Why are so many games now requiring a login/account when bought/run from Steam?

[Oblivio]

Isn't mitigating account-overload supposed to be one of the main benefits of Steam? To add insult to injury, some of the games allow the use of facebook and other logins in lieu of account creation. Shouldn't my Steam account launching the game suffice for credentials?

This, to me, casts doubt on the future of Steam and is an unnecessary inconvenience just to play a game. Does anyone else find this trend disturbing?

[Black Blade]

Sometimes that is as the game is not only on Steam, and as for that the Devs of the game need something that all the users can use, something to level them all to the same land
Over all they can set that to be Steam for Steam users i think, but that can get messy for them over time, as if they have the game on Steam, origin, Uplay, Desura, some other place, and there own site
Its likely they will have many different type of accounts, that is not worth the mess

[Oblivio]

That suggests that Steam allows game developers to advertise and sell their games & DLC on Steam without even informing the subscriber. No quality control, regional server support or game updates are provided by Steam. Also, the Steam API can provide more secure authentication and is programatically trivial to impliment.

Why is Steam marketing products to its members without a 'greenlight' requirement or even a modicum of due-diligence? I doubt there's any long-term benefit to licensing a fast-paced FPS to a member in the US when the only game servers are in central Europe, which makes "leveraging subscriber trust for increased profit" the candidate motive. This does not seem like a long-term business strategy to me.

[Tig Ol' Bitties]

Ubisoft and Rockstar have got to be the worst offenders in this regard. uPlay and Rockstar Social Club can singlehandedly ruin a game from either of those publishers.

[HLCinSC]

They list 3rd party drm on the store page. There are now more viable alternatives to Steam than ever before . Valve/Steam doesn't want to lose them to other platforms.

[Oblivio]

Yah, I suppose that's what I was just becoming aware of. Is there a way to easily tell if it's 3rd party drm? Some game used to put 'windows live' in the requirements but not so much now.

[HLCinSC]

Originally posted by Oblivio:

Yah, I suppose that's what I was just becoming aware of. Is there a way to easily tell if it's 3rd party drm? Some game used to put 'windows live' in the requirements but not so much now.

Older games show it in the system requirements part. Awhile back they standardized a spot on the right column of the store page that everything from thenon had to include if it has it.

Like for example you can see Uplay warning for AC4 on the right column:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/242050/

The older AC3 lists it in the system requirements:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/208480/

And there are some older games where it has been updated to list it in both places like in AC 2:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/33230/

[Oblivio]

It's hard to miss on that game but no warning whatsoever on "Tribes: Ascend." I'm sure there's a forum more appropriate for discussion of alternative. Everyone's input was helpful. ++gratitude
~ob

[HLCinSC]

Originally posted by Oblivio:

It's hard to miss on that game but no warning whatsoever on "Tribes: Ascend." I'm sure there's a forum more appropriate for discussion of alternative. Everyone's input was helpful. ++gratitude
~ob

Hmm I think it is because that was released before it was mandatory to list 3rd party accounts/drm. I guess leave a comment in the game's forum or report the game through its store page.

[Kirby]

Well, steam is a -store-. Much like Amazon, they can't be responsible over every supplier (developer) on their online game store. I get annoyed at having a bunch of accounts too, but that's life. If you don't like it, don't use steam :D Simple.

[wuddih]

Tribes: Ascend is free2play, account creation doesn't cost you anything. most f2p games require a seperate account on the game providers platform, in this case, hirez studios.

[Oblivio]

Originally posted by Rogue:

Well, steam is a -store-. Much like Amazon, they can't be responsible over every supplier (developer) on their online game store. I get annoyed at having a bunch of accounts too, but that's life. If you don't like it, don't use steam :D Simple.

Much like Amazon, yes, they can and I do like Steam (emoticons, not so much) which is why I brought up the topic.

[Wingmann]

This is why I havent bought a game for a while, if I have to create and log into another account before I can play a game that I bought here on Steam I wont buy the game.
The fact that this situation seems to be on the increase means that it is unlikely I will be buying many more games, my pc gaming days are numbered.......

[僕の名前 (仮)]

I wouldn't say man, only a few ones. Still annoying.

[nigelcrouch123]

Originally posted by Rogue:

Well, steam is a -store-. Much like Amazon, they can't be responsible over every supplier (developer) on their online game store. I get annoyed at having a bunch of accounts too, but that's life. If you don't like it, don't use steam :D Simple.

When you can buy a game from a retail store and that game forces you to use steam, the option of not useing steam is not available,unless you dont buy the game,but them surley the develpoer realises they are losing sales due to this third party log in mess.I have a few games that require drm,and it does annoy me that if I want to play the SINGLE player mode ,I can not.Even though the game is installed on my computer.

[RCCRF]

What's worse is games that didn't require that but now do. Wanted to play the halo collection, could play it just fine a few months ago, now need to log into an xbox account, don't have one. NOT creating one, since as you said, wasn't that the purpose of STEAM? I don't want to play online. OFFER users like us to play in OFFLINE mode. ESPECIALLY when you paid $60 for the game not including the DLC you bought for it. I want to support games and not pirate, but crap like this encourages pirating. Doom Eternal was one I wanted to play and test on my i9 NUC Extreme with a 2070 Super (not my best computer, that would be the TR4 3990x with a 3090 upstairs), but then it harassed me with a login prompt with a Bethesda Account, chose not to, so it kicked me out of the game. GREAT, haven't played it yet, and now I'm getting punished for not wanting to create another login. I already have literally 100+ accounts I have to keep track of. I don't want another, nor do I want their spam clogging up my inbox.