darthspudius: Valve is one of the few reasons PC gaming is booming for crying out loud. You might not like what they're doing but there is ALOT worse out there than Valve.
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rtcvb32: I'm trying to recall how my brother put Valve. He described gaming where you buy the discs, then the game can't be found anymore so every time you download a game from a site you take a risk at viruses and other issues, which made gaming a very shaky endevor.

Then comes in Valve which can sell you your games with the knowledge and trust that it isn't virus ridden, that it's clean.

I also remember him talking about having some 20 games on hold he hasn't played yet, and some of the games he played are now games i have or have played. Dungeons of Dredmore, Terraria, Qube (to name a few).

To be truthful, Valve has done some good things, and there are worse things out there.
Valve has brought a lot of convenience to gamers. Because of them, with a few clicks of a mouse(and a credit card), you can start playing any game from a catalog that contains 99% of the games out there unless you live in a country with a lot of censorship like Germany. But with their good things, came a lot of evil.
Post edited December 19, 2014 by
Posted December 19, 2014
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MarioFanaticXV: Digital distribution has always been a way to attempt to impose an artificial monopoly- an attack on property rights and the secondhand market. Amongst the video game industry, probably no company has done as much damage as Valve has, practically killing off PC gaming and relegating it to something that people can only find downloads of, offering no proper tech support for the games they host, and constantly churning out cheap Doom clone after cheap Doom clone... And a rehash of a WarCraft III mod.

But today, they've hit a new low; so fearful are they of free market competition that they no longer will allow cross region trading for new purchases. Their greed has reached the point that- even within their own barbed-wire fence- they will no longer allow people from different regions to gift games to each other. If you're a fan of Steam, you're encouraged to hate anyone that's from another country, as you are no longer allowed to trade with them, as though your countries were at war and had embargoes against one another.
Is this a troll or serious? Sounds too much like a joke.

Anyway, about the subject at hand, Valve led the way in offering lower prices in poorer regions. More reasonable prices helped people buy games instead of pirate them. I'm not sure if anyone else even does this kind of pricing. If you think that having a high global price is the way to go, I imagine you'd think that's evil, but personally I don't think you're in the right.
Posted December 19, 2014
It has to be a troll, without question because if they are truly evil, from the darkside... they are so much cooler. Hail Hydra!
Posted December 19, 2014
Meh, I never used such keys as the games on sales are more than cheap enough.
Then again, I never got how people can think "cheap bastards who buy from cheap regions" when the same guys say "oh that clever company is producing in a market where labor is cheap and selling in areas where the price of goods is high".
That's globalization but somehow people start to think it's bad when people use it to their own advantage and not only (big) companies.

So, it's not really on topic, I'm just mildly annoyed how somebody can denounce others because they use globalization to their advantage, too.

Capitalism was never intended as a one way show and it still isn't. There's a reason why we have the word "Homo economicus".
At the same time a company can definitely say " we don't allow this in our market", that's fine. So my post really is only about those who're hypocrites when it comes to this topic.
Post edited December 19, 2014 by Freakgs
Posted December 19, 2014
Until Steam and GOG came along most of the games were un-buyable in my country. Or if you could find them, they would retail even after several years for full retail price. But first they changed currency to euros, and now this. Russia was already region restricted, but now you can't even buy from Amazon :/
Posted December 19, 2014
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MarioFanaticXV: Digital distribution has always been a way to attempt to impose an artificial monopoly- an attack on property rights and the secondhand market. Amongst the video game industry, probably no company has done as much damage as Valve has, practically killing off PC gaming and relegating it to something that people can only find downloads of, offering no proper tech support for the games they host, and constantly churning out cheap Doom clone after cheap Doom clone... And a rehash of a WarCraft III mod.

But today, they've hit a new low; so fearful are they of free market competition that they no longer will allow cross region trading for new purchases. Their greed has reached the point that- even within their own barbed-wire fence- they will no longer allow people from different regions to gift games to each other. If you're a fan of Steam, you're encouraged to hate anyone that's from another country, as you are no longer allowed to trade with them, as though your countries were at war and had embargoes against one another.

Source: http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/iuG5O/all-games-are-now-region-locked/page/1
Where does it say that they locked ALL regions? Your link only mentons Russia, Asia and South America.

Although the possibility for full region lock on all territories still exists in the future.
Posted December 19, 2014
low rated
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Elenarie: Makes sense. Market value of X is not equal in all markets.
Some of the tards don't know that.
Posted December 19, 2014
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monkeydelarge: Valve has brought a lot of convenience to gamers. Because of them, with a few clicks of a mouse(and a credit card), you can start playing any game from a catalog that contains 99% of the games out there unless you live in a country with a lot of censorship like Germany. But with their good things, came a lot of evil.
Unless you live in a country with censorship AND bad/slow Internet access. Then you can basically quit PC gaming (which thanks to Steam has turned into "cloud gaming") now and go back to retro consoles, because for me over-night delivery of a DVD containing the whole finished game is actually faster than the 50 GB download of a current-gen AAA title, not to mention mandatory day one patches with the size of a complete GOG library. (And buying a mock-up box with a key from a retailer doesn't help either.)

"Few clicks and start playing". That's not working for 99 % of the Steam catalog (Valve implements content streaming only for their few own titles.) I even refrain from sales now, because I don't have the bandwidth to download a cart filled with recent stuff, regardless of how discounted it is.
Posted December 19, 2014
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jtsn: Unless you live in a country with censorship AND bad/slow Internet access. Then you can basically quit PC gaming (which thanks to Steam has turned into "cloud gaming") now and go back to retro consoles, because for me over-night delivery of a DVD containing the whole finished game is actually faster than the 50 GB download of a current-gen AAA title, not to mention mandatory day one patches with the size of a complete GOG library. (And buying a mock-up box with a key from a retailer doesn't help either.)

"Few clicks and start playing". That's not working for 99 % of the Steam catalog (Valve implements content streaming only for their few own titles.) I even refrain from sales now, because I don't have the bandwidth to download a cart filled with recent stuff, regardless of how discounted it is.
I live in third world country and never once did I complain about my slow connection for Steam download.

You live in German you have no right to bitch about slow internet connection.
Posted December 19, 2014
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jtsn: Unless you live in a country with censorship AND bad/slow Internet access. Then you can basically quit PC gaming (which thanks to Steam has turned into "cloud gaming") now and go back to retro consoles, because for me over-night delivery of a DVD containing the whole finished game is actually faster than the 50 GB download of a current-gen AAA title, not to mention mandatory day one patches with the size of a complete GOG library. (And buying a mock-up box with a key from a retailer doesn't help either.)
It really comes down WHERE you live in Germany.
I've got FTTH ( 250mbit/s / 25 mbit/s ). In addition cable ( 100 / 10 ) and and dsl ( 16 mbit/s) would be available, too.
And I'm not even living in a big city, we've got around 120k residents here.

So it's not a specific issue of Germany but of small areas where companies simply don't want to invest because they'd have a hard time getting any money back as they can't adress enough people at the same time.

I just don't like it when somebody makes broad statements which only show a fraction of the real picture.
Post edited December 19, 2014 by Freakgs
Posted December 19, 2014
I don't know if Valve is always to blame or are devs the ones complaining. Basically their titles are sold at discount prices. People always blame the publishers yet devs have a lot of power too.

Like blaming EA for releasing microtransactions yet Dice and Bioware don't seem to be minding.
(I know it's out of topic but why always blame the distributors? You can't blame gog for regional pricing because devs want it...)
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussion (archive)Just when you thought Valve couldn't sink any lower...(120 posts)(120 posts)
(120 posts)