Steam and its DRM

[Arehexes]

Eat Lead is a parody on other gaming genres also, and the internet thing is better then a install limit EA pulled with spore.

They're both unforgivable ways to rip off the consumer. But again, by playing off of discs I'm guarenteed to not have to do this. Benefits of legal ownership, love 'em.

Which is why my copy of Halo 2 needed to be re-activated when my "key" was expired. Which I bought on disc, and I have to keep all my keys safe for if I lose them I can not install my games. Yep we own PC games on disc, but if we use steam are keys are linked to our account. While I do enjoy owning my discs (which is why I hate the PSP Go), PC gaming is to tight fisted.

EDIT:I forgot to mention the spore thing is a CD Key issue not a internet download thing. You can buy the disc but only have a limit to your installs on a different PC...so yeah you do own your games disc, just not the ability to play them .

 

[Chibz]

Which is why my copy of Halo 2 needed to be re-activated when my "key" was expired. Which I bought on disc, and I have to keep all my keys safe for if I lose them I can not install my games. Yep we own PC games on disc, but if we use steam are keys are linked to our account. While I do enjoy owning my discs (which is why I hate the PSP Go), PC gaming is to tight fisted.

That's PC gaming boy-o. The entire industry is built on licensing games you "buy". Such a thing is unheard of in the healthier part of the gaming industry.

You also hate the PSP Go? Yeah. It's just a PSP with the same online store, but forcing you to buy the game from the online store. Plus I LOVE my Silver PSP-2000.

Having to install everything just makes your drive fill up quickly. I'm pretty sure that if I had bought everything off the 360 arcade my drive would be massively full by now.

 

[Arehexes]

Which is why my copy of Halo 2 needed to be re-activated when my "key" was expired. Which I bought on disc, and I have to keep all my keys safe for if I lose them I can not install my games. Yep we own PC games on disc, but if we use steam are keys are linked to our account. While I do enjoy owning my discs (which is why I hate the PSP Go), PC gaming is to tight fisted.

That's PC gaming boy-o. The entire industry is built on licensing games you "buy". Such a thing is unheard of in the healthier part of the gaming industry.

You also hate the PSP Go? Yeah. It's just a PSP with the same online store, but forcing you to buy the game from the online store. Plus I LOVE my Silver PSP-2000.

Having to install everything just makes your drive fill up quickly. I'm pretty sure that if I had bought everything off the 360 arcade my drive would be massively full by now.

If your forced to use CD keys that run out it's not owning it's renting which is a problem with PC gaming.

And I dislike the PSP Go because if you have a lot of UMDs you lose that collection and any thing you buy for your Go you can't sell or refund (And I prefer my 1000 for "other" reasons, turned mine into a Go WAY before sony made one).

And I'm lost on the installing thing, cause PC games need to have games installed #_#.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Yes, but you can play them in offline mode(whatever reason you would need to do that)

Eh. I did it quite a lot while travelling. (no internet access when I'm not at home, after all).

Of course, then you did sometimes run into the problem of steam arbitrarily deciding offline mode wasn't available for some games because of... Some update or something not having been installed yet.

Figures. I guess it does mean if you need offline mode for something, make sure you check it works beforehand.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

So as we can see from the many threads there are, there are many christmas sales all over the internet with many games going for ridiculous prices.

I have played the demo for Recettear and I'd love to buy it, but if I buy it on Steam will it require using Steam to run?

I hate the way Steam handles my games and I'd gladly pay £2 more at GamersGate for a DRM free copy.

So, do all games on Steam require Steam to run once downloaded?

From your other posts here and even your original post, it looks like you made your mind up before even starting the thread.

I beg to ask, Why did you even bother posting here, all you need to know is in steam's FAQ. Go read it then take yourself to the store and buy the game.


OT: steam is really great and always works for me with or without an internet connection. Only time it doesn't work in your favor is if you are a hacker, cheater, or you steal someone else's identity to make purchases, and then I hope you get banned and/or put in jail for being a wanker.

 

[Chibz]

And I'm lost on the installing thing, cause PC games need to have games installed #_#.

That's part of why I started to grow to resent PC gaming: Being forced to install every game I play.

 

[Arehexes]

PS3 does it too, only good thing is we can use Laptop Sata drives which are cheap to upgrade. Microsoft just charges you up the bum for less >_>. But installing is a pain though if you ask me

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

From your other posts here and even your original post, it looks like you made your mind up before even starting the thread.

I beg to ask, Why did you even bother posting here, all you need to know is in steam's FAQ. Go read it then take yourself to the store and buy the game.


OT: steam is really great and always works for me with or without an internet connection. Only time it doesn't work in your favor is if you are a hacker, cheater, or you steal someone else's identity to make purchases, and then I hope you get banned and/or put in jail for being a wanker.

I believed that the Escapist would be able to tell me if I could download a game through Steam and it wouldn't have Steams DRM.

My mind was made up after I was informed that wasn't possible.

Jumping the gun a bit?

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

From your other posts here and even your original post, it looks like you made your mind up before even starting the thread.

I beg to ask, Why did you even bother posting here, all you need to know is in steam's FAQ. Go read it then take yourself to the store and buy the game.


OT: steam is really great and always works for me with or without an internet connection. Only time it doesn't work in your favor is if you are a hacker, cheater, or you steal someone else's identity to make purchases, and then I hope you get banned and/or put in jail for being a wanker.

I believed that the Escapist would be able to tell me if I could download a game through Steam and it wouldn't have Steams DRM.

My mind was made up after I was informed that wasn't possible.

Jumping the gun a bit?

what I had said is that STEAM'S FAQ could answer your question.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

what I had said is that STEAM'S FAQ could answer your question.

What you had said is that the only people who suffer because of Steam are hackers.

OT: steam is really great and always works for me with or without an internet connection. Only time it doesn't work in your favor is if you are a hacker, cheater, or you steal someone else's identity to make purchases, and then I hope you get banned and/or put in jail for being a wanker.

Which is a woefully misinformed statement.

Anyway I wanted a more specific response to the fact that I want Recettear DRM free, I didn't want to sift through an FAQ for a general response.

 

[Plazmatic]

its not that you don't like steam, lots of people don't like steam. Its that you don't like steam DRM. Don't try to simplify what i'm trying to say in order to try to move people to your side next time.

Oh I see... well not really.

Well I do not use Steams other features... to me Steam = DRM, there is no difference.

To clarify, I'm fine with DRM, I realise developers have a right to protect their properties and deserve to be paid for what they do.

I simply do not like Steam.

what exactally is bad about it? (I realise you have probably said this athousand times but would you please clarify?)

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

what exactally is bad about it? (I realise you have probably said this athousand times but would you please clarify?)

Too many reasons and I've written it out a dozen times...

In a nutshell, it doesn't agree with my system, it got in the way of installing two of my favourite games, I don't use the other features so Steam has no good points for me, with all of the drawbacks and I prefer the way other platforms handle my games.

 

[Firetaffer]

Chibz is basically one of those people who likes what he likes, and anything he doesn't like is garbage.

Basically, he's close-minded as fuck.

Why does CS:S need more game modes? What purpose does it serve? Your claim has ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY no credibility whatsoever because CS and CS:S are the 2nd and 3rd MOST PLAYED PC games TO THIS VERY DATE, just under Modern Warfare 2, which is supposedly a far more advanced game.

But you say,
1. It only has one game mode!
2. It's trashy!
3. It lacks game play diversity!
4. It's terrible!

Yet the hundreds of thousands of people who still play BOTH games prove that you're just overly opinionated about something you don't really know anything about.

So I'm done here, there's no reasoning with someone who thinks that the world ends as far as their vision extends.

As for the 'most played game' I would argue about WoW and Bejewled.

 

[Dys]

steam is really great and always works for me with or without an internet connection. Only time it doesn't work in your favor is if you are a hacker, cheater, or you steal someone else's identity to make purchases, and then I hope you get banned and/or put in jail for being a wanker.

That's absurd. I had steam randomly decide to fail as recently as a few hours ago.

I had just downloaded and installed darksiders, which I'd bought during the Christmas sale (and endured the abysmal Christmas server overload to obtain) and, when it finished, decided to[footnote]Read was told to.[/footnote] shut down my laptop and go round to my girlfriends (who has no internet connection), naturally I took my laptop with me as I figured after a while she'd go to bed or watch tv and I'd get a chance to play my shiny new single player, completely installed and activated game.

Unfortunately, unbeknown to me my laptop didn't completely shut down, as steam had crashed and I had impatiently closed the lid before seeing the shutdown process complete. What this means, of course, is that when I arrived at my internet free destination, steam had forgotten who I was and refused to sign into offline mode without and internet connection (why the fuck it doesn't store my user data locally in permanent memory is beyond me), at no point had I hacked, cheated or stolen someones identity (unless one is capable of fraudulently posing as themselves, which is quite the retarded concept).

TLR Steam is unnecessary and of course penalizes legitimate consumers. Pirates who use steam buster or whatever other cracking methods to get around steam have no issues with offline gaming. Ever. Even when the client crashes (gasp). Once a single player game has been activated there is no reason for steam to be running in order for the game to launch, I long for the day when impulse becomes popular and they have the publishing power to release games in my region

 

[Premonition]

I don't know about current games, but I can play my old Half Life games without Steam. No online play or updates tho. Just the pure game and nothing more.

 

[DanDeFool]

Honestly, I'd much rather have Steam's DRM then other forms of DRM which come with retail copies of games (like SecuROM, for example).

You know some steam games do have 3rd party DRM, which pisses me off tbh

Did not realize that... although I should have, considering I bought Section 8, which requires you to connect to Games for Windows Online or whatever.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

Unfortunately, unbeknown to me my laptop didn't completely shut down, as steam had crashed and I had impatiently closed the lid before seeing the shutdown process complete.

well now how can you blame this on steam? PEBKAC

 

[Chibz]

well now how can you blame this on steam? PEBKAC

He's clearly complaining about Steam being all but necessary to run the games. Which is, frankly, a valid complaint.

 

[Dys]

Unfortunately, unbeknown to me my laptop didn't completely shut down, as steam had crashed and I had impatiently closed the lid before seeing the shutdown process complete.

well now how can you blame this on steam? PEBKAC

My laptop hadn't completely shut down because steam had locked up, not steam locked up because my laptop hadn't shut down. Had steam not been running, I wouldn't have had the "program is not responding" screen asking me if I wanted to force close it. I can hardly see how anything other than steam can be blamed for it's seizure...