That is odd. I wish I could be more helpful.
I uninstalled the client and reinstalled it, and went through their website.
Working now.
Never had this issue with Steam…weird. Other issues yes…but not this.
How often does steam give out free games?
One assumes never, and your question was rhetorical? :D
Sure. Every platform has growing pains and I still get pissed at Steam for screwing up and losing all my categories (twice so far in the last 2 years).
But I am sorry this happened. It’s annoying.
Not often, but dev/pubs have dropped games to $0.00 on Steam as a promotion or whatever.
For example, this game just went free-to-keep:
Valve has even given away their own games for holiday events like Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead.
KevinC
3551
Do free weekends count? Because those are fairly common. You don’t even have to reinstall the client!
No. Those do not count. Those are just glorified demo weekends.
LockerK
3553
More often than Epic has sales!
It’s usually done by a small indie dev trying to breathe life into their game or promote their new game, but 100% controlled by them. Valve isn’t the one who makes the decision and doesn’t offer compensation for it.
Yes, it seems like it publishers giving away older games. I don’t think steam should have credit for that.
And maybe it’s a double standard, but when Origin, U Play, or Epic give a way a game, I think that’s more the store trying to get traction, and I attribute the give away to the store.
When steam does it, I assume Steam has little to do with it, and it’s the publisher trying to get traction.
I have also noticed that most of my recent free steam games usually comes from Humble Bundle or some other third party, rather than through Steam directly.
Nesrie
3555
I haven’t actually dismissed the opposing view point as callously as possible. That’s your shtick. I even put in the effort of a list to dispel this constant bullshit summary attempts that keep showing up here , but yeah, keep trying.
You have. You have literally dismissed our views time and again. We have argued that steam is a giant that takes too much money out of the system and needs strong competition so that it will play fair. And you have dismissed this by saying that steam is fair and just.
We have argued that exclusive are almost the only way to get into a new market and pointed out that steam, origin and other also has exclusives, and you dismiss it by say that those exclusives because the company selling the game is also the publisher, making it somehow just.
We have argued that Epic has been behind the Unreal Engine, and been involved with PC gaming, yet you throw around the term ‘abandoned’.
Heck, when we rightfully point out the huge financial costs of Console Exclusives and how that differs from how Epics ‘exclusives’, you dismiss it out of hand.
Finally, you dismiss the benefits to both the people employed and the customers, of actually having the developer earn more from a sale versus giving that money to Steam.
These are the arguments that I see you and other dismiss out of hand.
So, this is a two way street.
Reemul
3557
To be fair, there is plenty of drivel on both sides and you may also need to wipe it away as well,
Oh there is no doubt that @Nesrie makes a fair point, especially about me. I have been very dismissive of other people’s arguments. I just don’t like the spin that the it’s coming entirely from one side.
Reemul
3559
That’s fair. Nesrie is a tough debater, she writes well and gets her point over really well. This can make others a bit too defensive at times.
There are good points and bad point about both steam and epic store and there isn’t really a need to chnage peoples outlook of them yet. As time passes and things evolve i’m sure things will come out in ths wash howevere it’s nothing to fallout over really.
Nesrie
3560
I have argued against points you and others have made; Yes I have, and I will continue to do so until some factor changes my mind on one or more of those points. I have not dismissed developers as a whole, not their needs, their hopes or the reason they are taking this approach. I have not continuously ignored the fact that people who support Epic’s approach have tried to express and explain their position, and they have reasons for having those positions, whether I agree with them or not.
I absolutely take issue with even a suggestion that the people on this site are largely taking positions because they are entitled, because this idea that emotional or passionate somehow equates to irrational; it does not. I take issue with people making broad statements like I don’t understand why anyone cares because you can certainly understand if any amount of time was taken to read even half the posts here, so long as everyone also understands that understanding is not agreeing. No one is required to agree.
You want to argue points, go ahead, but stop trying to dismiss us, the people behind those points.
I dismiss Nesrie’s claim that Epic has abandoned PC gaming, because it is not true. Just because they claimed to focus on consoles for a brief period does not constitute permanent abandonment, as the phrase “abandoned PC gaming” infers.
You are arguing really shitty semantics. “Abandon” does not automatically mean permanent. Epic basically called PC gamers pirates and went on to make couple console exclusives. So for a time, yes they sure as hell abandoned PC as a platform. Valve never have. And when PC (largely thanks to Valve) became successful again, they came back.
We’ll probably have to agree to disagree, because your perspective differs from mine. The notion that Epic abandoned PC gaming is just false, they’ve done more for PC gaming in recent years than Valve. And saying “basically called” is hyperbole, I don’t believe Epic said that until you prove otherwise.
Lastly, some of you seem to only care about yourselves as consumers as you refuse to admit that Steam’s middle-man take is greedy, while Epic’s capability to give more money to devs could be a good thing for the industry.
It’s not false, they admitted it themselves
https://www.neowin.net/news/pc-piracy-drove-us-to-consoles-says-epic-games/
Yes he adds a worthless platitude about how they love PC… they just didn’t love releasing games for it. And wheeew, that Facebook sure saved PC gaming.
As for your false impression that we “refuse” to admit that Epic’s lower cut is nice for devs - I don’t think anyone here has argued against it, of course it is nice for devs to make more money. I do however object against calling Valve “greedy” when:
- 30% cut has been industry standard used by everyone, and still is by most, not just Valve
- That cut covers the free key generation devs can sell themselves and get 100% cut
- That cut covers all payment processing fees as well as the prepaid steam wallet cards in markets where people do not have easy access to credit cards and paypals (or simply prefer to use those)
Obviously I would welcome if Valve lowered their cut as well, but I wonder what unintended consequences it would have - such as not more getting 25% off for new games on GreenManGaming, because they can only afford these promos by doing away with most of their cut.
