Anti-Steam Petition

[Willem]

... if you can't afford an internet connection then why are you paying for a game that costs upward $40.00?

It's not necessarily about not being able to afford a connection. I've read plenty of posts by players mentioning that their game computer is not connected to the internet, probably for security reasons. But that choice is about to be taken away from them if they want to play Civ 5. And some people get internet access through their work, so they have no need for a home connection. And some people simply have no use for the Internet and aren't interested in having a connection, yet still might play a few games now and then. There's more of those than you may realize.

I don't see the big deal at all, plus if you don't like it there are alternatives.

Not if we want to play Civ 5 there's isn't. That's the whole point.

 

[Willem]

I don't know what's the number of PC gamers in the world, but 25 MILLION of them are regular Steam users. That should tell you something.

Yes, that tells me there's a very small number of people using Steam's services. Granted that comparing it to total world population is meaningless, but even still 25 million is a very small number of the total world gaming population. And that's not considering those people who can't really be classified as gamers since they might go out and buy one every few years, like many Civ players.

Do you need more "proof" of who is the minority?

You'll have to do better than that I'm afraid. Why don't you start by coming up with some realistic figures of how many people in the world actually play computer games? I think you'd find that there are many, many, many more than just a measly 25 million. That's not even 10% of the American population, never mind Europe, Asia and the rest of North America. And I'm pretty sure you'd find that at least 10% of any country's population will be playing games.

 

[BigBirdZ28]

/signed

It's pure & simple, if the game uses DRM, I woun't buy it.

 

[idle]

/signed

The idea of steam is good, but not allowing people to opt-out of using a third party is not acceptable.

The securom on col2 nearly made me swear off Firaxis (or 2K or whomever is in charge of putting these things on other peoples' systems) for good. Now I'm certain.
I will not buy civ5 until we have a choice of poison: steam or dvd-check.
I'll stick with civ4 and LoR, and hope the development of that mod continues.

Idle (now also my civing status).

 

[Willem]

/signed

It's pure & simple, if the game uses DRM, I woun't buy it.

Well then you won't be buying any games ever, since they all have DRM of one form or another. Typing in a serial number is a form of DRM.

 

[bite]

Moderator Action: Last warning, one more troll and I will shut this thread down

 

[PieceOfMind]

http://store.steampowered.com/news/3390/

Does regular Steam user mean the same as active account? I doubt that. I played TF2 a bit last year but I am in no way a regular steam user. I bet I was counted as an active account though.

Do you see where you were distorting the truth? Much more accurate would just be to state what the press release said - that there are 25 million active accounts.

During the last calendar year the platform surpassed 25 million active accounts, up 25% from the prior year. Of the 25 million accounts, over 10 million of those have profiles in the Steam Community.

In addition to the millions of new accounts created during the year, the peak number of concurrent users eclipsed the 2.5 million mark during the month of December, pushing Steam's average monthly player minutes to more than 13 billion.

Sure, they probably have somewhere in the order of a few million regular users. Remember that some of those 2.5 million online are not necessarily regular steam users. If I'm not mistaken, you can be logged on to steam yet not actually using it, away from your computer.
Does Steam boot you off if you're idle?

That's technically possible, like you can have 10 msn accounts, 100 different email addresses, etc. but that would not be practical and it would defeat the purpose of using Steam. So why would I register different games under different Steam accounts? I want to play MW2 tonight I use account X, then I want to play DOW2 so I log off account X and log in to account Y, then I'm going to play The Secret of Monkey Island Deluxe so I log off account Y and log in account Z. Then of course I will have to ask all my friends to add my account X, Y and Z in their friend list because, you know, they may not see me online if I play different games and I will have to add all my friends to all my accounts :\

Of course it's possible, as you say, and plenty of people do it. I did it yesterday. I've read that many people do it so they can purchase games at overseas prices and then perhaps gift it to their normal account. It might not change the figure much, but I reckon anywhere between 90 and 98% of active accounts are the only account used by its owner.

Today (a Tuesday) the concurrent users peaked at 2.3 million and those are normal numbers that repeat every weekday. If you check the week ends the numbers are higher obviously. Do you really think that those 2.3 million users are always the same that connect every single day? You can check the stats anytime here.

Ok so my estimate is a bit off. Maybe 4 to 5 million regular steam users. The point is, you have to make very generous assumptions to get anywhere near the claim there are 25 million regular steam users.

And by the way, I wouldn't mind betting that a good 80% or more of gamers online on Steam are logging on nearly every day.

 

[Schwarzbart]

/Sign (of the updated Petition)

 

[CivFanMUC]

If they are willing to accept less sales by using Steam, then that is their choice, I would find it hard to believe using Steam increases the number of sales.

It does. Ok, for sure it doesn't increase the number of initial sales - it decreases it (IMHO). But noone can sell a once bought game - and that is one of the main-reasons publishers use Steam.

"Pre-owned a bigger problem than piracy": http://www.develop-online.net/news/34791/Pre-owned-a-bigger-problem-than-piracy

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

It does. Ok, for sure it doesn't increase the number of initial sales - it decreases it (IMHO). But noone can sell a once bought game - and that is one of the main-reasons publishers use Steam.

"Pre-owned a bigger problem than piracy": http://www.develop-online.net/news/34791/Pre-owned-a-bigger-problem-than-piracy

I think it probably would increase sales, but then again most of the bigger DD services would, more places you have it avaliable for sale more people will buy it.

 

[CivFanMUC]

Well then you won't be buying any games ever, since they all have DRM of one form or another. Typing in a serial number is a form of DRM.

Nope, typing in a serial number is typing in a serial number. With a serial number you don't need to connect to the internet. You don't need to activate your product. You can install it as often as you want and nobody can bar you from doing so.

DRM is giving the choice if or when you use your software into the hands of others. If EA says, you may activate the game only 5 times, you can't do anything about it. If Steam says, you have to update your game in order to play, you can't to anything about it. If Ubi's servers are down, you can't to anyting about it.

DRM means, that you have absolutely no rights to do anything - unless EA/Steam/Ubi in their endless graciousness allow you to install the game a 6th time, allow you to play at all and so on.

 

[Chalks]

With a serial number you don't need to connect to the internet. You don't need to activate your product. You can install it as often as you want and nobody can bar you from doing so.

DRM is giving the choice if or when you use your software into the hands of others. If EA says, you may activate the game only 5 times, you can't do anything about it. If Steam says, you have to update your game in order to play, you can't to anything about it. If Ubi's servers are down, you can't to anyting about it.

DRM means, that you have absolutely no rights to do anything - unless EA/Steam/Ubi in their endless graciousness allow you to install the game a 6th time, allow you to play at all and so on.

That's not what DRM means. DRM is Digital Rights Management. It is any digital system that attempts to prevent people from accessing content without obeying the rules put in place by the people who have a copyright on the content.

 

[Shurdus]

Let us not forget that some companies require you to register a serial number to an account too, and that serial numbers are typically cracked or shared within a week so that it is utterly pointless to use this form of DRM.

Also I will point out that some games can be very hard to come by in some parts of the world. Digital distribution can make it so that you can get games in parts of the world where the game is not distributed in physical form. For example, Sins of a solar empire - an acclaimed title distributed by Stardock, and it was game of the year of 2008 on many sites and magazines - has been released in it's ultimate form called Trinity. It includes the original game with both expansions. It is very hard to get a physical copy of this game in Holland, even though I would consider this a major title. It is however readely available as a digital download. So while waiting for a physical copy may hurt sales for this game, selling it over impulse - the Stardock client - makes it available everywhere.

Now I am not saying Civ5 will be hard to come by, but I am pointing out that the fact that it will be available on steam may very well improve sales. Some people may be disgrunted by the fact that steam is required, and with the polls showing up it may seem that pretty much everyone is annoyed, but I think that any objective poll may very well show that the vast majority is nto at all moved.

 

[De Begerac]

Well then you won't be buying any games ever, since they all have DRM of one form or another. Typing in a serial number is a form of DRM.

I beg to differ. Codemasters Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising came out with not even a serial number to input. That is a big budget title by a large production company that was released less than a year ago.

Mandatory Steam for a Civ game is not the way forward.

/signed.


Cyrano

 

[The_J]

Adding to that, a DLC (map pack) was just released for MW2 for $14.99. Once again the so called hardcore community expressed their outrage on any official and unofficial forum with petition, boycotts, etc. because in previous COD games the map packs have always been free on PC. Well, guess what? Once again the DLC has been on the top of the sales charts, only beaten, coincidentally, by Civ 5 preorder the day it was announced and Civ 4 complete when it was on sale for $10.

Do you need more "proof" of who is the minority?

The minority are obviously the intelligent people.
Paying 3$ for a map, where 2 maps are just redone old maps, is just...and that's one of the most sold things.
Humanity will not survive. I'm sure.

 

[majk-iii]

/Sign


(Matter of principal: DRM = Be Fu**ed!)

 

[CivFanMUC]

Link to video.

Replace "Trusted Computing" with DRM, and you know where you/we are.

 

[majk-iii]

Link to video.

Replace "Trusted Computing" with DRM, and you know where you/we are.

Simple and great... but in my taste they could have gone even further into the conceptualities. Still, good post.

 

[mossmonster]

/signed.

 

[tom2050]

Some people just love draconian DRM that tells them what they can and cannot do... There are much better ways they could have gone, that accomplishes the same thing, but they went down the road where Ubisoft is leading them.