wow... I never thought I'd read so many elitist people in this community. Computer snobs...WOW! Personally I like the Steam platform, if the devs wanted to do it then it would be a major commitment that you couldn't come back from. There are many advantages to being on Steam. It doesn't look like the devs want it to be part of RF2's existence though. At the end of the day... it is their opinion that counts.
Your point is that ISI should put rF2 on Steam so they can capitalize on impulse purchases? Because I think that sounds great. Take the money, use it to hire more employees, and not worry about the "casuals" because they will move on before getting a chance to "ruin" the online experience.
Please don't do this!! Steam sucks. It a pain, its a hog. It's more trouble keeping it working than most games.
Amazing how divisive this subject is. For me, Steam is the single most important development in PC gaming since the CD-ROM and I wouldn't have continued with this platform without it. Actually, the only non-Steam game I own is rFactor 2.
Rather than just say "No steam ever" try to justify it a little bit? Personally I think rF2 on steam would be awesome. Auto updating and usage of Steam workshop as a centralised location for mods. Not to mention the increased exposure to potential sales. I honestly cannot see a downside to having more people here. Being from an "arcade" background or wherever. We all have to start somewhere.... More people here can ONLY be a good thing. I'd love to see a valid downside to contrast my opinion. Having said this, I DONT think rfactor 2 will ever be on Steam. ISI do their own thing their own way and that's fine by me. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Your last sentence is my reasoning. I have no issue if rF2 is available on Steam or it isn't, I just dont believe ISI will see much value in the platform for the way they do things.
As much as I like Steam for other games, I don't want to be forced to use it for my competitive simracing experience. I don't want messages pop up from the steam overlay while having a league race, I don't want automatic updates (not for rFactor 2 as well as for the Steam platform itself, the latter can't even be seen and is secretly being done in the background). I like to have multiple installations of rFactor 1 and 2 for different leagues to minimize chances of corrupted installations. I like Steam. I really do, I almost got 100 games on it. But I don't want it for rFactor 2. Never ever.
Most of the things you mention can be turned off. The increased exposure on Steam would work wonders. I notice a lot of communities get defensive when "their game" reaches a larger audience, it's as if it is a bad thing if more people know about it. You don't have to make use of all the Steam features. I know know one game called Kerbal Space Program that run their game on steam and off steam. Seems to work well pleasing both crowds.
Kerbal space program is a really good example. It went from fringe following of dedicated players which purchased off the website direct (sound familiar?) before steam to a very, very globally popular and successful game once steam arrived. Well thats my observation having purchased it in its infancy. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
There's your counter argument right there. I've rolled back RF2 builds twice now. I've also kept different versions of the same mod. I'm not interested in the big cyber nanny telling me which version of the software I *NEED TO HAVE*. Started my "Steam Experience" very early, on a game that constantly failed to launch because they had badly implemented the file system driver for third party content. Also Steam kept overwriting mods. Second game I tried failed to activate for an entire day because Steam was having maintenance issues. So that's two games I bought that I couldn't play for hours because of the platform. No thanks...!
There is no way to turn off auto updates. I've so had it, back then we were playing a multi-clan WW2 online war in Red Orchestra, and everytime you had an important game coming up, Steam client would launch saying "updating steam client..."... for ten minutes. And then maybe check gamefiles. And then maybe update gamefiles. All the while I wanted to play, instead sitting and staring on the screen where a software dicated what my PC needed to do. Naaah.... And all that isn't even touching the privacy/data security/data mining concerns I have with Steam.
I've repeatly heard people tell me that this option is ignored after some time, or for certain updates. Either way, there's still no option to roll back a bad update, is there?
If this is a place to vote then NO to steam Pcars went to steam, I don't touch it now, even with my lifetime licence. Why: because it requires more than one button to race, nothing should require more.
so what I know for stable updates not. The client provide only a update to beta versions and from beta back to stable but no rollback to the last stable or any other build number.
with the Kerbal Space Program example I gave with simultaneous steam and non-steam versions, you are able to copy the current version out and run it standalone... leaving the main steam version to try on current build. So it is possible.