If Steam were only a distribution channel I would have no problem with it. Unfortunately it is much more sinister than that and ranks highly among other DRM schemes that serve to dictate how and when you can play, use your resources without consideration, and genrally strip you of your rights.
Propogation of Steam is helped by broad ignorance of its full not-so-benign capability.
Yeah because so far you have yet to mention a real issue with Steam. Use my resources? What resources?
I’m afraid to…you know they are around every corner. :infiltrator:
But if you’re serious, there is a lot of information on the web about Steam, Valve, litigation and lawsuits.
I believe it can be. I don’t think there is any requirement to actually run steam to run a game (DRM) although I expect to download and decrypt there is. This puts the ball back in publishers hands.
Unfortunately it is much more sinister than that and ranks highly among other DRM schemes that serve to dictate how and when you can play, use your resources without consideration, and genrally strip you of your rights.
I can install on multiple PCs, play offline on any of them or online on a single license. On the flip side of the argument I’m not required to hold onto a physical disc or key to validate my install (remember the good old days when CD Checks were the most evil thing ever?).
I find the resources thing most screwy. You’re playing games on a computer and you’re worried about wasting resources? Yes it has a footprint but if you don’t want to run it when not playing then don’t it’s hardly installing processes behind your back. And really what modern game playing rig is starving for the 100MB ram steam takes up?
Rights I agree with, my investment in Steam is not considerable but big enough for me to worry what would happen if they went under or became evil. Maybe governments can stop noshing off IP owners and spend a few minutes putting in some laws to give us customers unchallengeable rights.
True, I think Valve would perhaps win more customers if they put in some plain language guarantee to remove any reliance on Steam should they close shop. That said once you auth your install you can play offline (on as many PCs as you like).
I think the functionality comes into its own when considered across a range of games. The consistency of interface and userbase etc. It could use some work but seeing who is playing what and setting up invites etc is great IMO and just doesn’t work on a single game platform. I think the consoles have really sold that kind of functionality and it’s something the PC sorely lacks.
I’m must be confused or just had something fly over my head. You didn’t just say you’d prefer Activision, the company who openly admits it wants to rape every gamer’s wallet, hard, to own Steam?
Given that DRM only works (if it does at all) during the first week or two of release, how about publishers throw on some typically terrible DRM for that first fortnight, then strip it all off and go DRM free (or DRM transparent-to-the-actual-customer at least) after then?
Love this idea although I wonder if two weeks would be a tolerable time to wait to copy it for free. They might succeed in blowing out the interest of the pirates in cracking the DRM but they’d be cutting their own nose off to spite their face.
Having some positive DRM in there might be the answer. Spend some of that DRM money on competitions/sweeps for registered players (valid keys). Offer merchandise based on game purchases (like nintendo’s star club thingy). Do more sales so people can go legit, better to get $10-$20 from a pirate than nothing at all?
okay I’ll shut up now. 
simplest possible[from numerous others]example - compare bugs counts inside Steam editions of games and their Retail counterparts.
some can’t launch at all, 1st days of release, some have minor issues, some can’t launch SDK, some completely broken during update[only thru steam]and etc and etc.
i mean if Steam is BUSINESS, they should be careful with products and production.
alot MORE[than NOW].
p.s.
security model of Steam service itself is another concern.
hope they worked on this too.
Once again, I vote no for Steam as necessary, as an option I’m all for it. I want to buy disc, install game, and not worry about someone else’s server allowing me to play
I understand that you like these, but I don’t value them.
I’d rather use a forum (or multiple forums) for community stuff, and make a list of servers where I like the regulars than have a central system that tracks people across multiple games.
No, I’m saying that I expect Activision to buy Valve as soon as I dump money into a bunch of games which require Steam, forcing me to either deal with Activision’s bullshit again or lose all my games.
[QUOTE=shirosae;210999]I understand that you like these, but I don’t value them.
I’d rather use a forum (or multiple forums) for community stuff, and make a list of servers where I like the regulars than have a central system that tracks people across multiple games.
No, I’m saying that I expect Activision to buy Valve as soon as I dump money into a bunch of games which require Steam, forcing me to either deal with Activision’s bullshit again or lose all my games.[/QUOTE]
every single one publisher have own Steam counterpart on appx mid-2011.
thats have bright and dark sides, but what is most important, is competitions is begin.
and this mean quality[on healthy market].
[QUOTE=brbrbr;211093]every single one publisher have own Steam counterpart on appx mid-2011.
thats have bright and dark sides, but what is most important, is competitions is begin.
and this mean quality[on healthy market].[/QUOTE]Or they will all be equally rubbish. And a choice will be decided based on which is the least rubbish. 
see no difference with current market/humanity state.
good things are RARE.
always. anywhere.
same about people, btw.
p.s.
ALL mass-produced things are “rubbish”, but thats no point.
they fill market and make consumers happy somewhat.
goal/trick is to try make it win/win situation, for both sides. for plenty of reasons.
and which is[obviously]helps both of them advance further and further.
I ended up purchasing BFBC2 even though it has securom installed. This is an immensely fun game to play. SD, you have a real competitor here. Hopefully these months separating the release dates will get players interested in trying something different.
But, yea, BFBC2 has allot to offer, objective based game play, vehicles, huge maps, non stop action and the destructible environments really take the fun to a whole new level. I cannot get tired of blowing walls/obstacles and bringing houses down with the enemies still inside. Oh, and the sound effects… mindblowing. Other interesting things, ALL projectiles are affected by gravity and do not travel instantly across the battlefield.
True, it is dumbed down, any class can arm/disarm objectives or even blow them up with high explosives, medic kits work like medic crates in QW, only giving health though, which you can’t really tell if you’ve been fully healed because idiots decided to remove health bars, small fov, kill cam, but it’s very fun to play.
And the best part, seems like they took notice of your S.M.A.R.T. button feature. A character can climb obstacles that are about as high as your eye level with just holding the jump button pressed. Not as radical as in Brink but definitely a step in the right direction.
[quote=shirosae;210999]I understand that you like these, but I don’t value them.
I’d rather use a forum (or multiple forums) for community stuff, and make a list of servers where I like the regulars than have a central system that tracks people across multiple games.[/quote]
I guess each to their own, there is of course no wrong answer to this, what works best for you is great. I’ll say however that I do value the ability to play with people I like in any game. Some nights I don’t care what I play as long as it’s fun. I’m sure its for that same reason you have regular servers where you are assured some degree of familiarity.
I haven’t really explored that all that much but I wonder if the Steam Groups offer that kind of community aspect for people to opt into. I know they can create a group server list.
Anyway I guess you’re the ultimate target market for Valve to aim at and convince there is more value there. 
No, I’m saying that I expect Activision to buy Valve as soon as I dump money into a bunch of games which require Steam, forcing me to either deal with Activision’s bullshit again or lose all my games.
Ahh, I knew you couldn’t have drunk a gallon of petrol and pledged your love for ATVI. Yes, I’ll agree, Steam and almost all digital media is sorely lacking in consumer protection clauses. This is a problem bigger than Steam though, retail DRM can be equally quick to steal away your capability to use it without their consent (despite their promises this’ll never happen).
There is a rival coming out to steam that is taking a slightly different route, its from moddb.
http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/02/indepth_will_desura_rival_stea.html#more
Looks interesting, might be worth a look if you are into mods/indie slightly more.
Its pretty well guaranteed to show popular mods because it appears to be attached to the moddb database, very exciting stuff.
[QUOTE=DoubleDigit;211142]I ended up purchasing BFBC2 even though it has securom installed. This is an immensely fun game to play. SD, you have a real competitor here. Hopefully these months separating the release dates will get players interested in trying something different.[/QUOTE]I think it should work pretty well. I don’t know of any shooter that is worth mentioning in the next months. MW2 and BC2 are definitely the big titles that had to be feared.
MW2 doesn’t count. After one month only those who don’t have money to buy BFBC2 are left playing it.
[QUOTE=DoubleDigit;211142]I ended up purchasing BFBC2 even though it has securom installed. This is an immensely fun game to play. SD, you have a real competitor here. Hopefully these months separating the release dates will get players interested in trying something different.
[/QUOTE]
Oh look, you’re a hypocrite!
Go on, make a solid numbers prediction. You can get them on Steam from here: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Currently MW2 seems to manage about 120k peak players at weekends and 100k during the week. Do you want to make a prediction about where it’ll be in a month? It will certainly be lower because people are starting to get bored of it but what do you think bfbc will do to the numbers?
[QUOTE=SockDog;211145]I guess each to their own, there is of course no wrong answer to this, what works best for you is great. I’ll say however that I do value the ability to play with people I like in any game. Some nights I don’t care what I play as long as it’s fun. I’m sure its for that same reason you have regular servers where you are assured some degree of familiarity.
I haven’t really explored that all that much but I wonder if the Steam Groups offer that kind of community aspect for people to opt into. I know they can create a group server list.
Anyway I guess you’re the ultimate target market for Valve to aim at and convince there is more value there. :)[/quote]
My attitude really is that I don’t want all my eggs in one basket, and especially don’t want all my eggs in someone else’s basket. For example, Activision do something retarded and we lose the ETQW forums. That’s all we lose though, because it wasn’t like everything was hosted alongside those forums.
Really there’s nothing that can be done to Steam to make it appeal to me, because it’s not that Steam has some sub-issue I can’t live with; it’s that Steam itself is something that I don’t want.
It’s the inconvenience threshold. If you decide that you want to rent three installs of your game to me for full price, then your game needs to be that much better to overcome the inconvenience you’ve just hoisted on top of the deal. Most games don’t meet the requirement.
If I did sink a load of money into these games (either with Steam or some other DRM), and then something changed and rendered my games unusable, and I complained about that, I’d be given the following response: “You shouldn’t have taken this deal if you didn’t like it.”. So I don’t.
Shiro, you know that all your silly plastic is decaying even if you don’t scratch it and will one day be unreadable? Hell, maybe in 5 years no computer will be sold with a DVD drive!
So why is it only Steam that people get up in arms about? Barring a sea change in the games industry or a frivolous lawsuit that somehow gets legs, I don’t think the risk of Steam dying in a particular year is any higher than any other delivery medium, save absolutely free downloads.