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Would You Pay for Steam?
dasmurf asks: "Many users have discussed this possibility. Now that Steam has pioneered the biggest online game delivery system to date, is it as simple as that? Read my concerns about the Steam Subscriber Agreement. Has anyone else read this agreement? Should Valve change it? If you love Valve's games but you've never religiously kept an eye on your credit card statement, maybe this will give you more reason. ;)"
Valve's Steam just released 3 software packages you can buy. It's great to be able to play CS:S while Valve and Vivendi duke out their legal battles. However, I have some concerns about their Subscriber Agreement - in particular, section 4.
Most people dismiss agreements like this. EULA's are probably discarded on a per-minute basis around the world, but this SA is slightly different. First, the games being offered are
not for "purchase" but rather available for "access" via a "Subscription fee". If this doesn't fuel the fear that Valve will turn Steam into a huge subscription-based monster like Evercrack, I don't know what would (I'll leave the debate whether subscription based games are the future or not for someone else - read: don't discuss that here, thx). Even if Valve doesn't morph into a subscription-based system, the usage of the term certainly keeps this open (as if the terms in 4B doesn't). And second, there appears to be a "forced subscription" model in place - meaning that if you don't say "NO" loudly enough, you probably will have to foot a "bleeding from the wallet" fee.
In it, 4A suggests that the end user agrees to maintain up-to-date credit card information with Valve. Other than a pre-authorized payment subscription type plan, I don't know why else that would be required. Section 4B states that Valve offers a 30-day period for announcing changes to their fees and billing methods and that "non cancellation" of their services automatically means you agree to and authorized payment of the new fee(s) and/or billing method(s).
The concern of 4B is not limited to this Steam Powered SA and is apparent in many subscription and pre-authorized payment plans, albeit probably not in the exact wording. And if you're not careful, you may have ended up in this kind of credit card "trap" before.
By "trap", I mean that the credit card owner ends up paying for new and different services he or she may or may not have wanted in the first place. And that redressment, reimbursement, reversal of charges, or credit of any kind is not possible, as stated in the SA. I hate to be cynical, but you can hear laughter from the Swindler's gallery snicking "We've covered our butts, but we've prevented you from covering yours!"
This reminds me of the opt-in/opt-out warefare in the courts not too terribly long ago. The most recent in my memory is the Telemarketing do-not-call plan.
Here's an example of the Valve SA gone bad:
John Doe "buys" the Gold package and gets the merchandise 2 months later, all the while enjoying CS:S and awaits HL2 and other games when they're out. Then, he stops playing Steam games for some reason or other. Maybe it's going to Iraq for 6 months. Maybe he's KIA and his family's a mess trying to get his body back from some third world country. Maybe it's being laid off an no net connection. Maybe he's got a new baby and he has no time for the computer. Maybe his wife has cancer and he doesn't want to leave her side. Maybe he's in jail for insider trading. Maybe he's found a new game and dropped Steam games like a bad habit. Maybe he's just forgotten his password and given up on the damned thing. Or maybe he's installed a anti-spam software, e-mail filters, firewalls, anti-spyware, and disables services and system functions on this computer so that the accumulative effects prevented the announcement of a change in the fees and/or billing methods from ever being read.
Anyhow, Valve's new fee/billing method is not known for months until the credit card bill is examined. While the saavy credit card holder who bought the Gold Package may immediately know where to cancel, the poor widow of GI John Doe might take weeks to find out who the hell Valve is and put a stop to the incessant monthly billing. SORRY, NO REFUNDS!
The first thing you might laugh at is the assumption that John Doe doesn't read his credit card bill every month. Some people watch it like a hawk, and some people aren't as diilgent. It's a fact of life. But is it just to make such per
This is precisly why I don't want anything to do with Steam or any other similar technology. Anyone who falls for this is a complete sucker. They get you to install software they have almost complete control over... what did you think they'd do next?
No
Speculation. I'd pay for Steam - because it will deliver me the games I want to play in a timely fashion. I'm not interested in game packaging. Buying CS:CZ was flawless for me, the whole interface and procedure was excellent. If I do have to subscribe, I'm not bothered. I'll work out the pricing and see whether it works out better for me. Otherwise I won't bother. You may remember that Valve has previously talked about two Steam payment methods - subscription (all Valve products within your sub period) or product by product. This would seem to still make sense.
Also, you have to bear in mind that I'm not an idiot and I know how to use my online banking service to check what's going out of my account.
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Right now I dual boot. Why? Steam. Steam is pretty much the only windows-only PC game left that I have a desire to play. Everything else is either so old I can emulate it with dosbox or wine perfectly. Or it is like doom3 with linux support. Mostly I don't play pc games much anymore.
As it stands I wont pay anything for steam. However, if Valve made Steam for linux I would pay. I would pay... 100 bucks for a lifetime. Or 5 bucks a month. As long as it worked and I get every game.
Meanwhile despite my dual booting I haven't actually played Steam in many months. That will probably change soon with HL2 and all.
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First a quick rant, I bought HL2 to get CS:Source now, the only bitch is, I already owned CS:CZ, so It feels like I paid for it twice. And CS:Source doesn't have bots, so CS:CZ is the only offline play around.
They hit every standard aspect, they own everything, you cant do anything but play the game, and you have no rights. Typical EULA.
My understanding is EULA's can't over ride laws, example put yourself into indentured servitude.
So, I think creating 3rd party programs to work with STEAM cant be blocked by the EULA as its outside the scope of the software use.
Maybe we need a consumers rights bill for software. We finally got one for spyware in the US.
Half-Life
Sign up for a subscriber system from a company with a track record of one game? Yeah right. Valve hit the gold mine with Half-Life, but thus far they've proven to be nothing more than a company with producer problems and a sell-out who resorts to buying player-made stuff to support them.
all this steam stuff is just a bunch of hot air
If you don't get it, reread it!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
CS doesn't have a monopoly on team based, squad combat, the only reason to play is the level of the gamers involved.
That being said Raven Shield is heading for the $19.99 bin and bullshit with extra "content packs" aside it's a brilliant game.
I got a copy of HL2 for free but I won't be using it until I'm damn sure they won't want credit card information.
The sad thing is that people will never have a game they can play nostalgicly, they will never have the option of being without steam. Why would you trust these people? They are trying to move away from Vivendi and ensure that they have a ton of money to start publishing for themselves.
On top of that you are playing MODS these were created by people who theorertically loved the gaming community, now they are thinking of doing it for a living! How many people who contributed to making CS, DOD, Natural Selection and other things that allowed this state of events will never be payed? In fact their hard work was flushed down the drain with the arrival of Steam.
Mod makers I beg you develop for a free platform! There are engines out there you can use for free!
I'd rather write a game engine (open-source) which updates itself as you play. I have 2 mbit DSL, there's no reason Steam should make me wait to download an entire HL level when only 50 feet in front of me is visible. Make it use bytecode (java, perl6, c#), open-source it (all the major client-side attacks you'd get from an open-source game engine have already been done through GL hacks)...
With this system finished and used by major game studios, all games would be developed faster and run on any major platform without any modification. I'd be willing to pay a subscription fee for that. Not Steam -- I have Doom 3, I don't care about CS, so HL2 is all I need -- I'd subscribe for a week, then lose it.
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Sure, if it was reliable and more cost-effective than running my own furnace and water heater.
Oh. You mean some game? No.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I have been trying to get a public 1.5 server up since the WON servers went down. I have tried 4.1.1.0 windows with no-won patch [S]and I have tried the windows standalone server 1.1.1.0 and I have tried the nowon hacked together 1.1.1.1b standalone and I have tried the 1.0.0.5 retail server, using every combination with/out +sv_lan 1 and -nomaster. I have tried the linux server 3.1.1.0e with the nowon2.pl and every flag/patch combination you can imagine.
If anyone is able to create a NON-LAN RESTRICTED 1.5 CS server, write a friggin HOWTO. Today I'm going to have to reinstall XP, 4.1.1.0 install a perl interpreter to see if the 4.1.1.0 linux nowon2.pl applies and see if there are any server updates that pertain to 1.5 (like an analog to the 3.1.1.0e patch). This is silly as none of the emails or websites respond making 1.5 essentially dead dead dead.
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How is this flamebait? Just because of language? There's some legitimate points in there. Fuck you, mods.
Now that Steam has pioneered the biggest online game delivery system to date[...]
Second to BitTorrent, of course.
I keep on seeing steam mentioned somewhere,
But what the heck is it?
Ok so I checked the link in the article, which lead me to a very shallow . I tried , which was no help at all.
I have a vague grasp of what it is by now, it seems like some cross of instant messenger and automatic updater/downloader, with a few online games thrown in.
but can I somewhere find a more in depth explanation of what it does and how it does it? And why it is the best thing since preprocesed cheese?
As it stands now, if Valve converted steam to a pay-for service, I'd drop it. It just isn't worth the hassle. The client is still pretty buggy, which bothers me a bit. I'm not into paying a fee for MMORPGs either. I'd much rather pay for my game once, and then be able to use the game as often as I like. If the game has online multiplayer support for free, I will use it to see if I like it. But if I have to pay a usage fee, well, my monthly entertainment bill is high enough already.
All kinds of people are willing to pay for vapor, so why not steam? In spite of the old saying that you don't get something for nothing, there are thousands of companies that sell nothing for something, and are making a killing.
How ya like dat?
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This was posted AC (score 0) and within a few minutes modded down to -1 (overrated.)
Just what's overrated there? Even if it wasn't a particularly good post, at score 0 it was hardly 'overrated.'
In fact I thought it was a very good post. It's exactly what I'm thinking. When they made it impossible to play CS anymore without selling your soul for Steam, I quit playing it. If I were a rich man who could afford to throw thousands of dollars away on a principle, I would have sued them for it - I paid for a game that they then proceeded to make unplayable unless I signed away my rights on a new deal where they hold all the cards.
Am I and the 'overrated' AC above really the only people that care about such issues? Is everyone else here really happy to go along with whatever lopsided agreement some company wants out of them, as long as they get the pretty flashing lights to entertain them?
I guess anyone that fits that description is indeed a 'sucker' and will get what he deserves.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The EULA is abundantly clear. If you don't like it, don't subscribe.
Let me say this as clearly as possible: There is nothing wrong with their EULA. It is the business model that you clearly do not like.
Get used to subscription based services.
I activated Half Life 2 for free with a coupon that came with an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9600 Pro video card. At no time have I entered my CC information into Steam. Therefore, it's impossible for Valve to start automatically charging me for a hypothetical Steam subscription.
Suppose that I had purchased HL2, regardless of what's in the EULA, I find it hard to understand how could they charge me without my authorization. Did you know that a typical credit card charge-back fee paid by merchants is $60.00? If Valve decided to sneak in an automated charge, how many people do you think would issue charge backs. Do you really think Valve could afford this along with the accompanying negative publicity?
i paid for halflife a long time ago (1998). now i want to register it with Steam (just so i can play it online) but they say my cd-key is already used. and in their FAQ they want me to pay $10 "handling" so that they can "reset" my cd-key.o unt_faq
TOTALY EVIL http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=cd_acc
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Maybe...but I would be really pissed off. I already paid 30 bucks through Steam in order to play the CS:S beta (or in other words i bought CS:CZ, which is really not worth a dollar if you already own cs). Than I paid 60 bucks for the HL2 silver package to be able to play CS:S source right away. I think Valve is gonna make tons of money off of gullible dumbfucks like me. I knew I was wasting my money when I bought CS:CZ but I just wanted to see what the source engine felt like and I was so sick of the old half life engine. Even though it's sorta my own dumb fault (I even saw it coming), I feel like I was tricked. Now if they decide to add a Subscription fee, I would be incredibly "steamed." I would do every thing I could to pirate an account before I would pay a monthly fee. I know piracy is illegal but I feel no regret taking advantage of companies that take advantage of me. But if I can't find a way to get a free account, I would probably end up paying the fee. I'm just that addicted to CS and half life I guess.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
First, I really don't like Steam. I didn't like it from the first day VALVe announced it. When I saw that Steam's primary purpose was DRM and that it provided a backdoor for pay-as-you-play multiplayer, I just about crapped myself. The whole idea of having a DRM program which reports back to the mothership everytime I play a 'Steamed' game is intrusive, not to mention that I'm forced to supply VALVe with my email address before I can play. Bah.
Steam has also made writing mods more difficult because it interferes with debugging. It also has compatibility issues with pre-steam mods.
Finally, the reason I haven't changed from the HL engine to one of the open source varieties is that there still isn't an open source platform that provides the tools and engine functionality that a commercial platform provides. To build a mod, you need an platform which does rendering, networking, sound, collision detection, physics, and game controls. Plus you need map editing programs, map compilers, and modeling programs. None of the current open source platforms do all this. Typically, most just do rendering and maybe some basic collision detection. You can use the the Quake2 engine which has been released under the GPL, but it's a bit dated now. (There is an effort to update it.) Hopefully, the Quake3 engine will find its way into the GPL before too much longer which would be good news for those wishing to dump VALVe and Steam. But until that happens, the HL engine is still the most advanced and best supported engine a modder can use. It's because of this that many modders are now faced with a dilema of going to another platform or putting up with Steam.
I hate to get too far off topic, but the parent is right about one thing. Sierra Utilities is by far worse than anything Steam is now. I still have bits of Sierra Utilities buried in my machine. It's like some tragic abandoned futuristic robot soldier long after the apocalypse--I just want to tell it, "Go to sleep, Sierra Utilies--Sierra is dead. Sierra is dead." Seriously, companies don't live forever. When Valve dies, all we have is our little abandoned Steam clients, playing "Cannot connect to server" deathmatch.
If they tried to charge a subscription fee for
steam I would delete HL and all the mods of my
system and would never buy another Valve game again.
I suspect that almost everyone else would as well.
HL isnt the only game on the block... making
it subscription based would be the end of them.
I'll continue playing NetHack.
http://steampowered.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/steampowe red.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=235&p_crea ted=1095126034&p_sid=cFjGYAnh&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNo PSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0yND ImcF9wYWdlPTI*&p_li=
ok, it wasnt directly in the link. but it isn't fables. this is EXACTLY my case.
the faq i linked to is just full of other abuses.
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Valve REQUIRES the use of Steam in their products. They've not given the consumer any other options.
To make this clear: installing Half-Life 2 from CD (or DVD) - will install Steam. As with Half-Life 1 and Counterstrike - you'll require Steam to get any upgrades and patches.
If they require that users pay a monthly fee to use Steam - they will alienate and destroy the vast majority of their customer base. Most copies of Half-Life 2 will be sold through retail stores. The people who didn't want to buy the game over the internet (but will be unwilling Steam users anyway).
MMO games have only just managed to convince a tiny fraction of gamers that they're worth paying for. Trying to ask someone to pay a monthly fee to play a single player offline game will be commercial suicide.
1) It's always been in the Steam EULA and no story appeared about this when Steam was launched.
2) They won't be able to charge you for something you don't specifically agree to, i.e. a game "subscription" or similar.
3) If you agree to a subscription and paid via credit card straight to Steam, then you've just bought yourself a contract that says they'll take out next month's money next month. My ISP does the same, so do my hosting providers, etc. what's the difference?
4) If they suddenly start changing ALL games on Steam over to subscription, bye-bye 90% of their users, hello some other 3D FPS.
5) (quite a minor point considering 2 and 3)... how would they automatically charge my credit card when there's not one registered on the account? Answer: They can't. Buy the game in-shop, install and you don't ever need to enter anything but a CD-Key.
Don't blow this out of proportion, it's no worse than any other EULA and it's all there in black and white and has been for a long time..
...a good thing for gaming when it comes along? Valve has done nothing (aside from the cyber cafe nonsense) but try to preserve PC gaming. Granted they're doing some of it for profit but I wonder how much the creators of CS and DOD got for Valve to buy up their mods? I wonder what incentive that puts in the minds of mod-makers to work on mods for HL2. If its good, Valve might buy yours and release it for $10-20 to the public via retail for those that might not have been mod savvy enough to find and download new mods. If Valve was evil there would only have been retail versions of Counter-Strike. Attracting mod-makers is good business. Hell Epic and Nvidia have a million dollar prize ready for the winner of the Make Something Unreal contest.
:) heh) I opened a few gmail accounts just to store game patches and content packs for other games, its easy to reinstall steam after a format. No finding the case for the key, then digging for the cd for the install.
And I am sick of hearing whining about buying products through steam and how its gonna be a monthly charge. Either they're gonna charge once for a product or monthly. Pay-to-play gaming outside of the MMO arena is dead. Heat, TEN, Mplayer, Engage, Kali any of them still around? Multiplayer via the net has to be played through steam so that they can ensure you didn't pirate the game. If you're careful with your CD-key you shouldn't have a problem unless of course you want to play the game for free.
Steam doesn't abuse your rights by simply not working or forcing you to disable or uninstall burning / emulation software so you can run it like newer game releases. It doesn't have annoying cd-checks that you're better off cracking than dealing with. Honestly I prefer not having a cd for the games I own or multiple for all the add ons and patches. When I preordered HL2 I don't recall steam even giving me a cd-key to write down and remember. It shot me an email and flagged my account to be able access HL2, how fool proof is that? (Please no Newell password jokes
Meh, I've ranted enough. I honestly don't see why people are legitmately upset with Steam, I rode 1.5 till WON servers were shutoff and just switched over and I don't see what the huge fuss was about. I think people just don't want to change. Paraphrasing what Tycho said in Penny Arcade about Valve and Vivendi. You used to have to go to the well for water and then someone figured out a way to get it from your house.
Put it down to piracy or put it down to greed but this is going to start happening and soon it will be more and more. Think about it, half life/steam is currently the largest base of players on the net, there are around 25k CS servers on the net at any one time with second place hobbling along at 7-9k. How long is it before a suit takes a look and figures out that even if they charge, figures show that number will go down to 5k servers. It is still more money than they get now. Oh sure they will say it is to provide more revenue for further production of a AAA quality product and to reward their client base with an ever expanding game universe with more maps and greater interactivity thereby resulting in a more enjoyable experience. (stop me if this bullshit starts to sound familiar). The truth is that all of the game companies want to start along this path its just that valve feel like they rule the gaming world and feel that they can get away with it. Once they prove that even with a reduced fanbase (albeit one that pays up regularly) then it will open the flood gates and I dont rate our chances at being able to turn it back
But who cares? That is essentially my attitude regarding Steam.
a) I don't have a credit card, so that rules me out by default whether I'd *like* to sign up or not. In a move displaying their usual level of intelligence, EA made the credit-card only mistake with the Sims Online, and then scratched their heads wondering why they weren't able to break the 100k user barrier. It ain't rocket science, guys. I bought one of the first copies of TSO available in this country (Australia) and have paid for all of the expansion packs for the offline game up to Unleashed more than once, as well as having bought The Sims 2 roughly 3 days after its global release. In other words, I'm a certified Sims addict, and if EA had made it so that I was able to play via money order, they would have got some of my money. I'm guessing there are a very large number of other people in this category.
b) As others here have already said, HL2 ain't the only FPS in existence. I play offline UT99 on a daily basis, and still haven't played a game that's given me a better online experience than the original Quake...but that's just me. I could also be part of only 1% of people on the planet here as well, but I don't particularly like Counter Strike. The original HL was a fantastic game in my mind, extremely innovative for its time, and one which I enjoyed immensely. I'm also assuming that Valve made a substantial amount of money from the sale of it. If however, they are willing to weather the storm of bad publicity and community abandonment that resorting to the subscription model will cause, in order to prevent a marginal amount of piracy, then I say good luck to them. There have been other game companies in the past, and there will be more in the future, and it will not stop the world from turning if Valve are sunk by their own greed and short sightedness.
I suppose, yes, I would pay for steam, if the price was right. Obviously, anybody can set a teapot to boil, but that steam condenses pretty readily. I would rather pay for some high-pressure dry steam that could cut a broom handle in half at two meters. I'd pay big bucks for that, 'cause it would be awesome.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
1)They've taken all the steps necessary to bend us over and start feeding us a subscription only service to one of the most popular FPS games out there.
Response: Don't sign up for it. Yah, it may suck not to play CS, but there are PLENTY of other FPS games out there that are equally as good and that don't bend you over. If this happens enough, perhaps they will get the message.
2)They can automagically charge your card for things without you knowing.
Response: Its a credit card. If you feel they've unfairly charged you, dispute it with your credit card company. Perhaps their EULA won't hold up after all, especially if enough people raise a stink to piss the credit card companies off enough to have them get in Valve's face about it.
So, its fairly simple, economics should be the deciding factor. Frankly, I have to admire the speed in which they swept people into this. I never thought I'd see the day when FPS went subscription, but here we are. Its pathetic that gamers are standing for this. Even my little brother can do nothing but praise steam, with absolutely no regard for how he's being sucked in to one of the most expensive addictions he'll encounter in his life.
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I downloaded Steam a few months in order to play the latest version of Day of Defeat, one of my favourite games. I initially found it buggy, but it seemed to work reasonably well, so was quite happy to keep it installed.
However, I was a little skeptical of Valve's promotion of it as a content delivery system, and considering the prices of Half-Life 2 over Steam, I think my skepticism has been borne out.
For example, the UK retail version on DVD of Half-Life 2 is EUR 39 (including S&H) from play.com to Ireland, while to buy even the equivalent Bronze package over Steam is EUR 49 incl. tax (an extra EUR 10, not counting the hidden cost of having to use up at least half my monthly broadband quota to download it - and for Ireland, my quota is pretty generous).
I'm not sure why Valve didn't choose to lure consumers into buying over Steam by simply offering packages that were more financially lucrative that buying through retail. To be _more_ expensive strikes my ridiculous, when I have to go to all the expense of downloading and backing up the game myself. Not withstanding, I like the idea of having a box to look at.
If I could have bought the Bronze edition for, say, EUR 29, then I would certainly have considered it. At the current price, I know which way my wallet will be voting.
P.
Everyone keeps saying how lots of games are subscription-based, so why shouldn't Steam be?
Well, here's a hint: every single game server for Steam games is privately operated. If Valve charges subscription fees, two things could happen:
A) They find a fair way to distribute at least part of the subscription fee to server operators. VERY unlikely, but hey, it could happen.
B) Privately owned servers would reduce in numbers drastically. A lot of them are run by citizens rather than companies, and your average guy isn't going to keep his server up just so Valve can make more money. Server count goes down, the game dies. Valve loses.
Basically, you will never see Valve put a subscription plan in place. The logistics just don't work out.
My experience with Steam: Last month, I heard that if you installed Steam you could pre-install HL2, so I installed it. Steam proceeded to download a couple gigs of data files to my computer. Very slick. Last week, when the packages were made available, I purchased the Silver package. I spent the weekend playing Counter-Strike Source and enjoying some of the back catalog of Half-Life mods that I had never tried. It takes about 5 seconds to authenticate before a game starts. That's about the same amount of time that most of the CD-protection schemes take, but since I never have to swap CDs out of my drive (or use disk imagers and virtual drives to get around the schemes) I have no problem with that.
I honestly believe that Valve has taken the first step on a path that will eventually lead the software industry in a new direction. As with most revolutionary ideas, there are those who embrace it, and those who think it will lead to the downfall of society.
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Ill have you know I initially HATED steam with a passion that exceeds all others. I downloaded it when CS first updated to 1.6, and after seeing the way the software limited my control over the content (at the time you could not use custom models) I quickly deleted it, and washed my hands of the whole ordeal. However, I recently came to realize that WON.net had been shut down, and thus I had no choice but to download if I wished to play any of the games I so enjoyed through the Half-Life engine. Overall, I am going to say, its not as bad as you all make it sound.
Many Of you have expressed concerns that you may no longer be able to play the Half Life Single player offline. this is simply NOT the case. In fact, if you look carefully, you HL.exe file is still VERYMUCH there. Steam Authentication is only required for online play, just as it was on WON.net.
As for the issue of subscription.. I am no lawer, they seem to be referring to the inital charge of the games purchase when they speak of a subscrition.
If Steam should requre a subscription to play their games, I will most likely do as I did when they released he inital version, and wash my hands of the matter. I dont belive it will come to this however. This whole thread seems to be some foolish attempt to make Valve look bad. And while they are not perfect, no company is, and as of yet, they havent done anything wrong.
Also, after having read the Agreement, it looks to be fairly standard to me, So if you have a problem with it, perhaps you should start reading through what youve agreed to to use every other peice of software in your house.