Steam, D2D . . . what's the deal?

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marella152

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As the title says . . . what's the deal with these sites? Are they worth it?
I've been looking into them the past week or so and I don't know what to think.
I see that they are a whole lot cheaper. But I have been reading reviews that are not so great. People are saying that they spy on your activity and steal bandwidth. They charge you for unnecessary patches and things.

What do you guys think?
 
Steam is the greatest thing to ever happen, ever. I don't know what mouthbreather told you they charge for patches and steal bandwidth, Steam's great.

D2D on the other hand is pretty eh. They alter some games to require you to download patches from them, I had a hell of a time getting Company of Heroes to work. However, that is not all games and they run some decent sales.

And the last digital distribution service you probably heard of is Impulse. It's a lot like steam, but with a smaller library and less amazing sales, but still great as a service.
 
It's always good to ask around but I've been using Steam since it first came out, it was included with Half Life 2 in 2004 :cool:. I initially was very upset that I would have to install more DRM software since I had major problems with StarForce :bomb:DRM'd games but after a while I grew to love it. The only downside is that you can't resell the games but if you wait for sales you can get some awesome deals.

If you are worried about resource usage just uncheck automatically start Steam with Windows, and I have never had a problem with it "spying" on me :roll:. Of course Steam cannot be used to play illegal copies of games since it does verify your game key. If you are really interested in using Steam to play digital games PM me!
 
Hey,

At first when STEAM came out I was very upset. I had purchased HL2 for a family members that was in the service. I bought a retail copy of it. I shipped for that person as a holiday gift the year it came out. He was not able to install because he had to be online to install it. That was enough for me at the time to not mess with STEAM for a long time.

I wrote them and emailed them a very very very angry letter.

About 1 year later he returned to the states. Installed, liked it. Called me up and ask me to jump back in so we could game together. He also told me that that gave him 5 free games and apologize to him about the issue he had back in 04.

So with that I was cool with them again.

I don't buy things from them unless they are on sale or give out games for free via promotion.

So far they are great though. I love their support of small time developers.

Much of what that person told you is a lie though. The only thing they record with your games played, hours your played and game stats (achievements) you acquired (and sometimes specs if you sign up for it)....if that bothers you then don't use it but I hope you are not a console gamer because what they actually record on that is much much worst.

D2D - I only use them for their free deals. NEVER purchased anything from them.

You should be fine getting your gaming on with STEAM - Happy Holidays.
 
Steam is great and the deals offered are one of the main reasons I use it. It's also a great platform for indie games that you would otherwise never see in a retail store. I also frequent gamersgate. It may not work like steam in certain aspects but the different genres and deals are just as amazing. It's also very user friendly.

Never used Impulse, D2D or Gog but am willing to give it a try if there is a deal on something I may want.
 
Steam is one of the best, if not the best digital services available on the web today. What "reviews" are you reading? I've been a steam member now since Dec 5, 2004, with zero problems. They have never charged for a patch or update. I don't know where you got that information from OP.
 
IMO, as far as digital downloads are concerned, GOG is probably the best because there is nothing running in the background and you don't need to check in like with Steam (and Steam's offline mode isn't as good as it should be). Steam is next because they have so much to choose from and have great sales. Impulse, is like a mixture of GOG (no client running in the background) and Steam, and I like it too. I don't like D2D so much because you often have to use updates specifically made for the D2D version of the games they sell. I've never tried Gamersgate, so I'm clueless on how that service is.

The thing about digital downloads you need to know about and be cool with, is that once you buy a game, it's yours forever. You can't resell or give it away. (although I think Impulse says they're working on that problem with their Goo DRM). And another thing is, if the service that sold you the game goes out of business, you'll probably have problems with re-downloading the game. That's the main reason why I only buy games during cheapass sales (not losing that much)! So, if you're ok with that, digital downloads are great.
 
I've been a loyal Steam fan ever since I picked up Half Life 2, with all the kinks being worked out of the system. But, that is not to say it's devoid of problems.

For example, when major Valve games are released, the Steam servers are bogged down like a Mofo for the next day or two. This isn't a problem if you pre-purchased you game (at a 10% most of the time), and preloaded your game.

Also, this isn't really to the fault of Steam but rather my own internet setup, but you could recieve a fairly interesting disconnect error that could lock you out of your games. The way I got around to this personally was physically disconnecting my USB wireless key, but I've been told that shutting off my wireless router during my FIOS downtime would have fixed the issue too.

That being said, nobody can really rival Steam on the game selection. When Microsoft released their Digital Download service for the PC, they're trying to take Steam down, and that in itself is a massive compliment to the power of the service.

GoG is a good service. No DRM, and you could make unlimited back-ups of your game. A big recommend for those craving the best games of the yester-years.

Impulse is okay, but like mentioned above it has a smaller game library than Steam.

The only game I got from D2D was Assassin's Creed during their 5 year anniversary sale. Kinda a clunky way to purchase games, but for the price I paid for the game, I didn't mind much.
 
I always forget GoG. Not that I should but they are a good service to use for some old classics.

Personally, I have long abandoned CDs/DVDs/Floopys - I am all digital since 2005. After awhile I started to run out of space for my game collection. I also collect books so the games had to go. I do everything by DL or USB...even install OS.

I know a great many friends and family can not make this jump yet because they want to hold something in their hand when they purchase but once you do it. It's just so much easier. No need to look for NO-CD patches. No concerns over scratched disc. And a lot of times the companies that are distributing them make it easy to patch and patch old games to run on new systems.
 
Steam SAVED PC gaming. It has so many developers on there now, and its a great service. Their sales are the best on Steam. I got the Orange Box, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and even Mass Effect for $9.99 each. Many indie developers are starting to rely on Steam now also.
 
Another note on Steam:

Steam/Valve is currently rolling out their Steam Cloud technology, which stores a copy (someone tell me if I'm wrong) of your saved games to their cloud servers, allowing you access to your saved games and even configurations across multiple computers.

Really useful for a guy like me, who has a dedicated gaming PC in the living room and gaming on my work laptop when I'm on the road/at the university. I could pick up where I left off in Torchlight from my gaming PC on the road with my laptop, and finish the current dungeon on my pc when I get home that night.
 
Steam : Huge Fan. Not only do I enjoy their selection, their year-end deals are pretty good. I picked up the THQ game pack a few weeks back for $49.99.
Pack List:

Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Frontlines™: Fuel of War™
Full Spectrum Warrior
Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers
Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
Red Faction
Red Faction Guerrilla
Red Faction II
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Saints Row 2
Titan Quest
Titan Quest - Immortal Throne
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Gold Edition
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War - Soulstorm
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II

Also, if shit hits the fan with your PC, you can download steam and re-download your games.

The only drawback is you can't sell/give away your copies (from what I've seen so far).

D2D : Didn't like it. I agree with the comments above about their special patches for games. It made patching games a pain. I had to wait an extra day for them to patch CoD4. Steam will automatically distribute patches to your game.

GoG : Not sure about - will have to check this out
 
[quote name='necrojustice']Steam >> GoG >> Impulse >> Gamersgate >> D2D[/QUOTE]

Sounds about right. I do like that I don't have to run Impulse to play SoaSE. But on the other side I love being online with Steam. The friends list and community has been great, and it's always easy to find people to play online games with.

Most people that badmouth steam are still mad about when it first launched, when there was no friend list and there were lots of problems. But it's been the best thing going for a couple years now.

And just check out the Holiday Sale right now. :hot:
 
[quote name='necrojustice']Steam >> GoG >> Impulse >> Gamersgate >> D2D[/QUOTE]

I'm a Steam convert, but I'd still give the nod to GoG. Isn't their model what "we" all want in a digital games distribution service: DRM free, cheap, persistant and old. OK, maybe not the old part.
 
This holiday season I got to taste a little bit of Steam, D2D, EA Store and Amazon Digital Download. I've had Steam in the past ONLY from the requirement of having to install it for HL2; however, they've had some amazing deals the last week that I've bit on. D2D was a breeze to use once the installer was working (picked up ME). Amazon was even easier to use than D2D (picked up Far Cry 2). Finally, I used the EA Store to pickup the ME add-on; did not like the EA Store.

I would have to say that Steam is my least favorite (interface aside) solely because I have to "phone home" to play the games; however, they do have AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING deals. I suppose this is necessary due to piracy, but if I translated this to buying MP3s, it would be a nightmare if I had to "phone home" every time I wanted to listen to a CD.

If Amazon would get a better selection, I could see them becoming my favorite; nice and simple --- select, buy, download and play. End of story. :)
 
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