Civ5 - shipping with Steamworks * plus Digital Deluxe Edition

[Tyranthraxus]

Preferred way to buy a game: In order of usefullness.
#1 No DRM on a disk that can be transfered to a PC and can be installed off of an external HD or USB thumbdrive. (Being able to run it off of a thumbdrive would be cool too. WOW can do this.)
#2 No DRM download. Everything above but no disk. Manual can be downloaded. (GOG.com for example.)
#3 Steam/Impulse for some games that don't usually need manuals anyway. For specials where games are 75% - 90% off in price. (Those few games with install limits are off limits. I reinstall OS's frequently.) Multiplayer leads me to steam. Disk check games I consider to be single player only. (I Don't like gamespy)
#4 Old style disk check. Usually don't like using a disk because it can scratch.

Don't care to buy a game with DRM any worse.

 

[arstal]

That's my priority , except Steam is below disc checks, other DD services are above it.

Won't use D2D period due to them bricking my copy of Civ 4 BTS due to DRM, after the no-DRM patch was released.

BTW Impulse has no DRM on the games, outside of install/patch it's just like GOG, unless specified otherwise (and it's clear on Impulse- which made Gamersgate and eventually Steam follow suit)

 

[stargeek]

Hey guys! It's me again.

Two Valve representatives were working with Firaxis in their offices this week and the devs took some time to chat with them about your concerns, and I have three points to make that I think will help a lot of you out.

1. How much memory and disk space does the Steam client use? The client itself takes up less than 20Mb on the drive. Valve has just released a new version of the client which uses less RAM than previous versions, and they’re working on keeping the memory footprint small. I don't have the exact number right now, but I will soon if you are interested.

2. What personally identifiable information does Valve collect with Steam? The only information players are required to provide is a valid email address and a password, and to verify they are older than 13 years of age. All other information is optional, and a player’s profile can be set to private. Valve does track the time spent playing a game, per account, but does not collect information about what other processes are running concurrently on the computer.


3. How often do I have to connect with Steam after the activation? Never again, if you choose to play in offline mode. The Steam client will still start, but will not communicate with the servers. A connection is required to activate the game and an update must be applied at that time, but after the initial activation, a player never again has to connect their computer to the Internet. However, if not connected, the players will not be able to receive updates, save to the cloud, play multiplayer, earn achievements, or receive free content.

Let me know if you have any other questions - we'll do our best to get them answered for you.

2. So what you are telling me is that my 10 year old son, who may be a bigger civ fanatic than I am, will not "legally" be able to enter into contract with Valve/Steam and would not be able to play the game. We currently have 2 copies of Civ4BTS, so we can play local LAN games between the 2 of us (and is a great bonding experience). What value is there for me, as someone who has never played Civ4 online (and uninstalled GameSpy as soon as it was installed) to be required to register for the Steamworks service? When purchasing the game, I am entering into a licensing agreement with 2K/Take Two. Why should I want/need to license with Steam/Valve, a 3rd party I do not want to, nor should have the need to, license with?

That, and the concern of what I wish to install on my computer, has pushed the issue of purchasing 2 copies of Civ5 into a very questionable family decision (and I have been playing since Civ2)....I guess I would have to read both EULA's very carefully.

 

[arstal]

The "value" is you won't be able to play Civ 5 without it, and you get some things that you'll likely never use.

You have to decide if that "value" takes Civ 5 from being a purchase to a non-purchase. It is definitely a negative externality to most Civ fans, though probably only a few view it as a large enough one to not buy the game.

BTW I have used Steam , so I know it's good and bad points. To me at least, there is no reason for any single-player game to mandate Steamworks DRM. I don't care what value it provides to corporations, that's not my concern as a customer. It provides a negative value to me, with all its drawbacks.

 

[Rebel44]

2. So what you are telling me is that my 10 year old son, who may be a bigger civ fanatic than I am, will not "legally" be able to enter into contract with Valve/Steam and would not be able to play the game. We currently have 2 copies of Civ4BTS, so we can play local LAN games between the 2 of us (and is a great bonding experience). What value is there for me, as someone who has never played Civ4 online (and uninstalled GameSpy as soon as it was installed) to be required to register for the Steamworks service? When purchasing the game, I am entering into a licensing agreement with 2K/Take Two. Why should I want/need to license with Steam/Valve, a 3rd party I do not want to, nor should have the need to, license with?

That, and the concern of what I wish to install on my computer, has pushed the issue of purchasing 2 copies of Civ5 into a very questionable family decision (and I have been playing since Civ2)....I guess I would have to read both EULA's very carefully.

Person who is creating account must be over 13, so you can create and your son can after that use it without any conflict with EULA. Things like that are done to limit chance of being sued (which seems to be national sport in USA).

 

[Eejit]

My reference here is not about control or persuasion.
It is financial.
Why does Firaxis need 2k and Steam standing between them and their customers?
We now have two middle-men (distributors) with their fingers in the pie.
This will not lead to better games or less milking of the public.

Steam isn't the only distributor. They provide distribution and DRM (among other things) - the two are not necessarily always coupled. i.e. you can buy Steamworks games from stores and sites such as Amazon.

 

[Hamarabi]

I own Civilization III and two copies of IV with all expansions and was looking forward to the newest incarnation, but I will not buy Civilization V with a forced steam account requirement. When I buy a game, I do not want strings attached, especially artificial limitations that devalue the product in such a way that it becomes nothing more than a rental. I do not understand why so many people are willing to give up what they already had, which was ownership and the ability to install and play the game as many times as they want without restrictions or On-line activations, in exchange for temporary use subject to corporate "profit and control" minded whims.

In my mind, it is sort of like politics in that the government takes 5 bushels of apples away and gives back three while the people rejoice because they think they have won not realizing that they actually got screwed. I simply do not understand the consumer DRM cheerleader’s point of view. Corporate DRM cheerleaders, yes. But, not consumers.

In the future people will reminisce to their grandchildren, “Back in my day, you only had to submit to an iron rod shoved up your buttocks with mandatory electrocution when you wanted to play games, but now things have gone too far.”

Kids don’t realize that as soon as the dust settles and this measure becomes acceptable, the next measure will come along which further devalues the product and eliminates our rights as a consumer.

“We’ve made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!” – Jean-Luc Picard (Lily’s rebuttal does not apply in this case.)

 

[Periander]

I own Civilization III and two copies of IV with all expansions and was looking forward to the newest incarnation, but I will not buy Civilization V with a forced steam account requirement. When I buy a game, I do not want strings attached, especially artificial limitations that devalue the product in such a way that it becomes nothing more than a rental...

Having it on Steam and tied to your individual account is nothing new, nor does it 'devalue' your game... The only logical explanation for your train of thought is that you expect resale value for your 'ownership', but there really isn't any value in owning a game in any case. If you read the EULA for Civ IV BTS for example:

You agree not to:
...
(b) Distribute, lease, license, sell, rent or otherwise transfer or assign this Software, or any copies of this Software, without the express prior written consent of LICENSOR;

Of course, in practice this isn't always the case, but it is written there.

In any case, with Steam, it's hardly a rental at all; it's permanently tied to you and your account. You could potentially give/sell someone the Steam account, but that is likely contravening their EULA.

The fact that not being able to sell it later is a deterrent for you is perhaps a sign that you are not a true fan in any case.

I do not understand why so many people are willing to give up what they already had, which was ownership and the ability to install and play the game as many times as they want without restrictions or On-line activations, in exchange for temporary use subject to corporate "profit and control" minded whims...

Arguing the pros and cons of anti-piracy measures are not worthwhile in my opinion; it is a fact of life in PC gaming. Developers have to make money, otherwise they won't be around to continue making games. Piracy hurts, and so the industry has came up with ways to combat this. That all said, Steam provides for a system of checking which is less intrusive and less prone to error than most of the alternatives. If we are to 'put up with' DRM, this is the best way to go, not rely on optical drives to pick up pits that your burner can't reproduce etc..

The only time you have to go online to authenticate yourself is once after you've installed the game and Steam, (online or from a DVD, just like you're probably used to). Once you've done that, you can play Steam in off-line mode for all eternity. Want to install it again on a new PC? Log in to Steam once on that PC too.

 

[Badesumofu]

Well, I used the money I was saving for Civ 5 to support other games. I upgraded Elemental to the Limited Edition, got the Tropico 3 expansion and plan to get Fallout: New Vegas. I can keep playing Civ 4 with mods until Civ 6 comes out and hopefully they will have come to their senses by then and not force people (the majority by the way) that will play single player to install and have Steam running all the time.

Wow, money to 3 games all because Civ 5 will use Steam.

Gotta love it.

Tropico 3 is currently $7.50 on Steam. How much did you pay for it? I also got GTA4 for that price, Far Cry for $5, The Orange Box for $20... it's more convenient that buying in stores, cheaper, I can redownload my games anytime I want. The money I've saved buying from Steam is far more than I could have recouped by reselling them.

Nearly every criticism of Steam is either uninformed, silly or outright false. It's an excellent platform and people who keep an open mind about it will discover that.

 

[Shabbaman]

I'll prepurchase Civ5 on Steam if it comes with a hat for TF2.

 

[bonscott]

Tropico 3 is currently $7.50 on Steam. How much did you pay for it? I also got GTA4 for that price, Far Cry for $5, The Orange Box for $20... it's more convenient that buying in stores, cheaper, I can redownload my games anytime I want. The money I've saved buying from Steam is far more than I could have recouped by reselling them.

Nearly every criticism of Steam is either uninformed, silly or outright false. It's an excellent platform and people who keep an open mind about it will discover that.

Ummm, I've been buying digital download games for many years before Steam was ever thought of. Ever here of Stardock? They've had a digital download service long before Impulse and long before Steam. I get all my games on Impulse if I can, otherwise I'll buy at Best Buy or Walmart when on sale. See, Impulse doesn't require to run just to play my single player game. Just register once online and that's it, I can uninstall Impulse and never have it installed again. Guess what, I can still play all my games purchased thru the service.

And I have used Steam before. I got the Orange Box which then of course force installed Steam. I never had too much trouble with it but was shocked when I found it was running all the time and was running just to play a single player game. Why? I couldn't figure it out. So I uninstalled all the games and spent quite a while uninstalling and removing all traces of the Steam spyware from my system.

If Steam worked similar to Impulse or GG I wouldn't have an issue with it.
If I needed to connect to Steam to authenticate my game once, no problem.
If I had to launch and run Steam/Steamworks to play multiplayer, once again, no problem.
My problem is that is has to be running just to play my offline, never play multiplayer games. That I will not stand for and I will not support any company that forces that on me.
Thus why I support other companies and Valve/Steam products are on my "do not buy ever" list. No matter what the game may be or how cool it is or how cheap it is.

If people continue to support these predatory practices it only gets worse. But seems like today's FPS kiddies don't seem to understand that.
Steam is awesum!!!!!111!!1! Oh well.

 

[Aesir Rising]

As my kids get older, there I games I have that I'd like to allow them to play. Can't really do that without circumventing my network/PC/account setup though. They've each got their own logon IDs on the PCs, but I can't have them play one game under my Steam account without locking out access to my whole account. That's where Steam removes some value over disk (or other digital distribution) sources. Impulse GOO doesn't have this problem. Not even D2D, which sucks horribly in several ways, has this problem. Disk installs certainly do not have this issue. I'll wait for the Valve fanbois to chime in on how people with kids are rare.

Steam is about to be a de facto monopoly. I'm expecting the customer to lose out more and more as time goes on. I remember when Microsoft was MicroSoft and they were much cooler than big bad IBM. Steam is heading along that path.

Separately, Periandor, you failed law school.

 

[epsylon]

Forcing the customers to use this platform was a bad move from 2K.

Tropico 3 is currently $7.50 on Steam. How much did you pay for it? I also got GTA4 for that price, Far Cry for $5, The Orange Box for $20... it's more convenient that buying in stores, cheaper, I can redownload my games anytime I want. The money I've saved buying from Steam is far more than I could have recouped by reselling them.

Don't come up with that. Steam only sells "cheap" games at the weekends.And your precious Steam doesn't care about the EU customers.You should visit this thread : http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770231
Civilization V on Steam will cost us
normal edition: 49,99€
deluxe edition: 54,99€

Sure,Steam is cheaper than retail. *sarcasm*

Nearly every criticism of Steam is either uninformed, silly or outright false. It's an excellent platform and people who keep an open mind about it will discover that.

I uninstalled that crap from my PC.

 

[arstal]

I'll prepurchase Civ5 on Steam if it comes with a hat for TF2.

Those hats have really gotten whored out by Valve lately- especially with them giving hats for preorders. Good marketing by Valve, but I'm always amazed at how well marketing works.

 

[2K Elizabeth]

This is an interesting dance.

Milan is asking why steam is an integral part of the game and not optional. Your answer is the circular 'it's integral because it's integral'.

I think it's obvious why it's integral. And I think it's obvious that your job prevents you from saying the obvious answer. You're in a tough position and I empathize.

We long-time players who want steam to be a choice are in a tough position too. Abandoning a game we've loyally supported for almost 20 years is not something we relish. Hopefully you empathize with us too.

I'll go try and get you a more technical answer - I'm not a programmer, so me explaining how Steam is hooked into the game in the detail you are desiring isn't working. I know that I've said we use it for updates, content, multiplayer, start up, and delivery, but if you want more programmer-speak details of how that works with Steam, you're right - I don't code games, so I can't provide that.

 

[myturn]

(as well as my PBEM effort)

For all of you who:

1. hate or dislike Steam (for whatever reason),
2. like or use Steam (for whatever reason) but hate or dislike announced new features of Civ V- hex tiles, One Unit per Tile, etc,
3. expected Civ V to be more like “Civ IV++” or “BTS 2” or, like someone said, to be “Beyond the Disc” version,
4. “I won’t buy that because ___________” fill in this one yourself;

I’d like to share with you my latest discovery, even if I am a bit behind the release date. There are probably a lot of newcomers here who don’t know about it and a bit of advertising of good stuff is always welcome.
I’ve spent past couple days playing unofficial expansion project: Legends of Revolution and I have nothing but words of praise for achievement of team behind the project.
It has a lot of new features; it has some new mechanics, new units, leaders, civilizations and concepts, practically everything that one professionally produced expansion should have.
It is made with stability in mind and you can even download light version which has some advanced graphics removed and I guess (I haven’t dl-ed that version) optimized settings for low-spec machines, but still has all in-game features that full version have.
In the end, this is just me wanting to say (again):
Thanks for keeping the game alive, this one is definitively worth to try for all of you who still play the game, and were looking for some fresh approach.

And it is absolutely free of charge, and Steam-independent version.
Adding to my sig.

 

[mamba]

And your precious Steam doesn't care about the EU customers.You should visit this thread : http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770231
Civilization V on Steam will cost us
normal edition: 49,99€
deluxe edition: 54,99€

Sure,Steam is cheaper than retail. *sarcasm*

The price is set by the publisher, not by Steam.

Yes, Steam is not cheaper than retail.

Retail games in Europe cost more than the equivalent in $ too, this is not Steam specific (49 seems to be about average for games) ... but given the exchange rate of the Euro that won't be a problem much longer

 

[mamba]

I'll go try and get you a more technical answer - I'm not a programmer, so me explaining how Steam is hooked into the game in the detail you are desiring isn't working. I know that I've said we use it for updates, content, multiplayer, start up, and delivery, but if you want more programmer-speak details of how that works with Steam, you're right - I don't code games, so I can't provide that.

They are not looking for a technical answer. Yes, it is technically integrated, but that integration came after someone decided to use it in the first place. *That* decision to use it (or at least make it mandatory) is what they are after (i.e. why not make Steamworks optional, i.e. have one version (presumably the one sold by Steam) which uses it and one which does not).

The answer for not having two versions is that it would be additional development effort. Much of what Steamworks offers would need to be replicated for the version which does not use it.
As I said before, this is like offering the same game with two different graphics engines. Noone does that as it wastes development effort without any gain in return.

That also obviously is why Steamworks is not an option but a requirement.

The only possible question then becomes why Steamworks is used at all....

 

[Hamarabi]

@Periander

Save your breath for the uninformed, easily manipulated, or uneducated gamers out there. I stated my opinion on the matter and my decision to not purchase the product with artificial limitations and/or required activations that would eventually cripple the game.

Civilization IV will hold me off until they come to their senses. If that never happens, so be it. I'll take my gaming dollars elsewhere.

 

[arstal]

Fact is, DRM is completely ineffective in stopping lost sales due to piracy. If the DRM was 100% effective, pirates, instead of buying the game they couldn't pirate- would just play something else instead.

The only time you get lost sales due to piracy, is due to the DRM itself driving customers who would pay legitimately, into getting the superior pirate version. I think Civ is particularly suspectible to this, due to a fanbase that is more likely to be fanatically anti-DRM, and being more affluent/buying fewer games then mainstream gamers, so piracy percentages are lower to begin with/competitive alternatives are out there.

I really think 2K is going to shoot themselves in the foot with this, but I don't know how much they'll feel it. The game will do well , at least initially. I do think the mod community will suffer from this- as many of the modders are the longest-time players, and they will be the ones to boycott.

We may get some excellent mods for other games though.