OS X I am growing tired of Steam

Dirtyharry50 · Apr 25, 2015

Solomani said:
I think I understand where DirtyHarry is coming from. The people here complaining about Steam tend to be Mac gamers. The PC gamers on Steam tend to be satisfied in general. See the distinction? In other words, the trend I'm seeing is that Steam is a big disappointment to many Mac gamers. Not the same sentiment for PC gamers.

Hence you really cannot empathize with them unless you have witnessed and experienced THEIR point of view as Steam/Mac gamers, with all the bugs, frustrations, warts and all. It's no surprise that Steam will prioritize PC gamers first. MacOSX customers will be treated as a second-class clientele, for obvious reasons that they are a minority user-base.

In conclusion, dismissing THEIR concerns (as posted here by Washac, DirtyHarry, etc) is not really fair…. unless you can claim to have seen/experienced things from their perspective as Mac-based Steam gamers.

Addendum: I will admit that a couple of issues "against Steam", which are OS-neutral, are indeed weak arguments to criticize Steam. The Steam sales is one of them. I agree that a sale is a sale. No one is forcing you to buy them. A sale is just an opportunity to buy something at a lower price. If you want it great. If not, then no big deal. But it's no reason to use as a grudge against Steam.

Well said. Thank you.

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roadbloc said:
Mods can still be free. And to be honest, in the long run, the vast majority will probably remain to be.

That they can and I hope you are right about them remaining so in the majority because outside the world of Steam it would be a shame to see places like ModDB, etc. take a hit as mods for money migrate to Steam.

Fortunately for me, while I don't approve of this the mods I really care about are almost always for old games and nothing will be changing there anyway.

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Renzatic said:
But he's focusing entirely on that one negative, and judging the entire concept poorly because of it.

No, that isn't true. I was just telling one little story about them that is both sad and in my mind humorous in a way.

The point still stands in reference to that story which is that Valve allows things like this to happen.

However, it's hardly all about a little two man failure on a three dollar game by any means. I've read plenty more horror stories from the world of early access. Godus is a good one. Go check out the Steam forum there and see for yourself. That didn't turn out too well.

If people want to back kickstarter projects, etc. that's great and good things do come of it but they know going into that what they are getting into very clearly. They are making investments and some pay off and some tank. It's understood.

I think in a retail store early access tends to imply early access to a purchased product that will in fact be finished satisfactorily.

You can once again blame the users there for taking the risk but can you see the difference I am pointing out there? It's admittedly almost a subliminal thing, marketing these on a retail store rather than a kickstarter but I do think the perception for a fair number of users differs between money invested on Kickstarter and money spent for purchases on Steam.

It's simply something I do not approve of in a retail store because there is risk involved. I don't think risk should be sold at retail this way. I respect other's right to differ and see it however they like but that is my own feeling about the subject and as such a valid reason for me to be critical of Steam.

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madeirabhoy said:
but having steam on OS X has (for me) been a hugely positive thing. not only are mac games available on it, but at the same price as pc. i cant say for certain that steam has resulted in more mac ports (although i would guess it has) but it definitely has allowed us all to pay less money for our mac ports, plus its allowed us the backup plan of the pc version just in case or mac struggles with the mac port and we have to switch to bootcamp. plus those times where we sprung for a pc game only for a mac version to come out after, with steam we get it.

I don't know that the prices are really all that much better. Mac App Store for example has very good sales too although Apple doesn't always do the best job of making them known. As I mentioned though GameAgent helps a lot there and of course there are the other Mac oriented stores as well to choose from all of which run their own sales too. Just as an example, Deus Ex Human Revolution Ultimate edition is currently 75% off on the MAS so just 5 bucks which is an absolute steal for that game. Good deals do come up there on a regular basis and again the other Mac stores as well. So one does not need to shop at Steam to get good deals on Mac games. Oh, I forgot to mention Aspyr's recent titles on sale on the MAS recently too. Different days they featured different games that happened to be wish list items for me on GameAgent so i got emails telling me about them. I picked up 3 good deals thanks to that.

Your other points though are well taken. Those are not options I'd be interested in personally but for someone willing to play on Windows I can appreciate the benefit there.

In any case, if you are happy with it that is all that counts.

VoR · Apr 26, 2015

While I don't have the problems that the OP has and I feel that steam handles DRM far better than any other solution (not much can be done for publishers forcing their own), ignoring all the positives it brings it's worth considering how much they're doing for gaming on non-windows OSs.
The trend is for Microsoft and Apple to 'highly encourage' all applications come through their stores now, the competition is increasing. Obviously Valve are a business and need/want to keep people going through them. They have their own motivation, but Valve have done incredible work pushing for non directx games (upstream development) and I don't doubt that the huge increase in ports to osx/linux/steamos is directly related. With the changes that are happening in gfx driver development, there's big potential to move away from the massive monopoly that directx has (rightly...) held for so long.

madeirabhoy · Apr 26, 2015

Dirtyharry50 said:
Well said. Thank you.

I don't know that the prices are really all that much better. Mac App Store for example has very good sales too although Apple doesn't always do the best job of making them known. As I mentioned though GameAgent helps a lot there and of course there are the other Mac oriented stores as well to choose from all of which run their own sales too. Just as an example, Deus Ex Human Revolution Ultimate edition is currently 75% off on the MAS so just 5 bucks which is an absolute steal for that game. Good deals do come up there on a regular basis and again the other Mac stores as well. So one does not need to shop at Steam to get good deals on Mac games. Oh, I forgot to mention Aspyr's recent titles on sale on the MAS recently too. Different days they featured different games that happened to be wish list items for me on GameAgent so i got emails telling me about them. I picked up 3 good deals thanks to that.

Your other points though are well taken. Those are not options I'd be interested in personally but for someone willing to play on Windows I can appreciate the benefit there.

In any case, if you are happy with it that is all that counts.

but if you compare mac game prices on steam to the sort of prices we used to pay pre steam, steam imho has been directly responsible for the reduction in the trend where mac ports would come out ages after and be full price whilst the pc version would be bargain bucket.

antonis · Apr 26, 2015

madeirabhoy said:
but if you compare mac game prices on steam to the sort of prices we used to pay pre steam, steam imho has been directly responsible for the reduction in the trend where mac ports would come out ages after and be full price whilst the pc version would be bargain bucket.

That is true. But, the way I see it, the case of steam is based on the admission that a bad mass online game store is better than no mass online game store at all. For instance, I'm sure steam would be even more popular if it wasn't enforcing the strong DRM it does. Would the game companies follow if it wasn't ? Sure they would. The iTunes mentioned earlier is a very good example of this.

VoR · Apr 26, 2015

antonis said:
That is true. But, the way I see it, the case of steam is based on the admission that a bad mass online game store is better than no mass online game store at all. For instance, I'm sure steam would be even more popular if it wasn't enforcing the strong DRM it does. Would the game companies follow if it wasn't ? Sure they would. The iTunes mentioned earlier is a very good example of this.

Steam doesn't enforce any DRM, publishers just have the option of using it or adding/using their own. I don't understand your use of the word 'strong', it works really well and other than none, have you seen it done better for video games?
Realistically though, what's the alternative? Do you see games companies ditching DRM, I certainly don't. I wonder if you've had a bad experience with a vendors DRM and have mistaken it for Valve's? A single source doing it well is much better than leaving it up to the publishers themselves - Ignoring the crazy, bloated and bugged implementations, there's been countless examples of publishers taking their own activation servers offline and leaving customers with nothing.

madeirabhoy · Apr 26, 2015

antonis said:
That is true. But, the way I see it, the case of steam is based on the admission that a bad mass online game store is better than no mass online game store at all. For instance, I'm sure steam would be even more popular if it wasn't enforcing the strong DRM it does. Would the game companies follow if it wasn't ? Sure they would. The iTunes mentioned earlier is a very good example of this.

but I'm not seeing 'bad' in any way. I've personally never had a problem caused by the DRM. it wouldnt improve my life in any way if it didnt 'enforce the strong DRM it does'. i dont actually notice it.

what i dont like is when (in bootcamp) that game isn't in steam but steam opens origin or ....

roadbloc · Apr 26, 2015

antonis said:
That is true. But, the way I see it, the case of steam is based on the admission that a bad mass online game store is better than no mass online game store at all. For instance, I'm sure steam would be even more popular if it wasn't enforcing the strong DRM it does. Would the game companies follow if it wasn't ? Sure they would. The iTunes mentioned earlier is a very good example of this.

If you think Steam is bad now, you must have never used it in these days.

Dirtyharry50 · Apr 26, 2015

madeirabhoy said:
but if you compare mac game prices on steam to the sort of prices we used to pay pre steam, steam imho has been directly responsible for the reduction in the trend where mac ports would come out ages after and be full price whilst the pc version would be bargain bucket.

Be that as it may I was speaking of the present and the point was, Steam is not the only place to get good deals on games for Mac.

I doubt Steam has had as much impact as you are thinking it has. Games have always seen price drops as they age. That isn't anything new or attributable to them.

Before digital distribution many years ago I managed a retail software store that sold both PC and Mac games and i can tell you games dropped in price substantially over time and had sales all those years ago. You may also recall the days of the bargain bin CDs and later DVDs typically priced at 10 bucks or less a pop for popular games as they aged and sales dropped off?

This was happening well before Steam was even a twinkling in old Gabe's eye.

Dirtyharry50 · Apr 26, 2015

VoR said:
While I don't have the problems that the OP has and I feel that steam handles DRM far better than any other solution (not much can be done for publishers forcing their own), ignoring all the positives it brings it's worth considering how much they're doing for gaming on non-windows OSs.
The trend is for Microsoft and Apple to 'highly encourage' all applications come through their stores now, the competition is increasing. Obviously Valve are a business and need/want to keep people going through them. They have their own motivation, but Valve have done incredible work pushing for non directx games (upstream development) and I don't doubt that the huge increase in ports to osx/linux/steamos is directly related. With the changes that are happening in gfx driver development, there's big potential to move away from the massive monopoly that directx has (rightly...) held for so long.

That may be but what is the benefit of one monopoly yielding to another monopoly?

There is one potential outcome to a major success of SteamOS that could benefit Mac users and that is if everything goes SteamOS/Linux and therefore OpenGL or whatever follows OpenGL on both operating systems then presumably porting games becomes less complex and less expensive. From that we might presume porting more games to OS X becomes increasingly attractive if the cost/benefit ratio improves enough in the eyes of companies such as EA and Ubisoft for example.

However, even if the above scenario plays out I for one will not feel any sense of gratitude toward Valve particularly who are simply acting out of their own business interests, not some love for me. I will be glad they succeeded though if it benefits me. I am just being honest when I say this.

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roadbloc said:
If you think Steam is bad now, you must have never used it in these days.

Image

I do remember that ugliness well. I don't remember any of the problems people complain about but I do remember how ugly the client was for years. I'm not disputing they existed. I just don't recall them.

On the other hand I do recall countless hours of fun playing the Valve titles before anything else was even available on Steam. I think Sin Episodes was the first non-Valve game sold in the then fledgling online store. I particularly remember the many HL mods I had so much fun with. I liked FireArms a lot, a western one that was supposed to be similar to Outlaws and was MP only and even had brain dead bots to kill for kicks. That was great stuff even if the client back then got off to a rocky start. Like so many others I too loved CS and DoD.

VoR · Apr 27, 2015

Dirtyharry50 said:
There is one potential outcome to a major success of SteamOS that could benefit Mac users and that is if everything goes SteamOS/Linux and therefore OpenGL or whatever follows OpenGL on both operating systems then presumably porting games becomes less complex and less expensive. From that we might presume porting more games to OS X becomes increasingly attractive if the cost/benefit ratio improves enough in the eyes of companies such as EA and Ubisoft for example.

That's what I mean - We're already seeing a big increase in ports/native releases and there's a few AAA games from big publishers getting in on the act too. It's really exciting times and I hope the momentum continues.

However, even if the above scenario plays out I for one will not feel any sense of gratitude toward Valve particularly who are simply acting out of their own business interests, not some love for me. I will be glad they succeeded though if it benefits me. I am just being honest when I say this.

They are a big corporate entity (though structurally, completely different than anyone else) and you should always vote with your wallet and go with the best/best value solution. My point was exactly what you mentioned, Valve are acting out their own business model with increasing competition from OS app stores (talking about monopoloy...) but; there's no denying they're doing huge work. Intel/Vulkan, VOGL, mesa donations, own ports etc. and crucially, tonnes of upstream development. Barring porting and optimising their own games, the work they do is open, public and benefits everyone, not just valve/linux/steamos - Personally I think that any company pushing OSS forward deserves a little credit. They don't shout about it either, that's pretty refreshing

All most will see is the release of steamboxes and I think initially at least, they'll be met with a frosty eye due to price and catalogue.

madeirabhoy · Apr 27, 2015

Dirtyharry50 said:
Be that as it may I was speaking of the present and the point was, Steam is not the only place to get good deals on games for Mac.

I doubt Steam has had as much impact as you are thinking it has. Games have always seen price drops as they age. That isn't anything new or attributable to them.

Before digital distribution many years ago I managed a retail software store that sold both PC and Mac games and i can tell you games dropped in price substantially over time and had sales all those years ago. You may also recall the days of the bargain bin CDs and later DVDs typically priced at 10 bucks or less a pop for popular games as they aged and sales dropped off?

This was happening well before Steam was even a twinkling in old Gabe's eye.

i think you missed my point.

the point wasnt that games got cheap, in fact my point was related to the fact that they do.

the point was that before steam play, when the games got real cheap for pc, they'd appear for mac at full price, which whilst understandable was pretty galling to see a mac game for £35 in HMV, and a shelf away was the pc version for a tenner.

as mac users, we often get newly released ports at bargain prices from steam which i doubt we would get if the pc and mac versions werent tied.

PracticalMac · Apr 28, 2015

Dirtyharry50 said:
I mentioned elsewhere yesterday that I've begun to gravitate away from Steam because of various annoyances that rear their ugly little heads here and there.

You forgot the MASSIVE size of the app. 10 gigabytes on my system!!!

Plus there is a game I have been waiting to get in Steam (already greenlighted) for a YEAR.

What ever virtues it had is long gone.

Huntn · Apr 29, 2015

Keep in mind, I primarily play PC games, even when there is a Mac version available.

Initially I was hostile to Steam because I could not sell my games, something I did for years, but on the other hand, it's convienent, it's easy to meet up with people, and there are sales all the time that I never saw from stand alone publishers. Connectivity as a rule, has not been an issue, but has happened on rare occasions. Overall I'm satisfied with it, but if the option to purchase a game was readily available through another source, like Gog.com I'd consider it.

Eric5h5 · Apr 29, 2015

PracticalMac said:
You forgot the MASSIVE size of the app. 10 gigabytes on my system!!!

The Steam app isn't anywhere close to 10GB; it's ~600MB.

--Eric

PracticalMac · Apr 29, 2015

Eric5h5 said:
The Steam app isn't anywhere close to 10GB; it's ~600MB.

--Eric

On the Windows game system I installed it on, it showed 10GB.
I uninstalled, and gained 10GB storage.

So, yes, it does take up 10gb on Windows.

Renzatic · Apr 29, 2015

PracticalMac said:
On the Windows game system I installed it on, it showed 10GB.
I uninstalled, and gained 10GB storage.

So, yes, it does take up 10gb on Windows.

449 meg on mine.

Kinda fat, but nowhere near 10GB.

antonis · Apr 29, 2015

PracticalMac said:
On the Windows game system I installed it on, it showed 10GB.
I uninstalled, and gained 10GB storage.

So, yes, it does take up 10gb on Windows.

By default, Steam's library path (e.g. the games you own) is inside Steam client's folder, so this could justify the size.

Otherwise, there's something really wrong there.

Renzatic · Apr 29, 2015

antonis said:
By default, Steam's library path (e.g. the games you own) is inside Steam client's folder, so this could justify the size.

Otherwise, there's something really wrong there.

I just thought of that myself. Steam installs games under Steam\Steamapps by default, so that could explain the difference.

Thing is, I don't think uninstalling Steam deletes the folder or anything inside of it, so...hell, I dunno.

antonis · Apr 30, 2015

Renzatic said:
I just thought of that myself. Steam installs games under Steam\Steamapps by default, so that could explain the difference.

Thing is, I don't think uninstalling Steam deletes the folder or anything inside of it, so...hell, I dunno.

Yes, that's a good point. Uninstalling the client won't uninstall the games.
Also, installing a clean client shouldn't install the games automatically, occupying 10gb. Odd...

roadbloc · Apr 30, 2015

PracticalMac said:
On the Windows game system I installed it on, it showed 10GB.
I uninstalled, and gained 10GB storage.

So, yes, it does take up 10gb on Windows.

No it doesn't. Steam on Windows takes about 300-400MB at most. You must have had game files installed.

saturnotaku · Apr 30, 2015

PracticalMac said:
On the Windows game system I installed it on, it showed 10GB.
I uninstalled, and gained 10GB storage.

So, yes, it does take up 10gb on Windows.

That's because in Windows Steam installs games in a subfolder where the client executable is. So if your client is located at C:\Games\Steam, the games by default will install to C:\Games\Steam\steamapps. In OS X, the client will, by default, go to the Applications folder, but games get installed to Library/Application Support/Steam/Steamapps.

On my Windows partition, my "Steam folder" is 100 GB because of the games I have there.

PracticalMac · Apr 30, 2015

antonis said:
By default, Steam's library path (e.g. the games you own) is inside Steam client's folder, so this could justify the size.

Otherwise, there's something really wrong there.

Renzatic said:
I just thought of that myself. Steam installs games under Steam\Steamapps by default, so that could explain the difference.

Thing is, I don't think uninstalling Steam deletes the folder or anything inside of it, so...hell, I dunno.

antonis said:
Yes, that's a good point. Uninstalling the client won't uninstall the games.
Also, installing a clean client shouldn't install the games automatically, occupying 10gb. Odd...

roadbloc said:
No it doesn't. Steam on Windows takes about 300-400MB at most. You must have had game files installed.

saturnotaku said:
That's because in Windows Steam installs games in a subfolder where the client executable is. So if your client is located at C:\Games\Steam, the games by default will install to C:\Games\Steam\steamapps. In OS X, the client will, by default, go to the Applications folder, but games get installed to Library/Application Support/Steam/Steamapps.

On my Windows partition, my "Steam folder" is 100 GB because of the games I have there.

Yes, that is the case!
Steam installed the one game I had to get though them, IL-2 Cliffs of Dover; however I think I installed it in another directory.

Since I deleted Steam with Uninstaller, that game is gone too!
So in this case Steam did control the installation
(I had no plan to uninstall CoD)

Renzatic · Apr 30, 2015

PracticalMac said:
Since I deleted Steam with Uninstaller, that game is gone too!
So in this case Steam did control the installation
(I had no plan to uninstall CoD)

Ahh, are you talking about Revo Uninstaller, right? If so, that explains it. It'll delete everything if you tell it to do so.

Though if I'm reading your right, it brought IL-2 in alongside Steam when you reinstalled it? That's still kinda weird.

Dirtyharry50 · May 1, 2015

Just as a related note I have found it a good idea after finishing large games particularly to just verify the space has been reclaimed after removing them via the Steam client. It hasn't happened often but I have seen it leave either all of most of a game's files still sitting within SteamApps/Common/gamename

The client always leaves behind settings and saves when you uninstall a game as far as I can tell which can be good if you intend to replay it at some future time. Otherwise, all the old remaining stuff from game installs can begin to take up some space over time although a lot of the time it isn't much.

The other day in bootcamp I noted when cleaning out that folder that the EverQuest folder was still a gigabyte in size although it had been uninstalled. So that was significant. That game has no DRM tie in to Steam though fortunately. I have it tucked away on an external drive as a Wineskin app and it worked very well last time I played it, maybe a year ago.

Renzatic · May 1, 2015

Ahh, Everquest. One of the two games that got me both into and out of MMOs.

OS X I am growing tired of Steam

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