Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 12:56:00 AMYou don't have to redownload the game if you buy it on DVD. What it was downloading was updates, which are provided for free for your benefit.Valve doesn't even have stocks. The employees fund it all out-of-pocket. It's a good company with good people, and their DRM has no bloatware, no spyware, and doesn't break any program used with it. I know most of the people at that company personally, and they would never install something that would rootkit your system. There's not even a hierarchy. There's no management of any kind. There's no official projects. Nobody even has a job or a title. People can't even get fired from Valve without direct election.An employee-maintained list of projects is stored at valve:projects and new employees are simply turned loose to do whatever they want on-pay. In addition, every single employee in the building is paid the exact same amount no matter what.They designed the business very carefully to be almost incorruptible. Valve isn't EA; STEAM isn't Origin.Of course they can ban your account and you lose all your games, and there's nothing wrong with that, because video games are a service, not a product. An entertainment-oriented company like Valve tirelessly puts out updates to improve your experience, and that's a service, not a product (like cleaning your house). If you abuse their service, they have the right to stop personally serving you, just like maids have the right to stop cleaning your house if you give them a bad environment.Exhibit AThis is how I was first exposed to this little 'gem'. It is possible to instal it off a disc but you have to look up a specific work-around because it defaults to downloading from Steam with no obvious option to install off the disc. When it first came out there were lots of people with reliable, but low bandwidth, connections complaining rather loudly about it.Also, patches damn well better be provided for free since they wouldn't even be necessary if the original product didn't have problems to begin with.Exhibit BSure, they're not as bad as EA but that's not much of a defense. Are we going to start letting 'ordinary' murderers off the hook because they're not as bad as notorious serial killer de jour? If EA is the Boston Strangler then Valve 'just' killed his wife because he didn't want to lose half of everything in the divorce.Besides, whatever you think of them right now, there's no telling what's going to happen in the future. Companies that seem untouchable and permanent die or get restructured beyond recognition in bankruptcy court all the time.Also, when the fuck did video games become a service? You're pretty much just repeating propaganda now. I don't need or want a service. I want to buy a game and play it whenever and wherever I want. A goo d game doesn't need "services". It stands on it's own.All this DRM business is just the content industry's epic failure to understand how to compete in a market without scarcity. You don't need DRM to combat piracy. DRM will only make it worse. All you have to do to compete with free is to charge reasonable prices and be more convenient. If content companies had embraced that from the beginning do you think there would have been enough pirates interested in creating a worldwide shadow content distribution network to actually achieve that goal?
You don't have to redownload the game if you buy it on DVD. What it was downloading was updates, which are provided for free for your benefit.Valve doesn't even have stocks. The employees fund it all out-of-pocket. It's a good company with good people, and their DRM has no bloatware, no spyware, and doesn't break any program used with it. I know most of the people at that company personally, and they would never install something that would rootkit your system. There's not even a hierarchy. There's no management of any kind. There's no official projects. Nobody even has a job or a title. People can't even get fired from Valve without direct election.An employee-maintained list of projects is stored at valve:projects and new employees are simply turned loose to do whatever they want on-pay. In addition, every single employee in the building is paid the exact same amount no matter what.They designed the business very carefully to be almost incorruptible. Valve isn't EA; STEAM isn't Origin.Of course they can ban your account and you lose all your games, and there's nothing wrong with that, because video games are a service, not a product. An entertainment-oriented company like Valve tirelessly puts out updates to improve your experience, and that's a service, not a product (like cleaning your house). If you abuse their service, they have the right to stop personally serving you, just like maids have the right to stop cleaning your house if you give them a bad environment.
You are aware that the contractual distributor controls the DRM on STEAM, not Valve or the developer, right?STEAM does not require games to be downloaded. If Skyrim needed to be redownloaded, that's a flag that the contractual distributor chose to set in the STEAM system. Valve has no control over that. They just provide the tools.
Valve knows that DRM is evil and Gabe Newell has even said that DRM does nothing but encourage piracy. That's why STEAM isn't automatically DRM. The level of DRM is set by the developer's contractual distributor. Blaming Valve for Oblivion's DRM being shit is like blaming Foxconn for iOS being shit; you're looking at the wrong person.
And since when were video games ever a product?
Does Frigidaire ship you a new refrigerator every single time a new model comes out? Why not? Because it's a product, unlike video games, which are a service.
And what about STEAM is stopping you from playing your game anywhere you want?
Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 03:51:50 AMYou are aware that the contractual distributor controls the DRM on STEAM, not Valve or the developer, right?STEAM does not require games to be downloaded. If Skyrim needed to be redownloaded, that's a flag that the contractual distributor chose to set in the STEAM system. Valve has no control over that. They just provide the tools.Yep. I know there are other games that have extra 3rd party DRM too. That point wasn't about Valve specifically, just that buying a boxed copy of a PC game doesn't guarantee you'll even get something you can install anymoreQuote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 03:51:50 AMValve knows that DRM is evil and Gabe Newell has even said that DRM does nothing but encourage piracy. That's why STEAM isn't automatically DRM. The level of DRM is set by the developer's contractual distributor. Blaming Valve for Oblivion's DRM being shit is like blaming Foxconn for iOS being shit; you're looking at the wrong person.Why do I need the Steam client to play Valve's own games then? If an extraneous client and account validation doesn't count as DRM then WTF does? Seriously...Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 03:51:50 AMAnd since when were video games ever a product?Before the internet let software companies re-brand recalls as patches and trained people to not expect anything to work properly on release day...Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 03:51:50 AMDoes Frigidaire ship you a new refrigerator every single time a new model comes out? Why not? Because it's a product, unlike video games, which are a service.Where do you buy video games that come with coupons to get their future sequels for free?What developers release for free are patches. A patch fixes things that were broken to begin with. If my fridge dies in the middle of the night, lets out all of the cold air, and spoils all my food then, assuming it's still in warranty, Frigidaire will at least fix it.Occasionally some developers do actually release new content for games for free but pretty much all of it is sold. DLC is quite the buzzword these days...The only games I can think of that really are services are MMOs and normal multiplayer games that have matchmaking servers. That actually requires an ongoing commitment from the company for a reason other than releasing a buggy product to begin with.Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 03:51:50 AMAnd what about STEAM is stopping you from playing your game anywhere you want?My internet connection going down and offline mode screwing up, wanting to install and play it during an internet outage, wanting to play it 23 years later on a Win7 VM by which time the Valve authentication servers will probably be offline, etc, etc...My NES,SNES, PS1, PS2, and Game Cube games don't have those issues. I have PC games more than 10 years old that don't have that issues.
Online validation isn't that big of a problem, though. It's only a problem for a few users, and won't be one at all in 5 years when all the internet is a gigabit. STEAM's just come a little early.
Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 06:26:48 AMOnline validation isn't that big of a problem, though. It's only a problem for a few users, and won't be one at all in 5 years when all the internet is a gigabit. STEAM's just come a little early.Way to completely miss the point...
Valve knows that DRM is evil and Gabe Newell has even said that DRM does nothing but encourage piracy.
I didn't. I still think online verification is a better idea than having no DRM at all. I've played every popular SNES game that exists, and own a SNES, but guess how many of them I've bought? None. Even way back when, I got them bootlegged on floppies and loaded them into the cartridges. Why? Because there's no DRM.If there was DRM, I'd have bought them, and they deserved to be bought. It would have prevented me from pirating them.
The problems with account validation are:Having an internet connection whenever you need oneHaving your internet connection be reliable when you have access to itHaving the validation severs stay up foreverYour solution:More bandwidth Also what happened between here...Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 03:51:50 AMValve knows that DRM is evil and Gabe Newell has even said that DRM does nothing but encourage piracy. And here...Quote from: PelPix on September 17, 2012, 06:34:37 AMI didn't. I still think online verification is a better idea than having no DRM at all. I've played every popular SNES game that exists, and own a SNES, but guess how many of them I've bought? None. Even way back when, I got them bootlegged on floppies and loaded them into the cartridges. Why? Because there's no DRM.If there was DRM, I'd have bought them, and they deserved to be bought. It would have prevented me from pirating them.
I don't think you'll be able to find a spot on the entire planet where you won't get at least 60 meg down wirelessly in 5 years.
I found the problemUnlike me, you honestly think that we won't have 100% reliable, fast internet beamed wirelessly across the entire planet in less than a decade. Like I said, STEAM just came a little early. I don't think you'll be able to find a spot on the entire planet where you won't get at least 60 meg down wirelessly in 5 years. You'd have to be on the moon for the DRM to be invasive.Sure, it is now, but that's not their fault. That's the internet companies fault for not implementing their full potential. It's not difficult to get fast internet everywhere, nor does it cost much money. The companies just want to milk it.Google recently started offering 8Mb internet for free and 1Gb internet for $80 in a few trial cities using fiber that was already buried in the ground from over a decade ago.
