Why can't you just say that you want something and are disappointed that you can't have it? Why all these empty words?
The only thing I want is for computer-gaming to remain fun. I see the development, expansion, and gaining market dominance of Steam, and their ability to require people to be members in order to play single-player games by virtue of the EULA they enforce through the publisher for whom they distribute to be an alarming trend.
You seem to think that, if I'm not willing to file suit, then I have no right to say that I think something is wrong. How pathetically dismissive if not totalitarian: 'you either cannot be honest, legitimate or correct since you are only willing to speak out and not willing to actually sue.'
It must be a wonderful black-and-white simulacrum you have concocted in your mind. 'If a company wants to enforce a particular agreement on users, then it is by definition "right," and unless those users are willing to file suit, then any argument they might make is clearly wrong . . .' It is precisely this sort of attitude which is allowing such infringements on consumer rights.
As to my "wanting something." No, I do not want the game if that is what you mean. Even before it was released I did not really want the game. Either I've outgrown them, or just played it so much it is impossible for me to look past the massive breaches in the merit of the series in general, but in any event, had Civ5 not had absolutely stunningly rave reviews, I may have never bought it in the first place. Even with mods, I finally gave up on Civ4, the reasons for that are a subject for a different thread. Suffice to say: I do not want Civ5, especially since it requires Steam. If it did not require Steam, I'd perhaps buy it simply as a gesture of support to the series; however having read about the changes in the game, I now believe the issues that eventually led me to be sick of Civ4 have been much exacerbated in Civ5, so I might even be reluctant if Civ5 were not Steam compulsory.
Now, the "ethics" of it. Steam is a distributor with competitors. Members of Steam are probabilistically more likely to purchase future games from Steam but not buy games from other distributors. You can analogize those "Discount Cards" that grocers, and retailers have adopted. You "join" their discount club, and then any time you shop there, and present your discount card, it tallies up your total purchases and gives you some degree of discount on current purchases. Gamersgate also has something similar to this: blue chips I believe they call them. The more games you buy from them, and the more games you have bought which you rate, the more blue chips you accumulate and eventually you'll have enough to buy a whole game.
You might think that the deal Steam has with 2K with respect to Civ5 is comparable, but it involves a crucial distinction with two levels: (1) it is (evidently, and that is the hingepoint of my argument) impossible to get a license to play Civ5 without joining Steam's "discount club." There is nothing unethical per se about a publisher allowing sole distributor rights to one distributor; for a mass-distribution game like Civ5 it seems to me unlikely to be a good decision, but in any event, it is certainly done rather commonly. For example many Matrix games could only be bought (at least historically, that may be changing) from the Matrix store. However, there is an added level of restriction which makes this restriction to Steam only distribution unethical. Assuming one chooses to agree to the EULA in order to get a playable copy of Civ5, it is then (2) impossible to play the game without continuing to remain a member of Steam, and that second point is critical to the unethicality of it. Being required to patronize Steam because of 2K's relationship to them through development and distribution would be one thing, even the issue of Steam being the sole distributor per se is not fundamentally problematic. But there is no other way to retain one's rights to play Civ5, unless one retains ones membership on the Steam network, and continues to allow their application to estalish connection to that network.
Customers are buying Civ5, and they can reasonably be expected to be able to play it in legal and fair ways forever, or at least for the life of the product they bought. However, the current distribution arrangement takes away that expectation. You can only continue to enjoy your fair use as long as you remain a Steam member and continue to expose yourself to their network. This exposes the consumer to an unknown host of enforced conditions in future as preconditions to be able to play Civ5 now and in future. In effect, you did not buy a license to play Civ5; you bought a license to play Civ5 as long as you remain a Steam member in good standing. This constitutes a fundamental breach of fair use of a single-player computer game, which I have analogized as "only being able to read the book while you are in the proprietors coffee shop." Once you leave the shop, i.e., stop being a member of Steam, your book will disappear, i.e., you will no longer own the license to play Civ5 which you paid for.
Apart from the fact that I had one very bad experience with them in the past, and the various complaints I read on forums, I know nothing about Valve's/Steam's overall corporate profile. In sum, I do not know if they support worker oppression, or oppose gay marriages, or any other of a host of ideological/political issues which might make a difference to a particular consumer as far as patronizing them. Certainly one could if it mattered to them, do their homework and decide (a) Valve seems to fit my notion of the "good company" that I am happy to patronize or (b) Valve does not fit, and either buy Civ5 or not based on such an assessment. But that
says nothing about how Valve will reflect any particular customer's moral compass in future; there are myriad transformations which could occur in any company in future which might provoke a once loyal customer to cease their membership/patronization, and the right to chose to do so and still retain the right to make fair use of products purchased from/through them in past is a fundamental of consumer rights. Simply because you decide you no longer can abide a particular company from whom you purchased a product is not a legitimate basis for said company to have designed a means to prevent you from being able to continue to use the product. That is the essence of the unethicality: in order to continue to own your Civ5 license, you must agree to continue to patronize Steam/Valve, you have no choice. If you decide at some point in future that you wish to cease patronizing Steam/Valve for some legitimate reason, you will forfeit your capacity to use the product you paid for.
This sort of distribution effectively forces the consumer to remain loyal to Steam as a precondition to continue to use the product they bought. Were it an intrinsically and explicitly networked product (e.g., Magick the Gathering Online comes to mind) this would be one thing; continued membership on Steam would obviously be requisite. But a single-player computer game that comes on a disk and which installs software on a users machine as a way to enable the user to consume the copyrighted material is not intrinsically a networked product, though clearly Steam/2K have made it a de facto requisite-networked product.
Producers, publishers and distributors do not have a right to force consumer loyalty as a precondition to using a product they bought. Such could give consumer goods marketers political and social powers that are fair beyond what is reasonable for them to be able to protect their copyrights. The fact the sheer numbers and market share of Steam gets tossed out as an argument of their legitimacy is an example of how this sort of power can be misused.
The EULA which Civ5 buyers are agreeing to at present could place them into a moral/practical dilemma in future. Imagine: Sally bought Civ5 and loves it. She enjoys her use of it tremendously. She even likes Steam and its services. Six months pass. Steam adopts some new corporate policy which Sally abhors (e.g., they decide to buy all the plastic they use to make their shrink-wrap from a particular SE Asian producer who oppresses its workers . . . there are myriad possibilities). Sally now faces a dilemma: if I want to be able to continue to enjoy the product I paid for (Civ5) I have to go on belonging to and patronizing a company whose corporate ethics I abhor. In such an instance, can Sally expect to get her money back for the product she paid for? I very much doubt that Steam or 2K would ever agree to such an arrangement, and yet if they do not, then the EULA they are imposing might force some customers to lose the rights of the product they paid for. One does not even need to get into the ambiguous issue of future changes making a current customer dislike Steam and want to be able to stop patronizing them and not have to lose their game; what if Steam simply goes bellyup or gets acquired by some new firm which decides not to honor the previous deals? Not to mention the fact that, a single-player computer game does not require a network connection, but one must agree to a future of regular networking to Steam in order to be able to play single-player Civ5. Forcing people to do things that are beyond the reasonable scope of use of a product is also unethical.
These are the unethical short-term and long-term infringements which Steam-Only imposes on Civ5 purchasers.
Perhaps it is legal, as presently defined, and perhaps a large majority of gamers are so fickle and short-sighted that they do not really care if their games are being leased, and their capacity to decide not to patronize the lessor is fundamentally removed unless they are also willing to forego continued use the product they paid for.
- What - Steam? I always thought it´s private held ... .
