The region restrictions are up to the publisher of the game. If a game is region blocked, it's either to make the game release coincide with the official release date for the region, or it's because the game's not available in the region. Any game that you're unable to download is probably a game that's not available in retail anyway.

The single account part really comes down to not being incompetent. Frankly, in my opinion, having my games tied to one account is pretty convenient.

As for the EULA, it clearly states that if any change is going to be made to it, all users will be notified via email or Steam 30 days prior to the change.

Every digital download service has exclusive games or preorder bonuses in one way or another. In fact, a lot of the games in GoG's catalogue are exclusives. I'm not sure what happened to just buying games based on what you like, regardless of retailer, not on which retailer is more popular, or which retailer pulled a marketing stunt, or which retailer has a few exclusives.

Also, I'm not sure why it's such a big deal to have one small program running in the background occasionally updating your games. If you hate launching games through a client, you can just make desktop shortcuts for your games and only see a popup for a few seconds before the game launches. Sure, you have to be connected to the internet to install your games, but if you didn't have a broadband connection, you probably wouldn't be using a DD service in the first place. If you're installing a retail game, you only have to activate the game once to add it to your account. Even so, this isn't an issue, because the majority of PC gamers probably have internet access. Also, if your internet connection does go down, you're not kicked out of your singleplayer game and you can still use the client normally without going into offline mode. As a test, I disconnected my modem and tried to launch a game without going into offline mode. Nothing happened, and the game launched normally.

No pretending here age comes with wisdom you young people give much too much and expect little in return. Buy your games on steam fine with me but that’s your lose when they go bye bye.

It's my opinion and I like it and I don’t need everyone to agree with me because it won’t change. You DRM supporters are wrong and that’s it. Wrong is still wrong if everyone does it, right is still right if no one does it.

It more then a game young man, it’s what you believe in and what you won’t bow down to. DRM is unethical IMO and goes against the first sale doctrine that is Law of the Land in the U.S.A. Supreme Court ruled in favor of first sale doctrine so it is law and DRM is unlawful in the U.S.A. if you get down to it.

As I said I'm 34. I was playing games back on my brother's Atari 2600 and Vic 20 and prior to that there really weren't any dedicated gaming systems. How old are you? I doubt much older and even if you were it would be fairly irrelevant for the purposes of having a perspective on the lifetime of the gaming industry. I also went to law school and judging by your dime-store interpretation I'd say you didn't. Going to peg you as one of these twenty-somethings with a fetish against 'the man' spouting half-researched information to support your opinion. That or just a simple troll.

My problem with region restrictions and Steamworks is how much control this gives the industry. For example, they can actually forbid consumers from even importing and playing titles. Japan is one of the biggest targets of this from what I understand. Some games are not made available there, and if they try to import them, they will still be denied the ability to activate the game.

Is that really acceptable? It is one thing to simply not ship games to a country, but it is another to expressly forbid any form of activation and leave those consumers without any choice at all. I imagine it will only get worse as Steam begins to dominate, and publishers take full advantage of region control.

I went to changedetection.com a while back and set it up to notify me any time the SSA was altered on the website. It has been modified multiple times with no notification. Some are minor word changes, which likely do not warrant an update, but others include some fairly substantial additions.

They aren't going to bother to tell you when the SSA changed, only put in tiny print at the end of a checkout the last change date.

Not everyone wants those updates. Some may not enjoy the changes a publisher may make to a single player title, but are forced to update anyways. Other updates can ruin player alterations to a game, and render mods useless. For people like me, I have lost access to recorded in game footage, because updates made them unplayable.

You can set Steam to not update a game, but that doesn't mean anything. You will still be forced to update next time you attempt to launch the game. Sure, this is a great feature for some, but for many others it can also be a source of frustration.

Well... what can I say. The question of the thread was ill posed. Some people discuss whether Steam is DRM or not while they really want to discuss how bad of a DRM it is.

Some people simply want to express that the DRM of Steam doesn't bother them and end up saying it has none. Small but important error.

And then new people constantly arrive and mix the community features with the DRM aspect of Steam which have nothing to do with each other and could be implemented completely independently. This was discussed some pages ago, but who reads this anyway...

So, all in all it takes some time to convince people that Steam is indeed DRM, which is funny, because for me more like pointing out the obvious I can't do...

However, now it seems most people here appreciate the "has-DRM" property of Steam, so we can stop here and move to the more interesting discussion how bad Steam is of a DRM.

Actually this is a difficult question and may result in fights. I don't want to take part in that, my life is too short for this. And anyway I don't care much for Steam. Just my 2 cents: I cannot accept taking away control of my usage rights. If I buy something it must be 100% sure for all time that I am able use the product I just bought or how I get compensated if I can't use the product. In short: No checks ever that depend on an online service!

With Steam I can't be sure, with GOG I can. GOG is superior in this aspect. I prefer GOG. GOG is great. I like DRM free.

But if Steam changes in the future, adds more useful features, lowers prices more or just has a monopoly on new games, I might be forced to join them (unhappily).

So I am open to everything, but try to be true to my principles and have to admit that I am a slightly conservative and risk-avoiding. So I stick to GOG and disc checks. At least saves me money. :)

/thread

Once again the issue is not who's fault it is, the issue is that thanks to DRM it's possible to enforce it... and enforce it retroactively for that matter.

Try to do that with a DRM-free game or one with just a CD-check.

You probably never heard of it but there is a little something called "the Internet" that allows you to import games that are not sold in retail.

Very convenient... for them... they control all your games and what you can do with them easily as they are all linked to a single account.

You should have read the line after that one... it says they will notice you 30 prior... but it also says that your only options is either accepting their changes or cancel your account.

And because of the so convenient "all games linked to a single account" if they change the TOS for a single game you are forced to accept it because it you don't you don't only lose access to the game in question but to all the games linked to your account.

So basically you have the choice between accepting everything they want you to... our lose all your games... what a wonderful choice.

None of the games sold on GoG are exclusive, all were sold by other means, retails other DD at one time or another, while you have plenty of new games for which Steam using is the only option whenever you want it or not.

Maybe peoples just started thinking... thanks to DRM, some peoples started actually reading EULA and discover that not only most of them were pretty abusine but that now with DRM companies actually had the technical means to enforce them.

If they have legal or copyright issues and do not want to publish a game in a country, that is one thing. However, should they be allowed to completely restrict people from importing titles as well? Legally purchased copies from other regions? Personally, I find that a bit excessive.

I import titles quite a bit even though I live in the States. I would seriously hate to lose this ability, because a publisher wants to make sure the consumer can not trade between between regions. Not to mention, it allows them to charge certain regions more than they should be, and those consumers will have no alternative.

As for competition, I find the use of Steamworks questionable. It forces consumers who purchase games from other online services to use Steam, and be presented with a competitor storefront. That is a pretty raw deal for those other services, isn't it? As more and more games use Steamworks, I wonder how these companies will fare.

Hehe . . . can't resist posting this photo . . . ; )

Let's define "DRM" in a practical manner.

GOG sells *.EXE's. Steam and other such sites offer a modified installation, monitored and controlled. GOG simply requires you to accept a user agreement built into the executable.

If you cannot take the downloaded file and install it at will on an infinite amount of OFFLINE computers, then the service offers DRM-based products.

It really is that simple. *.exe = no DRM. Everything else = DRM.

Using the same example for discs, if after installing the game on an offline PC, you need to leave the disc in, it's DRM. Only a game that installs off a disc to an offline PC and does nto require the disc to continue play is free from DRM.

(I removed)

Really and you bring no facts as a "law school" student. Reason you can’t bring facts sonny is because you can’t refute the fact I just gave.

I gave a fact to support what I said you need to look it up, if you was a real “law school” student you should have already studied this.

So don’t even try to say you went to law school well maybe for a few months if that. Sick of the liars on the net these days…

DRM is a violation of First Sale doctrine period and needs to be brought before the Supreme Court so it can be done away with in the U.S.A.

Nice try - but several DRM systems work via modified .exe files - Direct2Drive and Steam itself.
This would be a better yardstick - if you can install a game on a new PC without it having an Internet connection, then it would be "online DRM free" (which then means users need not worry about the company staying in business).

The most obvious problem with every online activation system (GamersGate, Impulse, Steam, Direct2Drive) is that if/when the company closes down, all their customers lose access to their purchases. With the more "relaxed" systems like Impulse, you would be able to keep using their software until you upgraded (triggering the need for a new activation) or replaced your PC while with Steam, you would lose access within a few days - even with their so-called "offline" mode configured.

However the biggest danger is that you have a single account with multiple purchases linked to it, which in the long term could reach a value of hundreds or thousands of {local_currency_unit}. This could be effectively held to ransom by the distributor bringing in a subscription charge, forcing users to pay extra just to maintain access to the games they previously purchased.

Steam, being the largest distributor, has the most to gain from such an action. An annual fee of US$30 (less than the headline cost of most games) would bring in an extra US$675 million (assuming 90% acceptance with 25 million accounts) with little effort needed on Valve's part. The only downside for them would be a reduction in new signups which could easily be countered by increasing the number of exclusives (e.g. Civilization V, Napoleon Total War).

If anyone is sceptical about Valve's long-term intentions on this, consider section 4B of Steam's Subscriber Agreement: For a service where you (currently) pay in advance for items, what other reason could there be for such a condition?

It's the GOG forums. Every time Steam gets mentioned, a flamewar follows.