Since no one likes Steam, what type of DRM would you prefer?

Which DRM do you prefer?

  • Steam

    Votes: 124 55.1%
  • Disk Check

    Votes: 83 36.9%
  • SecuROM

    Votes: 4 1.8%
  • Draconian Ubisoftesque DRM

    Votes: 5 2.2%
  • 1 computer, single installation

    Votes: 9 4.0%

  • Total voters
    225
  • Poll closed .
I just snorted, yes, coffee, through my nose. People rushed over to provide assistance, assuming that I had somehow injured myself severely because, after all, it isn't often that people expel a large gulp of steaming coffee out of their nose and onto the people sitting around them in a hotel lobby.

Because Gamespy was Hitler incarnate.

I'm not sure why, but this post touched me in a special funny place.
 
back to the manual offtopic discussion: I don't think it's offtopic. My point was not only that a manual in the style of Alpha Centauri's, is great to have, but even more, that it is a sort of DRM, that has been neglected over the years, only because some major players (e.g. EA) had switched to DVD-boxes for games, which in turn made it impossible to put manuals in them. Fortunately the larger dvd boxes (as used with civ4:vanilla) somehow solved that problem and once again provided the customer with a manual.
You can't copy a manual. Of course you can make a pdf out of it, but as someone put, you can't read that in a train or on the toilet. (Sure, if you are one of these guys who has a netbook and a e-book, you may). Also, it's a bit difficult to make tech trees that fit on a letter/A4-size... for me, a manual, tech trees or maps are a sort of DRM. Because it "forces" you to buy the game, just to have them.

Digital Distribution on the other hand, has some other good things, like re-downloading a bought game. My problem isn't digital distribution as such, but the absolut realistic (and not too phobic ;)) probability that steam one day gets the ONE and only distributor, without any competitors. This would mean, that all new games had to be released on steam, and steam could even "ban" inovation. Of course we can't do much against this "progression". Only the developers and publishers could.

That's why I plead for a Steam and a Non-Steam version. But somehow people get already nervous if one talks about this - imho reasonable - idea. But why?

Another issue with digital distribution is the documentation. A pdf of a normal manual is somehow a bit lame. It was said that the civilopaedia is better than a manual and this is of course completely true. And to think even further: the civilopaedia should be 'state of the art' for any kind of game, especially DD-games. Digital distribution can't provide you with things like maps, tables of units, etc. therefore the game designer should think about how to implement this. Either in the game à la civilopaedia or with a (monitor-sized) manual with hyperlinks in it.

I understand that DD is something that makes game publishers happy, but hey, if they are happy because I am forced to use DD, I think I can at least ask for something in return.
 
Why? Because the SSS would love to have everyone believe that multiplayer is an integral part of the game. But it isn't - it's periphery at best. I don't give a hoot about multiplayer, and I don't care if civ does or doesn't have it. But why should I have to install steam for a part of the game I will never, ever use?

As for cloud saves, who needs them?

If disc checks give you a hard time, I hate to break it to you, but your organizational skills really suck.

I don't see myself using any of the features steam provides, so why should I be forced to use steam?

By the way, the best way to prevent SecuROM from infecting your computer is to install and run your game in a sandbox.
 
The only DRM you need is a cdkey check when accessing online portal for online gaming.

Anything else is useless and only harmfull/annoying to the customer who actually bought the product. Steam, Draconian, SECUrom; it's all void and does nothing and we shouldn't blind ourselves to that fact, pretending that is not the case. There's no SP game which hasn't been cracked. Make it the best possible for the customer; CDkey check for online with optional steam association or those who wish it... :p
 
I'll never complain about a simple CD Check obviously,, but I have no problems with Steam either, and since they're using it, and since it will (apparently) make it easier to focus their attention on other parts of the game...there's my choice.
 
@Gelvan, well the main reason why Steam is being used other than cutting post game costs one assumes its also that Steam is practically pirate proof. I know a mod just said to stop the piracy discussion, but this is important, Steam is a good choice for the DRM simply because it is better against piracy, thier are also other benefits of Steam too.
So why would Civ release a non-steam version. When it doesn't have the mentioned advantages.
 
But as for Civ5, nothing wrong with Steam as an anti-piracy software, it is simply awesome. It doesn't hinder us legitimate customers (those who aren't Steam Phobic anyway) in anyway, compared to other anti-piracy systems such as limited installs and so on.

It doesn't hinder you until a roaming Steam moderator closes your entire account for something ridiculous and you lose every game you purchased with no recourse of action.

Moderator Action: Trolling
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
It doesn't hinder you until a roaming Steam moderator closes your entire account for something ridiculous and you lose every game you purchased with no recourse of action.

You will agree that based on his records, he does not seem to be in immediate danger of such a thing happen to him.
 
It doesn't hinder you until a roaming Steam moderator closes your entire account for something ridiculous and you lose every game you purchased with no recourse of action.
Because that totally happens all the time. *rolls eyes*

(Stop posting random anecdotes as some kind of argument).
 
Thiers no such thing as a Steam Moderator. No one can walk along and ban you for no reason.

If you are playing online on Steam you will be playing on what they call "vac-secured" servers, and if you cheat, you know use hacks of whatever type, and someone records a demo of you doing it thus having proof you cheated, they can report you sending the demo into Steam and then they will "Vac-ban" your account. This will ban you from all Vac-secured servers, which means if you want to play multi-player you need to play on un-secured servers which will be full of cheaters who have also all been banned from playing with normal people, and thier is far less un-secured servers as Vavle doesn't provide any of them, so if you want to play on Steam, my advice is don't cheat because otherwise your Steam account with all your games will be wrecked from a multi-player prospective.
Though this is only a disadvantage to cheaters, to fair players like most people who don't use cheats this is a big advantage.

Other than Vac-Bans as they are called, nothing will ever happen to your account.

P.s Steam will never undo a Vac-Ban so don't cheat :). If you don't cheat have fun gaming. Steam supports fair players.
 
Thiers no such thing as a Steam Moderator. No one can walk along and ban you for no reason.

If you are playing online on Steam you will be playing on what they call "vac-secured" servers, and if you cheat, you know use hacks of whatever type, and someone records a demo of you doing it thus having proof you cheated, they can report you sending the demo into Steam and then they will "Vac-ban" your account. This will ban you from all Vac-secured servers, which means if you want to play multi-player you need to play on un-secured servers which will be full of cheaters who have also all been banned from playing with normal people, and thier is far less un-secured servers as Vavle doesn't provide any of them, so if you want to play on Steam, my advice is don't cheat because otherwise your Steam account with all your games will be wrecked from a multi-player prospective.
Though this is only a disadvantage to cheaters, to fair players like most people who don't use cheats this is a big advantage.

Other than Vac-Bans as they are called, nothing will ever happen to your account.

P.s Steam will never undo a Vac-Ban so don't cheat :). If you don't cheat have fun gaming. Steam supports fair players.

False, if you can prove you didn't cheat they will re-instate your account

EDIT: Look at the title and then look at the results, :lmao:
steam has more votes than the others combined
 
Actually I'm not sure Valve ever do reverse cheating bans. VAC is kind of limited tbh and uses very specific detection. They say its impossible for it to get false positives due to its not using a generalized cheat detection.
 
OMG... Of course it doesn't happen very often, it happens rarely. No one knows the exact percentage, so I couldn't leave any data in reference to that. Not sure what everyone gets so angry for about such things. I will elaborate; I was just mentioning a fact that there have been people that have had their accounts close permanently or temporarily during MP games from Online Steam Moderators that look for these things, and have the power to close an account for a reason they deem appropriate.

This is a fact, not sure what the big deal for saying this was? Could someone please explain? Could a moderator please explain in a thorough statement and not leave a half-answer? It is a possible hinderance, although unlikely.
 
Thiers no such thing as a Steam Moderator. No one can walk along and ban you for no reason.

There's no "Steam Moderator" title that I am aware of (aside from their forum moderators perhaps), but Valve employees may have the power to bypass the standard protocol. It's unclear how much manual control Valve has over VAC bans, which is described as fully automated.

If you are playing online on Steam you will be playing on what they call "vac-secured" servers, and if you cheat, you know use hacks of whatever type, and someone records a demo of you doing it thus having proof you cheated, they can report you sending the demo into Steam and then they will "Vac-ban" your account. This will ban you from all Vac-secured servers, which means if you want to play multi-player you need to play on un-secured servers which will be full of cheaters who have also all been banned from playing with normal people, and thier is far less un-secured servers as Vavle doesn't provide any of them, so if you want to play on Steam, my advice is don't cheat because otherwise your Steam account with all your games will be wrecked from a multi-player prospective.
Though this is only a disadvantage to cheaters, to fair players like most people who don't use cheats this is a big advantage.

This is inaccurate on several points. Valve does not accept demos of someone cheating as proof; VAC is supposed to handle everything by itself. If you send it to a server administrator they can ban the user from their server at their discretion, but a demo has no bearing on a player's VAC status.

VAC bans are by engine. If you are VAC-banned from Counter-Strike: Source, you can still play Team Fortress 2 (because they use different versions of the Source engine). You may lose a good chunk of your games, but you won't lose access to all of them.

Other than Vac-Bans as they are called, nothing will ever happen to your account.

P.s Steam will never undo a Vac-Ban so don't cheat :). If you don't cheat have fun gaming. Steam supports fair players.

Again, not entirely accurate. Anecdotal evidence seems to support the idea that you can have your account disabled for accepting a gifted copy of a game, if that gifted copy was paid for with a stolen credit card or a charge-back was issued. Full account disabling is obviously rarer than VAC bans, but you cannot honestly say that VAC bans are the worst that can happen to your account.

I'd argue against the statement that "Steam supports fair players", but that's delving into a much more subjective territory and I'll let it drop there. We can discuss that in private messages if you like.

Actually I'm not sure Valve ever do reverse cheating bans. VAC is kind of limited tbh and uses very specific detection. They say its impossible for it to get false positives due to its not using a generalized cheat detection.

From what I can see, VAC bans may be reversed, but not on an individual basis (i.e. they may unban anyone banned for a specific reason, all at once). There's very little data available regarding what VAC bans have been issued for and which VAC bans have been reversed however, so it's hard to get a clearer picture than that.

On the subject of false-positives, that would depend on how you define a false-positive. VAC seems to treat anything that touches the EXE or any DLLs as a hack, so in that regard it performs admirably; the real question becomes whether or not everything that touches those files may be considered a hack. It's a grey area that poses difficult questions.

It seems that there's a mod for Half-Life 1 called Paranoia that includes a modified opengl32.dll which VAC will ban for. From what I've read, it's mainly for some changes to the Bloom lighting effects, but unless you're aware that it's there it's quite possible that you'll inadvertently get yourself banned by accident for using it. I haven't seen anything (overtly) similar for newer games on Steam, but it does highlight the possibility of accidental VAC bans for innocent intentions.


My main dislike of the VAC system is that there's no way for a legitimate user to make amends. If my account is hacked and someone is detected using cheats before Steam Customer Support returns control to me, I'm still banned. On a non-Steam game, I could purchase a new copy of the game for a new CD key and continue playing despite this; Steam will not allow me to do so without creating an entirely new account.

If you only have one game on your account, you probably won't care much, because you've lost almost nothing by moving to a new account, short of the time spent rebuilding your friends list or whatnot. If you've dozens of games on that account and a large, established friends list however, you're going to have to make a choice between switching between accounts to play a single game (a huge annoyance in and of itself) and keeping up with your community that Steam is trying to encourage you to build.

Here's a Civilization analogy for those of you who prefer them: imagine building a beautiful empire filled with all sorts of different cities which you've invested lots of time and energy working on. Now take one of those core cities and disable all of its production, with no possibility of regaining it. It's still there, taking up space and flashing its name whenever you look, but it's a shadow of its former self and there's nothing you can do to restore it.
 
No DRM would be good. What's the point of DRM anyway? Is there a DRM-protected game that is not available on torrent websites??? They are better than the original versions too because they do no require stupid cd-checks or Steam.
Is there still anyone that believes DRM is useful against piracy? :eek:
If they want to sell their game they just need to provide a good product at reasonable price. I would certainly buy Civ 5 immediately at 25€ based on good reviews to reward developers' efforts, even if I knew I could pirate it for free.
 
The poll is a bit biased and also lacks several options to be the least accurate;

- No DRM
- One-time online registration
- Other
- I don't know/care

It should also be placed in perfect order from the level of DRM, which clearly this is not.
 
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