Civ5 - shipping with Steamworks * plus Digital Deluxe Edition

Name one similar service even close to steam in users?

That's why they went with steam.

Some games are on Steam AND other services. It's a little weird that they make it Steam exclusive. I usually prefer Gamersgate and Impulse because I actually can keep the install files and such, I buy a lot of games on Steam because of really good deals that show up. I have a lot of modern games on Steam, over 40 I think, I only paid full price for around 3 or 4 of them... Usually 5-19.99$ is the price range I go for... For games that aren't even one year old usually.

My thinking is that if Steam indeed screws me over 10 years down the road, I probably won't be playing these games anyway, and those that I will want to play, I will probably be able to afford like 2$ and buy them on another service. As I just did for Civ 3 complete... 2$ on Gamersgate.
 
Why do they need the service at all? I can't think of any of those "features" that I'd actually use. Auto-updates? Great way to bring your internet speed to a crawl at an unexpected time and to break mods. There are other ways to make the mod gallery, and I don't care for Steam Achievements and don't care about multiplayer. And in addition, you have to pre-order the download version to get all the maps, and you have to pay $10 extra and buy at release just to get Babylon. That means that for those of us that can't afford to just drop $60 right at release and/or wanted to wait until the game was out for a while before deciding to buy get this message from Firaxis: no Babylon for you! Due to all of this, unless there are some very compelling modding reasons for civ5, I will not buy it.
 
Name one similar service even close to steam in users?

That's why they went with steam.


The word "service" implies that it gives me something I would possibly ever want to use. If I ever "use" steam it would be only so I was allowed to use Civ5, the service I actually want and am willing to pay for. The rest is just a bunch of junk (taking up space and rescources and just generally being an annoyance) I don't want but would be forced to have and keep.
 
Firaxis has released some really weak games the last few years (Railroads and Civ: Col). I bought them anyway since I've been a fan of Microprose since 1990, but I can't say that I'm happy with what I got for the money. I'd say that I've played those games together for less than 50 hours.

At first I thought Civ V looked really promising, but there is no way I'm going to buy this game if they are going to force me to install Steam. This only hurts the honest players who pay for the software, since there most likely will be a cracked No-Steam version out on the Internet a few days after the release.

The thing about Steam, is that it can make a brand new computers run like a 386.
 
I think that the speculation thread agreed it was near-suicidal to make it Steam-compulsory. There is no possible justification for it. Sure, make a Steam copy, Mac version, digital version and so on - that's financial sense - but making it Steam-compulsory is ludicrous.
 
Why should we need a service like steam in the first place?

You don't, but for whatever reason developers seem to like using them (probably because it's cost effective, selling the same games online requires no discs to be made, no packaging, no manuals to be printed, etc. Also it's a way to ensure the game isn't pirated as much since it MUST be activated on steam, online).

My point was there's no service that comes close to steam in this field, so why would anyone bother saying "If Firaxis put the game on another service, I'd buy it."

That just shows steam hatred imo, steam is the best at what it does even if people dont like it, why go for a worse service?
 
That's fine, except that they are also producing a DVD version and (I would hope) are providing a printed manual.

Why go for any service at all? CD key and disk-check are just as crackable as any of Ubisoft's laughable efforts and the pirates prove that every single time.
 
I think that the speculation thread agreed it was near-suicidal to make it Steam-compulsory. There is no possible justification for it. Sure, make a Steam copy, Mac version, digital version and so on - that's financial sense - but making it Steam-compulsory is ludicrous.

I can think of one justification. Valve offered something to get this done. Valve is the big beneficiary- as this means no Impulse/GG version, and strategy gamers are the folks who are the main users of those services. This hits at their core.

I'd almost argue this is the PC equivalent of PS1 FF7.

Again, if you don't like it, have the guts to say no sale.

If you do like it or don't care, go ahead and get it.
 
That's fine, except that they are also producing a DVD version and (I would hope) are providing a printed manual.

Why go for any service at all? CD key and disk-check are just as crackable as any of Ubisoft's laughable efforts and the pirates prove that every single time.

Exactly. I tried this "service" in the past, hated what it did to my computer, and finally got rid of the stinkin' thing.
 
The obvious answer would be that it's much easier for the developers.

The right answer may be based on technical limitations or something however ;)

By making a game steam only, it gives them an easy way to get out patches and new content. I love steam because I always hated going to 3rd party sites to download 5 patches when I bought a new game, because the game company doesn't host the patches themselves. Steam does all this for them.
 
This is a no-sale from me then. I don't have Steam, I have no intentions of ever having Steam and if 2K/Firaxis think that I can be enticed by paying £5-6 per DLC civilisation or scenario, they can combine Sod and Off as I said above.
 
The obvious answer would be that it's much easier for the developers.

The right answer may be based on technical limitations or something however ;)

By making a game steam only, it gives them an easy way to get out patches and new content. I love steam because I always hated going to 3rd party sites to download 5 patches when I bought a new game, because the game company doesn't host the patches themselves. Steam does all this for them.

The most likely answer is Valve paid off someone to hurt Valve's competitors.
 
I don't really get why so many companies do exclusive stuff with steam. I've been a loyal customer of Stardock, who made digital software purchases years before Steam was around and is much more customer-friendly. Stardock's philosophy, basically from Galactic Civilizations II onward, has been that too many people shun software for obtrusive copyright protections, so they kept it out of their stuff.

Unfortunately, some of the 3rd party software they sell through Impulse (used to be Stardock Central) does have some shenanigans going on ... but I don't blame Stardock for that.

A lot of Stardock users are converts over from Steam ... I'm not one of them, I never really used Steam ... but from what I read on the Stardock forums, I'm glad I didn't and I stay away from them. I have used other digital software purchase methods, such as buying Dragon Age Origins direct from DA ... but from what I've read about Steam and its obtrusiveness, despite having exclusive DLC/content, people do shun and not buy from them.

I hope to heck Firaxis isn't doing an exclusive deal with Steam ... I'm sure they'll still have the game on DVD-ROM ... but I hope they'll consider other digital download vendors besides Steam.
 
Steam is a great service, I play civ as a non-native game via steam every game.

Some of the features which can be used by Firaxis include:
  • centralised backup and storage of user's savegames
  • centralised backup and storage of user's settings
  • the ability to offer 'free play' for limited times such as weekend deals, enticing customers,
  • the ability to reinstall your game on any computer with internet access even if disc is lost/broken
  • the option to defragment, verify game files and re-download corrupted ones without full reinstalls if something goes wrong
  • integrating steam friends list, voice, chat etc. with the game's multiplayer support
  • detailed statistics for Firaxis as to buyers' hardware and software setups, allowing optimisation for updates and expansions to be targeted
  • enabling automatic patching and rapid authentication and distribution of hotfixes
  • allows automatic download of mac versions (if available) of games if steam is installed on mac without buying a seperate version
  • a tool for backing up installed games - including updates - onto another hard drive, DVDs or CDs which can then be easily restored/reinstalled from

Steam has improved greatly since it was first released 7 years ago, it is far more reliable, and has a great deal more features and has a smaller performance overhead. Offline mode is a lot more reliable now too.
I personally love playing games via steam as I can easily chat to my girlfriend, other friends etc. while playing without having to alt-tab - which often causes games to crash, freeze, and even when it doesn't tends to be slow as hell.
It's definitely worth a try.
 
Gamers who pre-order any version of Sid Meier’s Civilization V from Steam will receive
the downloadable bonus content, Cradle of Civilization Map Pack: Mesopotamia,
for free when the game is available

And how can it not be for free? Will new maps require us to install a new version of the game?

Deluxe what the hell?? Here in sweden we don´t get you americans... I like the games total war BUT I HATE when they wan´t us to pay extra to get special units and such. That alone made me skip Empires. They could have released the extra units for free since they make out a good deal of the funfactors in that game and without them its not fun. When I buy a game I wan´t it to be complete.

But if they produce pacs with extras, mods and aditions later on thats cool and I would pay for it.
 
Why should we need a service like steam in the first place?

Fair point, but millions of PC gamers use Steam on a regular basis. Fact is, services like Steam and Battle.net are the future of videogames -- not just PC games. There's too much money, control, and valuable sales info to be had for it not to eventually happen. Another bonus for publishers: Steamworks completely eliminates the used games market, unless you sell your entire Steam account (which, I believe, is against the ToS). If there's one thing videogame publishers despise more than piracy, it's used game sales.

My biggest concern is how Steamworks will affect mods...

The most likely answer is Valve paid off someone to hurt Valve's competitors.

Valve doesn't need to pay anyone off because it doesn't (yet) have any significant competitors in the PC digital distribution space. Gamersgate, D2D, and Impulse are, frankly, small-fry. Dawn of War II, FEAR 2, Empire Total War, Modern Warfare 2, and all of Valve's wildly popular games are Steamworks-exclusives. With the addition of Civ V, the only powerhouse PC games missing from Steam's catalog are Blizzard's (for obvious reasons) and The Sims.

I hope to heck Firaxis isn't doing an exclusive deal with Steam ... I'm sure they'll still have the game on DVD-ROM ... but I hope they'll consider other digital download vendors besides Steam.

Let me make this perfectly clear: if a game uses Steamworks, it doesn't matter if you purchase it on Steam, Direct2Drive, DVD, or 50,000 floppy disks: you still need Steam and a Steam account to play it.
 
Why are people thinking this is Steam only? I already pre-ordered mine from Amazon UK. :dunno:

Even if you buy it from retail you'll still need both steam account and client.

As for me I guess this will be the first Civ game I won't buy. I won't let Valve's resource hogging, system crashing, DRM laden bloated spyware program enywhere near my computer. They can stick those so called 'features', especially DLC crapware, where sun does not shine. :mad:
 
This is extremely disappointing news.

Making steam an option would be fine - an option I would pass on 100% of the time. Making it mandatory is not acceptable.

It's upsetting that PC game devs are leaning further and further to alienating long time PC gamers by forcing crap on them they don't want.

For ex, I won't buy stand-alone games that require full time internet connectivity as some lame security measure. I buy, and have always bought, my games, and I'm sick of having garbage forced on me due to the scumbags that pirate, torrent, or otherwise steal games that these measures don't stop anyways.
 
Sid Meier’s Civilization V players will enjoy the benefits of the Steamworks’ features included in all PC versions
:cry:
Oh well, if steam is the only way to get [civ5], I will play BtS forever
 
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