So I wanted to buy (i.e., download) a game, and naturally I first checked to see if Steam has it, which they do. But it turns out that the game is available for download from a dozen other sites, all at the same price. Am I right that the only real difference in buying the game from Steam would be that, if my internet connection goes out, I can’t play it? Thanks.
I can’t speak to the other services available, but it is possible to play your Steam games without an active Internet connection, using Offline Mode: Steam Support :: Offline Mode
As Mr. Excellent pointed out, you can certainly play Steam games offline.
Two other advantages (may not always apply):
- Steam automatically updates your game whenever they receive patches from the publisher.
- Publishers who use stupid DRM on their games will often strip it out in favor of Steam’s less malignant DRM. Some publishers are stupid and leave it in so you get a double-dose of DRM that makes loading your game slightly less pleasant than a trip to the dentist, so definitely do your research beforehand regarding DRM issues.
In theory you might be able to play Steam games offline, but in practice when my internet connection went out during the recent Snowpocalypse, I was unable to. I imagine there were useful instructions on the Steam web site for dealing with this issue, but somehow I neglected to look there :p. Thank God for Dwarf Fortress.
I bought the special edition of Dragon Age via Impulse, and when I was unable to get an Internet connection, it only warned me that certain bonus content sections would be inaccessible, and then let me play no problem. That’s the only game I have from them, so I don’t know how they handle other games.
I switched to Steam after Direct2Drive told me I couldn’t install Civ 4 on my new computer, having used up my alloted number of installs when changing drives on my old computer.
As noted on another thread, if Games for Windows Live is involved, it won’t save without a connection.
FWIW, I’ve had virtually no problem with the two Windows Live games in my collection.
I’ve had no problems playing games offline in Steam during the Snowpocalypse.
Ok, I wound up giving Steam my money since I’ve never had a problem with them before, and I apparently can play games offline. Thanks for the info, everyone.
This is the game in question, if anybody’s curious. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of HoI2 and one of the previous stand-alone expansions, and the changes and new features for this one read like a list of all the things I wished were different about the old (otherwise excellent) game.
I believe that’s not a function of Impulse, but how Dragon age handles DLC itself. You need to connect to Bioware’s servers to use the DLCs, same thing if you’re using the Steam version.
Glad other people had steam off-line work; I just clicked the “yes, yes, work off-line” button when it came up, then tried to open up Titan Quest and had nothing happen, so I went back to bossing my dwarves around.
My first experience with Steam was bad. I bought a game in a box at a real store. It required registering on Steam. Fine. But there was some glitch and it didn’t install all the way from the disk. It decided instead to download from Steam. My internet connection was having a bad day and really slow, yet it refused to install from the disk. It took about six hours and my plans for playing my new game that weekend were shot.
However, I really like that once I buy a game I can play it from any computer. I have Steam games on my home computer and I can also play them on my parents’ computer when I visit them. There are sometimes glitches with offline playing though. For example, I last played the game on my parents’ computer, and then I want to play on my home computer but I’ve just moved and don’t have an internet connection yet. Though I’ve played the game without internet before, now it won’t let me for the THREE WEEKS it takes to get internet set up. Probably related to the fact that I last logged in from another computer? I don’t know.
I like Steam but I also miss the days when you owned a game and you really OWNED it. Not just rented it or used it or accessed it.
You’ve never actually owned the game, you’ve always just purchased a licence to use it. The ability to transfer that licence is somewhat of a legal grey area right now.
That it used to come on a disk which was easy to sell/give to a friend was just due to the nature of pre-internet distribution.
As for steam, I love it and have never had a problem with it.
I don’t think there actually is such a thing as installing from the disc, for Valve’s games: The disc is basically nothing but an authentication device to start the real installation online.
Back to the OP, some games have some multiplayer options (like chat, I think, and maybe connecting with opponents) integrated into Steam. So if you buy it through Steam, you can more easily play against and chat with others who have bought through Steam.
At this point i would need an extremely good reason to not buy a game Steam has available from Steam.
I give a big pass on games with additional DRM, but that appears to be the publisher’s idiocy and not Steam’s.
Indeed–Bioshock 2 being my only experience of evil DRM, but despite my willingness to comply with their stupid regime, the game is completely locked down by DRM and I can’t access it. I hate them(them being Games for Windows Live and all their evil masters).
If you buy the game from the store, the game files are on the disk and it will install them off the disk rather then download them (at least, that’s how it worked for L4D1 and DoW2 anyway).
However, if there are patches it forces you to download those before you can play (the only thing I don’t like about steam). Maybe the OP’s game had a lot of patch to download?
Hm, I got Portal on CD for a friend, and it sure seemed like it was getting everything from online. Maybe it varies from game to game.