Steam - Testing the water?

Hobbes

You know the more I read about it, I reckon Valve made the offline play not work in HL2 intentionally.

The game is basically crack for gamers so they could have asked the gamers to eat dog crap and they probably would of to play the game. So it would be a good time to test a excessively restrictive DRM system offsetting the pissed off people vs the game.

If it had of been any other game it would of tanked big time.

mr_angry

If it was any other game, it would have worked properly, because there wouldn't have been as much demand on the STEAM authentication servers.

Maximilian

mr_angry wrote:

If it was any other game, it would have worked properly, because there wouldn't have been as much demand on the STEAM authentication servers.

Jesus, calm down.

deRanged

I'd say you've a point Hobbes.
It's a simple enough equation for them, can they still make enough money despite annoying a lot of people. If they can, then the system, DRM and all is a success. And now there's precedent ...

Terminator

I can play offline fine. I downloaded HL2 via steam - did you buy retail?

Hobbes

What is worrying is what this could lead to.

For example with Steam these senarios are possible.

- You buy HL3 for 10 euro. Once installing it Steam says you have to pay $5 a month to play or $10 for 6 months.

- Has a gold/silver option where Gold is play anytime, Silver you can only play weekends.

- Install a No CD patch for a game and it disables all your games on your machine.

Dr_Teeth

Of course they made it require a steam connection to play. It totally foxed all attempts to warez the game before it hit the shelves. This is a massive first in the PC games industry and you can expect to see this approach repeated for every major PC title from now on.

http://www.electricdeath.com/blog/820

Teeth.

Dingatron

Of course they made it require a steam connection to play. It totally foxed all attempts to warez the game before it hit the shelves. This is a massive first in the PC games industry and you can expect to see this approach repeated for every major PC title from now on.

Agreed. I reckon this is the way things are going to go especially after the Doom3 stuff. Although as said earlier people were willing to jump through hoops for this game. Not sure they'd be so willing for regular run of the mill games.

Hobbes

Dr_Teeth wrote:

Of course they made it require a steam connection to play. It totally foxed all attempts to warez the game before it hit the shelves. This is a massive first in the PC games industry and you can expect to see this approach repeated for every major PC title from now on.

http://www.electricdeath.com/blog/820

Teeth.

I disagree. The game is only out a few days and already there is..
- No CD/DVD hack.
- Offline hack (bypasses steam)
- At least two warez copies floating around the net that I know about.

The only game to date that has taken a while for a hack/warez to be released was Sims 2.

Lex_Diamonds

If you ask me, the most vitriolic opponents of steam are those who are pissed that they couldnt get a working Warez copy.

Meanwhile the Hobbes crusade against Steam/Valve continues...

- You buy HL3 for 10 euro. Once installing it Steam says you have to pay $5 a month to play or $10 for 6 months.

- Has a gold/silver option where Gold is play anytime, Silver you can only play weekends.

- Install a No CD patch for a game and it disables all your games on your machine.

Lol. Have you listened to yourself?

Hobbes

Lex_Diamonds wrote:

If you ask me, the most vitriolic opponents of steam are those who are pissed that they couldnt get a working Warez copy.

Hardly. Have you read around various HL2 forums? There is a lot of pissed people who PAYED for the product.

The only reason I know about the hacks is due to the fact I was pulling my hair out trying to get the game to work to only have it tell me "You can't play now" when it did eventually work and I came back to it.

Or are you accusing me of trying to warez a game?

Lol. Have you listened to yourself?

You might not take it serious but currently there is no other reason for them to disable single player without an internet connection. It is a DRM system and it is in place such instances you will see popping up in the future.

It isn't the first of its kind either to try this.

I am also only talking about the locking of single player.

There are currently enough problems with Steam as it is. For example not able to manage the server load, LAN play requires jumping through hoops, some students+military people are unable to play it due to firewall constraints. Or the best one it seems if the billing system times out you don't get your goods but you do get charged for it. Saw a few posts where people have racked up over $400 in credit card charges that they have to wait over a week before they get their money back from the CC company (Steam denies anything to do with it).

When I buy a single player game, I expect to play it when I fuking well want to. Not when a server on the internet says I can.

[CrimsonGhost]

Hobbes wrote:

The only game to date that has taken a while for a hack/warez to be released was Sims 2.

Probably cause the only real demand for it was from women, and not to be stereotypical, but the kind of people who play the sims (most of them anyway) probably have no idea about where to even go to get a nocd crack for a game cause it's a pain having to always put a cd in the drive just to play a game.

Praetorian

Steam is primarily designed to make valve more money and who could blame them? Spending 5 years making a game only to see 60-80% go to the distributors etc would be very frustrating. It doesn't really matter if you like it or not. It was a very clever business decision.

Another steam benefit for valve was that the warez groups were delayed in getting out their ilegal copies / uploading to torrent sites etc. I'm sure lots of people who usually download warez didn't want to wait an unknown amount of time for the ilegal version when they could spend a few dollars to get the game there and then.

In the future, we will of course see lots of companies copying valve (steam). Of course what they should do is reduce the price of the games, because they don't have to pay for middlemen / manufacturing etc etc

MrPinK

Lex_Diamonds wrote:

If you ask me, the most vitriolic opponents of steam are those who are pissed that they couldnt get a working Warez copy.

Any of these DRM methods methods such as Steam effect the software pirates least of all. Like Hobbes said, the cracks have appeared within days. Those who are warezing are all sorted. Now it's just the regular paying customers who are having to jump through hoops to play their gameall because of these copyright measures that failed in under a week.

dent

Hobbes wrote:

When I buy a single player game, I expect to play it when I fuking well want to. Not when a server on the internet says I can.

Yup totally agree. To be honest the hassle this type of action generates is only going to drive people towards cracks etc. I don't think this was all about security and while not looking for conspiracy's I'll be keeping my eye's open. Maybe they should focus more on finding and prosecuting crackers and crack distributors than annoying paying customers.

KdjaCL

So those who advocate Steam , my bro bought HL2 on tues and has no net connection and is yet to play that copy. Is that a good thing?

I also bought it 9am tue morniing didnt get to play till 3pm , not my pcs fault simply couldn activate it.

I brought back his version and "obtained" a version for him to play. Yes steam really did stop the warezing of this game
What it did do is ensure one more copy was downloaded than was needed.

btw i bought HL2 therefore legally entitled to a backup of software i own, if i lived in Caymna islands that is

kdjac

SantaHoe

Hobbes wrote:

What is worrying is what this could lead to.
For example with Steam these senarios are possible.

When Steam first came out, I was thinking the very same thoughts... but it doesn't bother me in the slightest since I won't be forced to buy into any of these deals if they do go ahead.
Actually I was thinking recently about how the Xbox is so 'locked-down' with signed code and locked harddrives, it makes me wonder if this is a test bed for trusted computing

mewso

Scenarios of paying monthly fees are a bit unrealistic imho since they will not be able to stay competitive with games that can be played in full for a one-off price so why would they make their games more expensive?
I like some of the ideas behind steam but obviously there are issues. My main reason for liking it was that the developer was the only one my money was going to. But like someone else says that would mean it should be cheaper.

Tusky

Maximilian wrote:

Jesus, calm down.

em....he was perfectly calm what are you talking about ???!

Pugsley

ding wrote:

Agreed. I reckon this is the way things are going to go especially after the Doom3 stuff..

To be fair that was largely due to utterly cr*p marketing, they released it in America a good few WEEKS before it came to europe, within them weeks thousands, probably several million, copies of the game were downloaded, with such a global game a single release date is absolutely essential unless you want half the potential buyers to just pirate.

jesus_thats_gre

Maximilian wrote:

Jesus, calm down.

WTF?

the_syco

dent wrote:

Maybe they should focus more on finding and prosecuting crackers and crack distributors than annoying paying customers.

But they can't...

In America, you can own one copy of your music, or game. If you own a game, its legal (although a gray area) to crack your game so that you don't need a CD to run it.

musician wrote:

Scenarios of paying monthly fees are a bit unrealistic imho since they will not be able to stay competitive with games that can be played in full for a one-off price so why would they make their games more expensive?

Unrealistic, yes, but it does happen. Some online multiplayer games continue for days. Its a 3GB download at first, and you have more downloads in the future (updates), and you have to pay a monthly fee (for the running of the servers, me thinks). Seemingly, alot of people still play it.

Hobbes

the_syco wrote:

Some online multiplayer games continue for days. Its a 3GB download at first, and you have more downloads in the future (updates), and you have to pay a monthly fee (for the running of the servers, me thinks). Seemingly, alot of people still play it.

Try continue for years. You can't compare steam to a MMORPG. First up Steam isn't even a game. Its a DRM/purchasing system.

People pay MMORPG's not only to maintain the servers but your guranteed new content pretty much every month, so the game is always changing.

HL2 single player kept me entertained for 10 hours, MMORPGs can keep people entertained for years.

Btw, if you get caught using a cheat on any server online Steam disables your games. I am not sure if it is only related to HL2 though (it will disable singleplayer). You have to buy another account to get it to work again.

DapperGent

Hobbes wrote:

Btw, if you get caught using a cheat on any server online Steam disables your games. I am not sure if it is only related to HL2 though (it will disable singleplayer). You have to buy another account to get it to work again.

Link?

ObeyGiant

Let me just start off by saying that I like Steam. I like the idea of it, and I like the possibilities for it. It's unfortunate that it had so many glitches, but this is par for the course with brand-new content delivery systems (anyone remember the hassle when Apple offered Quicktime as a 500KB installer?).

hobbes wrote:

excessively restrictive DRM system

I'm fascinated as to what you mean by "excessively restrictive". So far, I've only found one problem, and that's with the offline play in the retail version. Otherwise, it's been perfectly consumer-friendly. Many people in work here bought and downloaded the game over Steam, played it a bit in here, then whacked the whole thing onto an external hard drive and brought it home, where they were able to play it just as easily as they were in here. This does not strike me as being "excessively restrictive".

hobbes wrote:

- You buy HL3 for 10 euro. Once installing it Steam says you have to pay $5 a month to play or $10 for 6 months.

- Has a gold/silver option where Gold is play anytime, Silver you can only play weekends.

Is your tinfoil hat on too tight? These are ridiculous suggestions. If other attempts at DRM have taught us nothing, it's that, when it comes to software or other digital media, "rental" options do not work with consumers. Look at the fiasco with "disposable" dvds.

hobbes wrote:

Install a No CD patch for a game and it disables all your games on your machine.

When you say "all your games", do you mean other Valve games or every other game on your machine? In the first case, this would be fair, and is exactly what happens right now, as far as I'm aware. In the second case, this would be against the law, and I'm sure no developer wants that kind of class action brought against them.

But either way, the point of Steam (as a content delivery/DRM solution) is to cut out the need for a cd in the first place. So it's kind of a moot point anyway.

KdjaC wrote:

my bro bought HL2 on tues and has no net connection and is yet to play that copy

Not to sound mean or heartless, but your brother probably shouldn't have bought a game that has "internet connection" in the minimum requirements when he didn't have an internet connection. I mean really, this is like complaining that he has yet to play it because he doesn't have a DVD ROM.

So, server load problems aside... apart from the offline play issue (which doesn't seem to effect steam-downloaded copies of HL2), does anyone have any other legitimate gripes about Steam?

Jammer

I have an internet connection. Its 56k though...i had to go thru 2hrs of bull**** to play a game i had shelled out money for. And to me, the game isnt worth the hassle. Good luck valve.

Horsefumbler

Hobbes wrote:

Btw, if you get caught using a cheat on any server online Steam disables your games. I am not sure if it is only related to HL2 though (it will disable singleplayer). You have to buy another account to get it to work again.

Whats wrong with that?

cregser

Tusky, he was telling mr_angry to calm down....

I was worried about Steam when I first read about it. I was surprised it was Valve who where piloting this on a large scale. You would expect this from the likes of Microsoft, not a company releasing it's second title. I think the current bandwidth issues are going to delay the implementation of this system for others. I think most corporations would think twice before pissing off their customers. They have more to loose.

However, the downfall of the retail shop has already been talked about. For digital products, maybe end is even sooner.

As for pay-as-you-play: I don't see much demand for it. I'd rather go back and play all the great games I've never gotten around to, or go outside!

cregser

ObeyGiant wrote:

So, server load problems aside... apart from the offline play issue (which doesn't seem to effect steam-downloaded copies of HL2), does anyone have any other legitimate gripes about Steam?

I suppose the main gripes are that it's a change from the norm and it feels like big brother is watching.

I read a post pointing out steam network traffic as the single player game booted. The poster was worried about information being sent from his computer. Everyone installs Ad-aware and Spybot because we're concious of our privacy. It's human nature. A lot of celebrities say the thing they miss most is anonymity. Would you like to have someone following you around all day? Wether it was for reality tv, research, marketing or to make sure you were law abiding?

I'm sure someone will come to a DRM solution one day. Steam just feels like another brave attempt to get it right.