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What's the Best Video Game Download Service?

Posted by Soulskill on from the usenet-and-bittorrent-don't-count dept.

ThinSkin writes "Who needs a brick-and-mortar game shop when you have the world wide web of video game download services? Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech examines some game download services to decide once and for all which virtual storefront has the best deal for gamers. Among the services reviewed are: Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, Good Old Games, and WildTangent Orb. The most popular site in the roundup, Steam, was also the most favored because of its wide selection of popular titles, while Direct2Drive also scored top marks because it has 'just about every title in the universe.'" Which service(s) do you like the most, and what have your experiences with them been?

7 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Bah,. by Kalriath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great. Another pointless "top X" list spread across twelve ad-ridden pages. Who accepts this crap? Editors? Hello?

    Anyways, I disagree with their final decisions too. Their top two are Steam (bloated DRM-ware) and Direct2Drive (also bloated DRM-ware) while giving Impulse (no DRM inherent) third place. In fact, they don't even list DRM as a con of Steam or Direct2Drive (or "no DRM" as a pro of Impulse).

    Give me Impulse over Steam or D2D any day.

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    1. Re:Bah,. by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm happy to buy games, I refuse to rent them. Especially if it's misadvertised as buying.

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    2. Re:Bah,. by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I love Steam. It's actually easier than piracy. (FINALLY!) Find a game, purchase, download, done. Never have to worry about disks. Can install on multiple machines. Honestly, with the system issues I've had the last year with reinstalling the OS on several machines, Steam made life SO much easier with just setting it downloading and leaving it. No finding disks. No disk swapping. No trying to find the misplaced manual with the serial number on it. Nada.

      Stardock's Impulse service may prove in the end to be better than Steam due to lack of DRM, but the fact is Impulse is a diabolical piece of software currently.

    3. Re:Bah,. by Don_dumb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Downside of steam:

      You need to be logged in to the internet to use any of your games. Even if they're single player games. There have been a number of times where I had lost my internet connection for a day or two and was unable to play those games, that was annoying.

      This keeps coming up but you don't need to always be online. There is an option (I'm not at home right now) that prevents you needing to be online to access your Steam client. Has this changed in the last few months?

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  2. Maybe this says something... by Thrull · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I use Steam and I actually sometimes look at the store tab with the intent to buy something, because it's easy. Lots of good independent games, and allows me to install on other computers with no major fuss (cept for Bioshock, curse you EA). The games are almost always cheaper too.

    I used the older version of Impulse (Stardock Central) and it seemed to work well enough, although the selection of games is low quality compared to Steam.

    And I know they rated Direct2Drive pretty high, but even they note:

    "You can't patch D2D games with downloadable patches; they require their own special patch procedure."

    If Direct2Drive has to rework every patch for every game they've ever offered to work with their locked down version, you have to wonder if some patches might get "delayed" or games wholly abandoned eventually... I seem to remember this coming up in one of my decisions to get a D2D or boxed version of a popular game in the past.

  3. Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Some of us prefer not to steal games, thanks.

  4. Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters by Haeleth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, I suppose TPB is a convenient place for children and the morally immature to violate copyright law. Some of us, however, are adults, and have grasped that if something costs money then either you pay for it or you do without. For us, services like Steam are quite useful.