Where should I buy SPAZ?

[houser2112]

http://spacepiratesandzombies.com/buyGame.html

I'd buy it from GOG if I could, because with them it's "Give money, get executable", and I'm never reminded of where I purchased the game. No logins, online activations, etc. I know this is not the case with Steam. I know this was not the case with Stardock's Impulse, and I doubt it's gotten better after the GameStop acquisition.

Do any of you have experience buying games from the other vendors on that page?

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Why not by it from Steam? What's the problem with it? I got it via Steam, works just fine and auto-updates the game whenever there is an update, and also allows me to show off my Achievement e-peen which actually doesn't really mean much of anything, but the achievements are there and so I feel compelled to try and get them just 'cause they're THERE.

I mean sure, you have to be logged in to Steam to play the game, but why is that a problem? Is there something dastardly and evil about Steam that I'm not aware of? Aside from the fact that their insane Christmas sales made several of my friends spend fucktons of money because so many games were 50%-75% off.

[houser2112]

Because I'm an old school gamer, coming from a time where buying a game meant owning it and being free to do with it as I pleased. I don't like having to ask permission to install and launch my game. I don't like relying on an internet connection to play a game. I'm anti-social, so I don't care what my friends are playing at the time, nor do I care to advertise what I'm playing, or what bullshit achievements they or I have.

I know Steam is relatively benign, and I know I'll probably have to break down at some point if I want to continue with this hobby, but I'm looking to postpone that for as long as possible.

[Sarevok]

I would recommend buying from the SPAZ website. Go to buy and select "Minmax games".

Independent game developers lose some money when you buy from steam. I have nothing against steam but buying it from the main website is best way to show support.

[houser2112]

I would recommend buying from the SPAZ website. Go to buy and select "Minmax games".

If they had made it obvious that buying from Minmax was actually buying from them, I wouldn't have made this query. I would always choose to support the devs directly instead of 3rd party leeches like Valve.

EDIT: I feel kind of stupid that I didn't even notice that Minmax was the devs' company. *sigh*

[Skgoa]

I mean sure, you have to be logged in to Steam to play the game, but why is that a problem?

Let's see:
- The internet is not always available. (e.g. 24h disconnect, problems at the ISP or in my case being to poor for 3G...)
- The Steam client has a tendency to bug out, sometimes making reboots necessary to launch a game.
- Automatic updates means you are locked out of your game until the update is done.
- And then you can't play on your server because it has to be updated, too.
- Steam only sells you the version intended for your country.
- You can't just change your screen name to get a new identity.
- Steam tracks and puplicizes your behaviour.
- Steam sometimes decides that your game files are corrupt and forces you to redownload them.

Steam is a piece of shit. I never had as much hassle with any other software.

[Sarevok]

Steam is also bad towards small developers. They claim to support indie but what they really do is select games they think will make THEM money. There is no process for getting onto steam for a developer, they will contact you. Steam is really like a publisher rather than an app store where everyone can compete equally. On the other hand due to Steam dominating PC sales small developers who don't get picked by Steam have little hope of making money. By buying directly you at least encourage smaller developers to make more games instead of packing up and leaving the game industry altogether for greener shores like banking software or web development. The mentality amongst small developers is quite dire - "you get into Steam or you don't succeed commercially". Anything that helps change this and create true competition and diversity instead of one monolithic corporation dictating what to buy is good.

[houser2112]

Steam is also bad towards small developers. They claim to support indie but what they really do is select games they think will make THEM money. There is no process for getting onto steam for a developer, they will contact you. Steam is really like a publisher rather than an app store where everyone can compete equally. On the other hand due to Steam dominating PC sales small developers who don't get picked by Steam have little hope of making money. By buying directly you at least encourage smaller developers to make more games instead of packing up and leaving the game industry altogether for greener shores like banking software or web development. The mentality amongst small developers is quite dire - "you get into Steam or you don't succeed commercially". Anything that helps change this and create true competition and diversity instead of one monolithic corporation dictating what to buy is good.

Well, I just did my small part to help. Now I just need to wait 6 hours until the rugrat's in bed so I can play it.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Let's see:
- The internet is not always available. (e.g. 24h disconnect, problems at the ISP or in my case being to poor for 3G...)

You can run Steam offline and I had no problems playing games with it when I lost internet for a day and had to do so.

- The Steam client has a tendency to bug out, sometimes making reboots necessary to launch a game.

Can't argue with this, I've had it happen a few times. It's annoying, but then, my laptop often has a habit of bugging out without Steam so I barely notice it by comparison.

- Automatic updates means you are locked out of your game until the update is done.

Automatic updates can be disabled, last I checked?

- And then you can't play on your server because it has to be updated, too.

Not being able to play on servers that aren't using the same version as you is something that routinely happens with online games, regardless of Steam?

- Steam only sells you the version intended for your country.

So do most stores, holy shit, fancy that. Kind of a pain in the ass, yeah, especially for me, since I live in fucking Australia, but there's fuckall chance of my acquiring non-Australian-region versions of games anyway outside of piracy or some other method that is far less easy than Steam.

- You can't just change your screen name to get a new identity.

Uh... you can change your screen name, so I'm not sure what you mean by this, do you want changing your profile name to erase all your previous history? 'Cause it doesn't. But otherwise, you can change it, so... you're just plain wrong on this front, unless I'm mistaking what it is you mean?

- Steam tracks and puplicizes your behaviour.

Your gaming behavior? Yeah, it does... so? I mean, if that bothers you then I guess, sure, it's bad, but I sure as fuck don't care that people can look up on the internet that I played fifty hours of Skyrim and twenty hours of S.P.A.Z. in the last week.

- Steam sometimes decides that your game files are corrupt and forces you to redownload them.

This is actually a legit complaint and one I share, I've had this happen more than a few times in the month or so I've been using it, so it's a major issue.

I don't hate Steam as much as you, I guess? I recognise it's not perfect, but it's a very easy and convenient way of purchasing videogames and also I have friends who have a strange and delightful habit of using Steam to give me free stuff on a whim. Their Christmas sales netted me a good chunk of games.

Apparently bitching about the price of games in Australia can cause American friends to on a whim say "Fuck that! $90!? Here's Skyrim for Christmas." And that's why I don't hate Steam Sorry for all the fucking quote-splitting shit, I guess it just seemed the simplest way to address each point by point complaint.

I would recommend buying from the SPAZ website. Go to buy and select "Minmax games".

If they had made it obvious that buying from Minmax was actually buying from them, I wouldn't have made this query. I would always choose to support the devs directly instead of 3rd party leeches like Valve.

EDIT: I feel kind of stupid that I didn't even notice that Minmax was the devs' company. *sigh*

I guarantee without "leeches" like Steam, many Indie games such as S.P.A.Z. would not sell so well and make such a profit. Steam takes a cut because they distribute and advertise the game and I sure as fuck doubt Minmax begrudges them that, considering how many Steam sales they've gotten, with people who may or may not have known about or purchased the game without Steam advertising it so much.

I agree that wanting to support the developers more is a great thing, and buying directly from them is definitely a good idea if that's what you want, but Steam isn't "bad" towards small developers like this shitfuck Sarevok says. Valve wants to make money, of course, so of course it will only approach Indie developers whose games they think will sell well and are marketable. Holy shit, what else do you expect? Otherwise they'd end up like the X-Box Live Indie Games service which is so chock-full of horrible shit that you're lucky to find a single comptentantly made game in a batch of ten, and people expect you to pay money for that shit. Steam helps indie games sell far more than they often otherwise would. That's a plus in my book. But if the option to buy direct from the dev is there, and you know about it, and already know you want the game? You're correct, there's no reason at all to use Steam to purchase it.

[Stark]

I bought it on whatever they call Impulse these days, which is DRM free and doesn't require a launcher app. Its not very good, though.

[Skgoa]

Let's see:
- The internet is not always available. (e.g. 24h disconnect, problems at the ISP or in my case being to poor for 3G...)

You can run Steam offline and I had no problems playing games with it when I lost internet for a day and had to do so.

Oh. Nice, thanks.

- Automatic updates means you are locked out of your game until the update is done.

Automatic updates can be disabled, last I checked?

And then I can't go online and play with my friends without worrying that I might have missed an update. It's inconvenient.

- And then you can't play on your server because it has to be updated, too.

Not being able to play on servers that aren't using the same version as you is something that routinely happens with online games, regardless of Steam?

Yeah, but normally when you own a server you can be pretty sure you will be able to play on it, if you don't do anything to change anything.

- Steam only sells you the version intended for your country.

So do most stores, holy shit, fancy that. Kind of a pain in the ass, yeah, especially for me, since I live in fucking Australia, but there's fuckall chance of my acquiring non-Australian-region versions of games anyway outside of piracy or some other method that is far less easy than Steam.

Sucks to be you, but for me this is a big drawback to Steam. I don't like playing badly dubbed/sensored versions.

- You can't just change your screen name to get a new identity.

Uh... you can change your screen name, so I'm not sure what you mean by this, do you want changing your profile name to erase all your previous history? 'Cause it doesn't. But otherwise, you can change it, so... you're just plain wrong on this front, unless I'm mistaking what it is you mean?

I want to have several profiles at the same time. So that e.g. I don't get discriminated against due to my place of residence.

- Steam tracks and puplicizes your behaviour.

Your gaming behavior? Yeah, it does... so? I mean, if that bothers you then I guess, sure, it's bad, but I sure as fuck don't care that people can look up on the internet that I played fifty hours of Skyrim and twenty hours of S.P.A.Z. in the last week.

Nice for you. I do care.

I don't hate Steam as much as you, I guess? I recognise it's not perfect, but it's a very easy and convenient way of purchasing videogames and also I have friends who have a strange and delightful habit of using Steam to give me free stuff on a whim. Their Christmas sales netted me a good chunk of games.

Yeah, I use Steam because it has many great features. It's just not the great revolution in game distribution some people make it out to be and it has many issues.

[Thanas]

The offline modus of Steam however is pretty bad if you want to play offline for several times and shut down the PC in between. It then requires a internet connection to restart - at least it does so on my PC.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Sucks to be you, but for me this is a big drawback to Steam. I don't like playing badly dubbed/sensored versions.

Yeah, I can understand that, and agree it would definitely be an improvement if you could purchase different region versions of games.

Your gaming behavior? Yeah, it does... so? I mean, if that bothers you then I guess, sure, it's bad, but I sure as fuck don't care that people can look up on the internet that I played fifty hours of Skyrim and twenty hours of S.P.A.Z. in the last week.

Nice for you. I do care.

Why? This genuinely baffles me. But the option is there in the profile settings to prevent even people on your friends list from viewing your profile. I'm not sure if that would stop Steam from posting your gaming and purchase history to the Community Feed of your friends, though. Common sense says it should, but common sense is sometimes wrong when it comes to shit like this.

Yeah, I use Steam because it has many great features. It's just not the great revolution in game distribution some people make it out to be and it has many issues.

I agree. It's not a revolution, but it's not as awful as I once thought, or as EEEEVIL as Sarevok is trying to paint it. I honestly avoided getting it for years until an online friend said "Do you want Terraria and Bastion?" and then firmly instructed me to get Steam so she could gift them to me.

And I never say no to free stuff. Not usually.

[Skgoa]

I'm a computer scientist and one of my professors was Germany's biggest proponent of data security. So yeah, it's a big deal.

[Lagmonster]

This is something that every kid who graduates to the age where they start engaging service providers, and arguing about them, should eventually realize: Most consumers don't give a shit about the details, they just want to feel happy, and owning something new or popular fulfills that need. This makes people who give a shit about delivery systems, security, economics, the state of the industry, and morality explode in apoplectic fits about the "sheep" who just toss their money at ill-advised services, but those people (the complainers) will always be impotent and the consumers will continue to not give a shit (and even if that's not 100% true, it's certainly the way to bet).

It's a symptom of the agony of choice, really. You have so much goddamn choice where it comes to procuring luxury that certain people will start to think choice is important. This is why "wedding planner" and "game reviewer" are professions.