Discussion: Bad move! What is fair?

[peacemaker]

It's quite frankly CA's decision. They figure some SP players will be sort of mad, but it will hopefully please MP players. You want them to not have steam? Fine. THey'll go and release the game on release date, and you can get it a week or so later. Or, they can give the game to you later but have you wait politely until March 4th, the RELEASE date, where they intented for players to start playing the game anyway. Steam activation just stops people from just giving the copy to another friend so they can download that for free and not have to pay for the full game, which is what CA wants. If you design a game assuming that each player will pay the full $60, would you be glad if just one person bought the game and gave that game to a bunch of friends so you only get $60 for the game you worked hard on, and were expecting to pay you $60 EACH, not just $60 for like 10 people? Sure, there are plenty of people who have their hacks and whatnot to get past it, but the average gamer(like me!) is too lazy and if it stops them from just easily handing it over to a friend, the average gamer will just say "oh well" and have the friend just buy a copy, therefore giving the game designers the money that they deserve for putting in lots of hard work and effort.

EDIT:I guess, to sum it up, they have steam in order to make sure that most of their customers ARE actually paying. I can personally say that in M2 I changed computers and it didn't care that it was different, there were no issues. This meant I could play from both computers(although the old one is now broken) and if this happened between different friends, you could easily have 10 people playing from 1 copy. The simple steam activation stops this from happening and making sure all customers are actually paying.

[fenir]

Well the only way to make our voices heard, is by not Downloading from steam.

Personally i hate the idea of my computers programs talking to others all the time. And i hate the idea that i have to allow a program to do so. But i can suffer an initial verification. But once then it needs to be over.

But where i really feel for it, is that my cousin is an TW fan and lives in the outback in Australia. He doesn't have internet.

How does he activate the game to play it? Anyway i forgot to tell him, and when he found out, he and his friend, lives next door to them, (about 40km away). Have cancelled their pre orders.


THen with steam, if two people play a modded version of the game, is steam going to recognise that? Or is it going to block it thinking it's a cheat version?

I do hope they have PP play.Thereby stopping steam from being too nosey.
The ability to by pass steam. It's going to be a bugger cracking it.
but will not be impossible.
It also maybe a case for Australian, New Zelaand, and UK laws on right of quiet possession, if people who buy the game cannot play the game. Or have to always rely on steam in which to do so. Thereby involving a 3rd party in the game that have no contract with you.
However if you buy the game from steam, there will be a contract with you and steam, as the retail vendor.
However if purchased from a shop. The contract is with the shop. only under the law of tort will you be able to get at sega behind.
So where the start up verification maybe with steam. I cannot see a problem. Where the problem will come about. is if someone finds out the game keeps talking to the game.
Which then breaches privacy laws.

So if people in these three countries have to be monitored by steam for game use. With out their written consent. Then there is a case to answer for.
Remeber the shrink wrap click if you agree means nothing. It is not law. And hold no legal basis in these three countries.
And any position of companies trying to upsurp the power of law will be seen in a "extremely" disapproving light by the courts.

So my advice. Though not paid for. And holds no legal commitment. Or want of duress, or to enforce any concepts and ideas.
Would be to by your game from a Shop retailer.
Register it with steam. The close off your fire walls to it. If the game then doesn't work. COMPLAIN like hell under Quiet possession of the consumer act.
However. If you have to use steam to play together. You have to accept that you will need to be traffic monitored in some way.



Anyway, those of us that have had steam from the first day. All know the bollocks that steam puts forward. About anti cheats et cetera...
And we all know how to get around them.


These thoughts are my own and do not represent legal adive. Just my experiance with the law.


Sincerely


fenir

[A Very Super Market]

Just clearing something up, Steam does let you mod the game, super-mods included. What I'm not sure about is if a new patch will conflict with the mod.

[peacemaker]

fenrir, sorry but I had trouble reading your last post since the sentences were split up into a ton of tiny ones. like this. and its hard. to read. and understand well. Anyway, my understanding is that you need to activate it once and then you can close steam for all you care and play empire.

[Roka]

Surely then, thats the same as having to input a CD key when installing the majority of games.

not at all, the issue isn't in having to activate the game, i believe the issue is that due to hight traffic you won't be able to play the game on single player right away

[A Very Super Market]

The download speed will be fairly slow when the game is released at first. Just too much traffic. But you will play single player fine

[Incongruous]

not at all, the issue isn't in having to activate the game, i believe the issue is that due to hight traffic you won't be able to play the game on single player right away

Exactly, it is simply bad manners and rude to a paying customer.

[peacemaker]

Aye, there's the rub. There's going to be a mass download and probably take a while, and I will assume that's one of the reasons that CA is allowing people begin downloads DAYS before the actual release date. You may think it's rude to paying customers, but then, they could say it's rude to working employees to bicker about a silly download that they already get a head start on the download SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE RELEASE. They expect this, and with a few days early, you will have a demo finished around the time that release date is. Also, getting a boxed copy would be very helpful indeed as well. That way, you download it right off the CD and only have to activate it off steam. That's what I'm doing. Quite frankly, I'm not certain I know the entire part of your argument here but as my teacher always says:If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Now, I would like to mention I am not trying to offend anybody or make anybody mad, but quite personally I would not just dwell over how evil and rude and awful CA is with steam and maybe go out and get a boxed copy.....
Still, I feel lots of pity for those in australia or wherever where there is no internet or there's just reeeeeeeeeeeeeeealy slow internet. Maybe this will cheer you up:

The Andaman islanders, off the coast of india, have been isolated for 60 thousand years. Long story short, they still are unable to make fire. They instead have these elaborate procedures for keeping and transporting embers lit many thousands of years ago. The point of this silly history lesson:I would much rather feel sad having no internet than no ability to make my own fire.

[quadalpha]

... you're part of the precipitate!

I think pretty much every major release on Steam gets "pre-loading".

It must be damp there.

[ArtillerySmoke]

I can't think of one reason to download the game off Steam. Not one.

Buy the retail disc and download the game off of it onto your HD and then just activate your copy via Steam.

I've never understood why people download full versions of games. So many negatives to that...

[Fisherking]

With Steam Activation it makes no legitimate sense not to allow online outlets not to preship the game.

It cannot be played until the activation time!

Besides I want the English Version. Downloading from Steam is going to give me the German Version and coast me more to boot. Why should I do that.

CA gets the same money for each. It isn’t like they are loosing anything, unless they get a slight cost savings for the downloaded versions.