Steam offering From Dust refunds

[Solitude]

Perhaps. Just ironic that Steam is refunding for something that they are.

Of course I'll take Steam. I'll just crack it or use a Steam emulator like with any other game so doesn't make any real difference to me which DRM they use.

It doesn't look like you have tried using Steam. It's an amazing service. Firstly, like Ly said, there's no reason to crack a game since you can play the games offline. Just set your Steam to offline mode and voila, no internet necessary. Steam's specials are out of this world. They've got a game on special every day, plus weekday specials and weekend specials. Then there's the promotional specials and of course specials like the Christmas specials that offer such amazing games at such low prices that you won't know what to buy.

Steam has also recently updated their client to be more network efficient. It's a joy to use. You should try it.

[Buglish]

I almost felt like asking for a refund.

I was on the waves mission and spent hours dropping sand with the sand creation spell. Then just before I finished the stage a stupid fire tree washed onto a beach and set fire to my entire island.
I tried for 1 & 1/5 hours to douse the flames but alas everything burnt to death.

[Prometheus]

I'm afraid I don't understand. Steamworks games (and by Steamworks I mean games that only use Steam as their DRM) can be played offline. Why would you need to crack them if you can just run them in offline mode?

It doesn't look like you have tried using Steam. It's an amazing service. Firstly, like Ly said, there's no reason to crack a game since you can play the games offline. Just set your Steam to offline mode and voila, no internet necessary. Steam's specials are out of this world. They've got a game on special every day, plus weekday specials and weekend specials. Then there's the promotional specials and of course specials like the Christmas specials that offer such amazing games at such low prices that you won't know what to buy.

Steam has also recently updated their client to be more network efficient. It's a joy to use. You should try it.

From what I heard you have to connect every 30 days so it's not much different to any other platform. Either you have internet and may as well connect every time you play the game or you don't and you cannot play any game including steam without cracking it. I know what you are saying here but it sounds just like I have to ask for permission every time I go out but it's still better than not being allowed to go out at all.

Just because it's the best of a bad bunch doesn't make it good. So I'll try it as you suggest and I assume you'll pay for my internet connection because the 5GB I get from Cell C just won't cut it.

[Lycanthrope]

From what I heard you have to connect every 30 days so it's not much different to any other platform. Either you have internet and may as well connect every time you play the game or you don't and you cannot play any game including steam without cracking it. I know what you are saying here but it sounds just like I have to ask for permission every time I go out but it's still better than not being allowed to go out at all.

Just because it's the best of a bad bunch doesn't make it good. So I'll try it as you suggest and I assume you'll pay for my internet connection because the 5GB I get from Cell C just won't cut it.

Steam has localised mirrors in almost all countries, sometimes multiple mirrors (such as in South Africa) which basically lets you download full-speed without any hitches unless your specific ISP has some kind of shaping/throttling policy in effect. Steam grants quick and easy access to downloadable content, gives publishers the comfort of knowing that their IP has a reasonable form of DRM enabled, has multiple specials (as Solitude mentioned) making many games appealing to fence-sitter buyers and all in a neat package that lets you show off your library of games and time spent playing each.

Of course there are other benefits which depend on the game such as achievements (if you're into those), save game and game options storage in the Steam Cloud, game bonus (soundtrack, artbooks, etc) stored in a safe and always available place. And of course, the obvious benefit of never having to worry about damaging your physical disks, especially when buying Steamworks games (retail which activates in Steam).

The thing is, Steam is good. The only major disadvantage is that you cannot resell (trade) your games (which, ironically, is something Steam has been looking into for years, whether or not it would ever bear fruition is yet to be seen).

And obviously Steam isn't much good to people who are on capped accounts unless they buy retail which activates in Steam and disable automatic updates (so that they can obviously update when they want to and are able to).

[Prometheus]

The thing that amazes me is not how the rest of the world with unlimited bandwidth (which is actually only the US) is accepting it but how we actually have people praising it in the most bandwidth starved country in the world.

What amazes me even more is how I then see the same people complaining that they have to wait hours for a game to update before they can play it. Or, as we saw a few days ago, people being too scared to do anything with a game in case their account gets removed and all their games with it. You know, never in history did anyone go out and buy a game only to be disappointed when finding out that it's only half the game. I have also never before seen a non-working game being released to the public. Sure patches have always had their place but these were minor and the thing just worked without it. In fact I have never used a patch where I could notice it having any effect.

If lazy developers releasing incomplete games and relying on mega sized patches is what steam has amounted to then this is bad and steam is to blame for giving complacent developers a tool they are not responsible enough to use correctly. I will rather buy non-steam games and remove any DRM and pirate titles that steam got their grubby paws on from now on if I have to spend money on updating them. Steam is by far the worst DRM ever for me and a lot of other people.