The following is directed entirely to the people who think that if they repeat something enough times, it will somehow gain more validity. It is by no means meant to insult or aggravate the people who can keep a cool head and be civil in expressing their opinions, regardless of whether they support Steam integration or not.
Ok, this is going around in circles so let's summarize.
1) A few uninformed people post inaccurate stuff about Steam.
2) A few Steam fans get their panties in a twist.
3) Lot's of other people on both sides of the argument who have something valid to say, can't get their point across because they are caught in the above stupid crossfire.
Instead of realizing that your opinion is not shared by everyone, some of you are going around brandishing e-peens the size of the Eiffel tower, ridiculing people with a different opinion and generally taking pleasure on forcing something you like on a bunch of people that will see absolutely no benefit from it, because it somehow makes you feel superior on the internets. You gain a big fat
NOTHING, sweet f**k all, from forcing this on others and neither do the developers from having a bunch of unhappy customers and a near 20% drop in sales, but hey, why let common sense interfere with being on a good roll point-scoring on the forums
I'm generally a poster who can exercise some self-moderation and not fly off the leash at other people's necks but some of you guys (you know who you are) are both getting ridiculously zealot-like and making me dislike steam even more by association with your take it or leave it attitudes. In layman's terms
you are of no help whatsoever, even in promoting your own opinion and favorite platform. If this was how Steam fans behaved, then i would hope i could turn turn off my buddylist, voice chat and whatever community feature they have implemented right off the bat, so i wouldn't have to talk to them when playing a game to have some fun and relax.
But you see, i happen to realize that not all of Steam's fans are as narrow-minded and petty as that vocal minority of zealots among the generally reasonable majority of Steam's advocates so i will refrain from tarnishing the rest of them with the brush you've chosen for yourself...which is exactly what you lack the common decency to do when you label everyone who is not interested in Steam as backwards grandpas playing sims in their basements while shut out from the rest of the world. Is this enough of a taste of your own medicine, language and manners or would you like me to continue?
And now that i got this off my chest and had the chance to vent some steam (ha! see what i did there?
), let's take a calmer look at what is such an easy concept to understand yet you refuse to do so (yes, refuse, because i sincerely doubt that something so simple is beyond the intellect of the average forum member here).
If you look at what the level headed, non-bashing people who don't want to use Steam have been saying all along, you'll see that
a) they are not really making any judgement about the quality of steam because they have limited personal experience (mostly negative, which is why they don't want to use it), they are just making an assumption that applies on the impact it will have on their
personal gaming habits.
Their Personal gaming habits, as in
not yours.
b) they don't want to have to learn about Steam because
c) clear indication has been provided, coming from official sources to boot, that Steam doesn't bring anything new to the game, so it could very well be optional instead of mandatory
d) taking into account all of the above, they have questioned your motives to support forcing the use of this platform on the rest, when it's clear the game could function without it and sell better if both a steam and a non-steam version were marketed.
To this final point,
NONE of you have managed to provide a satisfactory answer. So, I take there's not one then.
Don't go twisting things and telling me i don't want them to make money or how they earn more by selling through Steam, because that's exactly
not what we have been saying. Of course, the rabid anti-steam hatred that some other people display makes it all the easier for you to discount our concerns by conveniently lumping us together with them, when it's clear that you have more in common among yourselves, if not in the point you are trying to push then certainly in the way you are going about trying to achieve it: by shouting a lot, orchestrating personal attacks on people who don't share your opinion and doing your damned best to keep opinions polarized and the community divided, instead of providing any semblance of a valid argument that could lead to a compromise that would benefit the greater part of the community and the developers alike. But seriously, who can blame you when you can just focus all your energy on making people accept what you say as truth no matter the cost and forcing everyone to use something that benefits you, in a way that benefits
ONLY you
We have no problem at all if it's sold on Steam and you want to buy there, as long as we have a different version. And for the icing on the cake, you can't even order it on Steam yet yourselves and you'll have to also use Solidshield DRM on top of Steam. You are getting shafted too but you're so glad that someone else is also, that you just don't realize it (have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude).
I'll say it one more time
selling on Steam=good and we agree with it
selling ONLY versions with Steam bundled into them=bad, because apparently it causes 1 in 5 people not to buy the game on release if at all, cutting into the profits and long term expansion plans of the series
I'd say that if some of you still don't get it i can get my 5 year old nephew to bust out the crayons and draw you some pretty pictures, but we already established that a certain few don't get it simply because they don't want to
So, the way it will go from here on out is that those who don't like Steam and yet decide to buy the game will accompany you, voicing their complaints with the added say a legitimate customer has in the matter until it is either bypassed by the community, made optional by an official patch, or a commitment is made to have it as an option and not as a requirement for the next installment in the series.
It does annoy enough people to resurface later on and they will campaign for an option to turn it off just like any other customer of this title will ask for his favorite feature to be included at some point. I hope you like hearing about it gentlemen because it's not going away. Have a nice day