[RD] Games as a Service

[yung.carl.jung]

@Timsup2nothin Does your GF not enjoy chess? Mine played me once, won, and has now decided we will never play again to cement her victory. I was inebriated

What is the downfall that is going to happen?

Economic precarity, more short-term work, less secure jobs, less secure housing, no guaranteed healthcare, privatized everything, including education, people going into debt being essentially guaranteed, selling of personal data being even more common, selling of genetic data, tracking being a common occurance, insurance being based on personal "performance" which is monitored, pretty much all developments we can already see today.

 

[Senethro]

@Timsup2nothin Does your GF not enjoy chess? Mine played me once, won, and has now decided we will never play again to cement her victory. I was inebriated



Economic precarity, more short-term work, less secure jobs, less secure housing, no guaranteed healthcare, privatized everything, including education, people going into debt being essentially guaranteed, selling of personal data being even more common, selling of genetic data, tracking being a common occurance, insurance being based on personal "performance" which is monitored, pretty much all developments we can already see today.

Yeah, I'm not sure what part in this Steam plays.

 

[cardgame]

You can disable auto-updates on Steam? I never saw that option.

you can, but you still need to update the game in order to play it, which absolutely sucks and kills the purpose

every single time Total Warhammer updates I can't play it for weeks because the mods have to update and I can't play stock, it's really ironic. Why they won't let me refuse the update and keep playing on the old version, I don't know.

aside from that Steam is mostly a boon... automatic updates included. You get home from work and oh look, it already spent three hours downloading and applying the patch so I can just play the game, I don't have to be angry that I can't play because I have to update. That's a win nine times out of ten.

Steam friends list and interaction is awesome and completely unrivaled for about a decade, Origin still falls behind imo.

I could also uninstall Steam completely from my computer and still play KSP, a game I downloaded from Steam. Because it's DRM-free. I can install KSP game files anywhere on my PC, not just in /steamapps which as already mentioned, you can install on whatever drive you want, so that's also a non issue. Steam has integrated support for hosting mod files and one-click installs with the Steam Workshop. That's a sweet value add over off-steam games. If you wanna be tinfoil hat man because they have permissions into your computer, feel free. It doesn't bother me. Remember, the alternative at the time was horsehocky like SecuROM or Starforce, both of which actually broke your games... I think one of them could even flat out ruin your HARDWARE, in the form of your disc drive. Absolutely disgusting.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

you can, but you still need to update the game in order to play it, which absolutely sucks and kills the purpose

What's the point of it then

 

[Timsup2nothin]

@Timsup2nothin Does your GF not enjoy chess? Mine played me once, won, and has now decided we will never play again to cement her victory. I was inebriated

She certainly doesn't enjoy chess with me. I'm not Narz, but the chances of me going down to the Starbucks with a chess set and bumping into someone who can offer a challenging game are still pretty slim. If it weren't for the internet I would need to find some sort of chess club, which has always been a little more effort than I was willing to put forth, or go back to prison.

 

[cardgame]

What's the point of it then

wish they'd fix it

 

[Synobun]

I get spanked by the easiest AI in chess so my tenure on chess sites was very short-lived.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

you can, but you still need to update the game in order to play it, which absolutely sucks and kills the purpose

every single time Total Warhammer updates I can't play it for weeks because the mods have to update and I can't play stock, it's really ironic. Why they won't let me refuse the update and keep playing on the old version, I don't know.

aside from that Steam is mostly a boon... automatic updates included. You get home from work and oh look, it already spent three hours downloading and applying the patch so I can just play the game, I don't have to be angry that I can't play because I have to update. That's a win nine times out of ten.

Steam friends list and interaction is awesome and completely unrivaled for about a decade, Origin still falls behind imo.

I could also uninstall Steam completely from my computer and still play KSP, a game I downloaded from Steam. Because it's DRM-free. I can install KSP game files anywhere on my PC, not just in /steamapps which as already mentioned, you can install on whatever drive you want, so that's also a non issue. Steam has integrated support for hosting mod files and one-click installs with the Steam Workshop. That's a sweet value add over off-steam games. If you wanna be tinfoil hat man because they have permissions into your computer, feel free. It doesn't bother me. Remember, the alternative at the time was **** like SecuROM or Starforce, both of which actually broke your games... I think one of them could even flat out ruin your HARDWARE, in the form of your disc drive. Absolutely disgusting.

This is a hilariously funny post.

"The alternative DRMs would actually break your games." You just described what is different about KSP...it is DRM free so uninstalling Steam won't break it. Every other game Steam will break. So exactly how is it better than those bad options were?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I get spanked by the easiest AI in chess so my tenure on chess sites was very short-lived.

You went about it the wrong way. You played with me. Chess sites allow you, me, or anyone else to find opponents of approximately comparable skill, and that is what makes for enjoyable games of chess. That's also possible through chess clubs, organized tournaments, etc, but it's a lot less convenient.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I think one of them could even flat out ruin your HARDWARE, in the form of your disc drive. Absolutely disgusting.

It was StarForce. IIRC, it could trigger the OS to permanently slow down the optical disc drive and eventually send it into 16-bit compatibility mode, and not all drives were able to handle that and ended up physically failing.

 

[cardgame]

This is a hilariously funny post.

"The alternative DRMs would actually break your games." You just described what is different about KSP...it is DRM free so uninstalling Steam won't break it. Every other game Steam will break. So exactly how is it better than those bad options were?

Because those other DRMs I listed would break your games by default and Steam just works.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because those other DRMs I listed would break your games by default and Steam just works.

Weren't we just talking about broken saves on updates? Weren't you just talking about how uninstalling Steam will break just about every game in your library? Is that not the same as "by default?" Is it better somehow, really?

 

[cardgame]

Why would I want to uninstall Steam?

Yeah that's what happens when you mod a game and then the game patches, it's an unfortunate side effect of modern patch updates more than anything else.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Why would I want to uninstall Steam?

Yeah that's what happens when you mod a game and then the game patches, it's an unfortunate side effect more than anything else.

At the root, all DRM has the same problem. Some amount of available processing is always redirected into operating the DRM instead of the software the DRM is "enhancing." That's fine, so long as you maintain your hardware well above and beyond what the software you run actually needs. In some ways my dinosaur ways are showing because I started the battle against DRM in the days where "we will intentionally deface the installation disk so that it can't be copied, therefore our software cannot be an actual full disk worth of features but has to fit in the undamaged sectors" was the visible face of the issue.

But it never has really changed. The why for uninstalling Steam might be to save hard drive space. It might be to minimize processing siphoned into background tasks. It might be to improve system security by closing down authorized portals available to exploitation. Or it may be just plain ornery "hey, fudge you Gabe, I paid for this hardware to run software for me, not you, so get your own." At the end of the day it's still the same question of maximizing available utility of something by not having it redirected towards working for someone else.

 

[H4run]

I get spanked by the easiest AI in chess so my tenure on chess sites was very short-lived.

Chess AI is horrendous, they become inhumanely clumsy to let you took their pieces, how much is depend on the level of difficulty, after that they start to defend like Karpov. Go to lichess or chess.com, play 2-3 time, after that they'll set an opponent at your skill level.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Steam just works.

Steam is working as intended, yes. That only makes it more malevolent, if anything.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Why would I want to uninstall Steam?

Because someday Steam will shut down and when that happens it won't be usable anymore

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because someday Steam will shut down and when that happens it won't be usable anymore

For the record, I keep every installer that I download from GoG.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yes I keep them too. I just use Galaxy because I'm lazy.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes I keep them too. I just use Galaxy because I'm lazy.

I just don't out of some knee jerk reaction. I have never actually heard anything bad about it.