The BUY TWO COPIES of Civ 5 petition

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The sales thanks to steam or the lost sales due to steam will not be the issue in the end, IMO, for the end users. Rather it will be the sales ignorant of steam.

Fear 2 is a steamworks game and on its retail box it does not mention steam anywhere on the front of the box. It has the small steamworks logo on the back, sitting in with all the other logos like nvidia and Bink, and then the line "You must accept the enclosed License Agreement" under the system requirements.
In the very small fine print:
Notice: Product offered subject to your acceptance of the Steam Subscriber Agreement ("SSA"). You must activate this product via the Internet by registering for a Steam account and accepting the SSA. Please see www.steampowered.com/agreement to view the SSA prior to purchase. If you do not agree with the provisions of the SSA, you should return this game unopened to your retailer in accordance with their return policy. Steamworks and its logo are trademarks of Valve Corporation.
I'm sure civ5 will have pretty much the same fine print in regards to steamworks.

I'm not trying to fear monger here, but I hope that anyone who could conceivably not consider the subscriber agreement to be acceptable would read the fine print on a game box before purchase.

Although TF2 is not technically a steamworks game (I don't think), its box does not have any fineprint on it whatsoever about a steam subscriber agreement. It doesn't even mention the word steam once. :eek:
 
The arguments sound like a bunch of politicians going at it. :lol:

Firaxis is saving/creating sales by using Steam.

The poll is no good because it isn't big enough (but if it said 99% love Steam, then suddenly it's a valid poll?)

Argument for steam is always 'It beats piracy and is good for the developer'. But this is irrelevant to the consumer, because the consumer wants to know why Steam is good for the consumer.

So my question:
How is Steam good for consumers' that play only offline games (from a consumers point of view)?

:)
 
Buy two copies? This is a commercial product. If it needs charity to survive, then obviously it's a bad deal for the consumer.
 
The arguments sound like a bunch of politicians going at it. :lol:

Firaxis is saving/creating sales by using Steam.

The poll is no good because it isn't big enough (but if it said 99% love Steam, then suddenly it's a valid poll?)

Argument for steam is always 'It beats piracy and is good for the developer'. But this is irrelevant to the consumer, because the consumer wants to know why Steam is good for the consumer.

So my question:
How is Steam good for consumers' that play only offline games (from a consumers point of view)?

Lets see, it patches itself, I don't need to keep track of any CDs, it has achievements, it lets me chat and keep in touch with other players, it butters my toast and ties my shoes--what exactly do you want? Never mind that the question itself is absurd--how does paying 50$ for a game benefit the consumer? Wouldn't Civ be a better game if you didn't have to pay any money for it? Wouldn't the consumer enjoy it more? Wouldn't he? What is in it for the consumer???

Ugh, this whole debate is so pointless. By all means if you hate steam so much don't buy the game. I'm sure you will get a perverse feeling of righteousness from knowing you refused to compromise on your principles. But please don't expect anyone else to care.
 
Lets see, it patches itself, I don't need to keep track of any CDs, it has achievements, it lets me chat and keep in touch with other players, it butters my toast and ties my shoes--what exactly do you want? Never mind that the question itself is absurd--how does paying 50$ for a game benefit the consumer? Wouldn't Civ be a better game if you didn't have to pay any money for it? Wouldn't the consumer enjoy it more? Wouldn't he? What is in it for the consumer???

Ugh, this whole debate is so pointless. By all means if you hate steam so much don't buy the game. I'm sure you will get a perverse feeling of righteousness from knowing you refused to compromise on your principles. But please don't expect anyone else to care.

Those are good valid points you make... keep in touch with other players would be good for multiplay I would guess. I personally would agree with the achievements portion as something related to gameplay that would interest me. Patching itself is bad I think because of the potential to cause mods to stop working (IF, this is an unknown). Keep track of DVD's is something anyone can agree is a good thing. The in-game browser is also innovative.

The point is, how come those defending Steam never mention any of that? Steam is obviously more than DRM, otherwise no one would 'love it'. It's a question of why do they love it? I can't believe that they 'love it' because it helps the company gain a few sales here and there.

Those types of points are more likely to make me view Steam in a more positive manner than someone saying "The DRM does the company good by making piracy more difficult, therefore you should like Steam". That argument turns people away from Steam, because you are giving the benefits someone else gets instead of the benefits the consumer gets.

Now as far as the rest of your post goes, don't know why you suddenly started spewing all the hate non-sense around... please leave that to yourself.
 
I believe that the Civ-Community being older will result in Steam having less negative impact. We older gamin' folks (I with 30 count myself in) know there's more important things to fight than online activation of games. I don't particularly like Steam, or DRM or DLC - but that is your gaming world today.

I liked my old NES console, where putting in a cardridge was all there was to it. Where hand-drawn walkthroughs were printed in monthly gaming magazines. Where there were no patches - the game was either finished at release or it was bad. I never wanted all that online-stuff-"gaming-experience". *sigh* It was all better back then ... *lits his pipe*
 
Those are good valid points you make... keep in touch with other players would be good for multiplay I would guess. I personally would agree with the achievements portion as something related to gameplay that would interest me. Patching itself is bad I think because of the potential to cause mods to stop working (IF, this is an unknown). Keep track of DVD's is something anyone can agree is a good thing. The in-game browser is also innovative.

The point is, how come those defending Steam never mention any of that? Steam is obviously more than DRM, otherwise no one would 'love it'. It's a question of why do they love it? I can't believe that they 'love it' because it helps the company gain a few sales here and there.

Those types of points are more likely to make me view Steam in a more positive manner than someone saying "The DRM does the company good by making piracy more difficult, therefore you should like Steam". That argument turns people away from Steam, because you are giving the benefits someone else gets instead of the benefits the consumer gets.

Now I don't know your personal views, are you anti-steam? If so you are a much more reasonable soul than your typical anti-steam member. You seem open to reasoning. The majority of Anti-Steam members tend to arrogantly reply "None of that interests me, so why should I be forced to use Steam!!!" when we try to explain the benefits of Steam to the consumer. Such as those mentioned by who you quoted. The reason you don't see more of these types of posts is because they are immediatly dimissed as non-worthy points and Anti-Steam people tend to get hung-up on the disadvantages of Steam wishing to discuss these in great detail, leaving little posts discussing the advantages. Also more people ask the question "why do I have to use Steam" to which the answer is simple, because it is a good DRM and the publisher decided to implement it into Civ5, as apposed to the question you picked up on which SHOULD be more important to people which is "why would I want to use Steam." For which, their are many good reasons, actually including DRM points, not ending up playing with Pirates is a good reason to like Steam IMO. Who likes seeing other people playing a game they didnt pay for where as you did. DRM can work out to be beneficially in priciple to consumers too.
 
@ Aussie Lurker and Merovinge

posted my answer to this post

In so far as the poll is quite relevant to the OP, Ill respond to that here.

First you wouldn't need a bit more argumentation for it to be worthwhile, you would need an entirely different poll that used random sampling of say everyone who plays PC games. This isn't terribly feasible, which is why no gaming company I am aware of bases any major decisions on polling. Instead some use focus groups or speak with people who are "experts" at the game from the community.

Second I am not discounting the results because I don't like them, I would not blink twice if the game was not shipped with steam. I think steam is a smart move, but has 0 impact on me purchasing the game.

I am discounting them because its terrible statistics/science and the numbers are completely insignificant. It would be as if I spent an afternoon going around killing mosquitoes, I would dent the population in the same respect the sub 100 people pissed on this forums affects their >1,000,000 target customers.

I am actually really confused on how you use fairly knowledgeable diction about this topic, but do not realize how worthless polls are that do not use random samples. They are literally the foundation of polling. Forum polls are notorious across video games in every genre and in all consoles for being incredibly skewed, although in reality almost every convenience sample will have some bias.

The results of the poll show that a hand full of diehard fans are quite pissed, and you see those people posting all over the forums. That is certainly the case. There is really nothing else you can or should draw from it. As a comparison, imagine going into a church and asking for people to voluntarily answer a poll on evolution, or imagine doing the same thing in a biology department of a large university. I know you won't believe this, but the results of that poll are skewed to around the same order as the poll here was.
 
I'll buy a 1/2 copy. The half which is not steam.

I'da paid twice the retail price for a steam free version. Now not so much. 2k has poisoned the well long enough. It began during Civ4, and culminates with Civ5. It's been fun Civ. Thanks Sid. Sorry Firaxis. Dump 2k.
 
I'll buy a 1/2 copy. The half which is not steam.

I'da paid twice the retail price for a steam free version. Now not so much. 2k has poisoned the well long enough. It began during Civ4, and culminates with Civ5. It's been fun Civ. Thanks Sid. Sorry Firaxis. Dump 2k.
You do realize that Firaxis chose steam too? I mean, it's only been said by *the lead developer*.
 
Now as far as the rest of your post goes, don't know why you suddenly started spewing all the hate non-sense around... please leave that to yourself.

Yeah, sorry about that, I guess I got a little snippy. It just seems like a lot of people have already made up their mind that they hate Steam and won't buy Civ5, and I don't know why they are still here. :confused:
 
You do realize that Firaxis chose steam too? I mean, it's only been said by *the lead developer*.
I think steam was a publisher decision. With a decision for a Steamworks like library supported by the developer. But the method for which Steamworks is integrated, is unfriendly in a way which I don't think Firaxis would willingly choose. I don't see Firaxis being in agreement with Civ5 being a steam digital exclusive. Nor do I see Firaxis being ok with steam running over the top of their game. There are enough hardware incompatability issues without adding some self-serving steam software to the mix.

I could be wrong. But my respect for Firaxis, along with my limited understanding of their fan outlook; leads me to believe that the steam decision is not something which they would have choosen for us. The decision does however align with what little I know of 2k. With a 2k publisher, Firaxis is under limitation for what they can do and say. I think Firaxis would flourish partenered with Stardock. I think Firaxis is stiffled under 2k. Again I could be wrong as relates to the masses. But for me this is true. I have much respect for Stardocks openness and intergrity for relating to its customers. They are one of us, not one of them. Civ produced in that enviroment would be a dream come true.
 
@ Merovinge

The infamous "random sample" - of course this should be the target if you try to collect data. But simply because a sample isn´t a real random sample this doesn´t mean that the data is worthless - it only starts to be complicated if you believe that the is a connections between the question and the selection bias in the sample. But of course if you ask me what kind of data i would like to see - my answer would be "the result of a random sample", but there is none available. We have to work with the data available.

If it´s known that the answer behaviour between males and females is identic - it´s no problem to have a male or female only sample (perhaps you can see it as random sample in the subpopulation - but not as a real random sample for the entire population) and is admissible to use the sample and the results for the entire population. Your example (evolution - church and university) have exactly this connection between subpopulation and asked question, therefore the clear and obvious problem. If there would be no connection, it wouldn´t matter. Of course, in most situation it´s not really known if there is a real connection between question and population, so this point must be argued (and not seen a priori as facts).

The population here has certainly a bias - if i should guess: you will find more often person here who join internet communities, who want to play mods, who want to talk about the game and who want to play a multiplayer game here or participate in a tournament. The players not interested in any of this feature most likely are a bit underpresentated here. But this is only an assumption/guess. So assuming that this is a characterization for the population here, it´s possible to argue that you will find more person here who possible have a "gain" from steamworks (because some of the steamworks can be found in the same area).

If there is a difference between users of online distributors and retails? Perhaps, again i would assume that if - because this is a internet forum - it will in favor of the online distributors.

So this is a possible and quite short summerize of the population problem (and perhaps a quite biased one too - but this shall be only an example and no analysis :lol: ). Now it would be also the time to use other studies and using their results, which tried to analyse the connection, similarities and differences between forum folks and the base population behind.

So the first problem would be, if there are differences between this population and the entire population? If the answer is yes: Is there a dependency between this difference and the answer behavior? If not - fine. But here the answer would be most likely yes. But i will not provide my thoughts in detail about this (but you also assume this). But possible conclussion of such an analyis can be the data is suitable, only partial suitable or not suitable. But of course the last is never true, because by simply reducing the scope of the interpretation to the participants only, we have a complete count of this group. (so every data is at least partial suitable - of course extremely simplifying ignoring all others possible factors which are suitable to influence poll results)

The second special problem here to handle is the participation bias (you can choose to participate). Again as long as there is no connection between answer behaviour and participation probability, there is no real problem. To make it short - similar basic principles like above apply here too. Is there a bias - most likely - extrems opinions tend to be overpresentated in such polls (one of the reason such polls can be extremly skewed). At least is quite easy to argue for this cause. Of course something like this could influence the poll result here.

After analysing in deep als this things - something can be said about the poll and what can be done with the data. Not doing this so far and also not having the desire to do this, i try to only use the figures from this poll if someone else starts to use them, but you will never see a real data analysis of this poll by me (but sometimes i play with the figures, therefore the sentence started with "i try to ..."). I´m aware that there are a lot of "data problems", which would only allow general statements with a ridiculous high and hard to estimate uncertainty (the extrem case and the one you claim is that this uncertainty makes the data worthless - because there absolut no information gain), in more special cases (eg only comparing the both extremes) the data itself can be (of course arguable) partial suitable. There can be an information gain (and even if this gain is only a look at the dimension of the relation between both extremes)

And finally claiming "without a random sample as base the data is worthless" is a bit misleading. It´s only much more harder to use such data, but worthless is data only if there is absolut no information gain. Limiting i have to say that imo the poll itself seems not really suitable if you want to predict the real percentage of the potential customers which will not buy the game because of Steam. But even if this is perhaps the key questions, it´s not the only information in the poll.

Edit: as i wrote "... neglect results (and most likely poll results which aren´t liked)" i didn´t want to say that you did this because of this reason - only that it´s often done. If it sounded like i would assume you did this, sorry for this, wasn´t my intention.
 
Those are good valid points you make... keep in touch with other players would be good for multiplay I would guess. I personally would agree with the achievements portion as something related to gameplay that would interest me. Patching itself is bad I think because of the potential to cause mods to stop working (IF, this is an unknown). Keep track of DVD's is something anyone can agree is a good thing. The in-game browser is also innovative.

The point is, how come those defending Steam never mention any of that? Steam is obviously more than DRM, otherwise no one would 'love it'. It's a question of why do they love it? I can't believe that they 'love it' because it helps the company gain a few sales here and there.

Those types of points are more likely to make me view Steam in a more positive manner than someone saying "The DRM does the company good by making piracy more difficult, therefore you should like Steam". That argument turns people away from Steam, because you are giving the benefits someone else gets instead of the benefits the consumer gets.

Now as far as the rest of your post goes, don't know why you suddenly started spewing all the hate non-sense around... please leave that to yourself.

Hey Tom. If you're like me, you'll probably have 2 or 3 versions of the game-in totally different folders-so that patching doesn't wreck your mods. i.e. with Civ4, I always had at *least* one version of the game in a separate folder so that I could safely patch my base game, but keep playing my favourite mods until the mod developers were able to get round to doing an upgrade. I'm reasonably sure such an approach will work in Civ5 as well.

Aussie.
 
@ Merovinge
And finally claiming "without a random sample as base the data is worthless" is a bit misleading. It´s only much more harder to use such data, but worthless is data only if there is absolut no information gain. Limiting i have to say that imo the poll itself seems not really suitable if you want to predict the real percentage of the potential customers which will not buy the game because of Steam. But even if this is perhaps the key questions, it´s not the only information in the poll.

I did say it does tell you there are a handful of outspoken people on the forum's upset about the issue, but that is seriously nearly the extent of what you can gain from that poll. As you've said there are numerous reasons why it wouldn't predict the real percentage of potential customers, and in this case history really tells the story. There have been so many examples of forum goers making a huge stink about this, that, and anything else, and it has never ever been the doomsday that was predicted. I too am not going to take a data set that small with zero external validity and mess with it in SPSS or anything, I am basing my claims specifically on the examples history provides us.
I admit there are some cases where convenience sampling has use, but those are basically as pilot investigation followed up by real polling that is not virtually guaranteed to have some bias.
 
Aussie,
I'm just curious, why are you reasonably sure that will work with civ5? The game being on steam, as well as features like automatic updates, convinces me we won't be able to have multiple installs. If we could have multiple installs with different patch versions, then the whole automatic update issue of steam (one of the biggest for the people against steam being in civ5) will evaporate I think.
 
Aussie,
I'm just curious, why are you reasonably sure that will work with civ5? The game being on steam, as well as features like automatic updates, convinces me we won't be able to have multiple installs. If we could have multiple installs with different patch versions, then the whole automatic update issue of steam (one of the biggest for the people against steam being in civ5) will evaporate I think.

Because I can't think of any technical reason why-once registered-a single copy of the game couldn't be copy-pasted to different locations of the same computer. If they're being honest about the modability of Civ5, then that will almost certainly be a basic requirement IMO. Oh, & to the best of my knowledge, patches seem to go into a pre-defined file address on your computer (not sure if you can change that address though!)

Aussie.
 
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