Origin, Steam, and the concept of "competition"

[PornoSatan]

First, we admit competition is good. It forces a company to change to benefit the consumer if it wants their money, or else that money goes to a competitor.

Steam is a bit like Facebook. It currently has a huge monopoly. It's the single source for most people's gaming needs, it has a huge selection, a familiar interface, most gamers have used it before, and it's from a company with a reputation of making good games.

Origin is kind of like Google+. It's from a huge company looking to get a piece of the pie. In theory this competition should make both platforms better. In theory.

What is the one great thing about Facebook/Steam? Everyone uses it. Everyone is familiar with it. What happens if Google+/Origin come to the scene? Well at first they will splinter the population into those who use Google+/Origin and those who use Facebook/Steam. Maybe one will rise to be supreme, maybe not, regardless this "splintering" will not help anyone. No one wants to have to visit MySpace, Facebook, Google+, etc etc etc to find all their friends. Neither does everyone want to install 50 different game services to find all their games.

In the end what I'm thinking is, maybe it IS better that certain companies have a monopoly on certain things. Your opinion?

 

[Shalafi]

I agree, firmly, it's better to have Steam as a monopoly, because all my games are already on there, so are my friends. We have autopatching, unlimited downloads, friends list, Steam groups, an easy to use interface, a great selection of games from the Steam Store, Steam sales, demos, videos, screenshots of upcoming games, an offline mode, and DLC all easily procured from one source.

I think that's good for me.

I'd rather pay a little extra if necessary for the convenience of having it on Steam vs having it on some pile of shit like Origin.

I did buy a game off Amazon downloads, but it was Steamworks, I simply applied the code to Steam and downloaded it off Steam, that game was Deus Ex: HR.

I do buy games off GoG.com as they are the only source for certain old games that I may want to play, and they are owned and operated by CD Projekt.

That's the only exceptions I make.

Origin, however, will never be installed on my computer.

 

[Chihlidog]

My opinion is that the market will still dictate.

I like Steam. I wont switch. I may grab a good sale from one of the other platforms and only ever use that platform to play those games, and that's just if I happen to see a good deal listed here or other forums.

If they want to SELL games, which they of course need to do to make money, they have to go where buyers are. If everyone sticks with steam, even EA will have to allow those games to be on Steam or lose those sales. I'm fine with that. I think that's what will eventually happen. We all have too many games on Steam already to ever completely switch, so all these other platforms are going to have a hell of a time pulling us away from it.

I agree, firmly, it's better to have Steam as a monopoly, because all my games are already on there, so are my friends. We have autopatching, unlimited downloads, friends list, Steam groups, an easy to use interface, a great selection of games from the Steam Store, Steam sales, demos, videos, screenshots of upcoming games, an offline mode, and DLC all easily procured from one source.

I think that's good for me.

I'd rather pay a little extra if necessary for the convenience of having it on Steam vs having it on some pile of shit like Origin.

I did buy a game off Amazon downloads, but it was Steamworks, I simply applied the code to Steam and downloaded it off Steam, that game was Deus Ex: HR.

I do buy games off GoG.com as they are the only source for certain old games that I may want to play, and they are owned and operated by CD Projekt.

That's the only exceptions I make.

Origin, however, will never be installed on my computer.

Well said.

And since I have an Amazon GC, and have been wanting to give DE:HR a go, since you've said it activates on Steam, that's the push I needed to go ahead and jump on it. Will be doing that as soon as I finish this post.

Just goes to show what kind of influence Steam has gained in the gaming community. Cant buy influence like that.

 

[German Muscle]

Your comparisons are very off. It would be more accurate to say Origin is like AT&T.

I am very thankful for Valve and what they do and that they are in charge of steam and everything it does.

Like fail i will never install Origin on my computer.

 

[rampantandroid]

I agree, firmly, it's better to have Steam as a monopoly, because all my games are already on there, so are my friends.

Dude, you didn't just drop a few notches for saying this. You didn't even hit rock bottom. You somehow hit rock bottom and had enough momentum to break through.

I LIKE INTEL PROCESSORS, THEY DO WHAT I WANT SO I WANT AMD TO GO AWAY.

I mean...the hell? Wanting all things in one place is one thing. Wanting a monopoly so this can be accomplished however is impractical, stupid and ultimately detrimental. With a monopoly, they have no reason to try to make you happy. You use them or you use them. With steamworks games, you can't even buy a disk to avoid them. They have no reason to go and fix their offline mode, because no one else has come along and done it right. If origin comes along, has less DRM bullshit, better prices and better support, you can be damn sure that either people will move to it, or valve will improve steam further. Or both.

Crawl back into your little hole.

 

[ThunderBuns]

I'm hoping Origin will just make VALVE have sales more often and drastically improve their customer support system. Other than that I'm not sure what else they would do

 

[rampantandroid]

I'm hoping Origin will just make VALVE have sales more often and drastically improve their customer support system. Other than that I'm not sure what else they would do

Compete. Ya know, keep Valve on their toes. Either Valve tries to keep ahead of origin, and improves or Origin bests them.

Either Origin keeps trying to improve and draw customers, or they fail out.

Competition.

 

[Satarel]

The idea is that competition either fuels innovation or lowers prices for the consumer. Steam has an absurd amount of sales and arguably pioneered the daily, weekly and seasonal sales model for computer games. I can't recall another service prior to Steam that provided a similar pricing model. The storefront and community features have reached a pinnacle I believe. I personally can't ask much more from Steam in that regard. I believe Origin is an inferior product that I'm being forced to deal with in order to play BF3. Barring any other must play titles that require Origin I'll purchase everything on Steam, even if I'm forced to pay more.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

First, we admit competition is good. It forces a company to change to benefit the consumer if it wants their money, or else that money goes to a competitor.

Steam is a bit like Facebook. It currently has a huge monopoly. It's the single source for most people's gaming needs, it has a huge selection, a familiar interface, most gamers have used it before, and it's from a company with a reputation of making good games.

Origin is kind of like Google+. It's from a huge company looking to get a piece of the pie. In theory this competition should make both platforms better. In theory.

What is the one great thing about Facebook/Steam? Everyone uses it. Everyone is familiar with it. What happens if Google+/Origin come to the scene? Well at first they will splinter the population into those who use Google+/Origin and those who use Facebook/Steam. Maybe one will rise to be supreme, maybe not, regardless this "splintering" will not help anyone. No one wants to have to visit MySpace, Facebook, Google+, etc etc etc to find all their friends. Neither does everyone want to install 50 different game services to find all their games.

In the end what I'm thinking is, maybe it IS better that certain companies have a monopoly on certain things. Your opinion?

AMEN!

I recently decided against getting BF3 after learning that it would force people to use Origin even if you bought a physical copy, I'm not installing a crap load of digital distribution apps on my computer so I have 20 things running in my taskbar hogging resources and fighting over my time/attention and monitoring my system etc. It's simply not necessary.

I don't have anything against origin per se, it's just that I have 200 games on steam and it's absolutely retarded that I can keep steam running most of the time and have access to all of my games, except for 1 stupid exclusive which forces me (for no good reason) to launch another separate platform in order to play.

Again, nothing against Origin, if Origin had been here first and I had 200 games with them and steam came out, then it would be the exactly same situation except in reverse.

But you're right, it's exactly like having to go to a whole bunch of different social networks in order to manage communication your friends, imagine if you had to have a different mobile for every network, so you'd need 1 mobile to call your mum, 1 mobile to call your friend, 1 mobile for work, 1 for the takeaway, HAHA, it's just retarded.

So yeah competition is good, but also it's lead to exclusives which is bad, I'm not playing that little game, if they don't want to release on steam then no sale!

 

[Shalafi]

Dude, you didn't just drop a few notches for saying this. You didn't even hit rock bottom. You somehow hit rock bottom and had enough momentum to break through.

I LIKE INTEL PROCESSORS, THEY DO WHAT I WANT SO I WANT AMD TO GO AWAY.

I mean...the hell? Wanting all things in one place is one thing. Wanting a monopoly so this can be accomplished however is impractical, stupid and ultimately detrimental. With a monopoly, they have no reason to try to make you happy. You use them or you use them. With steamworks games, you can't even buy a disk to avoid them. They have no reason to go and fix their offline mode, because no one else has come along and done it right. If origin comes along, has less DRM bullshit, better prices and better support, you can be damn sure that either people will move to it, or valve will improve steam further. Or both.

Crawl back into your little hole.

You're entitled to your opinion, I'm entitled to mine.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

P.S. your analogy sucks, as does that of most others who post analogies, they never do get it right or accurate.

However, the ATT one is accurate, same with that of an electrical company.

 

[rampantandroid]

You're entitled to your opinion, I'm entitled to mine.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

Doesn't change the fact that the opinion is deeply flawed. Selfish, ill thought out.

 

[PoopsMacClaude]

Steam has terrible customer support. If I recall correctly, there isn't even a number you can call. To get assistance you have to fill out this annoying little form and wait for an e-mail, and then continue to correspond by email. It's the most asinine thing I've ever used and takes up a lot of time. I first discovered that I couldn't call anywhere to get ahold of Valve/Steam way back in 2005ish or so. For me, this sent up a huge amount of red flags and things haven't changed.

All this talk about saying its OK to have a monopoly in the name of convenience... I hope it's just the lazy gamers in their cheeto-dust covered fortresses of solitude that think this way. Monopolies are certainly never OK and that is why there is an extensive amount of laws in all sorts of countries around the world that abolish them in as many forms as they can. If you truly believe a monopoly is OK, you're what's wrong with this country and you live in a fantasy world.

Steam certainly has a huge amount of room for improvement and it will take another big dog like EA to bring that about.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

You're entitled to your opinion, I'm entitled to mine.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

You also said before that insulting other members is not ok, yet you always call myself and others who buy/play call of duty subhuman or less intelligent or people who bend over. You also believe some of your opinions to be facts. Just had to make sure that, that is known.

Now you want Steam to be a monopoly, you think it would be fine for them to charge $150 for your games? Since you said it's ok for them to be a monopoly. You say people like myself who buy cod ruin games for us, yet you would be fine with a single company dominating the digital market?

I for one don't care. Competition is good, if it means steam will have even more sales/better sales then woohoo as I also like to have my games in one area, but honestly if Origin is having better deals/better games then I will have no problem using that. I don't get the big deal, honestly you can just tell it to not start up when windows starts, I don't even know I have it installed as I never even see it(no tasks of it either). Only time I see it is when I turn it on and use it, which is when I want to play a game from there. So seriously what is the big deal?

 

[Shalafi]

Doesn't change the fact that the opinion is deeply flawed. Selfish, ill thought out.

*shrugs* Some people will agree with my stance, others won't. I don't really care. My opinion isn't always popular, it does however, often tend to be the right one.

 

[rampantandroid]

Steam has terrible customer support. If I recall correctly, there isn't even a number you can call. To get assistance you have to fill out this annoying little form and wait for an e-mail, and then continue to correspond by email. It's the most asinine thing I've ever used and takes up a lot of time. I first discovered that I couldn't call anywhere to get ahold of Valve/Steam way back in 2005ish or so. For me, this sent up a huge amount of red flags and things haven't changed.

All this talk about saying its OK to have a monopoly in the name of convenience... I hope it's just the lazy gamers in their cheeto-dust covered fortresses of solitude that think this way. Monopolies are certainly never OK and that is why there is an extensive amount of laws in all sorts of countries around the world that abolish them in as many forms as they can. If you truly believe a monopoly is OK, you're what's wrong with this country and you live in a fantasy world.

Steam certainly has a huge amount of improvement and it will take another big dog like EA to bring that about.

+1 Glad to see someone who is sane.

Again, in past we all had (have?) shelves FULL of discs for games and other software. Being able to access 200 games in 4 places as opposed to having a shelf full of all your games to me sounds like an improvement.

If you want 3rd party, you need to go third party. If you want to say Steam is OK, you need to then accept Origin and any other system is also OK.

If you want all games in one place, you need to encourage developers to enable a proper scenario of something like XFire that won't suck, and can view all servers out there, and then launch a game with a specific server in the launch options to centralize your friends list. You need to encourage all the DDs to put games into the Windows Game center to launch them all from one place.

 

[Shalafi]

You also said before that insulting other members is not ok, yet you always call myself and others who buy/play call of duty subhuman or less intelligent or people who bend over. You also believe some of your opinions to be facts. Just had to make sure that, that is known.

I certainly never called anybody on this forum subhuman. I refer to the game as Call of Derpy because it doesn't require any sort of special intelligence to play well, which is the opposite of challenging. You don't have to like my opinion, but that's my opinion.

My opinions are deeply rooted in the factual.

Now you want Steam to be a monopoly, you think it would be fine for them to charge $150 for your games? Since you said it's ok for them to be a monopoly. You say people like myself who buy cod ruin games for us, yet you would be fine with a single company dominating the digital market?

Steam does not charge $150 for a game, the prices are set by the publishers, and Steam prices them accordingly.

I for one don't care. Competition is good, if it means steam will have even more sales/better sales then woohoo as I also like to have my games in one area, but honestly if Origin is having better deals/better games then I will have no problem using that. I don't get the big deal, honestly you can just tell it to not start up when windows starts, I don't even know I have it installed as I never even see it(no tasks of it either). Only time I see it is when I turn it on and use it, which is when I want to play a game from there. So seriously what is the big deal?

I would rather all my DD games belong to one game library, with a reliable known entity such as Steam over some pile of crap called Origin by EA, who doesn't have the best reputation amongst the PC community, and rightfully so, yet people continue buying into them like sheeple who can't control themselves, have no concept of self-restraint, and do not see how their buying decisions affect the big picture.

Notice I never mention Direct2Drive or Impulse? There's a reason for that. They do exist, they've tried to give Steam a run for their money and they have failed.

Steam isn't perfect, but it gets 99 percent of things done the right way, and it's owned by Valve, a great company who does shit focused on us gamers.

EA is the exact opposite, they are beholden to the bean counters and shareholders.

Valve has a profit motive just like EA does, but they actually give a shit about their customers, whereas, EA does not.

So it's easy for me to decide where my dollars go, I vote with my wallet.

If you support EA and their POS Origin software, then by all means buy Battlefield 3 and install Origin on your computers, I'm absolutely certain my opinion won't change your mind, nor is it intended to. But remember, if other publishers take note, and we end up 5 years from now having 73 different DD services, all equally shitty and Steam becomes reduced to a shell of it's former self.

I'll still be here to say,"I told you so, now when are you gonna learn that I'm always right?"

 

[cageymaru]

What I really hate is that BF3 is dividing the PC community over which interface should be required to run the game. I think EA forgot that by making it an Origin exclusive and dividing the PC community, they are also dictating the resources that will be allocated to indie and large developers alike in the future.

If it flops on the PC, then expect less PC games in the future. If it does well expect more PC game variety. Sales of blockbusters from well known developers influence the amount of investing that others will get just like the movie industry. I think pride is going to be their downfall.

Oh and my DD service of choice is Amazon. Steam is great when I have internet, but Amazon always works. Just my $0.02.

 

[WorldExclusive]

I agree, firmly, it's better to have Steam as a monopoly, because all my games are already on there, so are my friends.

How is "my" good for the majority?

Everyone isn't like you so they want their own choice. Choices are good, no choice is bad.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

If Valve was a monopoly they would increase the prices quite fast as no one could compete with them.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

*shrugs* Some people will agree with my stance, others won't. I don't really care. My opinion isn't always popular, it does however, often tend to be the right one.

There's been a lot of people recently hating on those who speak ill of Origin, you only need to look at the BF3 thread where all the origin fanboys are getting the smackdown from the mods for talking shit to everyone.

It's certainly not a popular opinion especially with those who hold BF3 in such high regard, but I agree with you 100%, generally speaking I don't think monopolies are OK but some stuff like facebook and steam actually make it very handy for users by putting everything in one place. For people that have steam already Origin is just 100% redundant, you're just increasing user hassle, decreasing user experience, increasing system load and increasing the chance of technical issues, especially conflicts between the 2, and when 10 other digital platforms all come along in a few years it will just get worse.

It's best just to pick a platform and stick to it, Origin or Valve, it really doesn't matter, but as long as I have all my games with Valve i'll be sticking to their service.

 

[Shalafi]

How is "my" good for the majority?

Everyone isn't like you so they want their own choice. Choices are good, no choice is bad.

I never said I was interested in what's good for you. I've stated over and over again that you are more than free to vote with your wallet, and when you vote with your dollars, that tells gaming companies EXACTLY what you are willing to tolerate, or what you won't tolerate.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

Origin fanboys, so that is what those who support it are called now? But people who love steam to death and think Origin is Satan himself are just arguing?

Bah all this fanboyism, its disgusting to be honest. I like both Steam and Origin, maybe favor steam a bit more because I know it, but still I am not gonna just beat down another service that will make Steam have better prices/sales or do something to compete with it. Competition = lower prices = profit to end users

@ Fail. So you tell us not to bend over so that YOU can have a good experience yet you don't give a shit about our opinions/interests. Wow dude you are great at getting support for your ideas. You're quite selfish.

 

[PornoSatan]

I personally like Blizzard's way with their games. They don't pretend to compete with Steam, and they don't install any DRM. You simply log onto your battle.net account, download your game, and get on with business. In a perfect world, I'd want Steam to be exactly like this, but not all of us get what we want. Regardless, when it comes to DRM services, I think Steam is best. They've been a monopoly for YEARS and haven't done anything truly bad. They offer weekend deals, holiday deals, package deals, and so on. They've earned their right to a monopoly in my eyes. If they turn bad, then customers will strive for something different and Steam will die out, until then, I'm happy.

 

[Derangel]

Monopolies are NEVER good for the consumer. The only person that benefits from a monopoly is the company that has it and no one else. Competition makes all parties work harder to keep their customers, well at least that is the general idea behind competition. I think it's foolish to trust any one company with owning an entire way to purchase and play games, especially when that way is going to be the only way to get games within the next ten to fifteen years. That said Origin has a long way to go before it's competitive.

 

[Derangel]

I personally like Blizzard's way with their games. They don't pretend to compete with Steam, and they don't install any DRM. You simply log onto your battle.net account, download your game, and get on with business. In a perfect world, I'd want Steam to be exactly like this, but not all of us get what we want. Regardless, when it comes to DRM services, I think Steam is best. They've been a monopoly for YEARS and haven't done anything truly bad. They offer weekend deals, holiday deals, package deals, and so on. They've earned their right to a monopoly in my eyes. If they turn bad, then customers will strive for something different and Steam will die out, until then, I'm happy.

Battle.net itself is DRM with SC2 and Diablo 3.

 

[WorldExclusive]

I never said I was interested in what's good for you.

But you keep stating your preference as a reason for Steam to dominate the DD industry.
Respectfully, your preference doesn't matter to anyone but yourself. To build an argument on what "you" like and use doesn't hold water.

Look at your posts, they are littered with "my" and "I".

 

[PornoSatan]

Battle.net itself is DRM with SC2 and Diablo 3.

Good point, I was thinking about primarily their older titles. If the service/distribution method was similar to the way Blizzard handles their older games where you just tie a game to your account, and download/play it whenever without any extra software. I hate the battle.net 2.0 service itself with a passion, thanks for reminding me.

 

[Shalafi]

I personally like Blizzard's way with their games. They don't pretend to compete with Steam, and they don't install any DRM. You simply log onto your battle.net account, download your game, and get on with business. In a perfect world, I'd want Steam to be exactly like this, but not all of us get what we want. Regardless, when it comes to DRM services, I think Steam is best. They've been a monopoly for YEARS and haven't done anything truly bad. They offer weekend deals, holiday deals, package deals, and so on. They've earned their right to a monopoly in my eyes. If they turn bad, then customers will strive for something different and Steam will die out, until then, I'm happy.

I agree, Blizzard is doing it quite well, in fact, I do have all my Blizzard keys on their store, but however, since the success of WoW, I think they have gotten progressively worse.

SC2 is a great game, but it was hardly necessary to split it into a trilogy.

Diablo 3 will more than likely be a good game, however, I don't like all the microtransactions they have planned for it.

If D3 were free to play, I'd support it, but because they want to tack on MT's on top of the $60 price tag for the game itself, no thanks.

 

[Plague_Injected]

Monopolies are NEVER good for the consumer. The only person that benefits from a monopoly is the company that has it and no one else. Competition makes all parties work harder to keep their customers, well at least that is the general idea behind competition. I think it's foolish to trust any one company with owning an entire way to purchase and play games, especially when that way is going to be the only way to get games within the next ten to fifteen years. That said Origin has a long way to go before it's competitive.

This.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

How is SC2 a good game? It is SC1 with a couple of new units and a few abilities changed, and cost $60 and had a cheap $100 collectors edition. It is still mostly the same concept of SC1.

 

[Katalysis]

I own BC2 from Origin. Guess how many times I have even turned on Origin? Aside from downloading and installing BC2, NEVER. It does not run in the taskbar, it doesn't sit there and have to be on like Steam.

I'd guess 95% of the people bitching about Origin have never even used it.

 

[PornoSatan]

I agree, Blizzard is doing it quite well, in fact, I do have all my Blizzard keys on their store, but however, since the success of WoW, I think they have gotten progressively worse.

SC2 is a great game, but it was hardly necessary to split it into a trilogy.

Diablo 3 will more than likely be a good game, however, I don't like all the microtransactions they have planned for it.

If D3 were free to play, I'd support it, but because they want to tack on MT's on top of the $60 price tag for the game itself, no thanks.

I agree definately. There was a point I think up through the beginning of WOTLK when even WoW was still "pure". But since has been an experiment on social networking.

 

[Derangel]

How is SC2 a good game? It is SC1 with a couple of new units and a few abilities changed, and cost $60 and had a cheap $100 collectors edition. It is still mostly the same concept of SC1.

I always love when people bitch about that and yet they can never explain exactly what Blizzard should have changed compared to SC1.

 

[Shalafi]

If you guys want to argue about being selfish, dude, if I'm selfish, what does that make all the sheeple who went out and bought map packs for CoD games, bought up ALL the DLC for their games, and bought games day 1 only to find out they were paying to beta test a game? Let alone those people who vote with their gaming dollars to support consolized PC games, Day 1 DLC, stripped down sequels, and games catering to the lowest common denominator?

Your gaming dollars consistently support these kind of stupid DRM schemes like Ubisoft and EA have both implemented.

Those people are far more selfish than I will ever be, they have accepted an unending stream of mediocrity in exchange for what exactly? Stagnation. Stagnation in our platform, we have not seen progress on the PC gaming platform in a few years now.

Why is this? Because I'm selfish? No, I'm nowhere near as selfish as those people.

In fact, if everybody followed in my footsteps, PC gaming would be far better than it is now, instead, we're left with a wasteland of mediocrity, untill games like Deus EX: HR come along once every few years to give it a shot in the arm that lasts all of a few weeks.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

If Valve was a monopoly they would increase the prices quite fast as no one could compete with them.

The more I think about it the more I realise that having a monopoly with digital distribution is kind of stupid anyway, there's not much valve can do to leverage a hold on the market, anyone can introduce a DD platform easily and undercut valve if they were out of control, this isn't like traditional business where monopolies can maintain their own lead so easily.

There's also international laws against that sort of stuff anyway, Microsoft keeps getting the smackdown every time they try and inch out the competition.

 

[PornoSatan]

How is SC2 a good game? It is SC1 with a couple of new units and a few abilities changed, and cost $60 and had a cheap $100 collectors edition. It is still mostly the same concept of SC1.

That was done on purpose though. It was their intention to keep the feel of Starcraft 1 so they could preserve the franchise itself as an e-sport. Starcraft is a legendary game, and they didn't want to risk doing any fundamental changes that might break its reputation.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

If you guys want to argue about being selfish, dude, if I'm selfish, what does that make all the sheeple who went out and bought map packs for CoD games, bought up ALL the DLC for their games, and bought games day 1 only to find out they were paying to beta test a game? Let alone those people who vote with their gaming dollars to support consolized PC games, Day 1 DLC, stripped down sequels, and games catering to the lowest common denominator?

Your gaming dollars consistently support these kind of stupid DRM schemes like Ubisoft and EA have both implemented.

Those people are far more selfish than I will ever be, they have accepted an unending stream of mediocrity in exchange for what exactly? Stagnation. Stagnation in our platform, we have not seen progress on the PC gaming platform in a few years now.

Why is this? Because I'm selfish? No, I'm nowhere near as selfish as those people.

In fact, if everybody followed in my footsteps, PC gaming would be far better than it is now, instead, we're left with a wasteland of mediocrity, untill games like Deus EX: HR come along once every few years to give it a shot in the arm that lasts all of a few weeks.

I love you <3

 

[piscian18]

Bad analogy
If your going to call steam facebook and origin google+ then it's more like

facebook has all your friends on and hot women friend you and send you naked pictures
Google+ removed half your friends and said you can only talk to them on Google+ now

I don't really care enough to talk to those friends I lost that I'd bother to dick around with another friend app. I'll keep using facebook cause well..naked chicks.

There's actually benefits to steam. Steam was an app built to bring various gaming communities a home and allow Valve a way to make patching, drm, and DD an easier and smoother transition. Then the store came NOT BEFORE. Now you get great game deals(in some cases the best.) and sometimes FREE. You support indie gaming developers and you have a solid chat/voice client.

Origins single function is to funnel more money to EA. There's literally nothing more to it. there was never any "Hey EA wants to be a part of the gaming community. Here's how you can benefit by hanging out with us." they're not even sorry about it. "Fuck you, you wanna play game you install this you bitch."

It's like when a doctor has to give you a shot.

A Steam doctor keeps you distracted and it's over before you even notice then they give you a kickass rootbeer flavored sucker so at least you got something out of it.
An EA doctor threatens to kill your fucking dog if you don't stay still while he jabs you with a 10 gauge needle over and over with one hand and digs through your pockets for money with the other.

Either way you're getting a shot but at least you're not traumatized when Steam does it.

 

[Derangel]

Bad analogy
If your going to call steam facebook and origin google+ then it's more like

facebook has all your friends on and hot women friend you and send you naked pictures
Google+ removed half your friends and said you can only talk to them on Google+ now

I don't really care enough to talk to those friends I lost that I'd bother to dick around with another friend app. I'll keep using facebook cause well..naked chicks.

There's actually benefits to steam. Steam was an app built to bring various gaming communities a home and allow Valve a way to make patching, drm, and DD an easier and smoother transition. Then store came NOT BEFORE. Now you get great game deals(in some cases the best.) and sometimes FREE. You support indie gaming developers and you have a solid chat/voice client.

Origin single function is to funnel more money to EA. There's literally nothing more to it. there was never any "Hey EA wants to be a part of the gaming community. Here's how you can benefit by hanging out with us."

It's like when a doctor has to give you a shot. A steam doctor keeps you distracted and it's over before you even notice then they give you a kickass rootbeer flavored sucker so at least you got something out of it. and EA doctor threatens to kill your fucking dog if you don't stay still while he jabs you with a 10 gauge needle over and over with one hand and digs through your pockets for money with the other.

Either way your getting a shot but at least youre not traumatized when Steam does it.

Except your anology has no basis in reality. Oh wait I forgot EA is "teh devil" while Valve is a perfect fucking angel and incapable of ever doing wrong. Sorry continue your amusing rant.

 

[PornoSatan]

I used that analogy mainly because Google+ is quite new, like Origin, and the fact that it might become a hassle to switch to Google+ because everyone's friends are still on Facebook, just like everyone's games are already on Steam. Don't try to think too far into it.

I personally hate Facebook and any other social network with a passion. I like Steam though. They've earned my respect.