Steam How much do you Steam-repurchase?

I do it all that time, handiness rules. Bought the Deus Ex double pack in Game a while back, hadn't even taken the plastic off when it was on sale on Steam. Didn't even think twice

Just by the by, if I were to buy BFBC2 on Steam and login with my current soldier etc it would carry over all my unlocks right? In case it's ever on a weekend sale or the like

 

As others have said, only if it's dirt cheap.

I rebought Thief: DS when it was on sale.

 

No try to avoid steam as I`m often playing with no internet connection !

 

only the really old ones that i'm not sure would work on 7

 

got the stalker:SoC again as it was on sale for some sillylow price, and its just easier than installing it (and patching it)

technically I suppose I rebought hl2, as i bought the orange box.

civ4, i had the original, but got it again + expansions in one of the 2k games supersales (or whatever they where called, still, one of my best buys ever in terms of value for money)

got the original heretic and doom as well, although i can't quite remember if i had the full version of heretic, or if it was just shareware.

And while not on steam, i have purchased the getaway: Blackmonday a total of 3 times now. i repurchased it after my first copy broke, and i got it again recently to play on ps3, as i can't find my other copy (cost all of about £3 in gamestation)


The one other game i would rebuy on steam if it where on thier is the original pirates of the caribbean game (the one that has basically nothing to do with the films) as that is an absolute bitch to install (takes forever as well) and sometimes breaks for no apparent reason

 

Na I've never repurchased on Steam although I do see why you might if the game is going *really* cheap.

 

ive Steam-repurchase once with saints row 2 as it was all so in the THQ Complete Pack which i got in the summer sale

 

I refuse to get any games from steam that are not free full games :3. This should change in a few years, but currently I only have 3 games: Portal, Red Orchestra, and Alien Swarm. All of them were free at the time of purchace.

 

I've bought a few but again, it has to be the right price. When they had the Grand Theft Auto Collection on super-special offer, I bought that, effectively rebuying III, Vice City and San Andreas. I've also re-bought Civ 4 because I lost the game disc.

 

I'm shaking my head over this thread also - anyone who purchased the game on CD/DVD and find the disc check a problem can get a no-cd patch from GameCopyWorld.

Given Steam's DRM (and Valve's willingness to disable accounts) buying again should really be the case of the cure being worse than the disease.

 

Steam's DRM is non-existent on the older titles this thread concerns and even in newer games their methods are generally more convenient and invisible than those on disc versions. Steam games tend to just work, or get fixed fast if they don't; hard copy games get very patchy support and are often abandoned altogether by their developers later on. See Unreal and UT99 for example, which are a nuisance on some newer setups but work fine through Steam.

No-CD fixing games is handy, but cannot be relied on. Crysis, for instance, is very very troublesome to no-CD patch (I had to do so after lending my disc to a very distant friend who still has it). All sorts of compatibility mode and game version combinations had to be tried before 64-bit mode would work. Technical difficulties aside, GCW and the like are riddled with viruses and it's a minefield process finding a fix.

(Oh and technically it's illegal or something, I think. But the day it becomes controvertial to no-CD crack a game you've paid for is the day I go Clocktower.)

 

And you'd be quite right to!

 

The entire Total war package , and Civ IV

 

Have you tested this, and if so how? Steam's DRM (requiring you to connect regularly) applies to any purchases unless Valve create a DRM-free version. Even the DOS-era games in the ID Collection included Steam's DRM via an (initially GPL-violating) altered version of DOSBox.

I've had no problems with the Crysis no-CD (running on 32-bit WinXP) and have never, in over 10 years, encountered malware on GCW (the closest was a false positive, confirmed by BitDefender support).

As far as the UK is concerned, no-CDs should not be illegal at all. Section 296 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 does cover attempts to circumvent copy protection but a no-cd doesn't have any copy functionality and you still need the original disk to install the game. It just avoids the media check which can be justified on several grounds (preserving media, accessing software on systems lacking built-in CD drives, avoiding software conflicts, etc).

 

I've got games installed on steam on my parents PC downstairs (Mum is addicted to the Popcap hidden item games I've bought, and my nephew loves Plants vs Zombies). Steam is set to offline mode and it has not needed to connect to the internet to verify anything since I installed them on there last December.

 

If your own PC has Steam installed, it would be connecting regularly to keep your account alive - if so, try keeping that PC offline for a few days or using a software firewall (a decent third party one, not Windows' own) to block Steam from Internet access.

Also does your parents' PC have Internet access at all? If so, Steam could be connecting without you (or them) noticing...

 

As long as I'm home, Steam is logged in on my PC (in my room). If Steam on the PC downstairs went into online mode it would log me out on my PC.

I have 2 PC's downstairs both have steam installed.
Dad's has internet access (but requires the password to be entered to switch to online mode - I don't have steam set to remember the password, as this is dangerous with a 6 year old playing with it).
The other (My old PC) isn't connected to the internet, and hasn't been connected for quite some time.

 

The only way to confirm that an online purchase is DRM-free is to:

• take a copy from a PC running it;
• try installing it on a different PC with no Internet access (or a software firewall configured to block any online activation).

According to your description, 2 PCs with Steam software regularly connect to Valve when online and the 3rd ("my old PC") was presumably online when you installed your software, meaning that any significant hardware change (activated software has to be tied into your PC's hardware to stop copying it onto another system) could trigger re-activation - which would suceed only with a working connection and a valid Steam account.

 

Only used steam once but I am a stubborn old man so I purchase from play.com and in a retail store and use xfire still