Civ 5 - Why the protest?

[Willem]

There's plenty of options if you don't want to use steam. You'll lose a few titles, such as Civ 5, but most titles have a non-Steam version.

But unfortunately, the only two titles I was interested in for this year both require Steam. There just aren't that many good computer games being released these days. The industry for the most part has moved to some sort of console FPS clone, that completely lacks any depth. I was looking forward to both Civ 5 and Fallout: New Vegas this fall but now I'm going to have to debate whether I really want either one thanks to the Steam requirement. Of course there's always Dragon Age, but I've been very reluctant to look into that one after the Mass Effect DRM fiasco. I'm not sure what they're using now. At least Steam is better than what it had.

So those folks who are claiming that DRM is a fact of life- quit spouting misinformation. DRM is only a way of life because many gamers don't care about it until it bites them.

It is a fact of life in the sense that it deters the general user from making copies and passing them off to his/her friends and family. It takes a bit of knowledge to get around any anti-copy protection on a disc, which most people just don't possess. Making a disc be unable to be copied should be as far as DRM should go though, since it's obvious anything more than that is completely ineffective. There probably hasn't been a game yet that hasn't been cracked, so why bother with all these extra measures? It only ends up inconveniencing the ordinary user that doesn't mind paying money for a decent game in the first place. It's like the war on drugs, it's futile trying to constantly find ways to stamp it out. Just live with it.

 

[Davor]

But it doesn't benefit me in any way. You like to use Steam, that's your choice. But there's nothing it offers that's of any value to me. So why should I be forced into using it? I've mentioned on many occasions now that I have nothing against Steam as long as it's an option, not a requirement. What part of freedom of choice do you not understand? The only choice that has been left to me on this issue is to buy the game or not. And I choose not to buy. If 2K wants to restrict my options, then they can just deal with the loss of my income. There's plenty of other games to play. Fallout: New Vegas will be coming out at about the same time as Civ5, so I'll just go for that one instead. My gaming budget is very limited right now as it is anyway.

Sadly Fallout:New Vegas will be using steam as well, so I guess I will get it on the 360 another way of bypassing steam.

It looks any game from 2K will be using Steam now so it's either accept it or never by a 2K game for the PC ever again.

 

[Willem]

It looks any game from 2K will be using Steam now so it's either accept it or never by a 2K game for the PC ever again.

Well 2K better hope that EA doesn't set their sights on Valve/Steam for their next acquisition. They already have a business relationship going, since EA is Valve's bricks and mortar publisher. Pretty foolish on their part to be relying so heavily on some outside organization IMO. At least EA and UBISoft had the sense to take care of their DRM solutions themselves, instead of using some third-party to do it for them.

 

[arstal]

Sadly Fallout:New Vegas will be using steam as well, so I guess I will get it on the 360 another way of bypassing steam.

It looks any game from 2K will be using Steam now so it's either accept it or never by a 2K game for the PC ever again.

Then it's an easy choice. Bye Bye 2K.

 

[Ahriman]

At least EA and UBISoft had the sense to take care of their DRM solutions themselves, instead of using some third-party to do it for them.

Wait... you prefer Ubisoft's DRM system to Steam?

 

[mattigus]

At least EA and UBISoft had the sense to take care of their DRM solutions themselves, instead of using some third-party to do it for them.

Spoken like someone who never played a recent Ubisoft game. Unlike Steam, which you CAN run in offline mode, Ubisoft's DRM requires online validation, regardless of whether you're playing single player or not.

Already that would piss half of the people on this forum off, but it's so much worse. I bought a game from Ubisoft recently, and half the times I try playing, it wont work because the validation servers are down. I am tempted to find a pirated version of a game I already paid for just to be able to play it.

 

[Willem]

Wait... you prefer Ubisoft's DRM system to Steam?

No, not all. But AFAIK they took care of it themselves, they didn't bring in some third party to do it for them. That's one of things that makes me nervous about using Steam. It introduces variables that not even 2K has any control over. I would have felt alot better about the measures if 2K would have done it in-house, not by out-sourcing.

 

[mjs0]

No, not all. But AFAIK they took care of it themselves, they didn't bring in some third party to do it for them. That's one of things that makes me nervous about using Steam. It introduces variables that not even 2K has any control over. I would have felt alot better about the measures if 2K would have done it in-house, not by out-sourcing.

I have a hard time with this concept.
Civilization itself (not the game) is based on specialization, we don't all have to farm and hunt and build and cure and teach and...etc; there are others that do all that for us so we can focus on our own speciality. So why would we expect Firaxis/2K to reinvent something when a workable and popular (in terms of market share) alternative is available. One of the key things you learn as a software engineer is to look for opportunities for reuse, both in your own code and from 3rd parties.

 

[Willem]

So why would we expect Firaxis/2K to reinvent something when a workable and popular (in terms of market share) alternative is available. One of the key things you learn as a software engineer is to look for opportunities for reuse, both in your own code and from 3rd parties.

It's one thing to use third-party software, and another thing altogether to use a third-party's entire infrastructure. They're relying on Steam not only for the multi-player content, but just to get the game working in the first place. What happens if their business arrangement goes sour, or Valve gets bought out by some large company that may be hostile to 2K, or even goes under itself? While that may seem highly unlikely, stranger things have happened in the computer/software industry. All their titles may effectively be shut down by putting all their eggs into a single out-sourced basket. It could ruin them as a business. As far as I'm concerned this is a really, really bad business decision. They're leaving themselves vulnerable in order to stop a few pirates and people reselling their games. They're being very short-sighted IMO.

 

[Ahriman]

they're leaving themselves vulnerable in order to stop a few pirates and people reselling their games and save large amounts of money by not developing their own duplicate infrastructure/reinventing the wheel.

Fixed it for you.

 

[mjs0]

It's one thing to use third-party software, and another thing altogether to use a third-party's entire infrastructure. They're relying on Steam not only for the multi-player content, but just to get the game working in the first place. What happens if their business arrangement goes sour, or Valve gets bought out by some large company that may be hostile to 2K or even goes under? All their titles may effectively be shut down by putting all their eggs into a single out-sourced basket. It could ruin them as business. As far as I'm concerned this is a really, really bad business decision. They're leaving themselves vulnerable in order to stop a few pirates and people reselling their games. They're being very short-sighted IMO.

Have you seen any of the recent trends in the IT industry in general?
One of the key trends is the move from locally hosted and controlled applications to remotely hosted applications that are available as you need them on what is called the Cloud (you may also hear the somewhat similar term Web2.0). Google Apps, Office online, Gmail, Yahoo mail, etc are all Cloud hosted applications that do not run on your machine.

Your application, your data, everything, will be hosted on a Cloud like Microsoft's Azure, or similar offerings from Google, Amazon and others. Other buzzwords you may have heard like Software as a Service (SAAS) and Platform as a Service (PAAS) also relate to this movement; As time goes on you will run less and less of your apps locally and more of them out there on the cloud (yes, even video games).

The entire IT industry is becoming more interconnected and more interdependent, many businesses today rely on 3rd parties for these types of services. How many companies other than huge corporations like Amazon (even those that do a lot of online b2b and b2c eCommerce) do you think host their own websites?

Steam is a step in this direction for video games, there are more companies that are further out there than Steam like OnLive.

You are not just fighting Steam, you are fighting the future of computing as it is currently envisaged.

 

[Senethro]

Have to be honest, even I hope a service like Onlive crashes and burns. It can't even offer a service that is price competitive with consoles.

 

[mjs0]

Have to be honest, even I hope a service like Onlive crashes and burns. It can't even offer a service that is price competitive with consoles.

I agree, I'm not suggesting any of this is a good thing...just the way things are and some clues as to where things are heading.

 

[Willem]

How many companies other than huge corporations like Amazon (even those that do a lot of online b2b and b2c eCommerce) do you think host their own websites?

There's a huge difference between having someone host your website and having them responsible for activating all of your products. Web hosting services are a dime a dozen, if one goes down there's lots of others that can quickly take it's place. Not so with some company that's handling all your DRM for you and allowing your products to actually work.

You are not just fighting Steam, you are fighting the future of computing as it is currently envisaged.

It still remains to be seen whether this trend will be viable in the long run. All it takes is some major disruption in a service for people to go back to the way they were doing things before. Cloud computing may still be around twenty or thirty years from now, but at the moment it is still largely an experiment.

 

[Ahriman]

All it takes is some major disruption in a service for people to go back to the way they were doing things before.

Sadly, this is not true. Despite the debacle of the roll-out of Assassin's Creed 2, Ubisoft isn't abandoning its constant-internet-connection DRM.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I agree, I'm not suggesting any of this is a good thing...just the way things are and some clues as to where things are heading.

I'm a bit of an odd case on this one. I *adore* Steam and hate OnLive more than life itself. Steam still runs my software locally and can run it in offline mode. In this sense Steam is just a really fancy NES. OnLive represents a loss of local control that I am not quite ready to accept. Maybe I am just getting old

 

[arstal]

I just don't want my PC gaming to be tied to a console (Steam) with all the drawbacks that go with it. Not saying there aren't benefits, but the drawbacks frighten me.

The way Impulse is going to do it is much better- judging from Elemental, but I fear that it won't get the chance. (and doesn't require exclusivity at all)

 

[ladedadedum]

i'm not a huge fan of having to have steam, but i'm even less of a fan of securom and ubi's ways.

at least this way I can actually put civ on my steam account now and don't have to install that gamefly or w/e bullcrap.

 

[Beardy Dan]

The way Impulse is going to do it is much better- judging from Elemental, but I fear that it won't get the chance. (and doesn't require exclusivity at all)

Other than impulse of course?

 

[mjs0]

I'm a bit of an odd case on this one. I *adore* Steam and hate OnLive more than life itself. Steam still runs my software locally and can run it in offline mode. In this sense Steam is just a really fancy NES. OnLive represents a loss of local control that I am not quite ready to accept. Maybe I am just getting old

I wouldn't go as far as 'adore', but I have no real problem with Steam, however I do find myself conflicted regarding OnLive. Intellectually I can appreciate the architecture and the benefits for the developers/publishers, but you're right the loss of control is difficult to accept.

There is no maybe about my own aging, this whole Cloud computing thing reminds me of the old mainframe days, timesharing, and dumb terminals (shudder). I worked in development for IBM in the UK when we received one of the first shipments of the original IBM-PC and have enjoyed managing my own machines ever since!