Normal Civ 5 or Civ 5 Deluxe?

Despite being in a finance crunch, I would pay an extra $10 to buy the game without Steam.
Because of Steam, it's near certain that I won't be buying Civ5 even if it cost just $10.

This mate, this :beer:.
 
Don't forget the "Behind the Scenes at Firaxis with Civ V video feature" , that one closed the deal for me.
 
I'm genuinely curious. For all the anti-DRM people who think a one-time online validation is unreasonable, what kind of anti-piracy measure would you prefer, that are at least moderately effective but less intrusive?
 
I'm genuinely curious. For all the anti-DRM people who think a one-time online validation is unreasonable, what kind of anti-piracy measure would you prefer, that are at least moderately effective but less intrusive?

Last time I asked this I received a response of "none at all" followed by the sound of someone smacking their head against a wall.
 
Don't forget the "Behind the Scenes at Firaxis with Civ V video feature" , that one closed the deal for me.
The Behind the Scenes feature was something I was actually looking forward to. But as a freebie for all, not as a carrot in some ultra deluxe package. A freebie given because they cared lol. Seriously though, it woulda made for a great gift of goodwill. Help foster a feeling of community between developer and player. They open their doors to us. Inivite us to the team for a day. But they went cheesy with it and missed a great oppurtunity. I don't know that any good done is balanced by the potential harm of being yet another example of cheesy sales tactics.
 
I'm genuinely curious. For all the anti-DRM people who think a one-time online validation is unreasonable, what kind of anti-piracy measure would you prefer, that are at least moderately effective but less intrusive?

That depends on if i could get data, where i could see, how efficient the existing systems are compared to each other.
 
That depends on if i could get data, where i could see, how efficient the existing systems are compared to each other.

I have no idea what you're saying here. I suspect you don't either. ;)

Again, what mechanism would you prefer? Can you give an example please?
 
I'll probably go with vanilla Civ V. The only thing that makes the deluxe version even remotely attractive to me is the Babylonian civ, because I never play regional maps and I could give a rat's a$$ about the extra fluff. I've never even looked at the extra videos and whatnot that came with the versions of Civ IV I've bought.

Even so, I might be willing to fork over an extra $10 if I could get Babylon in the retail version. But I'm not going the digital-only distribution route, period.

No, I'm not particularly Steam-averse, and in fact I'd rather have Steam-based DRM than have to play with a disk in the drive. The problem is I don't trust my own hard disk. If I ever have to reinstall I want a physical CD to reinstall from. I don't want to have to download the game and possibly buy it again if I've lost some critical piece of information needed to establish my right to download it.
 
I'd like publishers/developers to use an enticement model, such as Paradox.

Paradox has very light DRM in the game (if any) but entices users to register the game on their forums to access free content, mods, support and patches. It's worked reasonably well for them too.
 
No, I'm not particularly Steam-averse, and in fact I'd rather have Steam-based DRM than have to play with a disk in the drive. The problem is I don't trust my own hard disk. If I ever have to reinstall I want a physical CD to reinstall from. I don't want to have to download the game and possibly buy it again if I've lost some critical piece of information needed to establish my right to download it.

You can copy the entire Steamapps folder onto CD/DVD and just copy back when you reinstall Steam to avoid downloading the whole thing again. All it does is validate the files and download any updated files (if any).
 
I'm genuinely curious. For all the anti-DRM people who think a one-time online validation is unreasonable, what kind of anti-piracy measure would you prefer, that are at least moderately effective but less intrusive?

Publishers need to learn that every restriction they put upon us is one more reason to lean up against that restriction.

Lets have a look at Movies.
If you buy a retail Movie-DVD and put it into your DVD-Player what happens?
* You see a lot of trailers. If you're lucky, you can skip them one-by-one. If the publisher is extremely generous, you can skip them all by presssing the "Menu-Button", but that doesn't happen very often, at least not withion my DVD-Collection, which includes ~300+ DVDs.
* If you want to start the Movie, you have to see a "Copying is Stealing"-Spot which you usually cannot skip.
* Then, finally - the Movie starts. Yay!

Now, lets say - a friend gave us a DVD which has no shiny cover. Instead only the title of the movie is manually written onto the disc. We insert it into our DVD-Player. What happens now?
* No Trailers, No Ads, the main menu starts immediately. We don't even have to press the menu-button, for the DVD already got into the Main-Menu while we walked from our DVD-Player to our couch.
* Then we start the Movie. What happens? The Movie starts. No "you are a baaad baad thief, don't you ever rape our intellectual property".
And - let's be honest. That's exactly what 99% of customers want. Insert a DVD, watch the movie. Thats it. And that's what those evil rapist-murdering-stealing-pirate release groups provide

With games it's all the same. People don't want to have the Disc (they bought) in their drive. Solution? NoCD-Patch. In case of Civ4BtS Firaxis thankfully supported us with this NoCD-Patch - for other games, there are other sources.

You remember Spore? The most restrictive "copy-protection" ever made (since then). It turned into a "customer-protection" for many potential customers did not buy it. And it became the most pirated game in history.

You see the point? The more restrictive your anti-piracy measure is, the more it will be bypassed.

You might laugh, but the true answer to your question is:

None*.

(*Maybe an (offline) serial-check. Entering a serial-number which is printed onto the back of the manual/booklet, but that should be it.)
 
Exactly.
 
In my opinion, every DRM that is worse than Steam is just another reason to support Steam doing it the right way.

Ok. Just for you:

Let's replace "Steam" (which is not so bad you and others say) with EA/Spore (wich is not so bad, compared to Ubisoft's DRM (Settlers 7, AC2,...))

Now read your last sentence again:

In my opinion, every DRM that is worse than EA/Spore is just another reason to support EA/Spore doing it the right way.

Seriously?
 
Seriously?

But they're not doing it the right way. They're doing it the wrong way by limiting installations.

Steam is the absolute minimum restriction for the desired effect.

There is "nothing what so ever" and there is steam, then there's all the people making lives unnecessarily hard for gamers.

I know who you are supporting, but it's not surprising that you find it difficult to get publishers behind you.
 
I know who you are supporting
You do? Who? For I don't know of whom you are speaking.
JFYI: I spent more money for games, movies in cinemas and on DVD as for any other aspect in my life (except the rent for my flat maybe)

but it's not surprising that you find it difficult to get publishers behind you.
Aye. It's very hard to find common sense within the marketing- and management-departments of companies nowadays.
 
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