To people who disliked Steam.

[Sock Bramson]

It's nice to stick to one's principles and all, but it seems pretty silly to complain about the fact that Steam is simply present in the whole equation, rather than complaining about any real fault with the program itself. Until I'm presented with a concrete example of identity theft/baby seal clubbing/etc because of Steam, I don't see how it is a bad thing. It is a small, user friendly program that only intrudes upon your computing experience to tell you about awesome sales or new releases; if that irritates you for some reason, you can always change the settings so it doesn't open when you turn on your computer.

All this "you don't own games you buy on Steam" mumbo-jumbo is ridiculous. Of course you own them, you just access them through Steam as opposed to a CD. If you get a new computer, simply download steam and reinstall all of your games. In fact, you own your games so hard you can never give them to someone else. This is a problem for many people, but it's easily solvable. Only buy games on Steam you know you want to keep. I recently broke out my old copies of Icewind Dale 1 and 2; still love playing them, glad I bought them, am not going to sell them. True, they aren't on Steam, but the same holds for all the Total War games I DO have on Steam. If you aren't sure you want to keep a game forever-ever, rent it first. Or, if you really have to own it now but might sell it later, get a physical copy. Maybe it's just me, but I don't buy games now to try to make money later; I buy them to play the poop out of 'em. Besides, used games really don't sell for much these days.

Now, if you happen to hate Civ V and wish you could get rid of it, then I suppose Steam did kinda screw you over. Fortunately, I continue to enjoy it, especially with all the new patches, along with the copy of Civ IV that I'm never going to sell.

Also, there is no problem with offline mode. You need an internet connection to get Steam in the first place, so it is a very simple matter to make sure that you've allowed Steam to save credentials onto your computer. Heck, I think that's the default setting to begin with.

 

[Kerosene31]

Steam controlls how your games run. It may not be taking full control of your computer, but it is taking control of that part. ANY taking of control from the end user is bad.

Please, explain how it takes control or your PC in any way, shape, or form?

I'd love to know as apparently my PC is dominated by the Steam virus.

 

[Kerosene31]

Not true. Valve could easily put their library functions into a DLL file which Firaxis could install if it wasn't on the system, thereby requiring no other services, no online connectivity (or saved credentials), etc. They chose not to.

Trust me, my CS 241 course spent a whole week on linking.

I've worked as a programmer for 15+ years and your "DLL" will get hacked in 20 seconds. Not that Steam is hackproof... far from it, but it is harder than a fully offline system.

 

[Nemo]

I have a folder of games. I like going back and loading old games and playing them for fun. Example is I just started replaying Baulder's Gate I so I could take my characters through BG II and NWN. BG I is so old it only supports like 600x480 resolution natively. And yeah, I've gone back and loaded CIV I and II for fun also. Are you telling me in 10-15 years when I want to play Civ 5 I purchased, not leased, that I won't be able to because the steam server no longer supports it because "no one uses it any more so it was not a good business decision to keep that server running"? Umm, no, I purchased it. Period.

Also, I do not appreciate my usage data being sent back to a company and marketing creeps making money off of my information. Said information IS uniquely identifiable, and what I do is none of anyone's business without my permission. Most certainly, if someone is making money off of me, I dam_ well better get a cut of my money. I haven't seen a paycheck from steam yet and short of enabling a firewall and blocking the application (which prevents me from obtaining updates) I can't disable usage stats.

I am a professional developer of over 12 years and I can tell you that such measures as steam has nothing to do with anything except marking data and making more money off of you - not piracy.

Oh, and be careful of what you say here to make sure they don't disable your Civ 5 steam account so you can't EVER play your single player game again for blasphemy against steam. It's been done before many times to others - no one here is exempt.

 

[Sock Bramson]

... except Valve/Steam is nowhere close to going under, and if they did I'm certain that they would make it possible to save all of the games you've bought through Steam. These are the guys that made Half-life, Team Fortress, and Portal; do you really expect them to be dicks? The answer is "no". (as long as you're wearing a hat) I personally can't even picture them cocking everyone over like that, and I have a pretty good imagination.

Also, it is your right to not like the fact that marketing departments are studying your preferences to mold their advertising campaigns, but it's the same thing TV ratings have been doing for years. That's what marketing IS: using consumer trends to try to effectively advertise a product to an audience that will hopefully buy it. If you want some of that cash, join a marketing firm.

As far as your concerns about anti-Steam heresy induced bans go... bwuh? Care to give an actual example? Anyone who gets their account disabled probably earned the ol' ban-hammer because they broke the EULA agreement they signed in some way, not by criticizing Steam.

 

[Maniacal]

Also, I do not appreciate my usage data being sent back to a company and marketing creeps making money off of my information. Said information IS uniquely identifiable, and what I do is none of anyone's business without my permission. Most certainly, if someone is making money off of me, I dam_ well better get a cut of my money. I haven't seen a paycheck from steam yet and short of enabling a firewall and blocking the application (which prevents me from obtaining updates) I can't disable usage stats.

Many games send back usage stats, not just Steam games. And developers use these to improve the game, most notably Valve. Valve goes through its game statistics quite throughly and has made hundreds of changes and tweaks to Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead based off of that information to improve the game. Heck, I remember DICE added in advertising to BF2142 and was kept detailed statistics of what players did in the game, including how long they looked at the ads. None of it was personalized though nor if it even could be traced back to you (which I doubt) there is absolutely nothing to gain from doing so. No one cares about how long you personally stared at picture or where you died the most and how many bullets you fired and how accurately, they do care about that data from every player so they can improve the game. And in a VERY FEW games which have in-game advertising (none of which require Steam).

I am a professional developer of over 12 years and I can tell you that such measures as steam has nothing to do with anything except marking data and making more money off of you - not piracy.

Well duh and perhaps then you'd find something like this incredibly useful for your own work (depending what your job is). I think someone would have to be incredibly confused and ignorant to think stat tracking had anything to do with anti-piracy measures (many developers/publishers also track the pirated copies of games though, but they cant do anything about them). As for marketing data, its a selling point to get developers and publishers interested in using Steamworks for their games because then they can track and aggregate stat data and use it to improve their work.

Oh, and be careful of what you say here to make sure they don't disable your Civ 5 steam account so you can't EVER play your single player game again for blasphemy against steam. It's been done before many times to others - no one here is exempt.

This is the funniest thing I have read all week

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[Nemo]

... except Valve/Steam is nowhere close to going under,...

And since when does a company have to go under to disable a server? This has happened to dozens of old games already.

As far as your concerns about anti-Steam heresy induced bans go... bwuh? Care to give an actual example?

Seriously? Did you even try to google before you posted this question?

Anyone who gets their account disabled probably earned the ol' ban-hammer because they broke the EULA agreement they signed in some way, not by criticizing Steam.

First off no one *signs* a EULA. Secondly, you can't even READ it until after you purchase your product. THEN if you don't agree with the EULA you cannot even take it back to the store for a refund because you opened the package. This is a racket.

 

[Andoo]

I recently wiped my hard disk and changed the system to Windows 7. I could download all of my games at 10mb/s with all the steam cloud save files. I think I have more control over my purchased softwares now than when I had to insert CD roms for every install/launch for each game I had.

I have a folder of games. I like going back and loading old games and playing them for fun. Example is I just started replaying Baulder's Gate I so I could take my characters through BG II and NWN. BG I is so old it only supports like 600x480 resolution natively. And yeah, I've gone back and loaded CIV I and II for fun also. Are you telling me in 10-15 years when I want to play Civ 5 I purchased, not leased, that I won't be able to because the steam server no longer supports it because "no one uses it any more so it was not a good business decision to keep that server running"? Umm, no, I purchased it. Period.

Actually I believe the chance of losing the CD in 10~15 years is much more likely than the company no longer supporting it. People might even no longer use CDs like how we don't use floppy disks nowadays. My first game that was registered was Half-Life 1 + Counter Strike. The 10 year old game's CD, CD-key papers along with the box are long lost but I could still play it no problem. I actually played it about a month ago.

Many games send back usage stats, not just Steam games. And developers use these to improve the game, most notably Valve. Valve goes through its game statistics quite throughly and has made hundreds of changes and tweaks to Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead based off of that information to improve the game. Heck, I remember DICE added in advertising to BF2142 and was kept detailed statistics of what players did in the game, including how long they looked at the ads. None of it was personalized though nor if it even could be traced back to you (which I doubt) there is absolutely nothing to gain from doing so. No one cares about how long you personally stared at picture or where you died the most and how many bullets you fired and how accurately, they do care about that data from every player so they can improve the game. And in a VERY FEW games which have in-game advertising (none of which require Steam).

Very true. Even successful games that are broadly accepted took informations from the user for the good use. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 for example traced every mouse click and action user performed on the Battle.net. Such data was used to balance the game and improve the quality.

 

[Psyringe]

... except Valve/Steam is nowhere close to going under,

As was Atari mere months before the crash. As was Netscape before the browser wars started. As was MySpace before facebook overtook it. As was Microprose before two people making wrong decisions ruined the company. As was Altavista before Google emerged. All these companies ruled their respective markets (some by a huge margin) right before going down or vanishing in obscurity.

Nobody denies that Steam is looking strong right now, but given the volatility of the video games market, you can never be sure how things develop. The people who invested their time or money in the companies I listed above got burned very badly even though each of these companies looked a safe bet, dominating their market share for years to come.

If people warn that there indeed _is_ a risk in making your ability to play certain games dependent on the future of a given company, then I wouldn't call this "ridiculous mumbo-jumbo" - I'd call it experience, actually.

and if they did I'm certain that they would make it possible to save all of the games you've bought through Steam.

Okay, let me rephrase this. There's a company (Steam) which, for one of the reasons that struck the companies I mentioned above, has gone down. The company is bankrupt and has to look desperately for ways to cover their losses. Any you say you're _sure_ that under these circumstances, they will spend their time reneging their contracts with the publishers of all their games and convince them to remove the Steam requirement from each of them, which means destroying a substantial part of Steam's assets, free of charge. You don't have a shadow of a doubt?

I admire Steam's ability to inspire such trust in its users, but experience tells me that when push comes to shove, businesses act like businesses. And that means when the company is going down, customers will _at most_ get the things they could win in court. Note that the Steam license specifically excludes any warranty of a continuing service.

Look, a quarter of a century ago I might have argued on similar levels - "those people are okay, trust them" or "it's looking good now, what could go wrong". But the sad truth is that even the "good guys" may feel forced to make decisions that ultimately screw over their customers, and that a lot more things can go wrong than people tend to imagine. And for people to whom it's important to _not_ suddenly lose access to games they bought, this is a matter of concern with Steam, especially since Steam took care to strip customers of most of their rights that they could possibly use in such a case.

 

[Lonkut]

1) You can't re-sell bought games
2) You are forced to run a program in the background

Some people are fine with a finger up their arses and some are not. Nuff said.

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[MoonFlare]

If you don't like Steam - try GFWL.And check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBPYdgy35KA.
The future of PC gaming is in microsofts hands.

 

[Standup]

"And since when does a company have to go under to disable a server? This has happened to dozens of old games already."

I bought lots of music from Sony, a company very much with us, but I can't play it as they turned off the servers for their Connect Service.

And staying with Sony I have to use their Playstation Network to access a lot of features and look what happened to my personal data.

 

[Andoo]

As was Atari mere months before the crash. As was Netscape before the browser wars started. As was MySpace before facebook overtook it. As was Microprose before two people making wrong decisions ruined the company. As was Altavista before Google emerged. All these companies ruled their respective markets (some by a huge margin) right before going down or vanishing in obscurity.

Nobody denies that Steam is looking strong right now, but given the volatility of the video games market, you can never be sure how things develop. The people who invested their time or money in the companies I listed above got burned very badly even though each of these companies looked a safe bet, dominating their market share for years to come.

If people warn that there indeed _is_ a risk in making your ability to play certain games dependent on the future of a given company, then I wouldn't call this "ridiculous mumbo-jumbo" - I'd call it experience, actually.


Okay, let me rephrase this. There's a company (Steam) which, for one of the reasons that struck the companies I mentioned above, has gone down. The company is bankrupt and has to look desperately for ways to cover their losses. Any you say you're _sure_ that under these circumstances, they will spend their time reneging their contracts with the publishers of all their games and convince them to remove the Steam requirement from each of them, which means destroying a substantial part of Steam's assets, free of charge. You don't have a shadow of a doubt?

I admire Steam's ability to inspire such trust in its users, but experience tells me that when push comes to shove, businesses act like businesses. And that means when the company is going down, customers will _at most_ get the things they could win in court. Note that the Steam license specifically excludes any warranty of a continuing service.

Look, a quarter of a century ago I might have argued on similar levels - "those people are okay, trust them" or "it's looking good now, what could go wrong". But the sad truth is that even the "good guys" may feel forced to make decisions that ultimately screw over their customers, and that a lot more things can go wrong than people tend to imagine. And for people to whom it's important to _not_ suddenly lose access to games they bought, this is a matter of concern with Steam, especially since Steam took care to strip customers of most of their rights that they could possibly use in such a case.

Steam is a bit different story though. Its business model is similar to iTunes/AppStore than those of the examples you presented. I doubt it will lose the competition among digital distribution shop because there are countless people who already purchased several to tens of games on Steam. They will not change the platform easily like how you would simply buy from different game developers, change web browser, use different web site etc. Also even if the company experiences a huge random inner problem that would drive them unable to support Steam, I'm very sure someone else would purchase the license and continue the support as there's a huge money/potential on it.

 

[Sock Bramson]

Nemo-

1. Sure, with multiplayer games, but that can and has happened in the past regardless of Steam. Sometimes old games lose support, so you'd lose the ability to play them whether or not you got them through Steam.

2. Fine, to humor you I did some searching. Only people I see getting banned are cheaters and the whole MW2 snafu; however, the latter got fixed AND they all got L4D2, so really they came out ahead.

3. Agree to, sign, whatever; you clicking the "I Agree" button basically functions as an electronic signature. And you can totally read EULA agreements before purchasing anything. Did you even try to google before you posted? If you don't agree with it, just don't use Steam. (sounds like this is probably already the case, so what's the problem?)

 

[Sock Bramson]

Psy-

Point well taken, but Andoo makes an appropriate counter-point.

Plus, if you are worried about Steam shutting down, you can always backup your games onto your hard drive, then play in offline-mode. (this is assuming they don't remove the Steam requirement) Whatever the future may hold for Valve, I'm still confident that Steam games becoming unplayable will not be a scenario the 2 million or so Steam users (source needed, too lazy to google, no real need) will have to worry about.

edit: Hell, if Steam goes under and the EULA becomes a moot point, all of your backed-up games can probably be legally hacked into a working state much like they are currently illegally hacked. Just get Nemo and I to google it for you.

 

[Nemo]

Many games send back usage stats, not just Steam games. And developers use these to improve the game, most notably Valve....

Yes and no. While I understand the concept of what you are saying and agree with the fact that developers do use and track this data on a per application or even per company basis to improve the game - this is not what steam is only about. Remember, Valve did not develop this game so they don't need this information. Steam can track you across ALL of your games which generates a whole new ball game of profiling information. It is not JUST used for game development improvements and that is one of my main issues with steam. The can PROFILE you - as a person; not just a gamer - based on your data. It's not just basic single game/company usage stats. Valve did not develop Civ 5 - as such there is no need for my information to go through a third party to get to the developers.

...I think someone would have to be incredibly confused and ignorant to think stat tracking had anything to do with anti-piracy measures...

I would think someone would have to be incredibly confused and ignorant to not understand the quote they just quoted. Before Civ 5 came out everyone complained because it was going to have steam. The main reasons coming back why they were using it was because of its anti-piracy leverages, not stat analysis.

But ok, I'll bite the marketing only ploy - let's say that Civ 5 used it only for marketing. Is there not irony in the fact that it sold less copies than its predecessor and has been criticized by long term civ fans (not to mention a questionable departure of their lead developer) but uses a service like steam to gather their information to make it better when it instead got worse in part because of using steam in the first place? Apparently Cid is too far removed from the code and his talents and experience to do what steam does for firaxis without such an invasive tool. - What I mean by this is there is now invasion of privacy to gather numbers and stats to do what talented developers used to do on their own without it and apparently did a much better job to boot. Just adds fuel to the fire against why they need my information.

This is the funniest thing I have read all week

Many comments on here, including yours are some of the funniest things I've read all week

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[CivCube]

I was against Steam before I was for it. Once I learned more about its pricing, it became more acceptable. With computer games, there's always some way to get screwed over, no matter the storage format. Since getting Civ 5, Valve has continued to impress me with their platform.

10-15 years, I will probably not be playing the same games. The format of buying and selling games might be completely different. So it was 10-15 years ago. I see little difference in the risk.

 

[Maniacal]

Yes and no. While I understand the concept of what you are saying and agree with the fact that developers do use and track this data on a per application or even per company basis to improve the game - this is not what steam is only about. Remember, Valve did not develop this game so they don't need this information. Steam can track you across ALL of your games which generates a whole new ball game of profiling information. It is not JUST used for game development improvements and that is one of my main issues with steam. The can PROFILE you - as a person; not just a gamer - based on your data. It's not just basic single game/company usage stats. Valve did not develop Civ 5 - as such there is no need for my information to go through a third party to get to the developers.

The information gets sent to Firaxis, I don't know if anyone at Valve even reads any of the ingame info (IF any of it is used). The only information tracked by Valve outside of their own games are hours played, achievements (for some games) and thats about it that I can think of. I don't see how any of that can be used to profile you as a person and certainly not in anyway that is incriminating or harmful or in a way people will care about.

I would think someone would have to be incredibly confused and ignorant to not understand the quote they just quoted. Before Civ 5 came out everyone complained because it was going to have steam. The main reasons coming back why they were using it was because of its anti-piracy leverages, not stat analysis.

I understood it quite well, unless you have some other meaning and expressed it incorrectly. There was some stuff about it before it came out that I didn't pay attention too, most of the complaining came afterwards (apparently a lot of people didn't pay very close attention and were surprised by the inclusion of Steam). And it was certainly not everyone who complained. Stat analysis, as I said, is a selling point for developers to use if they choose (I do not know if Firaxis has made heavy use of it or not) not something that really convinces people to buy a game over, say, improved AI and gameplay.

But ok, I'll bite the marketing only ploy - let's say that Civ 5 used it only for marketing.

How is showing off ingame stats (if Civ5 even collects a lot or any) going to sell a game?

Is there not irony in the fact that it sold less copies than its predecessor

First of all, Civ4 has been out for several years, and secondly no exact sales figures have been released for either Civ4 or Civ5 (and likely will not be).

and has been criticized by long term civ fans (not to mention a questionable departure of their lead developer)

Because of the game's flaws which were not helped (and some probably caused by) a rushed development which was 2K Games' decision (the publisher that owns Firaxis).

but uses a service like steam to gather their information to make it better when it instead got worse in part because of using steam in the first place?

The stat collecting would happen AFTER the game's development and release and affect patching and updates. It had no effect before that (if its even implemented) so I don't see how Steam made the game worse.

Apparently Cid is too far removed from the code and his talents and experience to do what steam does for firaxis without such an invasive tool. - What I mean by this is there is now invasion of privacy to gather numbers and stats to do what talented developers used to do on their own without it and apparently did a much better job to boot. Just adds fuel to the fire against why they need my information.

How the heck is using Steam (if they do) for stat collecting is any more invasive than if they wrote their own code for it? And how is it violating any privacy rights or laws?

Many comments on here, including yours are some of the funniest things I've read all week

At least mine aren't tin foil pants on head paranoia and outright ridiculous assumptions.

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[Nemo]

1. Sure, with multiplayer games, but that can and has happened in the past regardless of Steam. Sometimes old games lose support, so you'd lose the ability to play them whether or not you got them through Steam.

True, but this is a single player game which ups the ante. Shouldn't need internet just to play a single player game. I'd be fine if I only had to go through valve for multiplayer and I could play single player without ever communicating with them - but that's not the case.

2. Fine, to humor you I did some searching. Only people I see getting banned are cheaters and the whole MW2 snafu; however, the latter got fixed AND they all got L4D2, so really they came out ahead.

I did the same. I will man up and admit - I was wrong and confused Valve with EA. It was EA/Bioware (oh the irony of this post now! lol) that banned people for being an unhappy customer. The bans from valve were blanket IP addresses, IP address ban for bad account registration (happened to me w/ civ 5), trying to resell a game which you own, asking how to get around a firewall to access steam and so on...

My own experience was that when i tried to register civ 5 i got banned from steam for 48 hours because i tried to use my ~6 year old half life account. Which apparently was deleted from their servers for inactivity - (I hope you read the EULA/TOS, because its in there as i found out the hard way). So, I had to wait 48 hours to register a game I bought for trying to register with an account I already had but they deleted. And the bonus is that for grins and giggles I tried to install and play half-life again afterwards but can't becasuse steam says it was registered already - uhh yeah to my deleted account. Seriously it was like 8 hours of going through steam stuff to get games running - wtf, seriously.

...Did you even try to google before you posted? If you don't agree with it, just don't use Steam. (sounds like this is probably already the case, so what's the problem?)

Not all companies post EULAs easily online - google or not. Yes steam does as, like i said above, found out the hard way. But I have tried what you mentioned once before and when I rejected the (non published) EULA and tried to take it back I can guarantee you will NOT get your money back.

 

[Earthling]

I never was against Steam, had Steam games before civ5 but figured I'd chime in just because. I don't think Steam as a service is a negative factor for civ5. Skwink is an ok guy, I really thought it was Shwink though for some reason and that would have been cooler