While I am enthusiastic about consumer choice, I am displeased with the number of competing game management programs out there and their assorted exclusive deals with various games. I am not quite to the point at which I will skip buying a game because it is not available through a given distribution network, but I am tempted, especially when some have online multi-player only through some other service, which may not be the one I used to buy it. I don’t need more log-ins, and I don’t need more networks sending me e-mails and pop-ups to suggest buying more things from them.
As our cell phone using outside the US know, interoperability is not a strong point here. We finally have it with most instant messaging and text services. Come on, team, let’s get our game networks linked up.
: Zubon
Can you elaborate a bit? Is this like Steam vs Impulse? Or like xfire vs raptr? Gamespy vs Steamworks?
All of those at once and more, yes, could be a way of describing the issue.
I am pretty much wedded to Steam – It has its flaws but it works. I have avoided buying games from other online services because I really don’t want to run yet another service in the background (Steam and Xfire are already grumbling at each other in an uneasy truce).
I do very much miss the days of install > straight to game > play.
Now I have to contend with launchers, esoteric updaters, web-based sign-ups, community sites…
Did we actually -gain- anything by having all this extraneous bull?
I say no. I’m still *very* displeased that Steam runs a check for an internet connection for the games that I’ve purchased that *don’t need the friggin’ internet*. Yes, there’s an offline mode, but if Steam itself or the game has an update pending, it *won’t play offline*, even though it should by all rights work perfectly.
There are some benefits that Steam offers over traditional box purchases, but in the balance, I still don’t like it.
Bah I say. BAH. There is quite simply too much attempts at funneling me to check out this company’s site because it’s apparently really cool and may reduce my risk of cancer or some other such nonsense.
Unless this is an MMO, you can go shove it if you want me to sign up for another account. I’ll buy your DLC through my Xbox, but you’ll not get anything else from me unless I’m genuinely interested. Fortress of stubbornness!
/Shakefist
A friend picked up a box copy of GTA4 when it came out, and found he had to register for Games For Windows: Live and Rockstar Social Club before he could even get in to a *single player game*. Admittedly it has all those community/media features, but he had zero interest in them.
The whole process was such a pain that rather than go through the whole process again, after reformatting his PC he just binned it.
Dawn of War 2 surprised me too, by requiring both Steam and Games for Windows: Live. Two services that seem to largely provide exactly the same things.
It’s getting a little ridiculous indeed.