actions to fight steam...

[pevergreen]

Usually as long as you own the license to play it, getting it in the original(non-cracked) form any way you can is fine. Maybe direct download stuff puts crap in the EULA but I don't think that's quite legal. Companies put all sorts of junk in the EULA that's not actually within their reasonable legal authority since no one nitpicks those things unless a lawsuit comes up.

If I dont have it installed when the time is up, i lose it. Thats it.

No installer files nothing. Its all automated inside the evil giant that is EA.

[antisocialmunky]

But did you actually have the EULA? There are other ways to obtain it but then we get into the grey zone. At any rate, you should have bought a license to install the thing on one computer at any one time that is not voided by lack of product. If you can get the product, you can still use it - legally.

The direct download people are abusing the fact that software is both a physical commodity and an electronic medium. I mean, they even tell you to back it up which means they sold you a license to use it instead of sell you just one electronic copy. I guess you could be paying for the download link and the license but really, you have the license use it.

Really, people could probably take them to court over turning off the download link but most people don't care or are stuck on the 'I'm buying the physical software' paradigm which the law hasn't used since the early days. The consumer protection people would have a field day with it.

I mean, remember back in the 90s when you bought the software and your disk broke? You could write the company and they would charge you $5 to ship you a new disk and the cost was for the disk and shipping.

[Krauser]

The only thing I don't like about Steam is the possibility that you lose all the games you bought if it ever get's shut down. Steam seems to be doing pretty well but times change. Still, I don't really play my old NES games anymore. I assume I will not be interested in playing ETW anymore in 20 years. (I think Steam should last at least 20 years from now based on the current state.)

Edit: Other thing being that my PC in 20 years probably won't be able to play ETW anyways.

[nameless]

The only thing I don't like about Steam is the possibility that you lose all the games you bought if it ever get's shut down. Steam seems to be doing pretty well but times change. Still, I don't really play my old NES games anymore. I assume I will not be interested in playing ETW anymore in 20 years. (I think Steam should last at least 20 years from now based on the current state.)

I don't see that possible at all and a very very weak argument.

If you're concerned about that, you should be more concerned about Microsoft. If that giant goes down, everything goes down. *Especially since you need to activate it*

For example with ETW on STEAM.

If say STEAM went down, what happens? CA will need to step in and deal with it or they lose their customers.

If CA went down itself, I do not see a problem with STEAM keeping the game on file and then you got SEGA which in itself is the publisher.

If SEGA went down, well then CA goes and finds another buyer but that shouldn't affect it.

The only way for this whole thing to go bellyup is for STEAM, CA, and SEGA to all go down.

[pevergreen]

Good thinking.

If steam went down, CA could just release a patch which would allow you to install it, and launch. You still own the game (physical form) or if digital, CA can provide their own download.

[antisocialmunky]

The issue wouldn't be playing games you already had, it would be installing old steam games.

[Husar]

Threads like this are one thing that could cause Steam to go down, a bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As has been said, what if Microsoft will go down and you cannot activate Windows anymore? Will you just install all your games on Linux or a Mac?

[nameless]

The issue wouldn't be playing games you already had, it would be installing old steam games.

Well like I said the devs and publishers will just have to look for someone else to provide the digital copies...isn't there like D2D drive or something? But for really really old games I think you'd be out of luck for that.

you just install all your games on Linux or a Mac?

Yes that's true.

So it's four entities. Three are connected but if the fourth one (Windows) goes down everyone's screwed.

[satchef1]

The only way you're likely to lose your Steam games is if you get banned, which sadly does happen. I know someone who's little bro logged in to his Steam account, he then proceeds to try some CS:S aimbots and as a result the account got banned by VAC. There goes £250 worth of games...

Call me old-fashioned, but I want to go back to the good old days: 1) I read about a game I like; 2) I go to the store and buy the game; 3) I go home, install the game and enjoy; 4) the copy I bought is mine and I can install and re-install it as much as I want, patch or not patch, in short: it's my copy, my game, I play when and where ever I want.

You can do all of that on Steam. The only restriction it adds is you have to have an internet connection when you install the game, to verify that your copy is genuine. Personally I'd say Steam is far, far easier than the old method and the benefits greatly outweigh the (few) disadvantages. I'm guessing CA and Sega looked at it in the same way.

(e.g. the option of whether to install a patch or not)

Click on the 'Games' tab in Steam

Right Click on Empire

Go to 'Properties'

Click the 'Updates' tab

Select 'Do not Automatically update this game' from the drop down list

[Freedom Onanist]

No issue with Steam here. If you really want to get a crowd to be really down on most things ETW/Steam head over to TWC

As has been stated, Steam doesn't stop you playing the game offline. The bit about slectable patches is a bit moot really given the online elements and the number of "problems" people reported. But yeah, maybe.

The "old fashioned" view was invalidated when the first EULA was written and included with the "accept/reject" options.

The main inconvenience in my view would be my data download limit imposed by my ISP - then again I bought a hard copy game anyway.

[Praetor Rick]

There are lots of common sense answers to how CA, SEGA, or Steam might respond if one or two of the three went down/out of business. The problem is, they're not necessarily legal, which means they would likely not happen.

It's pretty common that when a publisher goes out of business, the developer still doesn't have the rights to sell the IP to somebody else. Those rights still belong to the now-defunct publisher, and will be sold as part of its assets to pay off the debts that put it out of business. The buyer almost certainly got them in a package, and will likely have no clear idea how much (or little) they may be worth, and will usually be somewhat obstinate about selling them back to the developer. Red tape ensues. This isn't hypothetical, look at other games whose publisher goes belly-up. Fairly routinely, they end up in abandonware limbo, with nobody who is interested in continuing development or even republishing them legally allowed to do so, and nobody legally allowed to continue development or republish interested in doing so.

Short story: if Steam goes to the bucket, CA and SEGA don't magically get rights to ETW back, unless their contract with Steam specifies that they do. And unless Steam goes under next week, it will probably be more work for CA and SEGA to get those rights back, in terms of legal fees researching who owns what and how much the IP is worth, than those rights are actually worth.

Sad to say, if Steam goes out of business, anything Steam had is probably gone for the foreseeable future, until its value has depreciated so much that somebody like GOG.com can buy 'em dirt cheap and sell them for $5 each and still make good money.

All IMHO, based on what has happened in the past when publishers suffer sudden existence failure.

[nameless]

I can understand the argument, but the problem with that is that STEAM itself is simply just a digital distribution and rights management system. It's not a publisher.

STEAM has no involvement in creating ETW, it's just the middle man.

[pevergreen]

Developer: CA
Funding and marketing, publisher: SEGA
Distributor: Steam

Steam has no hold over anything to do with E:TW. It hosts servers for people to download off and play on.

It is like saying Microsoft own everything on windows because thats how you use the programs.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

So when you take away a persons "Title of ownership" as well as their consumer rights and replace it with a no return, no guarantee subscription service then this is not to say they have no hold over anything. They have hold over EVERYTHING.

As a consumer you are entitled to certain rights such as quiet possesion (steam says when and if you can play), clear title ie goods belong to you whether that is a licence or whatever at least to the extent any EULA allows. You own them outright to do as you please such as resell etc. but steam hijacks your ownership in lieu of subscription service.

Steam is oppressive and dictatorial that eats at the fundamental fabric of consumer rights.

[pevergreen]

Its not secuROM.

[caravel]

Its not secuROM.

Steam is actually worse than Securom. Yes Securom installs crapware without the users permission, but Steam is "phone home" software that reports usage statistics back to it's servers, consumes resources and is much more intrusive. It's more of a parasite than Securom is.

Securom is local and is designed to verify that the CD/DVD in the drive is the genuine CD/DVD. It does not have the same intrusiveness and privacy concerns as Steam.

Also if Steam's servers fail for a time, or even permanently (i.e. they decide to go out of business or discontinue the service) paying customers are left with games that they can no longer activate or play. There's also the point that Steam is useless for people that don't have an internet connection. Then there is the issue of regional restrictions.

In essence though Steam means putting all games distribution under the control of one entity. If it continues to gain ground it will also gain a stranglehold over the market. Freedom of choice is a good thing, being forced to install this "platform" is not a good thing. It should not be a requirement but a choice. The situation is bad enough as it is, with 99% of PC games being developed for MS Windows platform - it does not need to get any worse.

Steam is simply not needed yet Valve and other developers that have jumped on the bandwagon seem to have convinced many gamers that it is. Steam is more of a market research/data mining tool combined with the ever present DRM than something that benefits the end user.

[pevergreen]

Steam has a direct competitor in Impulse.

Steam still gives you the full program to play the game, if steam collapsed, the games are still there, they could be hacked. There is no question there.

I did an indepth investigation of secuROM last year.

Problems with secuROM that are recognised:

Under Windows Vista, SecuROM will prevent the game from running if explicit congestion notification is enabled in Vista's networking configuration.

Disk drive emulators and some debugging software will also cause the launch of the game to fail and a security module error to be generated. In fact a reboot of the entire system was required if Process Explorer prior to version 11 was used before an attempt to run the protected software. That problem was caused by a driver that was kept in memory after Process Explorer was closed.

BioShock

The game required consumers to activate the game online and originally set a maximum of two activations before they would have to call to get more activations. This was raised to five activations because an incorrect phone number had been printed on the manual and call centers were only in the United States. Users also found that the game had to be activated for each user on the same machine.

In 2008, 2K Games removed the activation limit, although users are still required to activate it online.

In May 2008 EA announced that Mass Effect for the PC would be using SecuROM 7.x requiring a reactivation of the software every 10 days. Due to complaints, EA removed the 10-day activation while keeping SecuROM tied to the installation. SecuROM's product activation facility was still used to impose a limit of three times that a customer is allowed to activate the copy of Mass Effect they purchased. The game becomes unplayable "as is" after the activations are used up, until EA's customer support is contacted to reset the activation limit, or until activation is bypassed using one of a number of available tools. Unlike BioShock, uninstalling the game does not refund a previously used activation.

And thats just secuROM.

Do you really care if steam tracks that you are online?

Freedom of choice is a good thing. What if I don't want secuROM. I have no choice. I'm not even told its being installed.

Steam is a multiplayer platform as well.

If Games For Windows Live went down.

What happened to the good old days when a CD-Key was all that was needed.

I've never had an issue with the current steam. The old one, I loathed with a passion. (old as in 5+ years ago now)

Steam is the chosen copyright protection. It functions as many other things for the games as well. Break your disc of Med2: total war? What are you going to do now. Ask for another? Like thats going to work.

Either buy another or download illegally. With steam, its yours.

[Freedom Onanist]

Steam is actually worse than Securom. Yes Securom installs crapware without the users permission, but Steam is "phone home" software that reports usage statistics back to it's servers, consumes resources and is much more intrusive. It's more of a parasite than Securom is.

Securom is local and is designed to verify that the CD/DVD in the drive is the genuine CD/DVD. It does not have the same intrusiveness and privacy concerns as Steam.

Also if Steam's servers fail for a time, or even permanently (i.e. they decide to go out of business or discontinue the service) paying customers are left with games that they can no longer activate or play. There's also the point that Steam is useless for people that don't have an internet connection. Then there is the issue of regional restrictions.

In essence though Steam means putting all games distribution under the control of one entity. If it continues to gain ground it will also gain a stranglehold over the market. Freedom of choice is a good thing, being forced to install this "platform" is not a good thing. It should not be a requirement but a choice. The situation is bad enough as it is, with 99% of PC games being developed for MS Windows platform - it does not need to get any worse.

Steam is simply not needed yet Valve and other developers that have jumped on the bandwagon seem to have convinced many gamers that it is. Steam is more of a market research/data mining tool combined with the ever present DRM than something that benefits the end user.

Some good points there, though a bit paranoid Orwellian. But yeah, Steam is not needed. The point about the user friendliness and ease of patching/DLC and whatnot could be done direct with the Publishers. Even if they don't want to get involved in web and net management they could contract that out to a service provider. A bit like the situation with Steam but transparent. This would open up the whole niche Steam occupy. Oh, and without the constant pinging back and forwards with usage data, permissions and "phone home" stuff.

However, some way of purchasing and keeping software up to date via the web is needed. Here in the UK a major internet provider has just decided to make 50mps as standard, and the UK lags behind many other places in this respect. With those kind of online speeds online purchasing is going to grow. On the one hand it is natural for companies to try and control that as much as possible but on the other I think the offerings are oging to get a bit simpler than Steam's offering.

[caravel]

Steam has a direct competitor in Impulse.

Until one buys out the other? There will not be room in the market for two such platforms. It matters little which one becomes the standard the end result is the same.

Steam still gives you the full program to play the game, if steam collapsed, the games are still there, they could be hacked. There is no question there.

They could be "hacked"? I think you've missed the point. I also think Securom protected games could be hacked and have been hacked. This is a moot point.

I did an indepth investigation of secuROM last year.

Problems with secuROM that are recognised:

etc

I'm well aware of the problems with Securom - though I do not see this as a case of choosing the "lesser of two evils". Games should simply not come bundled with this kind of intrusive software full stop. The problem is that over the years gamers have simply accepted their lot and taken everything the industry has thrown at them.

Do you really care if steam tracks that you are online?

Yes.

Freedom of choice is a good thing. What if I don't want secuROM. I have no choice. I'm not even told its being installed.

Precisely, though you don't have any choice with Steam either. If you want the game and the game uses Steam then you are stuck with Steam even if you don't want it.

Steam is a multiplayer platform as well.

Games have / should have their own multiplayer functionality. This worked well in the years before Steam arrived. Steam is not needed for this.

If Games For Windows Live went down.

Don't get me started on that...

What happened to the good old days when a CD-Key was all that was needed.

Games publishers got greedy and began treating all customers as thieves. Basically you are paying the premium for a game that others will crack and download pirate versions of anyway. The annoying DRM and activation hits you the law abiding, paying end user. It does not hit the fellow that downloads it for nothing from a P2P. This kind of software was not designed to stop mass piracy and illegal distribution/copying. It is there to stop little Jimmy from installing the game on his brother Billy Bob's PC. Meaning that Billy Bob has to go out and buy another game disc. This is both ludicrous and immoral. If you had three DVD players in your house would you buy the same movie three times so that you could play it on each one??

Steam is the chosen copyright protection. It functions as many other things for the games as well. Break your disc of Med2: total war? What are you going to do now. Ask for another? Like thats going to work.

Who chose it? Not me. What else does it do that other software cannot? What functions does it have that can't be built into the game itself, independent of Steam? I've never damaged or broken a game disc. What do you do if you break a film DVD or music CD? What do you do if you break your £1000 bone china?

Either buy another or download illegally. With steam, its yours.

Unless of course the Steam servers go down, the service is discontinued or you happen to not have an internet connection (or a fast internet connection).

Replacement discs should not be an issue as in the past users were allowed to make a backup copy of the installation media and run from that (keeping the original safe). The illegal copy protection employed by many developers effectively blocked this forcing the end user to use the original and keep it in the drive.

As long as the consumer is content to contine letting games developers erode their rights and take even more liberties with their privacy this can only get worse and worse.

[pevergreen]

Not in a good enough mood to riposte (correct word i hope) politely, so I withdraw for now.

[Martok]

In hindsight, I probably should've moved this thread to either the Arena or Backroom, as the subject is more appropriate to those areas. As it is, however, I believe this conversation has pretty much spent itself out anyway, given that it's evolved (devolved?) into the usual pro- and anti-Steam arguments.

As Tosa would say, "Topic needs a nap."