No BF3 on Steam. No Origin. Join the boycott. Be one of the early adopters.

[Rii]

If EA is engaged in abusive practices to get Origin off the ground then they're only following in Valve's apparently unimpeachable footsteps. I certainly don't recall being given much of a choice as to whether to register for and download Steam back in 2003 or whenever it was: "do it or you'll no longer be able to play the games you've purchased! LOL!" - Valve.

[Tikey]

For me this is a trust issue. Valve earned my trust with its history and attitude, while EA hasn't (for the exact same reasons).
Maybe a few years from now Origin makes a very solid reputation that makes me change my mind, meanwhile I prefer to trust my games to valve rather than EA.

[Smashbox]

For me this is a trust issue. Valve earned my trust with its history and attitude, while EA hasn't (for the exact same reasons)

This is what it boils down to for me.

[vinraith]

If EA is engaged in abusive practices to get Origin off the ground then they're only following in Valve's apparently unimpeachable footsteps. I certainly don't recall being given much of a choice as to whether to register for and download Steam back in 2003 or whenever it was: "do it or you'll no longer be able to play the games you've purchased! LOL!" - Valve.

Exactly. Origin doesn't seem any more intrusive and obnoxious than Steam, so why should I care? EA's simply following the precedent Valve established with Steam, the only surprising thing is that it took them this long.

[Wizardry]

If you disagree perhaps you should bring a counter argument?

Steam didn't save PC gaming because games suck more today than they did before Steam was created.

I for one will be boycotting Origin until there is a command line interface where I can ask NAME and JOB.

I think you're getting confused between the 1999 Origin boycott and the 1992 Origin boycott. ;)

[DarkNoghri]

Elaborate. I hear this 'slow, bloated' statement a lot and I have to wonder why kind of last century hardware people must be using, because Steam uses up roughly as much memory as one tab in Google Chrome. Some concrete as to the 'tyranny' of the experience would be appreciated here.

Well, it's certainly not the worst thing ever (I probably exaggerated a bit previously). As for hardware: I'm currently running a middling AMD quadcore and an ATI 4850. Steam is just slow. It takes 20-45 seconds to open/login to Steam. Clicking the button to log into friends does nothing for about 4 seconds, and then the list finally pops open. I'd probably be fine if there was a button press animation/login process bar or something, but it just ignores the click (or seems to) until it finally pulls your friends up.

The browser is the worst part, really, and it's integrated into everything that's not the games library. I get really slow web browsing out of game. If I go to someone's Steam profile, I don't expect it to pull up the most recent page I was on, and then take 10-20 seconds to pull up where I want to be. It's the same for their store navigation. If they want to integrated the web into all the features in their program, it needs to not suck. On the overlay, the first webpage I pull up (open overlay, hit web, pull up google) takes 10-15 seconds just sitting there with a blank page before it even bothers doing anything.

I'm not even talking about memory usage, because I have enough that it doesn't really matter. It's just that for what Steam is doing (running chat, opening my games, opening web pages), it should be snappy. But it's not in certain areas.

[Drake Sigar]

Let me see if I’ve got this right – you’re organizing gamers to boycott a company’s online service because it competes with another company’s online service? Someone's not a fan of Capitalism.

[Tikey]

Let me see if I’ve got this right – you’re organizing gamers to boycott a company’s online service because it competes with another company’s online service? Someone's not a fan of Capitalism.

Well, It's a slow game. Capitalism 2 is better IMO

[GothicEmperor]

Let me see if I’ve got this right – you’re organizing gamers to boycott a company’s online service because it competes with another company’s online service? Someone's not a fan of Capitalism.

Wait, what?

[ran93r]

Couldn't care less if it's on Steam or not.

There, I said it.

[Kadayi]

url="http://steamunpowered.eu/e-mail-from-cd-projekt-the-witcher/"]Yes they have, actually[/url]. Not complete, but some control though. [E] Assuming that by "3rd party pricing" you mean game prices on Steam, not on retail.

http://steampowered.com/steamworks/FAQ.php

Valve will advise you as to what they think is a good price to go to market at but they don't actually set the prices. Ultimately that's the publishers decision (or developer if it's an indie thing). So in the Case of Activision Bobby Kotick believes you need to pay £39.99 for the privilege of playing CODBlops, where as EA think that £19.99 is a reasonable price for MoH.

Well, it's certainly not the worst thing ever (I probably exaggerated a bit previously). As for hardware: I'm currently running a middling AMD quadcore and an ATI 4850. Steam is just slow. It takes 20-45 seconds to open/login to Steam. Clicking the button to log into friends does nothing for about 4 seconds, and then the list finally pops open. I'd probably be fine if there was a button press animation/login process bar or something, but it just ignores the click (or seems to) until it finally pulls your friends up.

The browser is the worst part, really, and it's integrated into everything that's not the games library. I get really slow web browsing out of game. If I go to someone's Steam profile, I don't expect it to pull up the most recent page I was on, and then take 10-20 seconds to pull up where I want to be. It's the same for their store navigation. If they want to integrated the web into all the features in their program, it needs to not suck. On the overlay, the first webpage I pull up (open overlay, hit web, pull up google) takes 10-15 seconds just sitting there with a blank page before it even bothers doing anything.

I'm not even talking about memory usage, because I have enough that it doesn't really matter. It's just that for what Steam is doing (running chat, opening my games, opening web pages), it should be snappy. But it's not in certain areas.

See I don't find any of that happens to me at all. I'm an i7, but even so Steam takes about 5 - 8 seconds to start Max, and Looking up someones profile takes about 2 seconds tops. Personally I don't use the inbuilt web browser that much, but I find it's fairly responsive when I have used it. If I was you I'd perhaps be inclined (given the differential in our experiences) to look into potential conflicts with your firewall and or/internet connection.

[J Arcane]

I don't have any problems with Steam performance, but two of my friends both get severe memory leaks with Steam so bad they slow down the entire machine. One was so bad it was actually eating up his entire 8GB of RAM, just running completely rampant.

[Kadayi]

I don't have any problems with Steam performance, but two of my friends both get severe memory leaks with Steam so bad they slow down the entire machine. One was so bad it was actually eating up his entire 8GB of RAM, just running completely rampant.

Well has he tried re installing it? Or running a repair on it?

[squareking]

I just wish clients weren't an accepted requirement to play games and that when I buy a game, it's mine to play whenever and wherever. Simple things. Sure, Steam is an excellent and convenient product and Valve has earned my trust, but those things nag at me whenever I make a purchase on Steam.

[DarkNoghri]

See I don't find any of that happens to me at all. I'm an i7, but even so Steam takes about 5 - 8 seconds to start Max, and Looking up someones profile takes about 2 seconds tops. Personally I don't use the inbuilt web browser that much, but I find it's fairly responsive when I have used it. If I was you I'd perhaps be inclined (given the differential in our experiences) to look into potential conflicts with your firewall and or/internet connection.

Come to think of it, I just checked. I have to revise most of that statement, as I recently cleaned out my Steam install (deleted all files except steam.exe and steamapps folder) due to another problem I was having. Steam has been much snappier since then. It just took 10-15 seconds to open, and logging into friends is much faster as well (the button click even appears to register).

Still, web browsing could be faster.

[archonsod]

Valve will advise you as to what they think is a good price to go to market at but they don't actually set the prices.

Yeah, but when you decide whether or not to carry a product and skim a chunk from each sale, you've got enough influence you don't have to dictate the price ...

[J Arcane]

Well has he tried re installing it? Or running a repair on it?

We've actually done wipe and reinstalls on both. Same problem.

[CuriousOrange]

The web browsing could be faster. But it's pretty fantastic it's even there. That happens to my Steam installs too, after 6 months or more I have to reinstall it as it slowly grinds to a halt.

[agentorange]

Let's boycott Valve and Steam because they won't put Portal 2 on Impulse.

[Kadayi]

Yeah, but when you decide whether or not to carry a product and skim a chunk from each sale, you've got enough influence you don't have to dictate the price ...

926 games under £7 each. Breath of death VII & Cthulhu Saves the World for £2

I'd hardly say they are milking it tbh.

We've actually done wipe and reinstalls on both. Same problem.

If you'd gone for 'Well we tried re-installing Steam and it still occurred' I'd be inclined to believe you, but when you're headed to 'We nuked the site from Orbit, and that still didn't fix the problem' I'm left a tad skeptical as to the veracity of your statement. That or your friends need to run mem test on their RAM.