Is the Steam DRM just a one-time verification check? Or is it much more?

[Senethro]

Yeah, and until they removed the disc check in the final BTS patch it was worse.

 

[}{ELL/\/()]

have you tried non pirated civ 4 without steam ? cause it works just fine too and doesnt send your personal info like facebook does

no I was living where there were no stores to buy the game within 30 miles, electronic distribution made sense

Anyway you have a link or something because I havent heard anything about Steam sending my personal data anywhere or having any implementation of facebook (blizzard is doing this crap now in the starcraft 2 beta and its ********).

 

[Commander Bello]

Obviously if you buy a game online you expect it to take a few hours to download but that is not what you expect when you have the DVD in hand.

Steam isn't to blame for that!

You see, I am glad that at least you are admitting this. And I completely agree with you - the download of a complex game is expected to last for some hours (except you are sitting on a glass fibre cable, probably - and even then it depends on the speed of the servers).

Why I am pointing this out is because people here are selling it as big advantage of Steam that you may "show your games to your friends without having the hassle to carry the discs with yourself".

I just wanted to make clear that some to the semi-professional marketing blah blah here is not very accurate.
In general, it is right. I can go whereever there may be an internet connection and download whatever is stored in my account.

In reality this seems to be some kind of crazy idea, just since it will take literally hours.

And once again, this is not Steam's fault. But it isn't any advantage over CD/DVD either.

 

[Grouchey]

I don't know, but that has nothing to do with steam. The patch came from the developers, steam simply served as a point of downloading it.

In fact, I think steam saved the day in that case. As frustrating as that must have been for the people who bought that game to have to download a massive patch they were saved from worse by it.

I disagree. In many ways Steam exacerbated the problem. There were six patches for Empire: Total War and sometimes the patches made performance worse for the players. But because the game was tied to Steam, the players weren't able to roll back to previous patches. Some players tried to stop the automatic updates but weren't able to. It was all pretty FUBAR for players.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Why I am pointing this out is because people here are selling it as big advantage of Steam that you may "show your games to your friends without having the hassle to carry the discs with yourself".

Plainly it would have to be a small game for that to be true, and I agree that particular marketing statement is not what I see as a big advantage of steam.

I do like that I am able to install my games onto a new computer without any real work on my part. Sure, it takes time, but it is the computer's time instead of my time. However you're right for a big title like Civ unless you are visiting your friend for the weekend that isn't really going to work very well.

For anyone who cares I have started a thread over on the Steam forums asking people there, who know more about what Steam really does, what is going on in offline mode.

The thread on the steam forum is here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1284129

 

[Xiao Xiong]

I disagree. In many ways Steam exacerbated the problem. There were six patches for Empire: Total War and sometimes the patches made performance worse for the players. But because the game was tied to Steam, the players weren't able to roll back to previous patches. Some players tried to stop the automatic updates but weren't able to. It was all pretty FUBAR for players.

Sounds like the developer released a product that was not yet ready for prime time.

 

[Grouchey]

Sounds like the developer released a product that was not yet ready for prime time.

No doubt. And Steam exacerbated the problem.

 

[Chalks]

No doubt. And Steam exacerbated the problem.

In the same way that CDs would have exacerbated the problem if the developers completely screwed the pooch while deploying with that medium too.

 

[Crezth]

In the same way that CDs would have exacerbated the problem if the developers completely screwed the pooch while deploying with that medium too.

Exactly. This anti-Steam paranoia is some of the silliest stuff I've ever seen. How does this thread have 22 pages? Wa wa wee wa.

I understand why you people may be against Valve - oh, wait, no I don't. Valve, guys? Really? One of the fairest and most even-handed "evil" corporations out there?

Are we forgetting what a great deal the Orange Box was? Or how much post-release support they gave Team Fortress 2? And maybe the out-of-business contingency they've created?

If you really, really hate convenient software (and it is convenient, mmkay, fast, automatic updates and a very mature online connection system) so much, then don't buy Civilization V.

If what you're worried about is getting your account terminated, you may dispel that worry immediately. Your account won't get terminated - unless, of course, you abuse the system by hacking, cheating, etc.

If Firaxis is the company you don't trust, then why does it matter what medium they release it in? There are ways to screw you over with CD-released DRM. Like, say, this.

Jeez loweez, you guys.

 

[Grouchey]

@Chalk -- If you read what I've written you'll see why Steam's system of auto patching the game made the game uplayable for many owners. This could not have happened with a CD-only issued game as the game owner would have been able control updates and would have been able roll back to previous versions of the game. In essence, the Steam system made the game unplayable. I'm sorry if this does not comport with your views about Steam.

@Crezeth -- pretty silly huh?

 

[The_J]

4. Some people whine about the quality of the game in blogs, others ask for their money back. A lot of people are turned off the game by the negative reviews.

And that's completly justified at this point.

If you really, really hate convenient software (and it is convenient, mmkay, fast, automatic updates and a very mature online connection system) so much, then don't buy Civilization V.

An unneeded software which i'm forced to use is convenient?
And besides that, not buying is what we advertise here.

 

[Chalks]

@Chalk -- If you read what I've written you'll see why Steam's system of auto patching the game made the game uplayable for many owners. This could not have happened with a CD-only issued game as the game owner would have been able control updates and would have been able roll back to previous versions of the game. In essence, the Steam system made the game unplayable. I'm sorry if this does not comport with your views about Steam.

No, the issue of "the publisher screwed up the deployment" is the problem here.

If they burnt the game to CDs but when people put them in their machines it couldn't install, would you say CDs are bad?

No matter what distribution method you use, someone can screw it up. The fact that someone screwed something up doesn't make the thing they failed to do bad. It makes them bad with technology that they're unfamiliar with.

I'm sure they learnt from the experience and won't screw up in the same way again. Did the platform suddenly improve? No, it's exactly the same.

Doing something wrong doesn't make the thing you were attempting "bad".

 

[evrett37]

Oh look Chalks is attempting again to shoot down yet another case of steam dysfunction. Seriously dude 100s of examples of people having problems and you are still 100% denying all of them.

Steam has problems. Enough to warrant SOME people to not want to have it forced on them. Admit it.

Moderator Action: Flaming
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Grouchey]

No, the issue of "the publisher screwed up the deployment" is the problem here.

If they burnt the game to CDs but when people put them in their machines it couldn't install, would you say CDs are bad?

No matter what distribution method you use, someone can screw it up. The fact that someone screwed something up doesn't make the thing they failed to do bad. It makes them bad with technology that they're unfamiliar with.

I'm sure they learnt from the experience and won't screw up in the same way again. Did the platform suddenly improve? No, it's exactly the same.

Doing something wrong doesn't make the thing you were attempting "bad".

That analogy of a broken CD doesn't work; we must be talking past each other. I am referring to the situation after Empire: Total War was released in which people had installed the game and were playing it, but a subsequent a patch made it worse for them or made the game unplayable. The Steam system of updates ruined the game for them because they could not go back to the earlier version.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It could be argued that if a game ships exclusively with Steam it is easier to get away with a very shoddy release of the game such that a massive patch is needed on install. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's Steam's fault however.
It's sort of like how for console games - particularly things like gameboy games where internet connection is very unlikely - that releasing a buggy game is a much bigger problem than releasing a buggy game on the PC. In some sense, the PC allowing easy updating of your game is partly responsible for developers being able to release buggy games.
Still, all said, I think this is yet another topic that people just want to argue over, and that includes both sides again.

 

[Commander Bello]

If they burnt the game to CDs but when people put them in their machines it couldn't install, would you say CDs are bad?

Poor analogy.
CDs are the media to transport the game. So, the equivalent would have been internet and vice versa.

No matter what distribution method you use, someone can screw it up. The fact that someone screwed something up doesn't make the thing they failed to do bad. It makes them bad with technology that they're unfamiliar with.

In the case of patches having side effects/problems it is an inherent problem of the Steam procedure that you don't have a chance to go back to a previous state, once you have downloaded and installed it.

 

[frekk]

It is extremely unlikely that this will happen and Valve have said that they are able to release a patch to disable the activation requirement. Obviously 2k games would also be able to do this independently. Some sort of game developer apocalypse would take out both these companies at once before they were able to unlock their games

They won't be spending their time unlocking hundreds of games when they go into bankruptcy. That's nonsense. I don't think it would even be legal, to turn all their resources towards projects that don't actually make any money - creditors would be losing money. Corporate bankruptcy is a bit different than personal bankruptcy.

and even then we still have hackers to do it.

If hackers can do it, then what on Earth is the bloody point?

 

[frekk]

If you really, really hate convenient software (and it is convenient, mmkay, fast, automatic updates and a very mature online connection system) so much, then don't buy Civilization V.

I'm not going to, unless they give me the product I'm telling them I want. I think people who don't want the product the way it is now are just here to voice themselves as consumers and let the companies know that lots of us, demand a different product. That's how capitalism works. It's not "oh, ok, yes master! I will take these drippings and be happy and defend it." It is ... "The consumer is always right".

We could all shut up, and not let companies know what we want. Not let them know how many of us want something different. But how would we get products we want, then?

 

[Alki]

@Chalk -- If you read what I've written you'll see why Steam's system of auto patching the game made the game uplayable for many owners. This could not have happened with a CD-only issued game as the game owner would have been able control updates and would have been able roll back to previous versions of the game. In essence, the Steam system made the game unplayable. I'm sorry if this does not comport with your views about Steam.

@Crezeth -- pretty silly huh?

You can turn auto patching off. It's not rocket science ffs!

 

[Chalks]

They won't be spending their time unlocking hundreds of games when they go into bankruptcy. That's nonsense. I don't think it would even be legal, to turn all their resources towards projects that don't actually make any money - creditors would be losing money. Corporate bankruptcy is a bit different than personal bankruptcy.

To disable activation they would simply need to release a patch for the steam client, not each of the games. They have said they already have this ability written just in case.

And as I said, 2k would also be able to unlock the game even if Steam didn't.

Think about all the things that would have to happen to produce the situation in which you would not be able to play the game due to the activation servers going offline. A massively successful company going bust, AND going bust in such a way that they do not unlock the client AND 2kgames also going bust within the same day so they don't unlock the game either.

It is far more likely that you'll be unable to play because you were hit by a car.

If hackers can do it, then what on Earth is the bloody point?

DRM does not have to stop piracy, it simply needs to raise the bar so that it is harder to pirate it in order to move more people from the "might pirate it" into the "will buy it" group. They don't really care if you can pirate it 6 months after they released it - they'll already have made most of their money. It's far more important that you can't download the game for free on the same day it is released.

Pirated copies of the game also disable all the functionality that requires the Steam servers, further encouraging people to buy legit copies. Obviously this would not be an issue should the Steam servers cease to exist.