A case for forum members easing up on 2K a bit

[Zoolooman]

These are marketing terms. They mean nothing to me. Do you have any affiliation with any company related to Civilization 5, in any way?

They aren't marketing terms. I wouldn't use them if they didn't refer to concrete things.

By value, I mean the worth I perceive in the game. Steamworks (meaning achievements, the chat client and so forth) adds value for me.

By feature rich, I mean that it's DRM plus the rest of Steamworks. If they didn't give me the benefits, I wouldn't pay the price.

Your cynicism is noted, but I'm not associated with Valve or 2k Games or anything like that. If I have an "association" with any group, it's this: http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=44

I'm a massive video game fan and moderate a forum.

 

[Zoolooman]

Woah, what? Better than everyone?

He said better than most. You're clearly looking for ways to misinterpret what people read. First you throw ludicrous accusations at me, then you twist his words.

For shame, dude. For shame. :/

 

[The_Coyote]

, and adding Steamworks adds value for many of the people who constantly use Steam.

By value, I mean the worth I perceive in the game. Steamworks (meaning achievements, the chat client and so forth) adds value for me.

Bold by me. You know there is a difference between you and many of the people? That the features of steam offers you a value is fine and i will not question this fact, if you claim this is true for "many of the people who constantly use Steam" i request a real market survey or other data proving this*. Or at least a statement that this claim is only your impression/opinion.

Especially i question your generalisation because of the latest steamwork featuring games, expanding the customer base of Valve from the classical FPS gamers to the RTS gamers and with Civ5 a great partition of the TBS gamers has to follow. (speaking of archetypes, of course there are gamers liking more than one type of game, being a mixture of this archetypes)

Valve is a better game developer than most others though; anyone saying otherwise is WRONG.

Maybe, but i don´t really care about their games (wrong genre). But we aren´t talking about Valve as game developer, we are talking about Valve as software distributor (Steam owner) and Valve as Steamworks offerer.

 

[Zoolooman]

You're asking for a lot more than I asserted. I didn't claim to have market statistics; I claimed that for people who constantly use Steam, it adds value. This should be obvious. They'd try to avoid Steam if that wasn't true.

In the Civ 5 thread on Something Awful, the first reaction to Civ V's announcement was, "Yes, Steam!" followed by a bunch of rather rude posts making fun of this forum for having so many Steam haters. I moderate a free roaming population of trolls, yet dozens happily posted positive responses to Steam's inclusion.

In rough numbers, more than 200 different people posted in that thread, but I can only remember two saying they were frustrated that it was a Steam game. Far more people complained about possible prohibitive system requirements or changed gameplay.

 

[The_Coyote]

You're asking for a lot more than I asserted. I didn't claim to have market statistics; I claimed that for people who constantly use Steam, it adds value. This should be obvious. They'd try to avoid Steam if that wasn't true.

I know that i asked for something almost impossible to provide. The point is, as long as a game features steamworks (here could be a possible source for a misunderstanding, you said steam, but because the primary discussion reason here is steamworks in Civ5and not steam itself, i interpreted them as equal in your post) you can´t really avoid steam beside not buying the game. So there can be persons that use steam to be able to enjoy the game (positive value for you) even if steam itself produces a negative value for them. Therefore it´s not obvious, that steam adds value (i hope you didn´t mean "negative or positive value" with value) for "many of them". And therefore my request.

 

[Senethro]

I moderate a free roaming population of trolls, yet dozens happily posted positive responses to Steam's inclusion.

Yeah, some of them popped up here!

 

[Jugalub]

I know that i asked for something almost impossible to provide. The point is, as long as a game features steamworks (here could be a possible source for a misunderstanding, you said steam, but because the primary discussion reason here is steamworks in Civ5and not steam itself, i interpreted them as equal in your post) you can´t really avoid steam beside not buying the game. So there can be persons that use steam to be able to enjoy the game (positive value for you) even if steam itself produces a negative value for them. Therefore it´s not obvious, that steam adds value (i hope you didn´t mean "negative or positive value" with value) for "many of them". And therefore my request.

Look at how many people buy games on Steam where Steam isn't a requirement (as the game isn't Steamworks'd). If it was such a negative then they wouldn't be bought through Steam.

 

[The_Coyote]

Buying a game on steam can be fine for some, i wouldn´t question this.

But please provide some figures (no guesses) how many games are sold there (Valve does not release sales or business figures). And how many of them are sold to the regular price, how many are sold with a special price (weekend deals, etc). How are the sales in the different games genres (FPS / RPG / RTS / TBS / ...)

 

[Jugalub]

Buying a game on steam can be fine for some, i wouldn´t question this.

But please provide some figures (no guesses) how many games are sold there (Valve does not release sales or business figures). And how many of them are sold to the regular price, how many are sold with a special price (weekend deals, etc). How are the sales in the different games genres (FPS / RPG / RTS / TBS / ...)

In all honesty, I can't be bothered going to that trouble as I have no great vested interest in this argument and, moreover, there is no figure where my point is right or wrong. All I can say is that the top ten current sellers on Steam are all non-Steamworks games and all of them I can find at a cheaper price on Amazon.

 

[zeggy]

Just to confirm...

Do you need to be on STEAM to play Civ5?

Do you need to be on STEAM to be able to save a game in Civ5?

Yes. But you can do so in offline mode. And you save locally to your hard-drive. Steam is an application that needs to run, but once you've connected once to register, you can run Steam without being connected to the internet.

So its not that you're "on" Steam; its not like being "on" Battle.net or something similar.

OMG

BS have to have steam to play ?..wTf..

 

[Greybriar]

Look at how many people buy games on Steam where Steam isn't a requirement (as the game isn't Steamworks'd). If it was such a negative then they wouldn't be bought through Steam.

That's because of Steam's special sales. Many people can't pass up a bargain.

 

[pleasenoname]

He said better than most. :/

I re-read it, and edited to the correct word. I was trying to get the poster to share why he thought the company was better, by showing my surprise.

 

[tom2050]

Valve as a Steam-producer I am more inclined to be cynical about, as Steam is adware in my eyes and has little real value to me.
Then you're completely unfamiliar with what adware actually is. Next you'll be telling me that Civ V is adware as it will present the logos of the game developer and publisher during the opening sequence. Just because Steam has little value for you it doesn't mean that there isn't (quite literally) millions around the world using it with the games that employ Steamworks. No doubt the storefront is intended to help sell games but that doesn't make it adware.

Steam does meet the definition of adware, literally. So, Yes, the Steam storefront and everything else intended to help sell games does make Steam adware because of how it does it.

Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used.

Steam is IMO planning on becoming precariously close to Spyware, from what I have read about how Steam is setup to collect info w/o user's consent and knowledge. It doesn't meet the exact definition of Spyware (and doesn't from what anyone knows, do this now), but when they start doing this (not a question of if, but when), it will be pretty close, if not worse.

Spyware is a type of malware that is installed on computers and collects little bits of information at a time about users without their knowledge.

 

[arstal]

Valve is a better game developer than most others though; anyone saying otherwise is WRONG.

This is also hardly relevant, and completely unrelated to the question at hand.

TF2 may be the greatest loss leader in the history of games.

You're asking for a lot more than I asserted. I didn't claim to have market statistics; I claimed that for people who constantly use Steam, it adds value. This should be obvious. They'd try to avoid Steam if that wasn't true.

In the Civ 5 thread on Something Awful, the first reaction to Civ V's announcement was, "Yes, Steam!" followed by a bunch of rather rude posts making fun of this forum for having so many Steam haters. I moderate a free roaming population of trolls, yet dozens happily posted positive responses to Steam's inclusion.

In rough numbers, more than 200 different people posted in that thread, but I can only remember two saying they were frustrated that it was a Steam game. Far more people complained about possible prohibitive system requirements or changed gameplay.

I'd say that's more of a condemnation of Steam then anything else. SA is the equivalent of 2chan more or less.

 

[azzaman333]

Dear 2k,
Thank you for making Civ5 a steam game. It makes everything so much more convenient for me.
Azza.

Moderator Action: Please don't troll the forums

 

[tom2050]

Azza, you should not love-monger so much, it doesn't add anything to the conversion.

 

[azzaman333]

I'm showing that there are people who like Steam as well as those irrationally opposed to it.

 

[tom2050]

Irrational Hate-Mongering and Irrational Love-Mongering. Yes, we all know that there are both.

 

[bjbrains]

Irrational Hate-Mongering and Irrational Love-Mongering. Yes, we all know that there are both.

Except we see a more lot of one on these forums. I wonder which it is?

 

[tom2050]

Except we see a more lot of one on these forums. I wonder which it is?

You can't blame people for complaining about intrusive forced 3rd party DRM anti-resale scheme extensive data-mine platforms, can we?