My rant at Steam

[Akula.]

Okay, steam sucks. It's official.

After going through hell to get HalfLife2 to work with steam, I was constantly pulling my hair out over those irritating "Preparing to launch Half-Life2" dialogue boxes and the inexcusable wait for everything to start up. I can actually go and get a cup of coffee in the time it takes for HL2 to start. Not acceptable...

Well I completed HL2, so I bought Half-Life2 Episode 1 and tried installing it just now. Before the installation even started, I had to type in the activation key, so I typed it in and click "Next". After another ludicrously long wait (15 minutes), Steam finally tells me that it cant let me play my game because their servers are taking too long! What kind of a joke is this? I'm going on holiday tommorow, and I've read around that Episode 1 is relatively short gameplay (6-8 hours), so I thought I'd buy it and play it before my holiday. Not going to happen, apparently! And after reading the last line on the dialogue box: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause", I am quite nuclear.

As a software developer myself, I can understand why piracy is a bad thing. But steam, with its angering piracy-prevention systems such as online key activation, accounts, etc, coupled with long download times, too large and much too frequent compulsary updates, and shoddy servers which seem to only be online for half an hour a day, just annoys me.

[Chris_F]

If it's any consolation I've decided, based on the overwhelmingly negative press, not to buy any software that requires Steam.

[Akula.]

Issue resolved! I only had to do some wierd stuff with sending a picture of my CD-key into Valve, setting up a new account, and installing Half-life2, coutnerstrike, and Half-life2 episode 1, onto the new account.  ::)

Oh well, at least it works...

[PsychoDiablo]

lol

[Celtman]

I love steam man, makes cs playing sooo much easier, b4 with WON it always crashed n shit

steam is keeping it real yoo, chrios you're a wimp yo

You've just joined and you are already insulting people Not a good start.

Also, I've had the same problems with Steam - Their servers take too long to respond, and HL2 just freezes.  I've given up on steam now, the customer support is also terrible

[Tom...]

Im not saying this to be a smart alec or anything, but i have never had any severe letdowns with steam, although it was down for a long time when they were updating the client thingi a few years ago, but its never really caused a major problem with me