Why won't Microsoft use steam etc

Why is that Microsoft Games (Halo, Fable, etc) aren't on steam? There losing my business.
I don't buy games for my laptop that require me to cary around a case or easily scratched/lost/broken disk when I'm travelling with my laptop.

 

Microsoft would far rather you buy an Xbox 360 and buy games through that. Microsoft most likely sees Steam as a competitor and does not want to endorse it.

 

because some don,t buy from steam like me

you can hardly patch a steam game with a no steam patch while no-cd patches are quite comon and not illegal as long as you really own a version of the game

also there is rumor that microsoft is working on a microsoft store so why go on steam

 

I own an xbox and buy games for it but it really sucks for travel compared to a laptop..... I'm not anti steam or steam. Just pro not carrying CD/DVD's around.
That will be great if Microsoft builds its own steam, probaly Live marketplace for windows.

I had forgotten you could patch retail games to no longer require the CD/DVD.

I think I will try that for my copy of Need for speed Most wanted that I have kicking around.

 

that's the best way out of it belive me steam will let you down only once when you are far from a wireless connection and you will get why i became anti steam

i do use impulse on the other hand as the games on there are the real deal no added drm just cd free so you can install a game remove impulse scrap it erasse all it's data the game will still work fine

but i prefer far having a retail version cause downloading 3 time the content in a month because you screwed your window install experimenting is hard on the bandwich limit

 

Microsft Live is already an online digital distribution platform that directly competes with Steam. Games for Windows Live is an integrated part of that system and gamers have already decided it sucks. Every exclusive title on Microsoft Live is doomed to utter failure.

 

Yeah I was wondering about trying Fable out, but I think it would be better if I played Fable 1 before I played 3 or 2.

 

Why they didn't release Fable II but will release Fable III for the PC is hard for me to understand. Fable III is much less appealing to me knowing there is a gap in the story as a result of not having played Fab II.

 

Why would they? They want to encourage their own gaming market on Windows. They probably see Steam as a competitor founded by a disgruntled former employee. If you think about it Steam is very much a threat to the Xbox because it offers similar functionality on a much bigger hardware base.

 

I have an xbox, so I could get it for xbox I suppose. I never touch it, but I told myself if I were to pickup an xbox game it would be Castlevania.

 

No-CD/DVD patches aren't always the best solution unless it comes direct from the publisher or developer. Depending on where you find them they can be laced with viruses, worms, or other malicious code. You can also be kicked or banned from servers while using them too.

I used to use the patches, until I started collecting games on steam. But the patches were always a hairy mess, sometimes requiring a full DVD iso in order to get the game to work.

 

Note that at least Halo has an official patch that removes the need to have a CD in the drive. Just update to the latest directly. There are many other official NOCD patches released but they just keep relatively quiet about them. Occasionally some one will notice the NOCD patch in the change log.

 

gaben gaben

 

To be fair, Halo PC was officially patched, to not require a CD, by bungie, iirc. (patch 1.08? find it on the official Halo PC forums on bungie.net).

Halo 2 vista never needed a CD.

Fable, I am not sure about, since I don't play RPGs

 

I feel like this is relevant:

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I installed the windows live for computers. While they do have a number of games (5 pages) they don't seem to have any Microsoft games like Halo or Fable.
It's funny that Microsoft has two divisions competting against each other and I feel that ulitmately we lose.

 

A lot of people on this forum are against Steam for some reason. Most likely they have had problems with it. For me I have never run into any problem. Just don't generalize Steam badly just because you had a bad experience.

 

Steam games are automatically patched. What you're referring to is more a problem with Direct2Drive games. They do require separate patches from mainstream releases and are often not available for days/weeks/months after the regular patch has come out.

Oh, and can you please tell me what law school you graduated from and cite case precedent that shows it's not illegal to use no-cd cracks? kthx

They already have the Games for Windows Live store, which has an extremely limited selection of games. The only thing it was good for was spending the Microsoft points I had leftover in my Xbox Live account when I ditched my 360.

Been there, done that. Now aside from some really old games, I'm almost exclusively on digital distribution. It's so nice not having game boxes cluttering up my computer room.

 

Because they won't bow down to anyone. They think they are the tyrants of the PC World (and they are). They think (or thought) they could come out with a comparable PC Live service and compete with Valve. Thank god that fell flat on its face. They don't want to pay Valve's royalties as they certainly have the infrastructure to release their own games, either in stores or as downloads.

 

lol on the infrastructure part.

MS pays a pretty penny to Level 3, for backbone tied datacenters. Though that is only for XBL and it's servers, afaik.

 

Is that in reply to me? Man, I didn't realize how anti-MS my post came off as sounding. I really don't harbor any ingrained resentment for MS or anything (though you'd never get that impression from the post! ).

And it wouldn't surprise me if MS pays money ("a pretty penny") for hardware assistance. But I think when it comes to software they feel like they can do anything (and should feel like they can given their track record and resources), which was really the driving sentiment behind my last post.

 

i hate steam cuz i have to run it all the time. when playing steam games, hence that's why i dont have it installed.

 

I don't care about Microsoft. They can keep their stuff away from my computer and steam. Oh wait......

I'm kinda anti-steam too, but more anti-microsoft than anything else. They release one of the worst console ports ever made, then blame the low sales of piracy. At least Steam, as distrustful as I am of it, actually does something good for PC gaming.

 

Funny enough I had my first steam related problem this weekend.
I had downloaded/installed modern warefare 2 on steam but never luanched.

Well I was out at my parents in farming country with no internet of any kind insight (since the M17x has no dial up modem) and I couldn't use CODMW2 in offline mode since it hadn't been validated yet or something.

It wasn't a big deal as I just played GTA IV but I could see if your whole game libary went down or the game you really want to play was down it could be very aggreviating.

Microsoft already has a massive amounts of downloads on 360. They have an entire movie hosting/distrubushion service as well as game demos and full games, and game trailers. The only reason I can see them being so limp on computers is that they see them as compettion to xbox.

 

Online activation is a staple with just about any modern PC game (retail or digital). It's hardly a problem intrinsic to Steam.

 

Actually, Half-life 2 was among the first huge games to come up with online activation, by requiring to install steam, then update, to play the game (a very annoying process in my experience, as I didn't have good internet).

So yeah, for me Steam is the culprit of online activation, which, the way I see it, serves no purpose for the customer whatsoever. Steam's other features (which were added later..) are great, though.

That said, I cannot begin to imagine how horrible a Microsoft store would be. And how it would come pre-installed with Windows 8-9 just like Internet Explorer.

 

It may have been the first big game (not really sure?) but software in general was doing it in the mainstream by 2000-2001 (MS, Norton etc...) HL2 was released in 2004. And the online activation imho is a fair trade-off for no disc required to play.

 

Am I the only person who thinks the "online required" complaints about Steam are completely invalid? Given that Steam works perfectly fine offline, I see this complaint as a user error problem. On the flip side, retail games which require the disc are unforgiving and do not offer a "no disc" mode. Not to mention that even retail games require online activation as well.

 

Im with you there and Im a big steam supporter. Microsoft won't use steam for the simple fact they want to make money from their service instead.

 

seems like Microsoft is losing out on money over getting less money then rather than none.

 

Yes, it is just you. Most people admit offline mode isn't perfect, and so the complaints are valid. From a user-perspective, it is often not foreseeable when and where you're going to go offline, so having to prepare Steam for that (i.e. you must have your last login cached) is a usability issue. Steam probably handles it as best as they can to still avoid piracy, but nonetheless it remains a valid complaint.

 

Yes, you are the only person. Steam Offline unfortunately doesn't always work. Most of the time it does, but sometimes it doesn't and then you're stuck not being able to play and of your Steam games, which can be a bummer. Due to Steam's amazing deals I do still buy games from them, but for a full-price (not on sale) game, I prefer Impulse since you can just fire up an Impulse game without having to be connected to the Internet and without even having to have Impulse ready (even if I am online, starting up Steam is annoying because it's so slow compared to just launching a game directly). That said, I rarely buy games that aren't on sale these days, so most of the games I buy do end up being through Steam and at 50% or more off.

Microsoft's newly announced store is browser-based, so (hopefully) it won't have any annoying startup software or online modes required to play the games purchased through it. They also are supposed to have weekly deals, so perhaps the prices will be more attractive than Microsoft's previous online stores. So it's possible I'll buy a game or two through there, just depends on how it works when it's actually released.

 

I had a problem with Steam once where the client would crash at startup. Due to this I had no access to any of my games period. If you ever experience something like that, you might find yourself liking Steam a lot less. It just shows that you really have absolutely no control over your own purchases.