Games, platforms and communes

PC gamers know very well about Valve's Steam and EA's Origin, game community and gaming platforms. Although Origin is pretty new as gaming platform, it still has the same purpose as Steam. There are several other platforms, like Xfire and Windows Live. Many PC gamers use them to show friends what games they are playing at the time or have been playing in general and same time they are able to communicate with each other. Some platforms show unlocked achievements and some are just for the gameplay.

Steam and Origin logos

I have been using Steam from 2009 when I got Left 4 Dead 2. I didn't know what to expect from this platform, but it ran quite easily. After some time, there were problems with downloading updates that didn't come in as easily as they should have. And there were some little issues with the interface.

Like Steam, Xfire is one quite popular platform too. At the time I registered using their program back in 2007 they didn't have game store, but as times go by, they are getting along with every platform. At first it was pretty nice to use it to keep tracking friends to join their gameplay sessions, if they were playing online games, like Maple Story long time ago. Using this program had little issues, like using custom skins with different feature windows. Sometimes they worked correctly and sometimes not at all. And now as they have updated their software, to my opinion they have WAY too many different features which can be opened with different hotkeys. I had little trouble with this, but now that I only use the program to track my game statistics, I don't have to use the hotkeys so much.

I like these platforms for the sole purpose to statistics tracking and friend tracking, it's more easier to join games nowadays without asking for IP address of a server etc.. And without doubt, the most best thing is no CD/DVD usage (Steam and Origin). After installing the game, you can put the case back to shelf and play never opening the case anymore. Even if there is some games discs that has DRM system with them. I don't mind myself that much, but in the long run it's more of annoying.


Even if they are popular, there are things people don't like or just hate.
Steam had its own problems, customer service (responsing to customers and resolving) and use of program, etc.. I have to admit that I don't really care about these things (too optimistic if you ask why), as long they are resolved within couple months and isn't affected to my gameplay, but still it's not nice to let customers wait.

Origin is another platform I have used, not for long though. As I got into Battlefield 3 alpha test, I had to download this platform in order to install game. It was no problem for me as I wanted to test it out anyways. There was one idiotic way to start the game, but I'll reveal that later (so I don't have any chances to get banned from the beta test period, EA is that strict).