I'm holding out buying anything Steam for a few more years at least. Maybe even until 2020. My goal is to support GOG 100% through sales or otherwise. Having been a member for years now and being an owner of most of its catalog I can safely say I have no regrets. I have enough games to keep me busy for years, both classics and indies. Actually, with how slow I play games you might as well say half a lifetime worth of games.

The only reason why I would buy anything on Steam is if it never shows up here. If I ended up being wrong and one of those showed up after my purchase I would still buy it here to support it. I've tried to go out of my way to support this site in more ways than one, but I just can't be sure if they'll sign on with certain prominent developers/publishers, or if certain games will be omitted for good from the catalog.

But most of my wishlist has been fulfilled. The games I'd score elsewhere include a couple random Star Wars titles, Homeworld, Galactic Civilizations 2, the Civilization series, and a number RPG's, horror games, and FPS titles.


Compared to what I have on GOG though that's just a handful, and GOG is still my preferred platform

I don't boycott Steam because it seems that some publishers won't release their games on GOG, and I don't want to miss those games. But If G and S release same games, I will buy them from G. Because I prefer DRM-free distribution to clients.

You understand that the method you are describing ('always verify online') is just another form of DRM though. That's a no go for many that are DRM-free. The game is phoning home to check a status that is being maintained somewhere other than the buyer's PC.

I already see many comments that say 'it doesn't matter because DRM doesn't prevent it now' and that is correct. But like it was brought up before, you are making almost too convenient when you allow full sharing. Look at it from a Steam perspective. What is the incentive for someone to buy a game (sale or otherwise) when the client clearly shows 8 of your friends already own the game. You can just ask them to share it after they've completed it. That is a nightmare for publishers.

I'm quite aware of that. I'm merely pointing out that even accepting the general developer's/publisher's point of view that DRM is absolutely necessary (which btw. I don't share at all) they're still dicks who put restrictions on their last honest customers that are completely unnecessary and not a single pirate has to put up with.

But this is just restating "you need DRM because otherwise people can steal."

"Allowing full sharing" is a red herring here. If there's no DRM, full sharing is going to be possible regardless, and to limit it, you need DRM because there's no way to limit it otherwise. And that brings us back to the initial question of "does DRM actually work" which, as you acknowledged, it does not.

And no, people sharing things they're done with is not a nightmare for publishers. That's how physical media has worked since time immemorial, it's how console games and Blu-Rays and CDs and books work to this very day, and we've gotten on just fine. That publishers would rather find a way to charge everyone money every single time they want to consume a piece of media and would like to charge every individual person in a room whenever people plan a local movie night is immaterial to me, because as a consumer I'm going to fight for my rights. That's how this whole process works.

And, full disclosure, I work for a major film production company.

No I don't. Usually if a game is available on both Steam and GOG though I get the GOG version unless the steam version is cheaper or part of a bundle I'm getting.

I've had a great idea on how to reduce piracy.

Before releasing a film, have a porn film of the exact same name torrent released 2 weeks earlier.

That's not gonna reduce piracy, just boost tissue sales...

Time-Warner-Kleenex ?

I found this thread searching for Cities: Skylines. I sure hope there's a purchasable (not rentable) release soon.

I have no Steam account. I will never have a Steam account unless it magically becomes a 100% DRM-free marketplace. I barely even use Humble anymore because if any one item in the bundle is a Steamsclusive, I will not participate [full stop].

Not directly boycotting Steam as-is, but I definitively would never buy any game from them which has mandatory Steamworks-DRM (which sadly almost all of them do) or worse, have one or more additional layers of DRM added into (Uplay, Origin, Denuvo and such crap).

Sadly games released on Steam that aren't tied to their store DRM are increasingly rare (remembe some of the past Paradox titles that could simply be purchased there, and once installed could be played without Steamworks by moving the folder elsewhere, iirc).

Guess all those people who claim that DRM is no big deal (or even might be good... man, poor fools) have yet to be burned really hard by it.

Still remember with bitterness when it happened to me, was still during the physical media era (remember, when most games where still released on CD / DVD), bought a new game for 50 bucks and after alot of hassle just to install it, 8/10 when trying to play, it would bitch about "insert a legal CD-ROM of X Game", despite said CD being right in the disc drive, with the sad excuse of customer support back than coming up with nothing better to say than "please clean up the disc" or quesrioning the fact of having bought a legal product :facepalm:

That went on for like 3 days before I had to end up to resort to "less legit means" to play the game, and from then on I had a blast with it. And to those who might wanna get all preachy, as I said, I spent real money on it, so your "that's piracy" crap is nil and void...

Ironically, I have received said game during a GA on the GOG Forums, and it's still as fun as it used to be... even better because this time I won't have to bother with crappy DRM. Makes me wonder how much said crappy DRM actually hurt the publisher back then, as whenever people talk about DRM preventing piracy and helping the rightholder, no one ever mentions the number of lost sales and reduces income from people waiting for it to go to the lowest price possible during sales, also a result of DRM... but guess they can't allow some fissures on that nice facade.

Too bad a lot of Devs / Publishers don't realize just how easy it is to turn a legit custumer into a pirate. And that from my point of view, is what DRM primarly encourages, as with each time another customer gets burnt by it, it makes them more likely to say fuck it and join the "Dark Side" and never again buy any game, but instead just pirate it.

Guess that went longer planned... Rant Over. Ironically, I would probably buy from time to time on Steam if they dropped DRM, but it's more likely that pigs grow wings and start flying through the sky.

Never purchased a game from steam, shame as the fallout 4 looks very good.

Such is life

Regards

Or they got over it, which is human nature, and a healthy trait.

Not at all easy. Can you give me examples of this?

This is one of the threads were an option to have polls on this board would be nice.

I've never bought anything that is tied to online DRM either apart from Unreal Tournament 3, because I just couldn't find anything about online DRM in reviews about this one at the time...
Most people around here that have Fallout 4 don't seem to be very impressed in the long run, some quit, others finished it and were especcially disappointed by the end.

Don't be sad, you're probably better off giving Fallout 1-3 another whirl. :)