Pandaxclone2
Pokemon Sprite Artist Hobbyist
Towns Folk
Warning: A big wall of text lies beyond. It is not for the faint of heart or quick to bore. Or you can just read the parts in red.
Let me paint the situation. I've been having a blast with Terraria on the 3DS ever since I got it in September this year. It's a very enjoyable, expansive and long game. That being said though the ports for this game has its drawbacks; not everything in the vanilla (PC) will end up on ports of this game. That's fine, it's understandable that small changes have to be made and other technical stuff forces changes in these games. It goes the other way too; the ports have unique stuff which isn't on the PC version.
The problem arises when huge chunks of the PC game (namely updates) aren't present in the ports. For the most part the current-gen consoles will catch up to what's been added now eventually, but underpowered system like the 3DS will just simply never catch up due to using up whatever resources the system has to offer.
So keeping that in mind I decided to purchase this game at its source: PC. The problem with that however is that you can only purchase it through Steam. Now before you decide to bring out your pitchforks and defend Steam's honour, let me clarify; I'm not here to debate Steam as a platform. All you need to know is that I despise using it or even having it present on my computer. 'Nuff said, moving on.
Not wanting to submit to that, I was reminded that a few years prior, when the game was nothing more to me than occasionally seeing it from time to time in stores; they sold physical retail copies of the game and it was a collector's edition to boot! So today I went down to my local store, bought a copy and brought it back. Peeling the price and bar code stickers off I immediately noticed the glaring "Steam Powered" logo pasted on there.
My mind instantly thinks back to the first time I encountered this years ago; putting in my "Half-Life 2: Episode 1" disc into the computer, only to be met with a program that basically states, "You need Steam in order to download the contents this disc promised you, and will constantly need it present on your computer to even use the game whenever you want."Admittedly at the time I didn't know you could install 98% of the game straight from the disc if you turn off the internet for that period, but I digress.
The big issue here was that a game disc that I bought, expecting the content to be there ready for installation without any dependencies beyond just requiring my computer, was telling me "thanks for your money, now pointlessly waste your internet to get your game." What?
This is exasperated further by the fact that I was on mobile internet at the time, so not wasting my internet data on unnecessary downloads was a very big deal back to me then. Being the minority of the group since everyone and their mother have the internet though, there was little I could do but shelf the game away to collect dust and take space.
TL;DR: I wanted to buy PC Terraria but didn't want to buy it through Steam. Thus I bought the Collector's Edition disc with the intention of installing it directly, only to be forced to use Steam anyway lest my copy winds up inert and dusty.
The entire purpose of purchasing Terraria through the physical disc was so I didn't have to deal with Steam, but now I will have no choice but to do so anyway. So I ask you, why even have the discs in the first place? I'm sure there's probably some business reason Valve/Re-Logic did this but from a gamer/consumer's perspective it makes nearly no sense.
Digital distribution is fine as much as physical, debates on which is superior aside. If a game can be bought through both, cool. If it's only digital then I'm willing to oblige if I want the game enough (Steam being the exception), but don't give me the illusion of choice when there is none to begin with. I only bought this disc because it was an option over Steam, so I see no reason why the disc exists in the first place; it offers false hope and lies. You may as well just have kept it at digital purchase then.
Yes, I realise it's my own fault for not researching this further before I purchased it but can you really blame me for expecting common sense that it was the same as most other game discs? This honestly seems like a joke at best and insane troll-logic at worst.
TL;DR: I see no point in making a false second choice of physical media that ultimately leads to the ONLY choice, thus leaving the consumer frustrated, annoyed and with a slightly thinner wallet.
So there's my rant on Steam discs. Do you think Steam discs should be around? Feel free to discuss and vote in the poll above.
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