BTW, re: Steam, (who I think are one of the scummiest companies out there and am actually still amazed that so many GOGers who you'd think care about DRM and being treated fairly as customers, still buy games over there), there's a very interesting article on RockPaperShotgun about Steam, their customer service abuses and the legal rights we have to the software we own. (and yeah, sorry, read that sentence 3 times to make it make sense :) - I'm TIRED!!)

Food for thought, if nothing else.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/01/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games/

Yeah, that article.

again.

I will cut this short by simply saying this article is a prime example of the case were reading doesn't make you smarter.

In what way? Are you saying that GamersGate is worse than he thinks (I don't think it is) or that Steam is better (more likely, since it has offscreen mode and far as I know doesn't sell the information)?

I was talking about misinformation, so the latter. Gamersgate is a fine service in itself. Steam however does *not* require you to be online to play half your games, and in most cases, if you are even required to be online at all it's either a multiplayer game or some third party DRM that is not Steam related.

Also I doubt there's any evidence about Steam selling off information. I think someone would have to be pretty predisposed to actually believe stuff like that is fact based on nothing.

People who use Steam really should be more aware of what the service does and where your data goes. Developers can get information from Steam about how many hours people are playing their products any time they want, and some people in the industry suspect Steam also sells the data, as other developers are using this information to 'tailor' their games to what they think gamers want.

Why do you think Steam has such a massive download client? It's pulling boatloads of information from your computer about all the games you play from Steam as pretty much any computer geek can tell you, as oppose to GamersGate's downloader which is tiny and gets deleted after every download.

There is also NO good reason for anyone to need a Steam download client permanently installed on their computer to be able to play games (which is mandatory for Steam game's as you can't play games without it) unless, every time you go online, Steam is taking data from it).

This was an article on eurogamer.net a couple of months ago. Just like the other article I linked to, which of course some people don't believe because hey "Steam would never do that" even though there is case after case of it happening (until it happens to them of course), it shows Steam opens up its players files to developers who want to know what players are doing with their games, and you don't think they make MONEY out of this?? The naivete is mind-boggling.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-01-ca-total-war-would-be-really-stung-by-reviewers-if-multiplayer-went

Quote from article from Creative Assembly:

[i]Heaton went on to reveal that half of the people who play Total War do so for more than 40 hours. A quarter, he said, play for more than 100 hours.

"So I've heard some stats about Skyrim and other games, and I think we've beat Skyrim on playability, and we see that day to day, direct through Steam," boasted Heaton. "So that's not research; that is real data from our players. It's quite amazing." [/i]

And sure, that's the developer that's getting your information from Steam, but if they're giving it to him, who else are they giving it to?

Steam is run by a mega-corporation, Valve. They're just as money-grubbing as Electronic Arts. The only difference is they've created a warm and fuzzy 'Steam community', so players think they're not dealing with Big Brother.

But.....I never buy games from Steam anymore, so it doesn't affect me. :)

Ecept the most part of the post is not quite what I would say well founded, I would also like to add:

Dam you game developers, wanting to to know which games are more playable and giving gamers what they want. We want you to grope in the dark blindly , dammit. Basterd. **Shake fists**

And now they know I played Trine 2 more then Binding of Isaac, my identity is compromised and they will empty my secret Swiss bank account tomorrow. Double basterds. **Shake fists again**

What exactly do you think GOG is? They aren't exactly a charity.

Every company is using their gathered data to help them in their business. Nothing nefarious there.

There is nothing wrong with not liking a certain company (I really don't like CDP), but you can't bend the narrative to fit your preconceived ideas.

See, that is screwed up assbackwards. The devs know the # of copies sold. That's enough. Collecting detailed gameplay data and acting on it will select towards addictive, rather than satisfying, games, pushing everything towards Farmville.

they also know how long it is played (i.e. playability not only hype), but also how far they come and where they get stuck. Invaluable data. # of sold units is only a very small tip of the iceberg. As a developer you do want to know a lot more about how your game is played and received (if you care about the gamers and not only the money, that is)

Good behaviour would be to ask the user about his agreement to collecting usage data together privacy measures and a clarification which personal data is collected and what it is used for. Microsoft is doing it like this. Openoffice is doing it like this. Many others are doing it like this. If it's done like this, nothing really speaks against collecting and analysing such data.

I agree. Many people aren't aware that you can put it in offline mode and play that way without any internet connection, and I find that surprising.

Much of what you say is bullshit, of course. The Steam client is big because it includes a web browser and web store, a social interaction platform, in-game communication and much more.

If you're the type who's worried about having any scrap of data related to you available to anyone, and there are people like that, then Steam isn't the platform for you. That doesn't make it a terrible platform in general. Steam is a convenient platform exactly because it answers the social aspects, in-game communication, game library management and update, and all the other stuff it does. It even does privacy decently well, but if you're a privacy nut you'll obviously not like it.

But they do ask!

What do you think is in that "privacy policy" everybody agrees to.

Aside from the fact that they obligue you to be online to activate and play your game, what I find surprising is that many people claim that as a solution when the offline mode doesn't always work.

Try installing Skyrim from a disc and running it in offline mode.

Edit: Ninja'd