^^^ Yes ^^^
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I had a few of those, and they always failed to verify or something. And the Walmart things actually lose $5 per month, which is retarded.
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Valve to Expand Steam Store Beyond Games on September 5
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^^^ Yes ^^^
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I had a few of those, and they always failed to verify or something. And the Walmart things actually lose $5 per month, which is retarded.
A lot of Steam's responsiveness involves your internet connection. Though I have 32/5 right now and it is not that much better over 3/1. Same with SSD vs. mechanical.
THIS LOOKS SHOP'D
Remove the white background from an image in less than 1 minute.
SINNER
Save an image that includes the Comic Sans font
HEADSHOT
Decapitate an image of a celebrity using the cropping tool
ZEN AND THE ART OF RELOADING
Install new fonts
RICH AND PORE
Airbrush the pores off of a celebrity's face
DUMBEST SMART PERSON
Use Photoshop for something you could have used MS paint for
THE IMPOSSIBLE ACHIEVEMENT
Make a reference to Through The Fire and the Flames in an image
NOOB
Export a file as a jpeg
I could go on for hours like this...
You've got just about the same connection I do, so I'd probably chalk it up to using a magnetic drive over an SSD.
When I'm launching games and everything, it's fine. But if I go on the store front, every page I open seems to have a 5 second delay before it suddenly pops everything up on the screen. It's hardly unbearable or anything, but it is a little annoying.
Bungiefan89 said:
HA! I did that just the other day! I WIN AWARD!
Direct3D is not crappy, it is industry leading. Man, I still can't believe some of the stuff I read on this board.
Yup, and that OGL vs. D3D discrepancy Valve found could be caused by any number of bottlenecks. They even mentioned taking what they learned from porting everything over to Linux and reapplying it to Windows for an added boost.
Yeah, but the itunes store sucked (and still sucks) for things like DRM.
I know when I make a purchase on steam I can use it on any of my computers and not have to worry about authorizing/reauthorizing.. or any other similar nonsense.
They even made it lanparty friendly. You can share games in a lan situation without repurchasing!
Valve knows their target audience very very well. People are willing to pay for games and apps as long as you make it easy and not a terrible experience to make use of your purchase.
As for the complaint regarding an internet connection....... I thought it was common sense that downloading many gigs of data on a bad connection will suck. No matter what platform your using.
A competitor to OS vendors would be good to have, but how many of those users are on OSX?
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Don't you need to login to your Valve on the new computer? If so, isn't that similar to authorizing on iTunes?
I welcome competition, but I worry about fragmentation.
I don't want to check several app stores to find the app I want. I don't want to install several app stores to re-install and update all my apps.
But then again, Amazon already has Mac app downloads, too. And nobody seems to have noticed.
But the Steam FAQ says this:
That doesn't really sound more developer friendly than the Mac App Store. Apparently developers aren't allowed to talk about their split, either.
I don't want to check several app stores to find the app I want. I don't want to install several app stores to re-install and update all my apps.
But then again, Amazon already has Mac app downloads, too. And nobody seems to have noticed.
But the Steam FAQ says this:
That doesn't really sound more developer friendly than the Mac App Store. Apparently developers aren't allowed to talk about their split, either.
Eh. That's a pretty standard thing, and for a variety of reasons. Some publishers might get deals to give them a chance in the market, or based on how much business they do through Steam. They keep it private because someone might see something that seems unfair at first glance and complain, but doesn't understand the reasoning behind it.
It must be a pretty decent setup, because everyone who sells through Steam (cept for EA) seems to love it, specially the little indie shops.
Fragmentation have existed on desktop computers since day one. You just ebing able to buy the software from a retailer or the devleoper directly is a "fragmented" market......
But I wouldn't use the term fragmentation in these kinds of cases. Fragmentation is when software works on certain versions of an OS or hardware combo. Not different ways to acquire that software.
I think this is a good idea, although Steam isn't without its faults. Anyone else had to sit there falling asleep while the message sits on your screen saying: Verifying Game Cache then pauses at 100% for 20 mins?
Assuming they can overcome such technical issues, it could be a good thing. I for one prefer Steam to the App store - although it might not be fair to compare them at this stage as they are both very different.
Assuming they can overcome such technical issues, it could be a good thing. I for one prefer Steam to the App store - although it might not be fair to compare them at this stage as they are both very different.
You are either bottlenecked by your disk drive or internet connection at that point. We are talking about games that are easily +5-10 GB.
Similar, but not quite the same.. With itunes (I don't think this applies to the app store) you can only have 5 authorized computers. If you format your computer, or get a new computer and forget to reauthorize you are are out of luck.......... unless you call up apple support and get it sorted (which they are willing to do).
Then there are problems device side of things. You are also limited to what devices and how you use the media you purchase.
With the appstore apple is really taking a better approach. You can install apps on any computer as long as you log in, all computers can use the same software at once etc.
It is sluggish at times for me, that's for sure. But I wouldn't say I'm having nearly the same severity issues you are. That's odd. I'm running a 2008 uMPB, 8GB RAM, 2.4GHz C2D
Hey it is great to get Steam into selling software. but it would be important for them to have better customer support.
ie a 24-7 call in telephone customer support/service
I have had problems, but had to use their website to contact them. no phone number at all.
ie a 24-7 call in telephone customer support/service
I have had problems, but had to use their website to contact them. no phone number at all.
10Mb Fiber optic connection and a 60Gb SSD dedicated to Steam apps (50% full). Must be more to it than that!
It will be interesting to see what Valve charge as commission. If Valve offer 20% or less, they could get a good a good range of software.
Plus, the sandboxing Apple are enforcing is starting to appear seem limiting, for example many utilities.
Plus, the sandboxing Apple are enforcing is starting to appear seem limiting, for example many utilities.
CPU time devoted to hack out checksums and a Steam server that is unhappy.
A wizard did it or cosmic rays.
As much as I like steam, there are some things that would keep me from 'purchasing' an expensive app through it :\ For example, you don't own what you buy, you only have the agreement to be able to use it - and you have to be logged into your steam account, and only 1 computer at a time can actually run something from the steam account. I dunno..
This is a clear move to compete with the iOS/Mac App stores. And it's all good if it brings prices down for both the App store and steam. And then both sides will have to compete with their dev fees too.
Sure steam will probably be selling Windows software too. A lot of windows users to trust steam. I personally don't, not trust steam. I just have no need to use them. The Mac App store + physical purchases cover me pretty well. Steam will have to prove to me this new service gives me a better deal then I am getting from the App store. And not just in prices. In ease of download/installation security and fine print as well.
Fine print being the whole how many computers you can install on and who actually owns what you purchase from steam. I will be reading the entire policy there, and if it's not up to scratch steam wont be getting my business.
Sure steam will probably be selling Windows software too. A lot of windows users to trust steam. I personally don't, not trust steam. I just have no need to use them. The Mac App store + physical purchases cover me pretty well. Steam will have to prove to me this new service gives me a better deal then I am getting from the App store. And not just in prices. In ease of download/installation security and fine print as well.
Fine print being the whole how many computers you can install on and who actually owns what you purchase from steam. I will be reading the entire policy there, and if it's not up to scratch steam wont be getting my business.
If only steam wasn't the hackiest piece of hackware on my computer, I'd be all for this, but as it stands... It's quite a hackjob of an app (Crashes occasionally, sometimes it refuses to let me log in, that kind of stuff. Random quirks that I just don't see in most software).
I do think that, despite Valve's poor choice of tools with which they coded Steam, it could easily destroy the MAS if Valve doesn't place the same kind of restrictions that Apple did on the MAS. There are a ton of great apps out there that we all know and love that may never get onto the MAS, and even if they do, they'd be all sliced and diced to fit Apple's guidelines. Competition is good.
I do think that, despite Valve's poor choice of tools with which they coded Steam, it could easily destroy the MAS if Valve doesn't place the same kind of restrictions that Apple did on the MAS. There are a ton of great apps out there that we all know and love that may never get onto the MAS, and even if they do, they'd be all sliced and diced to fit Apple's guidelines. Competition is good.
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