Greed

Chum said:

Ah, there we go. The 3 letters often used by people who don't understand as a reason why they can't play.

DRM is a complete non-issue. You can access your game anytime you want from anywhere you want on any computer you want. What possibly can you have to complain about in that scenario?

The only possible complaint about it is that if the internet suddenly shuts off tomorrow, you won't be able to play anything you don't have installed. I think that's a fair trade off, since it's pretty obvious that if the internet shuts off tomorrow, we've got far bigger problems on this planet.

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why did ms change their position on drm on the xboxone?

it doesnt matter if the internet goes out. the consumer no longer owns the game. they are buying rights to use the game for an UNKNOWN amount of time. online only games may have server issues or they may also stop supporting the game at some point and ultimately they may shut the server down and then what - you no longer have a game.

or how about this.. its a big issue with ms.. trying reactivating copies of old games x amount of times and they will no longer work. unless you call them and waste an hour of your time. other games only have a set amount for its life

steam and others are a joke.. i use them because i HAVE to use them if i want to play certain games i BOUGHT. i remember how they said it would lower the costs for games..yet they are always the same cost on launch day. yet you dont get a cd etc.

whats even worse is buying the physical copy of the game and when i go to install it i have to download it from steam.. now unless you know how to bypass this, you could be stuck for hours depending on you isp.

ive had issues with steam myself.. i had to contact their tech support to try and fix their software which had a bug after an update.. and you know what, they couldnt help me. all i was finally told was this, uninstall then reinstall. that did nothing. i tried that 10+ times over two weeks and finally gave up. so i couldnt play any of my games and they couldnt help me.

steam now works, but what changed, they had another update weeks later and then it finally worked. let me guess, it was my fault.

plus i live in australia now - we pay for data. its not like the usa where i got unlimited data and was basically just paying for speed.

plus, has pirating stopped - nope

You should be just glad that Firaxis went with Steam and not Origin. Steam is streamlined, has good deals 99% of the time, is undeletable, keeps games in one place, and makes playing with friends much easier.

Civilization 1 wasn't that hard to clear. Civilization 1 used to have less difficulties that exist now. Lately, Immortal and Deity difficulties have been showing up.

Undefeatable said:

You should be just glad that Firaxis went with Steam and not Origin. Steam is streamlined, has good deals 99% of the time, is undeletable, keeps games in one place, and makes playing with friends much easier.

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origin does suck. so does uplay etc. i agree with you that steams is the most usable of all the launchers but its still unnecessary in reality.

Deals, on occasions sure. However, right now civ v complete is going for 80 dollars on steam australia, while its 57 at EB australia with case/cd etc. im sure its probably 30 in the usa right now huh.

so as they said, it will lower costs for the gaming industry and those lower costs will be passed to the consumer - yeah right

aprince said:

origin does suck. so does uplay etc. i agree with you that steams is the most usable of all the launchers but its still unnecessary in reality.

Deals, on occasions sure. However, right now civ v complete is going for 80 dollars on steam australia, while its 57 at EB australia with case/cd etc. im sure its probably 30 in the usa right now huh.

so as they said, it will lower costs for the gaming industry and those lower costs will be passed to the consumer - yeah right

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Steam sales - they happen every Thanksgiving/Christmas. 50% off major franchises, civ included.

Are BNW and G&K really easier than vanilla as TractorBoy says?

Or are players maybe just, you know, getting better?

Of course TractorBoy would like to insist that vanilla is harder, since it's the version he plays. LOL.

Never will I really understand this constant argument how older gamers constantly think they are superior to new ones. I played some hard games back when I was a kid, so what? Do I consider myself a better gamer? Superior to the new ones? Hell, no! I play games because I enjoy them, have fun with and I like it when they challenge me as well. Hasn't anyone thought about an idea that you play modern games better and you find them easier, because well... you have been gaming for a long time? Someone who played CIV III or IV for example on Deity (Sid difficulty) will obviously learn to play CIV V on that difficulty faster than someone else. Besides some people simply learn pretty fast others don't. So the thing is not that modern games are easy, but the fact that you have played so many games already, that you have started seeing some pattern in certain genres, you learned some tricks. And then you can exploit them easier than someone who is new to that.

And that whole ''older generations better than the new ones'' and ''how will they lead the world in the future?'' is a subject chewed on so many times, that it became pointless to debate over it. Not to mention that it was proved wrong many times. Besides (since you are a grandfather) Tractor Boy try to remember back at the time when you were young, what were the older people saying? I am sure they also weren't overly positive not optimistic about younger generations.

Uplay sucks? really? I simply can`t agree. For me as an Offline player it has been the best DRM so far. Why?

Well with Steam if I truly go Offline, and I mean truly not just clicking `offline` but disconnected from the net, Steam will stop my games from working after about 2 weeks. this is true it happens every time. This is why I hate Steam. i can`t relax with long term games like rpgs or strategy if my internet goes on the blink.

However, with Uplay, once you register and go offline, it doesn`t bother you again- ever. It seems to get that Offline is OFFLINE. I once lost my internet for 6 months and while Steam stopped me playing Skyrim after around 2 weeks for no apparent reason, Uplay allowed mt to play Farcry 3 for the entire period until I eventually got the net back.


You can test for yourself, but most of you probably never disconnect from the net for a long time, so you never see this.

It`s wrong and probably is under the Law`s radar why it gets away with it. This is why I do NOT like Steam.

p.s. I don`t like any of these DRMs, but Uplay is less interfering than Steam. I would personally prefer how it was, just give me a code, I`m not a criminal.

aprince said:

it doesnt matter if the internet goes out. the consumer no longer owns the game. they are buying rights to use the game for an UNKNOWN amount of time. online only games may have server issues or they may also stop supporting the game at some point and ultimately they may shut the server down and then what - you no longer have a game.

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I've been on Steam for 11 years. You know how much time I spend worrying about my library being shut down? Less than zero. It's not happening, buddy. I know you conspiracy theorists like to come up with various apocalyptic ways that everyone is boned, but that's just not gonna be the case.

You should be just glad that Firaxis went with Steam and not Origin. Steam is streamlined, has good deals 99% of the time, is undeletable, keeps games in one place, and makes playing with friends much easier.

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Pretty sure Civ 5 predates Origin. It's been a few years since we had a good laugh about EA's moneygrabbing though, so they might have launched about the same time.

steam australia

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Ah, here we see the real problem. Sorry your country's exchange rate sucks, but it really has nothing to do with Steam. Use the workaround everyone else does -- get people in the states to trade you copies of games. Turns out it works fine.

Steam sales - they happen every Thanksgiving/Christmas. 50% off major franchises, civ included.

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Not to mention the Summer Sale, which just ended. Also, 50% isn't even worth writing home about. Civ 5 was 75% off.

Never will I really understand this constant argument how older gamers constantly think they are superior to new ones. I played some hard games back when I was a kid, so what?

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So I had a buddy over a couple weekends ago, and we dusted off my NES and loaded up some River City Ransom. I remember that game being just stupidly hard. First of all, it had some bizarre 30 character save code, so it was just tedious always having to stop and write that down, which we had to, because the game took forever. We were working on it for weeks at a time.

Yeah, uhh, finished it in half an hour. Wasn't a problem. Turns out beat-em up games were hard when we were little kids and we owned 4 video games. Now? Not so much.

Correct: Origin came out 2011 to CiV's 2010.

aprince said:

drm and having to be "online with certain games just blow. being a long time sim city fan, i have yet to play the new simcity because of this. when they release an offline only version im in.

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To be fair, you shouldn't be playing the new SimCity anyway, since it's hot garbage even if there's an offline version. Stick with 4.

Mudrac said:

And that whole ''older generations better than the new ones'' and ''how will they lead the world in the future?'' is a subject chewed on so many times, that it became pointless to debate over it.

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"Newer games are too easy and hand you everything" is the gamer version of "kids these days". That's seriously all it is.

Chum said:

Ah, here we see the real problem. Sorry your country's exchange rate sucks, but it really has nothing to do with Steam. Use the workaround everyone else does -- get people in the states to trade you copies of games. Turns out it works fine.

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It still doesn't make a whole lot of sense why certain regions have terrible pricing, though, given digital gets rid of a lot of the logistics behind printing and shipping CDs and such. Blame publishers knowing Australians are used to paying it, I guess. Or the lazy way of pricing in pounds: "change the dollar sign to a pound sign".

Chum said:

Not to mention the Summer Sale, which just ended. Also, 50% isn't even worth writing home about. Civ 5 was 75% off.

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And the black friday ones. And sometimes they hold a mini-sale of sorts just for the hell of it. And the Daily Deal, and....

Mudrac said:

Never will I really understand this constant argument how older gamers constantly think they are superior to new ones. I played some hard games back when I was a kid, so what? Do I consider myself a better gamer? Superior to the new ones? Hell, no! I play games because I enjoy them, have fun with and I like it when they challenge me as well. Hasn't anyone thought about an idea that you play modern games better and you find them easier, because well... you have been gaming for a long time? Someone who played CIV III or IV for example on Deity (Sid difficulty) will obviously learn to play CIV V on that difficulty faster than someone else. Besides some people simply learn pretty fast others don't. So the thing is not that modern games are easy, but the fact that you have played so many games already, that you have started seeing some pattern in certain genres, you learned some tricks. And then you can exploit them easier than someone who is new to that.

And that whole ''older generations better than the new ones'' and ''how will they lead the world in the future?'' is a subject chewed on so many times, that it became pointless to debate over it. Not to mention that it was proved wrong many times. Besides (since you are a grandfather) Tractor Boy try to remember back at the time when you were young, what were the older people saying? I am sure they also weren't overly positive not optimistic about younger generations.

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I don't think anyone said older gamers are better gamers. The argument is older gamers are ok with much harder games. Games which you can't beat. There was a time when games were not beatable. They weren't intended to be beaten. Some just took a lot of time, trial and error to beat.

That doesn't make the gamer better, but it does require a gamer willing to fail and try again, which is something that the new gamer is less willing to do. It's also a good life lesson.

Chum said:

I've been on Steam for 11 years. You know how much time I spend worrying about my library being shut down? Less than zero. It's not happening, buddy. I know you conspiracy theorists like to come up with various apocalyptic ways that everyone is boned, but that's just not gonna be the case.



Pretty sure Civ 5 predates Origin. It's been a few years since we had a good laugh about EA's moneygrabbing though, so they might have launched about the same time.



Ah, here we see the real problem. Sorry your country's exchange rate sucks, but it really has nothing to do with Steam. Use the workaround everyone else does -- get people in the states to trade you copies of games. Turns out it works fine.



Not to mention the Summer Sale, which just ended. Also, 50% isn't even worth writing home about. Civ 5 was 75% off.



So I had a buddy over a couple weekends ago, and we dusted off my NES and loaded up some River City Ransom. I remember that game being just stupidly hard. First of all, it had some bizarre 30 character save code, so it was just tedious always having to stop and write that down, which we had to, because the game took forever. We were working on it for weeks at a time.

Yeah, uhh, finished it in half an hour. Wasn't a problem. Turns out beat-em up games were hard when we were little kids and we owned 4 video games. Now? Not so much.

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its not a conspiracy. i can tell you i this buddy, in 50 years ill be able to pull out my super mario 3 or river city ransom cart and play it with no issue, but its unknown if civ v will actually work without a crack.

without drm i could probably buy vanilla civ v used for probably 75% off everyday.. not just during some specific sale. but greed has nothing to do with drm.

exchange rate? currently the aud is buying .94 us .. the game prices were the same when the aus dollar was buying 1.04 us awhile back.

aus pays more for everything just because it oz.. a 2014 bmw 428i gran coupe starts at 40k in the usa - 81k in oz.. tax

and its probably because the avg general labor wage here is roughly 20 pr hour even though the official min wage is lower. even call center peeps make 50k a yr here, not 8 dollars an hour like the us. it has nothing to do with exchange rate.

Socratatus said:

Uplay sucks? really? I simply can`t agree. For me as an Offline player it has been the best DRM so far. Why?

Well with Steam if I truly go Offline, and I mean truly not just clicking `offline` but disconnected from the net, Steam will stop my games from working after about 2 weeks. this is true it happens every time. This is why I hate Steam. i can`t relax with long term games like rpgs or strategy if my internet goes on the blink.

However, with Uplay, once you register and go offline, it doesn`t bother you again- ever. It seems to get that Offline is OFFLINE. I once lost my internet for 6 months and while Steam stopped me playing Skyrim after around 2 weeks for no apparent reason, Uplay allowed mt to play Farcry 3 for the entire period until I eventually got the net back.


You can test for yourself, but most of you probably never disconnect from the net for a long time, so you never see this.

It`s wrong and probably is under the Law`s radar why it gets away with it. This is why I do NOT like Steam.

p.s. I don`t like any of these DRMs, but Uplay is less interfering than Steam. I would personally prefer how it was, just give me a code, I`m not a criminal.

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sure i can go offline with uplay.. but say im playing ubisofts anno 2070 and go offline, i basically get penalized for not being online - certain functions of the game wont work until i reconnect.

ive never noticed that about steam.. ill try just leaving it in offline mode for weeks to see if that happens.

aprince said:

its not a conspiracy. i can tell you i this buddy, in 50 years ill be able to pull out my super mario 3 or river city ransom cart and play it with no issue, but its unknown if civ v will actually work without a crack.

without drm i could probably buy vanilla civ v used for probably 75% off everyday.. not just during some specific sale. but greed has nothing to do with drm.

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Yep, I have Baldurs Gate and Shogun 1 (10 year old games) I can play them no problem. Heck, I even have Ultima 6 (about 20 years old) I can still play no worries.

Will I be able to play Skyrim or Civ 5 in 10 or 20 years time?

aprince said:

sure i can go offline with uplay.. but say im playing ubisofts anno 2070 and go offline, i basically get penalized for not being online - certain functions of the game wont work until i reconnect.

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I don`t know how anno 2070 works, but you shouldn`t be penalised. Now UBI are not wonderful, don`t get me wrong, they just got smacked hard when their attempts to make Silent Hunter V online permanently backfired spectacularly in their faces. Now I can play a UBI game Offline in peace. i don`t know how long that will last because all of them (Origin, UBi, steam) are all trying to handcuff the player, wrongly in my view.

I`m just saying for now I find playing Offline with UBi much less of a pain than Steam.

aprince said:

sure
ive never noticed that about steam.. ill try just leaving it in offline mode for weeks to see if that happens.

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You must be totally Offline, (physically disconnect from the hub, don`t just go to Offline mode). Steam still `phones home` in Offline mode if you don`t fully cut the line. This is what a lot of Steam players don`t get. You`ll see, in a couple ofweeks , maybe sooner, it`ll just stop you running any Steam game.

Socratatus said:

Yep, I have Baldurs Gate and Shogun 1 (10 year old games) I can play them no problem. Heck, I even have Ultima 6 (about 20 years old) I can still play no worries.

Will I be able to play Skyrim or Civ 5 in 10 or 20 years time?

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Will you want to? If you play those games now, that really goes to show just how good they were. I have loaded good old RPG's of the past, but I never can convince myself to play them. Their graphics just get into my head too much.

Uzael36 said:

Will you want to? If you play those games now, that really goes to show just how good they were. I have loaded good old RPG's of the past, but I never can convince myself to play them. Their graphics just get into my head too much.

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Yes. I have played those games only just recently, with a friend in Lan multiplayer, in fact. There`s more to games than just bleedin` eye graphics. Baldur`s gates has Mods (look for TUtu) that improves the graphics slightly, but it`s the immersion that counts, the tales and stories that really get you into the world.

aprince said:

its not a conspiracy. i can tell you i this buddy, in 50 years ill be able to pull out my super mario 3 or river city ransom cart and play it with no issue, but its unknown if civ v will actually work without a crack.

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I can still play the very first game I bought on Steam 11 years ago? You think it's going somewhere sometime soon? Got some information the rest of us don't know? No? Okay, go ahead and keep stockpiling silver for when the economy collapses, bro. Get your apocalypse seeds ready.

without drm i could probably buy vanilla civ v used for probably 75% off everyday.. not just during some specific sale. but greed has nothing to do with drm.

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So you think that developers aren't entitled to make money off their games then? Is that it? That's what you're all butthurt about? The fact that they actually want to make you buy their game and make sure you're playing a legit copy? In the LEAST intrusive way possible invented as of yet? What happens when your old CD's are scratched? Oh, guess you're outta luck on playing that 20 year old game, aren't you? STUPID PHYSICAL DRM!!!1111!!!

aus pays more for everything just because it oz

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So then why bring it up as some sort of argument against one particular platform?

Look, I don't know what the problem is with some of you people. It's some kind of rage against the internet connectivity piece, or the fact that you have unreliable internet, or whatever. But lets be realistic. You CAN live in a place with broadband internet. You CHOOSE not to, for whatever reason. You have decided to live this lifestyle, where you either are unable to or unwilling to have a decent internet connection, which is the ONLY thing that Steam requires. I don't see people who don't have running water complaining about having to crap in an outhouse anymore. They know what lifestyle they want to live, and they accept it. Do the same, and save the rest of us your nonsensical rants.

Uzael36 said:

That doesn't make the gamer better, but it does require a gamer willing to fail and try again, which is something that the new gamer is less willing to do. It's also a good life lesson.

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You see. You are overgeneralizing again. It's like all older gamers had more will, while never ones have very little. It is next to impossible that all newer gamers have very little will. Besides will is part of someone's personality, although it can also be increased or decreased, but still it's mostly a characteristic.

aprince said:

without drm i could probably buy vanilla civ v used for probably 75% off everyday.. not just during some specific sale. but greed has nothing to do with drm.

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Without DRM, Civ V will be at a rock-bottom price forever. It's that blasted DRM that's keeping the prices up!

What are you even basing this off of? Why wouldn't they just stay DRM-free but keep the price up at $30 or whatever CiVanilla is right now? What's the force that would cause the price to permanently drop forever?

Chum said:

But lets be realistic. You CAN live in a place with broadband internet. You CHOOSE not to, for whatever reason. You have decided to live this lifestyle, where you either are unable to or unwilling to have a decent internet connection

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I'm going to call bologna on this quote. This is an extremely privileged and rather selfish statement to make. Do you seriously think somewhere as fundamental as "where you live" is a choice you can flip around any time you want? Oh, of course, move somewhere better, thanks, Chum, I never would have thought to do that.

This is the same sort of "use your bootstraps" nonsense I hear from folks blaming poor people for "choosing" to be poor.

DeletedSettler said:

I'm going to call bologna on this quote. This is an extremely privileged and rather selfish statement to make. Do you seriously think somewhere as fundamental as "where you live" is a choice you can flip around any time you want? Oh, of course, move somewhere better, thanks, Chum, I never would have thought to do that.

This is the same sort of "use your bootstraps" nonsense I hear from folks blaming poor people for "choosing" to be poor.

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Really? Let me connect the dots for you.

If you're wealthy enough to be complaining about the price of video games, and the DRM associated with them, and you're in a good enough situation to be sitting around arguing semantics and strategy of a video game on an internet forum, then yes, you absolutely do have the capacity to make that choice.

Certainly there are people who are not. But there's probably not any of them here, unless they're underage. In which case, deal with it, you're a kid, life isn't fair.