Is this a joke? Valve is a privately held company that is making around 400 million a year off of steam. How would it magically go out of business?
Not to mention that it might be "free" for those who already purchased the Windows version on Steam. Any info on that yet?
Hmm, why does not being on Steam make you not interested? I mean, I use Steam, but it's really just a convenience.
If this were on the Mac App store, I would consider it but I pretty much don't deal with games that aren't on Steam.
Convenience and idiot-proofness.
I have games on Steam that I bought OVER ten years ago, before Steam was even a thing. I can download those to any computer that I own or have access to and play any time I want. I don't have to worry about keeping copies in case the company goes out of business or they decide to no longer maintain their content servers. I don't have to worry about keeping activation keys, etc.
With Steam, I can install a game, play it for three days, delete the game when I need the space two weeks later, then eight months later, when I have a hankering to play some video games (on a new machine no less), I can load up my Steam library and play that game.
If this were on the Mac App store, I would consider it but I pretty much don't deal with games that aren't on Steam.
Yeah, Valve basically prints money. They also don't need to answer to shareholders, so they tend to have extremely consumer-friendly policies.
Absolutely no refunds, no "price matching", game sharing is prohibited and they can lock you out of your WHOLE library for any reasons.
And also their customer service is very slow. Few days to get a reply slow. So, once again, they can lock you out and then you will have to wait few days for a reply from a customer service.
I like Steam, but definitely not because of their customer-unfriendly policies.
What does the Windows version support that the Mac version won't?
You said "Basecamp" - did you mean Bootcamp or something else? I have XCOM EU for the PC but haven't gotten around to installing it yet. I didn't know Macs let you patch the BIOS (didn't even know they had a BIOS).
Well if you like to do illegal stuff and don't know how to keep your digital life in order then I guess you might have a problem. I've personally never needed to contact Steam support about anything, and I've bought a looooot of games on the platform.
they tend to have extremely consumer-friendly policies
personally never needed to contact Steam support about anything
Anyway, do you have any examples of
Especially since you
Absolutely no refunds, no "price matching", game sharing is prohibited and they can lock you out of your WHOLE library for any reasons.
And also their customer service is very slow. Few days to get a reply slow. So, once again, they can lock you out and then you will have to wait few days for a reply from a customer service.
Ever tried to sell one of those games when you're done with it?
Sure. Everything they do, pretty much. Their entire business is based on actually providing value to their customers rather than attempting to rip them off without them realizing it. Valve essentially saved PC gaming from becoming a piracy-laden wasteland by making it more convenient to simply buy games legally. They release massive, free updates years after their own original games have shipped. They continue to improve upon the functionality of their service with every major update. They have the best friends system (especially for jumping into games) and fully support user-made content creation. Even if said content is free and doesn't benefit them. They have incredible sales multiple times per year which lets their users grab games at a great value. They develop native OS X ports of all of their original titles, which are released day-and-date with the PC versions. They make certain decisions that aren't always the best financially, because it's in the best interest of their users to do so and they don't have shareholders to answer to (case in point: free Dota 2 with all heroes unlocked).
So yeah, they keep their support light to keep their costs down. I'm cool with that. It's big-boy rules, basically. You probably did something silly to have your account locked up like that (you mentioned account sharing earlier). I appreciate the added protection of stuff like that and have never had any issues.
As for refunds, why do you need one?
Nope. In 25+ years of gaming, never sold a game.
Well, I have bought a game and then three days later it went on a 66% off sale. Price match is not possible. Refund (to buy again for the lower price) is not possible.
Where do you keep all the boxes?
Not on Steam? Not interested.