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General discussionHow many of you actually boycott Steam games?(1376 posts)(1376 posts)
(1376 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 24, 2012
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Nirth: You realize how much change would have to happen for something like that to come up on a discussion? The success of Steam is the sales and game library. If they come up with hidden charges and make the latter complicated they will lose customers real quickly.
But those customers would lose their Steam games too, that's the whole point of Steam criticism.

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Nirth: Also, against the common argument that if Steam goes under so does all the games, I don't think it will happen like that. Since you own the license to play...
SimonG uses this argument too, but, isn't that license subject to Steam SA? Licenses don't just give you the right to use a piece of software, they give you that right under the conditions you accept when you start using it, and the conditions for Steam games are pretty draconian.
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bazilisek: If it came to worst, you can bet a semi-respectable curated repository with guaranteed working and virus-free executable files for Steam releases would appear on the internet within a week.
In fact, those repositories already exist, ;)
Post edited September 24, 2012 by MichaelPalin
Posted September 24, 2012
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TheEnigmaticT: I find English is much the same here as it is in America. :P
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gameon: Woah, thats interesting. I know that alot of countries use English as a second language, (alot of Germans spoke decent enough English when i was there). But i was thinking it'd be like going to Japan and using symbols and cheesy iphone gadgets so you could find a laundrette etc. lol, i forget we are living in a global world, and of course, GOG uses English as it's main language :)
That was actually a poorly-executed joke on my part; I get by with a mix of Polishand English and my naturally somewhat quiet life means I don't need much from others, so it all works out.

I'd say about a third of the Polish I meet outside work have transactional English, and about 10% have conversational.
Posted September 24, 2012
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Nirth: Also, against the common argument that if Steam goes under so does all the games, I don't think it will happen like that. Since you own the license to play...
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MichaelPalin: SimonG uses this argument too, but, isn't that license subject to Steam SA? Licenses don't just give you the right to use a piece of software, they give you that right under the conditions you accept when you start using it, and the conditions for Steam games are pretty draconian.
I'm amazed at how many people think their Steam games would be uncoupled from the Steam client should Valve go under. If the company's in that dire a financial situation, you can bet none of their limited resources will be put towards unlocking all the games tied to Steam.

I have a couple dozen games on Steam, but if Valve goes under, I'm quite prepared to hoist the Jolly Roger and make sure my games are still accessible and playable. Because I'm pretty sure Valve won't.
Post edited September 24, 2012 by Coelocanth
Posted September 24, 2012
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pH7: If I'd say that you'd be an idiot for using the Steam service because one day they'll start charging you tens of dollars every month for keeping your savegames etc, and that you'd have no alternative other than accepting it unless you were ok with losing all the games you'd bought; that'd be a straw man argument (even if they could do that, without breaking any laws).
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Nirth: You realize how much change would have to happen for something like that to come up on a discussion? The success of Steam is the sales and game library. If they come up with hidden charges and make the latter complicated they will lose customers real quickly.

Also, against the common argument that if Steam goes under so does all the games, I don't think it will happen like that. Since you own the license to play them they will probably have to (by law) issue some kind of universal fix that makes all games free of the Steam client and their own copy protection (I think they use some kind of encryption on their .exe, read it one a forum a few years ago but I can't confirm that). This was not targeted against you however, just a general reminder. :)
...

It was meant as an example of a straw man argument - e.g. not to be taken as an argument at all... ;-)

As for games on Steam becoming unavailable if Steam goes under, I think I'm more optimistic than most "Steam skeptics". As you say, you do own the license to the games, so if Steam is no more then any (forced) agreement with the Steam service is void. Hence you'd probably be left with some DRM free games, some requiring activation against a server the (new) publisher is hosting, some utilizing other forms of DRM - and maybe a few that won't work at all (only MP, too much relying Steam infrastructure etc)
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MichaelPalin: SimonG uses this argument too, but, isn't that license subject to Steam SA? Licenses don't just give you the right to use a piece of software, they give you that right under the conditions you accept when you start using it, and the conditions for Steam games are pretty draconian.
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Coelocanth: I'm amazed at how many people think their Steam games would be uncoupled from the Steam client should Valve go under. If the company's in that dire a financial situation, you can bet none of their limited resources will be put towards unlocking all the games tied to Steam.

I have a couple dozen games on Steam, but if Valve goes under, I'm quite prepared to hoist the Jolly Roger and make sure my games are still accessible and playable. Because I'm pretty sure Valve won't.
I'd expect the developers/publishers selling their games on Steam to deliever patches that'd uncouple Steam related stuff from their games if Steam goes under.
Post edited September 24, 2012 by pH7
Posted September 24, 2012
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pH7: I'd expect the developers/publishers selling their games on Steam to deliever patches that'd uncouple Steam related stuff from their games if Steam goes under.
You may be right, but I still have serious doubts. Either way, all I'm saying is I'd find a way to make the games I paid for work.
Posted September 24, 2012
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pH7: I'd expect the developers/publishers selling their games on Steam to deliever patches that'd uncouple Steam related stuff from their games if Steam goes under.
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Coelocanth: You may be right, but I still have serious doubts. Either way, all I'm saying is I'd find a way to make the games I paid for work.
I don't know if I'm right, which is why I only buy games that need online activation etc if I'm also fine with only having them for a limited time. Not that I'd feel particularily bad about pirating a game I owned if the distributor decided to f**k me over.. =P
Posted September 24, 2012
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SimonG: You need a polish bank account or other "local payment option" Steam is very anal about being in another country when buying games. Even within EU countries (no price difference) you cannot by if not "in the country". Probably tax reasons.
I've been moving between Germany and Poland a lot and I haven't ever had any trouble of this kind, no matter whether I used a German bank account in Poland, a Polish one in Germany etc.. Only thing I had to make sure was that the billing address is in the country where I'm currently located but it's hardly a problem to enter an address, is it. And my brother hasn't even had any trouble buying games in Russia with a German credit card. Really weird that others are experiencing such problems. I think it's rather about how you set up your credit cards then what Steam wants (for example before using my Polish credit card for Steam I had to configure a few things concerning online payments - I didn't have to do this with my German credit card for some reason).
Post edited September 24, 2012 by F4LL0UT
Posted September 24, 2012
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JCD-Bionicman: Either way, DRM is totally pointless.
Sooner or later, there will be streaming-only games, the perfect DRM.
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pH7: I'd expect the developers/publishers selling their games on Steam to deliever patches that'd uncouple Steam related stuff from their games if Steam goes under.
Fair enough, but they are still not legally bound to do so.
Post edited September 24, 2012 by MichaelPalin
Posted September 24, 2012
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MichaelPalin: Sooner or later, there will be streaming-only games, the perfect DRM.
Perfect DRM means that you won't even get to see or hear the game. Else there's always the risk of reverse engineering. :D
Posted September 24, 2012
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Randalator: I'm pretty sure that on my death bed my biggest regret won't be "I wish I had played Half-Life 2". Although that would be cool because DAMN! Good life!
Quote of the year!
Posted September 24, 2012
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JCD-Bionicman: I boycott steam mainly because the DRM benefits no one. It doesn't prevent piracy, and so it just makes the DRM even more annoying.

I just wanted to post this as a sort of poll to see how many people actually go as far as boycotting Steam games. It'd have to be a damn good game for me to consider buying a Steam exclusive.
I boycott steam because every Steam sale is one more statistic saying that PC gamers don't want actual PC releases ...
Posted September 25, 2012
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Randalator: I specifically said "brilliant games!", not "any old piece of rubbish that gets shat onto the market". Even limiting myself to those brilliant games, there's still far more than time allows me to play.
So every Steamworks game is automatically "any old piece of rubbish that gets shat onto the market"? What a great baseline...


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SimonG: Our politicians however .... Well. At least we have the Pirate Party!
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MichaelPalin: Haven't you just said that pirates don't want to reward developers?
Do you know the Pirate Party?
Post edited September 25, 2012 by SimonG
Posted September 25, 2012
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Randalator: I specifically said "brilliant games!", not "any old piece of rubbish that gets shat onto the market". Even limiting myself to those brilliant games, there's still far more than time allows me to play.
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SimonG: So every Steamworks game is automatically "any old piece of rubbish that gets shat onto the market"? What a great baseline...
He didn't say that you know. It was actually You that implied he wasn't playing "the best games available" (or "was playing any old piece..." being the other extreme) due to avoiding Steam.
Pow, conversational English!
Posted September 25, 2012
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JCD-Bionicman: ...
I guess the anti-piracy effect of Steams DRM is probably only good in the first hours after release when a torrent might not yet be available and with Steam afaik there weren't torrents before release. After a day or two they could as well turn it off if it was only for the effect.

And then there are the technically not so educated people who even don't know how to torrent. They know nothing about computers except that if there is a button showing up you should always click on agree/yes/...

From the point of publishers DRM might not be totally pointless. If it would work better against pirates and would mean less hassles for the customers it would protect your investments and could result in even lowered prices per sold unit.

Anyway, if I would be a publisher I would go putting all non-time-critical game content on servers and making all my games even SP always on with some flexibility but without offline mode. Forget the users who don't have Internet, just produce for those who have (which are a majority anyway) and you can be relatively sure that pirates will bite the dust without any additional DRM because DRM is naturally built-in. Then this whole discussion here will probably prove useless.

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Randalator: ...There was a case here in Germany where every international version of Half-Life 2 registered to a German account got censored by an update due to youth protection laws (despite the uncut game having been granted a rating making it legal). People were not happy....
Errors happen with every service. E.g. recently my Sophos antivirus programm detected its own update as a virus and blocked it.

It would depend how quickly Steam reacted and repaired the damage...
Post edited September 25, 2012 by Trilarion
Posted September 25, 2012
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MoP: He didn't say that you know. It was actually You that implied he wasn't playing "the best games available" (or "was playing any old piece..." being the other extreme) due to avoiding Steam.
Pow, conversational English!
Huh? I said: "Some of the best games released are Steamworks games". And I'm not only implying, I'm stating that if you boycott Steam, you are missing some of the best games currently available (legally that is. As Steam games are extremely easy to pirate).

He says, "I don't play "any old piece of rubbish that gets shat onto the market". Only brilliant games.

Therefore I would say he says that any steamworks game is automatically any not brilliant. Which I consider childish at best.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionHow many of you actually boycott Steam games?(1376 posts)(1376 posts)
(1376 posts)