Umm... Why should you in the first place? It is a great platform with good prices and good services in my opinion. I've never had any problems with it.
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In the old days when Steam was new it had some notoriously bad buggs and issues with it. Valve being a good company dedicated itself to eradicating them to make it the good service it is today. So ya it was surpirsing to me someone was still boycotting steam... Kinda like seeing somoene still using dial up internet service...
I own 156 games on steam, not once have I had an issue with the games due to steam, of course I have had problems with the games themselves but never with steam, I'm not saying is perfect far from it, and its stranglehold on the market could be dangerous, that's why I think its a good thing to not play in a vacuum, I also have a Gog, green man gaming, GameStop and gamersgate account (that's a lot of G's) and of course I have an Amazon account (who doesn't?) So I just shop around I like to think of it like a shopping centre, you have the behemoth mega store of steam that is sure to have a wide selection, and then you have the smaller stores that you go to because you know you can sometimes get a better deal.
You've probably received an answer for your question already but whatever i'll reply anyway
- You can mod Paradox games on Steam without any problems, i don't know about multiplayer but only games that you can't mod on Steam are VAC secured multiplayer focused games and many of them are moddable too.
- You obviously get the software on your hard drive when you install a game on on Steam... i have no idea what you're talking about... the game isn't stored on their servers.
- Once you have downloaded the game on Steam you can use offline mode if you want to so no you don't need internet connection after you have installed the game.
My biggest issue with steam is that it auto-updates your games, and even though you have the ability to disable this auto-updating, it somehow seems to reset itself every so often. All of the Paradox games I play are modded so when a new patch comes out the mods become unplayable until the modder updates it. If steam didn't keep auto-updating I could just play the old patch, but because the auto-updater keeps sneaking in on me I'm forced to wait until the modders do their thing. It gets annoying.
If I understand it, people hate Steam because...
(in no particular order)
1 - The "always online" aspect.
2 - The "always online" aspect can be seen as a DRM.
3 - Steam is growing like mad.
4 - Steam already has 1/3rd of all gameplays.
5 - 2+3+4 = DRM is taking over!
6 - 3+4 = Steam is a single company and giving them that much power is a bad idea however good said company is.
7 - A while ago, Steam had problems, and built up a bad reputation.
8 - Auto-updates means you (can) lose control of your games.
9 - Steam is like Google and Facebook when it comes to privacy; some don't like that.
10 - Their customer support sucks.
11 - Their customer support really sucks.
12 - No really. Their customer support really really sucks.
13 - It becomes an extra "layer" between you and your game.
14 - It becomes an extra "layer" between a developer and their game.
15 - It becomes an extra "layer" between a player and a developer.
16 - 2+3+4+5+9+13 = My rights!!! Steam is bad for them.
17 - 1+3+4+6+10+11+12+13+14+15 = My games!!! They are now harder to play.
18 - Everyone likes Steam so I hate it.
19 - They've wronged me in the past.
20 - I thought Steam was something else, I'm not actually opposed to it.
I find all opposition to Steam can fit within those 20. I personally am concerned with #17. #16 seems to drive the most complaints around here.
And in some countries they also take local credit cards/debit cards/direct transfer from your account.
Very good list!
I don't use Steam (and won't - even at cost of EUIV) because of 1+3+4+8+9+13.
I prefer to see game as a product (mine! my own! my prec... oh.), not a service which may be or may be not delivered to you only by good will of some third party.
Steam is terrible. It is slow, and buggy. At least, my Dota 2 expirience sugests as much, and i`m not talking specifically Dota 2 bugs.
I hadnt think about it, but that is another thing why Steam is annoying more than anything else. Any good old site of dowload and forget (like gg) is much better. You get the same (the game) with no annoyances
to be honest, that's entirely subjective.
what you may find an annoyance I find convenient (ie. steam's integration to the game, for one thing, allows me to easily open the in-game browser without having to alt-tab just to give an example).
Steam is not just a distribution platform, they also are developers as valve entertainment. I have a huge problem with steam, I have been buying games from them for several years now. And that is, that I recently got a new computer, after not having one for awhile. I do not have access to the internet at home. Steam claims you can play in offline mode, and indeed you can, for about 2 weeks. Then they say there is no log-in data on your computer, when you try to start up steam, this happens after about 2 weeks on average, at which point you have to go online to update steam, in order to play any games that you bought from steam. I found this out the hard way a couple of months ago, and have been fighting with them over it ever since, they refuse to admit that they are doing it, probably because they know it's shady business practice. Why should I have to go online to play non-online games, just because their client needs to be updated. PS3 and Xbox 360 also have a client that has to be updated from time to time, and they do not prevent you from playing your games if it isn't updated, and you don't have access to the internet. If I don't turn my computer off, and never exit steam, then that is the only solution, i have figured out, other than to go pay $75 a night and rent a motel to get internet access.
trust me i been working on it, i actually got a hot spot from us cellular last week, but the full service isn't available yet in my area.. It has a download limit of 2gb per month though, and $10 per gig if you go over. I am waiting to see what my bill is going to be like for the first month, as there is no data tracking service or overage alerts during the first month.
Just so you know, this is not a problem with PDS games since EU3 5.1 . They can all be played without Steam even running, let alone being online.
No problems with Steam here - only problem I ever had was trying to purchase something when abroad...
And I'm pretty sure you can play some games even when Steam is in offline mode.
And I'm pretty sure you can play some games even when Steam is in offline mode.
Dear lord thats alot of games.... I'm a avid gamer and i have no where near that amount... And i play video games most of the day thats why i love paradox games so much... So much bang for my buck game hours wise...
But...it isn't. You don't even NEED steam online to run many games (and ALL paradox games).
When will people realise that steam is NOT always online, it has an offline mode that is just a few mouse clicks away. You don't even need to have steam running at all to play many games, just double click the .exe file and away you go. I bought HOI3 on steam, yet I have a shortcut on my desktop that I use and I don't need steam at all to play it. When will people understand this?
Its very easy to rapidly accumulate games when using Steam. Within the last year and a half, my Steam library went from 1 or 2 to 120. I actually have more than that, I just haven't redeemed a few Steam keys I have around.
The Steam sales are part of it, however most of my games on Steam were probably purchased off-site, whether through Amazon or the various indie bundles.