Anti-Steam Petition

[xenobiotic]

Arguing that its their job so obviously they are perfect at is is nonsense xenobiotic.

I never said this.

My point is that when considering profits alone: It is more likely that the company is right, considering their only goal is to make money, than gamers, considering they are not experts and have a clear anti-DRM agenda.

We have no direct evidence on how DRM affects overall sales for the company, so it is impossible to claim definitively what the effect is. However, publishers probably know better than gamers how to make money.

 

[Senethro]

I've got 70ish people on my steam friends list and about 6 of them bought the Civ4 complete pack over the past couple of days. It could be said that Steams ability to market games to new people will make up for all the grumpy old men who don't want that nasty malware on their pristine 486.

 

[globalempire]

so we cannot buy civ in strores

 

[Senethro]

I wouldn't know where to go to find a strore.

There will be DVD versions available in shops. They'll do 95% of the installation off the disc and the last 5% from Steam.

 

[cspyr0]

You guys put up with SecuROM on Civ4 at launch, but you don't like Steam? At the time SecuROM couldn't even be uninstalled! I know there are some of you out there who would have a problem with ANY DRM, but you are the same people who will not be playing the game or trying very hard to pirate a Steam game (good luck, it's not easy).

edit:

I've got 70ish people on my steam friends list and about 6 of them bought the Civ4 complete pack over the past couple of days. It could be said that Steams ability to market games to new people will make up for all the grumpy old men who don't want that nasty malware on their pristine 486.

That made me laugh pretty hard, considering all the posts about people worrying Steam will take up 40MB or whatever. "Oh noes they're stealin my megabytes!" But you have to admit, the 486 was pretty awesome in its day.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Signed.

(But I wont be buying Civ5 if steam is required, for the regular game, either)

So there, fanboys!

 

[Tlalynet]

@Iceciro

I have a gaming LAN at home for friends and family, though I do admit I'm not a big fan of spending extensive periods of time playing a long game like civ against people I don't actually know.

That said, my post had nothing whatsoever to do with weather steam brings the people that use it benefits, but rather will it as an anti-piracy measure actually benefit the company. Apparently you are simply too lazy to read.

@ xenobiotic
Its still quite an abstract argument and doesn't actually address the more specific points made. Its not so clean cut as to weather this actually prevents a substantial amount of losses, like you said, we have no direct evidence and it's unlikely reliable evidence is available. But the thing is lack of evidence levels the playing field, no matter how professional one is its a game of reasonable speculation, so simply saying someone is not a professional does not negate their arguments. Of course, saying someone is a professional should never put them above criticism.

@ cspyr0
I didn't put up with SecuROM, see how that turned out? It was a wait but in the end I got a cheaper game with mods developed and ready to go without any DRM.

 

[cspyr0]

@ cspyr0
I didn't put up with SecuROM, see how that turned out? It was a wait but in the end I got a cheaper game with mods developed and ready to go without any DRM.

Neither did I, so I can relate. I bought it later when it got offered on Steam for cheap because I hate SecuROM and most DRM with a passion. If the Steam version was going to come out with extra DRM (as they often do) I was planning not to buy it. It took me a while to warm to Steam since it was a piece of crap when it shipped with Half-Life 2, but it's much better now.

Unfortunately it is doubtful you will have the option of waiting it out this time since Steam will be integrated with the game. That of course means many of you will never buy the game, which is regretful. Also regretful is that the publishers will be laughing too hard whilst rolling in money to listen to you guys, since Steam is very good at selling games.

 

[Tlalynet]

Now that is a good point I was wondering about. I was thinking that the program may never be steam-free, and that would be too bad, especially as it doesn't sound like steam will do me any good at all for multiplayer since I run LAN games rather than games via the WWW. Of course if it has PBEM there may be some kind of workaround, but I prefer simultaneous turns for Civ. Even so the best course of action seems to be to wait it out a year or more and see what happens.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

1) I don´t want steam to mess with my system each time I want to play, I would prefer one time online activation.

2) Is this the microtransactions stuff? Like you buy one new unit or civ for 5USD from steam? If so

3) With steam, I pay money, but I am not the real owner of the game. If steam goes out of bussiness , or if I change my comouter, or something happens to my connection, I cant play. that sucks

On the bright side... I actully have a lifetype of gameplay on the current civilization games.Since I dont like the key aspects of civ 5 anyway, I will just stick to old games.

I never played civilization 1. in civ 2, I only finished 1-2 scenarios, in civ 3, i didnt play any scenario (because there where bugged ), the same thing with civilization 4. I never touched call to power or alpha centauri. --- and i play a lot of other strategy and tactical games and rpg and action , some of which i havent finished so yea....
so yea.... of steam

Moderator Action: Don't use foul language. Warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[ori]

Civ4 used SafeDisc not SecuRom - Colonization was the only part of the Civ4 release to use SecuRom in some of its versions.

 

[Lord_Phan]

1) I don´t want steam to mess with my system each time I want to play, I would prefer one time online activation.

2) Is this the microtransactions stuff? Like you buy one new unit or civ for 5USD from steam? If so

3) With steam, I pay money, but I am not the real owner of the game. If steam goes out of bussiness , or if I change my comouter, or something happens to my connection, I cant play. that sucks

On the bright side... I actully have a lifetype of gameplay on the current civilization games.Since I dont like the key aspects of civ 5 anyway, I will just stick to old games.

I never played civilization 1. in civ 2, I only finished 1-2 scenarios, in civ 3, i didnt play any scenario (because there where bugged ), the same thing with civilization 4. I never touched call to power or alpha centauri. --- and i play a lot of other strategy and tactical games and rpg and action , some of which i havent finished so yea....
so yea.... of steam

Moderator Action: Don't use foul language. Warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I am not a Steam fanboy, I'm indifferent one way or the other, I do dislike the concept of DLC's however. Now that I've prefaced with my biases or lack thereof I'll answer your questions.

1. You are really only required to do one time activation online. You can set Steam to offline mode and play Single Player. You can also turn off the auto-updater et al.

2. Yes it is, And I dislike it as a concept aswell.

3. You do own the game, the game is on your computer, if you change your computer you can download it to that. You have an account with steam and can download and delete it and use it on as many computers as you like however you can only play it on 1 at a time.


Hope that helps.

 

[Lerxt]

Moderator Action: we have zero tolerance for software piracy
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Mercade]

We need a :howling at the moon: smiley for this thread

 

[cspyr0]

Civ4 used SafeDisc not SecuRom - Colonization was the only part of the Civ4 release to use SecuRom in some of its versions.

You are correct sir, my mistake. SafeDisc is the one that installed a rootkit, which is arguably worse. Good times...

 

[Clammo]

Add me to this petition. I'm a long time Civ fan but refuse to buy any game that requires me to install a 3rd party DRM. Piracy may be hurting PC gaming but abusive DRM is killing it a whole lot faster IMO. The list of games I can buy from gets smaller and smaller each year as more publishers choose to abuse their paying customers with this kind of scheme, which doesn't have any effect on the pirates.

Guess I'll just stick to Civ 4, which is a pity as Civ has been one of my all time favourite game series.

 

[arstal]

I'm just going to copy this from the other thread because it

Do you know what Steamworks gets those of you who don't play MP/want a community/to play with friends? It gets you development time on things you do care about - AI, an entirely new graphics engine, a program that can use multiple cores to increase turn times, brand now subsystems. That's right boys and girls, development time costs MONEY and is LIMITED. They can't just hold back a game until it's ready to release, at some point it has to produce revenue. So by adding Steamworks they can focus that time on things that yes, even you, will enjoy. So don't say Steamworks brings you nothing.

Dead wrong. DRM is never done by the developer. It's tacked on by a 3rd party via the publisher.

The AI will be the same no matter what DRM scheme is used.

I'm sure if Firaxis had their way there would no DRM on the system, because DRM= lost sales. It's just risk averse large corporations/publishers that like DRM.

 

[ori]

You are correct sir, my mistake. SafeDisc is the one that installed a rootkit, which is arguably worse. Good times...

I am not aware of a SafeDisc related rootkit, while I am very much aware of SecuRom activity which is essentially a rootkit by itself.
Safedisc has all sorts of other problems mostly shutting out legit users because they don't have compatible cd/dvd drive firmware or because of Safedisc malfunctions or because some antivirus programs interfere with it and so on, but I have not come across actual rootkit like behavior. SecuRom on the other hand has been shown to use rootkit like behavior.

 

[HamTard]

You guys put up with SecuROM on Civ4 at launch, but you don't like Steam? At the time SecuROM couldn't even be uninstalled! I know there are some of you out there who would have a problem with ANY DRM, but you are the same people who will not be playing the game or trying very hard to pirate a Steam game (good luck, it's not easy).

edit:


That made me laugh pretty hard, considering all the posts about people worrying Steam will take up 40MB or whatever. "Oh noes they're stealin my megabytes!" But you have to admit, the 486 was pretty awesome in its day.

Steam never uses over 20MB of RAM for me, and it's basically nothing out of the modern day standard of 4GB. Also, unlike SecuROM, Steam gives you convenience features like OPTIONAL auto-update, unlimited redownload/install/activation, no disc in tray, offline mode (activate online once, can play offline after), integrated friends list with cross-game chat, and especially Steam overlay (lets you browse the web and chat with friends without alt+tab minimizing the game).

1) I don´t want steam to mess with my system each time I want to play, I would prefer one time online activation.

2) Is this the microtransactions stuff? Like you buy one new unit or civ for 5USD from steam? If so

3) With steam, I pay money, but I am not the real owner of the game. If steam goes out of bussiness , or if I change my comouter, or something happens to my connection, I cant play. that sucks

On the bright side... I actully have a lifetype of gameplay on the current civilization games.Since I dont like the key aspects of civ 5 anyway, I will just stick to old games.

I never played civilization 1. in civ 2, I only finished 1-2 scenarios, in civ 3, i didnt play any scenario (because there where bugged ), the same thing with civilization 4. I never touched call to power or alpha centauri. --- and i play a lot of other strategy and tactical games and rpg and action , some of which i havent finished so yea....
so yea.... of steam

Moderator Action: Don't use foul language. Warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

1) Then activate once and put Steam into Offline Mode in the background.

2) Microtransactions might exist, but that would be entirely on 2K, not Steam. Steam only has the infrastructure to sell it, but 2K has to tell Firaxis to make DLC to sell. They could also tell them to make free DLC but that's less common (Valve, the owners of Steam, always make free DLC for their games on PC).

3) If you are in Offline Mode, you can play with no Internet connection after activating online once. If you are using Steam normally, playing single player, and your Internet dies, the game still works until you quit. Steam lets you redownload and install the game on an unlimited number of computers, as long as you only play from 1 at a time (but you can get around that by using it in Offline Mode).

Valve is not going out of business. They have a lot of money from the games they make, and Steam has been growing every year by millions of users. They have 50% of the digital PC game sales market, and digital PC game sales are growing every year as people switch from retail. They are also a very well managed company, they have a lot of money in the bank and the biggest risk they've ever taken is to create Steam. By all measures, their biggest risk turned out to be their biggest success.

 

[-Perceval-]

I want to sign!!!
I hate so much steam(sinc i bought empire total war), so SO much!