Why? What difference does it make to you? Oh, that’s right, NONE! Also, there are other, completely non-intrusive ways to ensure that (cf. Crysis Warhead, Game Dev Tycoon, Grand Theft Auto IV, Serious Sam, Spyro et cetera).
• coerced registration of your games → you cannot resell them
• your account can be hacked
• if Steam is discontinued you are royally fucked
• same if they change their already awful general terms and conditions to something you won’t agree to
• you cannot manually patch games (e.g. pick which version you want to play)
• you rely on their servers and if they’re down, overloaded and so on, bad luck, looks like you’ll have to wait for Valve to get their shit together to install your games
For international users there are a lot more problems such as pricing, region locks, censorship (especially here in Germany), legal issues and so forth.
Seriously though, please tell us why you are okay with the gaming industry out of all industries fucking us up the ass like that? Do you love DRM on music, too? Or on books? Would you be fine if your car was also locked to your person so you couldn’t resell it? Why this cognitive dissonance, bro?
Online activation of your games is quite a hassle for some people.LurtzOfOrthanc said:
... you hope.LurtzOfOrthanc said:
That hardly means it won’t ever change. What about that TOS update? If you don’t agree to all future changes made to them you won’t be able to access your games anymore.LurtzOfOrthanc said:
Where did you get the idea that they would make far less money? What’s with the false dichotomy?LurtzOfOrthanc said:
I’m not from the U.S. yet nevertheless, I can think of a few reasons:LurtzOfOrthanc said:
• coerced registration of your games → you cannot resell them
• your account can be hacked
• if Steam is discontinued you are royally fucked
• same if they change their already awful general terms and conditions to something you won’t agree to
• you cannot manually patch games (e.g. pick which version you want to play)
• you rely on their servers and if they’re down, overloaded and so on, bad luck, looks like you’ll have to wait for Valve to get their shit together to install your games
For international users there are a lot more problems such as pricing, region locks, censorship (especially here in Germany), legal issues and so forth.
Speak for yourself. Sales tell a different story.LurtzOfOrthanc said:
Maybe 1% of the games in your Steam account, yeah, because Steam users have the tendency to buy shit they don’t even need and never play. What’s your played (let alone completion) rate? 1% as well, hahaha? Those of us who are more discerning in their purchases certainly will play a much higher percentage of our games in ten years time again.LurtzOfOrthanc said:
Soothsaying ... you can’t predict black swans.LurtzOfOrthanc said:
Seriously though, please tell us why you are okay with the gaming industry out of all industries fucking us up the ass like that? Do you love DRM on music, too? Or on books? Would you be fine if your car was also locked to your person so you couldn’t resell it? Why this cognitive dissonance, bro?
Demut said:
Don't have the energy to restate all of my points again but a few highlights. The false dichotomy - I don't know what the actual dichotomy is. What I'm saying is, if that IS the choice they face, then that's my stance on it.
As for my completion rate, I have about 120 (steam shows a few more because it counts some dlc as their own game). For the fun of it, I actually went through and totalled up the games I had *completed* (not just tried out for a few hours). I have about 50% completion of my entire library, which is a pretty solid ratio, since many of those games have multiple playthroughs or very high hour counts (800 hrs on Left 4 Dead 2, 600 on Warband, ~300 hours on Witcher 2, ~250 hrs on Skyrim, etc.) And most of those other games were picked up for pennies during Humble Bundles or Steam sales - games for literally a couple cents, or perhaps a dollar or two here and there. I have only one game I paid a full 59.99 for - Skyrim. I've only ever preordered perhaps 2 games? (Bioshock Inf and Witcher 2). So don't insinuate that Steam has made me a wanton purchaser, buying loads of useless crap and wasting tons of money.
I listed reasons why Valve and as a result Steam are stronger than ever before, and have no chance of just suddenly vanishing in the next couple years. So that's not soothsaying. It'd be soothsaying to claim that Square Enix will be around for another 10 years, since that's a company on a downward spiral.
You listed some points. I'll address them briefly:
• coerced registration of your games → you cannot resell them
Games bought for pennies, $2, $5 - I don't need to resell these. I'm happy to keep them. Would I like a resell functionality on the steam market? Sure, but it's not a pressing issue.
• your account can be hacked
So you do you only use letters because email accounts can be hacked? That's another false dichotomy. Also, Steam has added the SteamGuard functionality, which is a heavy level of bonus security against people trying to hack into your account.
• if Steam is discontinued you are royally fucked
Not gonna happen anytime soon, as I mentioned.
• same if they change their already awful general terms and conditions to something you won’t agree to
Their ToC are fine. Valve would not risk their good rep in this vicious kotaku-driven media culture that dominates gaming by changing their ToC drastically. Look at Origin. Tons of people were turned off the service because of stuff in the ToC which gave them legal access to scan your hard drive.
• you cannot manually patch games (e.g. pick which version you want to play)
Outside of some kind of rare glitch with The Witcher 2 version 2.0 or 2.1 or something back in the day that stopped being a problem pretty quick, this has never been an issue. And there are workarounds for that as well if such an unusual situation should occur.
• you rely on their servers and if they’re down, overloaded and so on, bad luck, looks like you’ll have to wait for Valve to get their shit together to install your games
Because I'm constantly buying and installing games...not. Valve's servers are almost always up and running smoothly, outside of the occasional update or supersale. And oh my god, worst case scenario, Steam's down for a day, I go and read a book or something and download the game a few hours later. Whoop-dee-doo. Steam doesn't inhibit the games I have once I've installed them, so it's not an issue.
vivaxardas said:
Don't forget that any DRM does not make financial sense at all. It's still used, so I wouldn't count on any common sense with these publishers.
I’m guessing they hope that the DRM won’t be removed this time so that retail versions cannot be resold. If it gets removed again then yes, it’s absolutely moronic to include DRM.Gilrond said:
People have been saying that about General Motors, too. Heck, it was even a saying until recently. But then they had to file for bankruptcy in 2009. Whoops.Gilrond said:
Well, good for you if you only buy games years after their launch or bundled indie titles which weren’t expensive to begin with. But if I buy a retail title I like which forces DRM like Steam on me then I do expect to be able to resell it. Valve is violating European law with this among others and has been sued over this already. The case is expected to go to trial this year so we’ll see, maybe I’ll get my right to resell after all.Gilrond said:
Again, you merely hope that this is the case.Gilrond said:
No, they’re not. For starters, thirty days after your purchase they don’t assume any kind of liability anymore. Your games don’t work? Steam doesn’t work? Something else doesn’t work? SUCKS FOR YOU. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t call clauses like that “fine”. Have you ever read their ToS? There’s more stuff like that in there.Gilrond said:
Oh and merely hoping for the goodwill of Valve without any tangible assurance seems foolish to me.
You’ve apparently not played a lot of games this gen or have a selective memory because I had patches that caused problems several times. And what are those workarounds you are talking about? I’m not aware of a way to downgrade Steam games to a specific version.Gilrond said:
Unless you have to patch it. Or are on a LAN party without Internet access.Gilrond said:
Oh and could you respond to that last paragraph? Do you accept these restrictions of your freedom only as far as video games are concerned or do you think they are/would be fine in the examples I mentioned?
This is getting way off-topic for a CDPR News Item about the TW3 release. If you want to continue discussing Steam, could you maybe start a new thread please?
HomemComH said:
No, I don't think so. Thanks for that - it'll probably help with some of the fears expressed.
alextyc1 said:
Looks right to me. Warner Interactive is the distributor for North America. CDPR's an established publisher, but mostly in Eastern Europe; they have little to no presence in NA. So they need a distributor to handle promotion, placement, and orders in the States and Canada.
It's the distributor's job to make the game fly off the shelves as fast as they can resupply. Both CDPR as developer-publisher and the brick-and-mortar and online retailers need the distributor to make that happen.
