What's the Best Video Game Download Service?

ThinSkin writes "Who needs a brick-and-mortar game shop when you have the world wide web of video game download services? Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech examines some game download services to decide once and for all which virtual storefront has the best deal for gamers. Among the services reviewed are: Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, Good Old Games, and WildTangent Orb. The most popular site in the roundup, Steam, was also the most favored because of its wide selection of popular titles, while Direct2Drive also scored top marks because it has 'just about every title in the universe.'" Which service(s) do you like the most, and what have your experiences with them been?

Comments

Bah,.

[Kalriath]

Great. Another pointless "top X" list spread across twelve ad-ridden pages. Who accepts this crap? Editors? Hello?

Anyways, I disagree with their final decisions too. Their top two are Steam (bloated DRM-ware) and Direct2Drive (also bloated DRM-ware) while giving Impulse (no DRM inherent) third place. In fact, they don't even list DRM as a con of Steam or Direct2Drive (or "no DRM" as a pro of Impulse).

Give me Impulse over Steam or D2D any day.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the correct answer is your favorite torrent tracker. Skip this article it is useless, forget this discussion and forget all the comments. No service will ever top the pirates. Ever. And you can write that in stone and quote me for eternity.

Re:Bah,.

[renegadesx]

In fact, they don't even list DRM as a con of Steam or Direct2Drive (or "no DRM" as a pro of Impulse).

There have been a few sites and a lot of magazines that will not dare attack DRM yet, worried about others (publishers) seeing them as encouraging piracy and pull sponsership.

Every pirate hates DRM but not everyone that hates DRM is a pirate.

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

Bollocks. I don't mind paying for a game, provided the game doesn't cause more hassle than I can get enjoyment out of it. I'm happy to buy a game if I can install it and play it, without having to worry about whether this game or that's arcane copy protection prevents me playing it on my {insert setup here}.

If noone ever buys the game, they'll stop making them. Duh.

Re:Bah,.

[calmofthestorm]

I'm happy to buy games, I refuse to rent them. Especially if it's misadvertised as buying.

Re:Bah,.

[calmofthestorm]

I dont' think pirates care about DRM; it doesn't affect them.

Re:Bah,.

[NoobixCube]

On the contrary, I'm a pirate and I love DRM. Gives me further moral justification for my stance of downloading a game before I buy it. A practice which has probably saved me thousands in "I wish I hadn't bought that"s over the years.

Re:Bah,.

[nog_lorp]

For 99% of games available on Steam, if the game will work on your setup so will Steam.

Steam also doesn't limit your ability to have the game installed on any number of computers. It also provides a myriad of features that many people like.

The motivation behind it may be DRM, but it provides a better experience than any other platform, with essentially none of the negative effects of DRM.

Re:Bah,.

[Your.Master]

It does affect them, it just doesn't stop them.

Re:Bah,.

[ozphx]

Steam being bloated? Steam takes up under a hundred meg of the 12 gig of steam games I have installed.

Have a louder cry about the DRM. I'm sure you'd love games costing several million dollars to develop shoved up on FTP with an honesty box, but someone with any brainpower whatsoever would realise that its fucking retarded.

The entire friction the steam DRM setup gives me is having to type a password once, and then tick the "remember me" box. Its a hell of a lot more convenient than CD-keys, its a hell of a lot more convenient than CDs, and I can happily play games offline (despite what the whingers say).

The biggest selling point is they have put in just enough protection to attract A-list games for distribution, rather than the rather crappy lineup Impulse offers.

I guess it also means that in ten years when valve shuts down and the person that buys their platform, decides that out of maliciousness they don't want to continue offering the service, and also that at that stage I am too poor to afford 3D Virtual Lesbian Extravaganza on my VR rig, then I might be saying "Well, damn, I can't play TF2 against the other three people that are still trying to play it". But thats fairly unlikely.

Re:Bah,.

[Goldberg's Pants]

I love Steam. It's actually easier than piracy. (FINALLY!) Find a game, purchase, download, done. Never have to worry about disks. Can install on multiple machines. Honestly, with the system issues I've had the last year with reinstalling the OS on several machines, Steam made life SO much easier with just setting it downloading and leaving it. No finding disks. No disk swapping. No trying to find the misplaced manual with the serial number on it. Nada.

Stardock's Impulse service may prove in the end to be better than Steam due to lack of DRM, but the fact is Impulse is a diabolical piece of software currently.

Re:Bah,.

[Mooga]

I agree that it's actually easier then piracy. Not that piracy is hard, but Steam just makes it so easy. It auto-installs everything and WORKS with no problems.

My only issue with Steam is that you need to have steam running which could effect game performance on weak computer. If you have a nice rig, don't expect any issues.

That list is pointless though. They give everything a high ranking and doing explain much. "They offer AAA games and it work". What about things like customer support? Valve has a cryptic customer support system. Basically you write a note and you hope they get to it within a few weeks. No phone calls, only the message system.

Sure the systems work, but why write an article if you don't actually get down to the dirty issues. What about the whole "WildTangent is spyware" issue? The lack of information makes the article useless.

Re:Bah,.

[cgenman]

It's important to explicitly call out the properties of DRM that make it bad. DRM is out there to prevent the player from willy-nilly installing on everyone's PC's, which can be bad as it prevents you from switching computers or backing up your own games. Steam actually facilitates transferrence, as you can download any purchased games on any computer you log into. You don't need a CD to play, you don't need a CD to install on another computer, you can play your games on all the computers you have available.

Steam only runs with your games, doesn't take up a lot of CPU time, and has been stable for several years now. The one outstanding question is "what happens if Valve shuts down," but they have promised to unlock everything in such a case.

If we shout that DRM in all forms is terrible, none of the companies will or can listen. If we work towards removing the problematic portions of the system, we might get a compromise setup that is better than we started with.

All consoles since the NES have had DRM. But because they were actually sane DRM, nobody but pirates and developers ever encountered it. Let's work towards that again.

Re:Bah,.

[Goldberg's Pants]

I've never had cause to deal with Steam's support. I did deal with Direct2Drive's recently. I don't have anything through them, but was curious how the Spore DRM would work and had a few other questions, so I sent an email asking about four questions. I received a response which answer one of them. So I figured I'd escalate to one of their managers. It tells you how in their information, so I did everything it said.

And that was a month ago and I've heard nothing.

Only issue I've had with Steam was with GTR-Evolution recently. According to friends it works just fine in offline mode. My internet has been crappy lately so I've been unable to use Steam online, and GTR-Evo flat out refused to start without the internet. Ironically this has forced me to download the cracked version so I can actually play if my crappy internet goes out.

Re:Bah,.

[Mascot]

I guess you didn't notice many (most?) Impulse titles includes activation/hardware lock-in (as in you cannot move the files to a different computer unless you have Impulse there to log on and activate).

In other words, pretty much like Steam.

Re:Bah,.

[calmofthestorm]

I'm not sure I agree. Let's examine a game's path from store shelves to your hard drive *queue cheesy music*

1a) Game is purchased
1b) Game is somehow acquired pre-release
2) Game (images or discs) are transferred to one of a few skilled crackers/hackers (the line is fuzzy here) who enjoy breaking DRM for the challenge and pseudonymous credit.
3) Crackers break game for fun, and probably don't really play it. (This is why the DRM that sabotages you after only 20+ hours of play is actually not as brain-dead as most of it). Some do though.
4) Game is transferred to script kiddies/people in non-fascist countries. People who don't know/don't care/aren't affected by DMCA and foreign friends.
5) Product reaches final consumers, often before if not at the same time as the retail rental version from which it was produced.

I'd argue that the only people affected by DRM are primarily in it for the fun and rush, so really DRM only /helps/ piracy.

Re:Bah,.

[blahplusplus]

Oldschool games no DRM

http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

Oh I know. IGN support sucks and their accounts payable department is even worse - they have this bad habit of taking as long to pay my invoices as they do to reply to your customer service enquiries.

I'd be surprised if you EVER got a response.

Re:Bah,.

[teh moges]

quote me for eternity
- Anonymous Coward

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

I'm sure you'd love games costing several million dollars to develop shoved up on FTP with an honesty box, but someone with any brainpower whatsoever would realise that its fucking retarded.

You know, back in the old days, games were released without the ridiculous protections and they still sold... and some argue (I don't) that games back then were better quality anyway. And who said the only method of digital distribution was an honesty box? Apogee's method was brilliant - games were episodes and you could pick up the first episode for free, and buy the rest off them.

The entire friction the steam DRM setup gives me is having to type a password once, and then tick the "remember me" box. Its a hell of a lot more convenient than CD-keys, its a hell of a lot more convenient than CDs, and I can happily play games offline (despite what the whingers say)

Tell that to my laptop, which despite having logged in recently still insists on replying to my clicking of the "Go Offline" button with "Can't connect to Steam network" and exiting. No, Steam's offline mode doesn't work. I also disagree with Steam's insistence on shoving "Update News" (read: glorified advertisements) in my face whenever it feels like it - though that's not the DRM, that's just Steam in general. And I don't like how I must have Steam running to play games.

Oh, and Steam has more than just DRM in it - it's also got the ability to disable games you've already bought and downloaded, such as in the case where certain games have been released and due to the ridiculous pricing differential between the South Pacific region and Asia, people bought the game from Asia instead and had Valve retroactively disable it on them because they didn't pay the Australasia Tax (markup of around 100%-150%)

No. Fuck Steam.

Re:Bah,.

[linzeal]

Steam is good for building up a library of games you can share easily from computer to computer and hopefully over a long period of time 50+ years. None of the other companies have the sort of character of Valve to last that long. I have no inherent problem with DRM if there is no malicious, invasive or outright trojan horse/spyware installed. Yeah, you can get the older games they sell on there for like 20-40% of the price you pay at Steam but games on CD/DVD media last me like 5 years tops. You are buying a service to download that game on computers across generations perhaps. It is a matter of preserving our gaming culture, years from now you grandchildren will be visiting and you will totally want to indoctrinate the little bastards with some demented video game you enjoyed their age. Would I like it if Steam hosted Indie and Open Source games for free; yeah, but I also have 4 terabytes of Raid 5 media with cracks as a backup. By the way I just broke down all my old computers I was not using and only kept the power supplies and motherboards. The metal in some of these old IBM servers was insane like over 60 lbs in one. I had been moving them around for 6-7 moves without thinking. Recycling needs to gain some cred in rural and red state US. There are towns of 5,000 like Alturus, California that have like 10-20% of all waste end up being recycled. It is getting to the point where we could pry mine some of the older landfills. God knows what we will find though; we could suppose things like, a lot of dead bodies in plastic bags, naked pictures of your parents getting it on and the like. Mmmm, lentils.

Re:Bah,.

[cliffski]

I provide people who buy games with a direct, no queue, no fuss link to an installer exe. They can use a download manager or grab it however they like, they can then install it, or burn it to a disk for backup, they don't need an internet connection on the machine where they install it, and they don't need an account with me, or have anything else installed on their machine or running in the background. There is no DRM or limitations or restrictions.

The download is direct and fast from my website, and in case of tech support, you email me, the games creator directly. I always reply within 24 hours, normally within 8.

There are no middlemen, just a payment provider, so 90% of the money goes direct to the creator.

Explain to me how the pirate system beats mine? ...unless perhaps you don't care about anything but getting commercial software for free?

Re:Bah,.

[Cougem]

Whilst I am very much anti-DRM, I do slightly agree with this person, with regards to steam, anyway. Steam's DRM, whilst definitely there, is packaged up and used more as a method of validating downloads, or whatever. I know you have to sign in etc. every time you use it, but it will still allow you to install the software on any and every machine you want (although of course, only playing it on one at a time). It is a well worked piece of software, with benefits such as a community, player tracking etc. Yes, there is the worry that Steam will eventually close, but frankly with my incredibly old games I find myself just torrenting new copies, rather than trying to get my old CDs out, anyway, so nothing lost. Basically, if I actually want to pay for a game, I Steam now for speed and ease of use, and will torrent later if I actually ever feel the DRM is compromising my experience.

Re:Bah,.

[Reliant-1864]

I had to deal with steam support just recently. Yesterday, I was considering asking the question on what alternatives there are to Steam for purchasing & downloading retail games. This article answered my question.

On Steam, I joined up last week and tried to make a purchase on Saturday. My purchase was declined (I tried CC, Clickandbuy, and Paypal). I didn't get a reply until Tuesday, and they resolved the issue. The only hard part to Steam support is navigating their support system.

What really got me interested in Steam is that I saw the X-Com collection on their site, advertised as being XP compatible

Re:Bah,.

[Reliant-1864]

In reference to number 3, a lot of games have been re-using DRM methods from other games. Once a game has been cracked once, cracking the same DRM in another game is trivial. Play time is what allows a mid-game break to slip through the cracks. What makes the mid-game break more effective is that it's often unique to the game and commingled with the game code, so it takes a lot more cracking work to break it. With Mass Effect, within hours the cracking groups knew there was a mid-game flaw, but it took them almost a week to actually crack it. Ironically enough, this still allowed to crack to get out before the European release of Mass Effect, rendering the DRM 100% ineffective for the EU market, but effective for the NA market, where it delayed a working cracked version for almost a week while the retail version was on the shelf.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

100MB for a download client? That IS massively bloated.

Re:Bah,.

[Kneo24]

STEAM's offline mode does work. I don't know why people keep preaching that. Have you updated STEAM at all? Have you just tried to reinstall STEAM? I've never had any problems with it.

Also, the whole pricing and region issue thing makes sense if you'd take a second to yank your head out of your ass. There's a few mitigating factors that you need to consider.

The first being that in certain regions, games are censored in certain ways. If you have a game from a different region, it bypasses that censorship. That can potentially go badly for STEAM, as that government can be all like, "WHY ARENT YOU THINKING ABOUT THE CHILDREN LIKE WE FUCKING DEMAND!!???".

Another important factor is that Valve is a business and they need to make money. The cheaper stuff in those regions is specifically for those regions so they can have market penetration there. So essentially, games are priced differently for each region for a reason. They have to find a balance between making money and getting market penetration. So if you want to be pissed off about a company fucking over people who were trying to fuck them over, be my guest.

Re:Bah,.

[Kneo24]

Impulses library is lackluster. Not only that, games that have DRM on and go through that service will still have DRM on them.

Re:Bah,.

[FlyveHest]

And also remember, its not Valve / Steam that sets the pricing for the different regions, its the publisher.

Steam just makes it possible to price products differentely in different regions. (Sometimes, making no sense at all, I could buy COD4 from a brick and mortar shop for 20$ lower, incl shipping, than if I bought it from Steam)

Write to the publishers and complain about the pricing.

Re:Bah,.

[Pyrion]

Except you can only be logged into your Steam account on one computer at a time.

Impulse doesn't care.

Re:Bah,.

[Pyrion]

Leave Steam running for a week or longer and then check its memory usage.

Re:Bah,.

[Gewalt]

Selection :) You don't offer 90% of all games ever made.

Re:Bah,.

[hellfish006]

actually Valve has stated that they will unlock all the games you have downloaded from their DRM scheme if Steam is ever to be shut down. So really, you could continue playing TF2 or maybe 3 by that point.

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

Steam has the worst possible DRM. If you went into a brick and mortar store and they said they reserved the right to take your "purchase" back at any time would you still buy it?

From http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

For 99% of games available on Steam, if the game will work on your setup so will Steam.

Not strictly true they have lots of titles that would run on Linux, but which arn't available as a Linux version over steam (even though, steam is wine compliant)

I pirate (occasionally as i rarely game any more) for 3 reasons.
1) to see if the game installs/works/is worth playing (steam often has free demos)
2) because its more convenient than going to the shops (steam is probably easier than pirating)
3) because DRMd versions often dont work with wine. (no problems with steam so far)

As steam is pretty much even with the pirating system and id rather see sequals of good games on PC rather than them all porting shit versions to consoles, i generally do buy games through steam instead of pirate them

Re:Bah,.

[Spinalcold]

I like the convenience of Steam, it's just so slow! No one else has really complained about this, so it could, for some strange reason, just be my setup, but even after a fresh install it takes forever to after booting Steam to verify each game is updated and download the updates. Then, the games take a long time to boot, the only think I can think of is that Steam is slowing the booting process down. Eg. Starcraft boots in a few seconds, Halflife takes a minute for Steam to boot and verify updates and another 30 seconds to launch the game. It's not that much time, but for new games it is, TF2 takes way too long to boot.

Re:Bah,.

[neoform]

Downside of steam:

You need to be logged in to the internet to use any of your games. Even if they're single player games. There have been a number of times where I had lost my internet connection for a day or two and was unable to play those games, that was annoying.

Re:Bah,.

[PFI_Optix]

A download client with a chat function that has voice capabilities, a browser for rendering the catalog, and a media player for game trailers and other videos.

Steam isn't just a download client. It also gives the best (imo) community service to every game sold on it. I'm back playing Titan Quest again because it makes it easy to connect with people I play with regularly without leaving the game.

Re:Bah,.

[lowlymarine]

Well...kinda. You can only be logged onto your Steam account from one IP at a time. You can actually have an entire 64-person LAN party playing CS:S or TF2 on one account. Whether this is intentional or not, it's been that way for years and Valve's made no effort to correct it (which would be easy enough to do; have LAN servers check for keys like online servers do).

Re:Bah,.

[NovaHorizon]

that's why you mix with a couple non-steam games. Or.. move to the northwest, into a smaller town. Cable-One here in Idaho does fairly good. My apartment complex forced a switch over to some DSL company that sucks, and I miss the near perfect 100% uptime with full purchased bandwidth. (By near perfect, I don't mean a mere 98% either.. Out of the year of experience I had with them, their service went down once, maybe twice, and only for a couple hours tops.)

Re:Bah,.

[Don_dumb]

Downside of steam:

You need to be logged in to the internet to use any of your games. Even if they're single player games. There have been a number of times where I had lost my internet connection for a day or two and was unable to play those games, that was annoying.

This keeps coming up but you don't need to always be online. There is an option (I'm not at home right now) that prevents you needing to be online to access your Steam client. Has this changed in the last few months?

Re:Bah,.

[lowlymarine]

I guess it also means that in ten years when valve shuts down and the person that buys their platform, decides that out of maliciousness they don't want to continue offering the service, and also that at that stage I am too poor to afford 3D Virtual Lesbian Extravaganza on my VR rig, then I might be saying "Well, damn, I can't play TF2 against the other three people that are still trying to play it". But thats fairly unlikely.

Because no one still plays online shooters from 10 years ago anymore, right?

Re:Bah,.

[NovaHorizon]

honestly dude.. for me, it's the online purchase. (I'll buy hardware online, but for some reason.. I'd rather have a disk and nice printed box for my games)

I only pirate a game if I already have my mind set on buying it, and need to make sure my system is able to run it smoothly, and/or until I can finally afford it (low income FTW!).

I personally haven't even tried to pirate your games, though I did try starship tycoon, and democracy 1. Your starship tycoon needs a better demo dude.

I spent like 2 hours restarting till I finally beat the demo mission within the allotted time, then suddenly felt that the full game probably didn't have much more to offer then the experience I had just had (fun up till that point though, I'll give you that.)

As for Democracy.. just didn't end up being my style. The demo for it seemed fine though. Gave a good idea of what the game would be like, and I felt jipped when I found out what the limit was. Jipped in the good way though, where I was curious on if I would have beat that setup.

Anyhow, I normally don't post this in depth on ideas unrelated to the article, but I remember you wanted feedback a short while ago from why people pirated your games.

P.S. If you're making over $500 a month off of just game sales though, don't complain too much. It doesn't have a whole lot of marketing after all, and I never even heard of your website or your games prior to your /. article. Move to a small town, and you can find a place to live for less then $500 a month.. then you don't have to worry about anything but making your next game.

Re:Bah,.

[vilgefortz]

Seriously? Nothing like that on this end. I would check steam forums/support for possible issues on your side.

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

"The one outstanding question is "what happens if Valve shuts down," but they have promised to unlock everything in such a case."

A couple points:

Can you document this claim? The legal contract you sign when renting a game from Steam says otherwise. The only reference I find is that if they cut you off from access to Steam they "may but is not obligated to" provide a stand alone version.

If Valve/Steam fails there will likely be a transfer of ownership to people who didn't make the claim and have no intention of honoring the claim.

Re:Bah,.

[BattleApple]

right, i'm gonna quit my job, sell my house, and move to fucking Idaho so I can play games.
Or, I could start Steam in offline mode. You don't need an internet connection to play single player games.

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

Please document this claim as it exists no where in the contract you sign when renting a game from Steam.

Re:Bah,.

[NovaHorizon]

neoform seems to.. so let HIM quit his job/transfer, sell his house, buy a new one for half the price in possibly a much safer neighborhood, and move so that he can play games.

Re:Bah,.

[PainKilleR-CE]

You know, back in the old days, games were released without the ridiculous protections and they still sold... and some argue (I don't) that games back then were better quality anyway. And who said the only method of digital distribution was an honesty box? Apogee's method was brilliant - games were episodes and you could pick up the first episode for free, and buy the rest off them.

Umm... people were doing some ack-basswords crap with games even before Apogee was doing shareware. Companies would print the manuals in such a way that they couldn't easily be photocopied, and then require you to enter the 30th word on page 5 of the manual, and the 5th word on page 7, and the 12th word on page 29, every time you played the game (not just when you installed it; and of course the word and page numbers were different each time). Of course, it was much less likely that someone would be downloading a cracked version of your game back then, and they were doing it for the same reason they do now: to stop casual copies.

Then there were the beautiful code wheels and many other beautiful ideas of crap they could throw in the box that you would have to have to be able to play the game.

Shareware was as much a response to the analog version of DRM as anything else. It also was helped (and then almost killed off) by the explosion of the internet, since you could suddenly download the first episode and either get a key to unlock the rest or pay to download the other episodes.

Of course, when id released Quake with all of their previous games on the CD as shareware with a key system to unlock the full versions, it was only a matter of time (and it wasn't much time at that) before someone cracked the key system and everyone could easily gain access to every game id had made at that time by buying a $5-10 shareware CD.

In many ways I think DRM is less draconian than some of the old ways, but some of the DRM methods have been down-right hostile, and none of them have been easier to deal with than the game is when it's been cracked (including Steam, though multiplayer authorization is often a big advantage in keeping people from pirating your games).

Re:Bah,.

[PHPNerd]

Steam has 3D Virtual Lesbian Extravaganza?! Sing me up! :P

Re:Bah,.

[vertinox]

Have a louder cry about the DRM. I'm sure you'd love games costing several million dollars to develop shoved up on FTP with an honesty box, but someone with any brainpower whatsoever would realise that its fucking retarded.

Its what Paradox Interactive does with Gamer's Gate with their own games (3rd party titles I'm not so sure).

You could say the actual download process is DRM because you do have to install the Gamer's Gate Client to download the game, but once you have downloaded any of Pdox's games you can copy to any machine anywhere without any DRM.

They are a niche company, but frankly their fans (like myself) are hard core and I'll have to admit that I've given them more money for their games last year than any other gaming company I can think of.

Of course they do something kind of unique that kind of encourages honesty. For each game your purchase you can an icon of the community forums (they run them personally) and its like a badge of honor and you get direct communication with the developers.

They may not be making huge money like EA but they are quite successful in what they do and have a "rabid" community following their games.

Re:Bah,.

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, I like Impulse too, I've found some great indie games on there I would have never heard about. Shadowgrounds was my latest purchase & those guys (the developer) pretty much nailed it.

Re:Bah,.

[Fweeky]

Steam being bloated? Steam takes up under a hundred meg of the 12 gig of steam games I have installed.

Uh huh. Did you miss the 5GB of .gcf's it keeps hanging around, basically duplicating every file in every game you purchase off it? That, and the app itself takes a good 30 seconds to start, when it's not forcing yet another mandatory update on you.

Steam's overhead here is on the order of 25GB, not 100MB, and it doesn't even put that overhead to good use by providing me the capacity of move installed games to other drives or roll back patches.

On the other hand my entire Impulse install is 19MB, the games I've bought from it are on two other drives, I can archive them, reinstall them, roll back patches, or choose not to install patches without losing a notification that there is in fact a patch, and I don't need to wait for Impulse to start to run any of the games I've bought; they're pretty much just unmodified retail copies without DRM.

GamersGate similarly ships at least *some* unmodified, DRM free games. I'm not sure how far that extends, but Sword of the Stars' publishers gave them a limited exclusive for their latest expansion because they were so fast at distributing new patches, and the users seem to love them.

Re:Bah,.

[CFTM]

CPU? Yeah you're right, Steam tends to be decent about that one, but try memory...

If you allow Steam to run for any length of time, my experience is that it begins sucking up memory like a college sorority chick at her first kegger sucking, well you know...

Re:Bah,.

[mr_mischief]

Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested, and say nothing about the other.

That's a quote from someone, but I don't recall who said it originally. Google was helpful in confirming the proper wording, but not with attribution. Once a quote makes it into the fortunes file, all bets are off.

Re:Bah,.

[p0tat03]

No, I just moved apartments and the internet at my new place is still pretty unstable. I've been able to play my singleplayer Steam games regardless, and I'm actually very happy about it.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure this is not true. At least, I certainly have not noticed any activation or hardware lock-in on Impulse games.

Please would you provide some more details on this.

Re:Bah,.

[p0tat03]

I'm not sure about the slowness of Steam - I've experienced it myself on other machines before. On my current machine though, things boot in a matter of seconds, and downloading from the Steam servers is up to 2MB/s for me, so I'm still a happy customer.

The only thing that pisses me off is that no effort is made to update old titles to run on new machines. How can you justify selling, for example, Deus Ex 2, when the game clearly will BSOD any dual-core machine? They didn't warn of it either.

Re:Bah,.

[cliffski]

"If you're making over $500 a month off of just game sales though, don't complain too much"

I live in the UK, so apart from the fact that the dollar converts basically into confetti over here, it costs a fortune to live anywhere here. If I was only making $500 / month here I'd have lost my house and be hungry.

Besides, I work really hard full time making games, I don't see why my expectations should be capped at the 'makes enough for 3 meals a day" level. Is that what google should be satisfied with too?

Re:Bah,.

[nschubach]

I open my Galactic Civilizations 2 game folder, there is a sig.bin file and an activate.exe file. If you remove the sig.bin file the game will prompt for activation.

Also: http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8435/stardockactivationeo1.png

Re:Bah,.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Subscriber Agreement < First Sale Rights.

Re:Bah,.

[L4t3r4lu5]

There's a Linux Steam client?!

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

Impulse is pretty crap now as they only have the games available at the full listed price unlike their old/good online vending under totalgaming.net with the option to purchase token which could be used to, essentially, buy games at a discount. This was VERY good as Stardock is loaded with a bunch of games that IMO are WAY overpriced, but had more realistic, IMO, pricepoints when purchased via use of tokens.

Steam is no more bloated than impulse driven, and quite frankly, I expect Steam to be around long after Stardock and the rest are ancient history. Not to mention that I'm MUCH more likely that Valve would do the "right" thing if they had to shut down steam for some reason, i.e. make our games available to us permanently/locally or fund a legacy server

Now, the rest of the purveyors ARE just bloated with all sorts of DRM, and many of them I doubt will last, and also believe that it'll be unlikely that they'll do the right thing as far as purchased games go when they go under as they seem like yet another net-money-grab to me.

Re:Bah,.

[mmalove]

It's EULAs and TOS like this that, in my opinion, make personal piracy a completely moral decision. When a company chooses to force it's customers to sign away any trace of consumer protections they ought to be granting, I lose all concern for that company or its employee's ability to turn a profit.

Re:Bah,.

[GreenEnvy22]

incorrect. Steam can be set to offline mode, and then games (obviously only single player games) can be played offline just fine.

Re:Bah,.

[MChisholm]

No service will ever top the pirates. Ever.

-Anonymous Coward, 2008

done.

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

Irrelevant. Please read your contract. They are quite explicit that you are not purchasing anything. There is no sale thus first-sale doctrine doesn't apply.

Re:Bah,.

[Hatta]

It doesn't. You're doing things mostly right.

The one thing I'd like to point out is that I didn't see any mention of Linux anywhere on the site. If you're writing your own game, why not provide a linux build? Or you could at least test them under Wine to let me know whether I should bother even downloading the demo.

Otherwise it looks like you have a nice catalog of games at a reasonable price. Good job.

Re:Bah,.

[TheGeniusIsOut]

2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase.

This is required in the unlikely event that Steam is shut down without being able to provide the user with a stand-alone downloadable copy of the game, such as in the event that the servers are deemed evidence in a legal case and must be taken off-line without notice, or they lose their servers/connection for any other reason(natural disaster/fire/disgruntled employees/use you imagination). It only serves to protect from them lawsuits in the event something similar to what I described above happens. There is also the possibility that they lose the contract to provide games from a certin publisher, and then must remove them from the Steam server, in this case, it is unlikely the publisher would allow them to provide a downloadable, stand-alone version to customers, and again, this protects them from lawsuits due to events beyond their control.

Re:Bah,.

[cliffski]

mainly because my knowledge of linux is worse than my knowledge of klingon. Some people tell me they work under wine, some people have had some minor issues...

Re:Bah,.

[A.Bettik]

Nobody plays your games. This isn't a jab at all, Starship Tycoon is actually quite fun. But the reason your system works extremely well is that the number of people that you have to support is extremely small compared to the massive number of games. In addition, the team that works on your games is very exact: You. Games like Portal, CoD4, etc have massive teams that worked on them, and they obviously aren't able to react as a whole as fast as a single man can.

Also, it's worth noting that your method is NOT easier than piracy. Your download flow is "cart-->paypal-->download". The piracy flow is "[piratesite]-->download". The steam flow is "download" (after the initial setup). This is why Steam is easier than piracy, and your system is not.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important to explicitly call out the properties of DRM that make it bad. DRM is out there to prevent the player from willy-nilly installing on everyone's PC's, which can be bad as it prevents you from switching computers or backing up your own games. Steam actually facilitates transferrence, as you can download any purchased games on any computer you log into. You don't need a CD to play, you don't need a CD to install on another computer, you can play your games on all the computers you have available.

Steam only runs with your games, doesn't take up a lot of CPU time, and has been stable for several years now. The one outstanding question is "what happens if Valve shuts down," but they have promised to unlock everything in such a case.

I still hear lots of complaints on forums about Steam being slow and at times denies them access to the games they've purchased. There's even a complaint in this thread. So saying Steam is stable isn't really 100% accurate. Also, anything running in the background while I play my game is going to be using some resources. Thanks, but I need those resources to play my games. Also, since Steam constantly checks to see if your games type of DRM is very bad for people overseas who have unreliable access to the internet (e.g. people overseas, military, etc.).

If we shout that DRM in all forms is terrible, none of the companies will or can listen. If we work towards removing the problematic portions of the system, we might get a compromise setup that is better than we started with.

I'm much more comfortable with the approach StarDock uses which they've been very successful with. No DRM on the disc (other than a CD key), but when you want to install updates you have to eseentially check-in online. Also Impulse, their distribution system (similar to Steam) doesn't have any DRM built-in. The game can have DRM, but the distribution system doesn't.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am one of the people that hates DRM and Steam type stuff intensely. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way you do business. Most of us remember your recent quest to understand piracy and that you actually made some changes based on what you found. I think even Stardock/Impulse could take a page out of your book (honestly I liked their TotalGaming.Net stuff better, too bad they bagged that one).

Anyway, I post AC so I doubt anyone reads my posts. In the event you do, please accept my admiration for having the balls to do things right and respect your customers.

Re:Bah,.

[unrealmp3]

But Steam allows you to download a game without any limitation other than having the game in your account. D2D limit you to a specified number of download (3 last time I checked) and after that you're out.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a moronic oversimplification, I haven't bought any of his games, but doing a one-click checkout and downloading is no more effort than screwing around trying to find a non-spyware or virus laden cracked game and following the sometimes complex instructions to make it work on your machine. Downloading an .exe and installing is only trivially harder than using Steam, Steam is crapware, and you defending it makes me laugh.

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

You're completely wrong. The things you list are not actions that Steam may decide to make. They are cases of Steam being forced to do something.

The contract clearly states that "Valve may choose to terminate or cacel your Subscription . . ."

That's a blanket we can revoke your access for any or no reason. You have no rights with Steam. They can cut you off at any time.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In other words, pretty much like Steam."

Except you don't ever have to be online to play and it doesn't phone home every so often.

Re:Bah,.

[JCSoRocks]

Getting the game initially is easy, but more importantly... updates are incredibly simple! You never worry about downloading the latest patches... steam does it for you.

I had never thought of this until I went through the freaking nightmare that is updating Company of Heroes. Downloading 5 different patches and applying them consecutively with no information about how to do it is absolutely horrible. The first time through I botched it and had to reinstall. Ugh.

Re:Bah,.

[A.Bettik]

"only trivially harder than using Steam" And thus, harder than using Steam. In fact, that's about as difficult as pirating a game. Thus, Steam is easier than pirating or the OP's method.

Not to say that Steam doesn't have a host of problems of its own. However, if you've used it recently you're aware that its memory footprint is FAR lower than it used to be, its invasiveness isn't a problem, and it can serve as an excellent medium for not only D2D games but also as a vector for all games. I run all sorts of third-party games through Steam, which gives me the benefit of a centralized list of games and also the community involved.

There are a lot of things I'd love to get out of Steam, but the position that it's worthless is relatively weak.

Re:Bah,.

[Khyber]

Steam is bloated DRM ware?

I can copy my ENTIRE steam directory over to another computer, and as long as I log in with the account that purchased the games, I can play them. That's pretty much perfect. No need to redownload the game, no need to re-authenticate, NADA.

Re:Bah,.

[brkello]

So say they don't. Then someone in the community will write something that unlocks it anyways. I'm not worried about it at all and neither should anyone else with an ounce of intelligence.

Re:Bah,.

[allaunjsilverfox2]

Great. Another pointless "top X" list spread across twelve ad-ridden pages. Who accepts this crap? Editors? Hello?

Anyways, I disagree with their final decisions too. Their top two are Steam (bloated DRM-ware) and Direct2Drive (also bloated DRM-ware) while giving Impulse (no DRM inherent) third place. In fact, they don't even list DRM as a con of Steam or Direct2Drive (or "no DRM" as a pro of Impulse).

Give me Impulse over Steam or D2D any day.

if you don't like, don't read it.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam 41,160K

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

Yes, but maybe we don't fucking WANT a download client with chat function and voice capabilities. Also, the browser is embedded Trident (IE6) and the media player is I think either embedded WMP or a Flash Player in Trident.

I want to download my games, not build a goddamn community around them.

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

I guess you didn't notice many (most?) Impulse titles includes activation/hardware lock-in

[citation required]

Some does not equal all, or even most. Yes, some games have it. It's annoying, but it's not "Steam" annoying.

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

Steam is no more bloated than impulse driven, and quite frankly, I expect Steam to be around long after Stardock and the rest are ancient history.

I don't think Stardock's going anywhere anytime soon - you know these guys were around back in the OS/2 Warp days, right? Developing for it even? Yeah - I think they're doing something right.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it's still there. The problem is if you lose connection unexpectedly. You can't play offline unless you switch to offline mode while you still have a connection

Re:Bah,.

[Kalriath]

I read it, and if you look, I disagreed with the article after having read it, which would tend to indicate that I disagree with the posting of "Top X" lists spread across hopelessly large numbers of pages (it's fine in Print View though) of some ad-ridden website submitted by - surprise! - someone from the website itself.

The article itself is pointless in my opinion because there is no way enough detail is provided on the reasons for coming up with their ratings, and the only thing they seem to take into account is "quantity of EA/whatever" games available.

Re:Bah,.

[Mascot]

I can only cite that every title I've bought on SDC/Impulse has activation. Just as every title I've bought via Steam.

I'm not about to buy every single title available on both services to make sure there are no exceptions. The point has already been made. They both employ similar DRM by linking what you download to your online account with them, and any given download to the computer you download on (forget about moving your Steam or Impulse backup to a different computer unless you can get it online for activation).

While on the topic, the only time I have ever experienced "you have run out of activations, contact customer support", has been when trying to install Windowblinds via SDC.

Re:Bah,.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the correct answer is your favorite torrent tracker. Skip this article it is useless, forget this discussion and forget all the comments. No service will ever top the pirates. Ever. And you can write that in stone and quote me for eternity.

enjoy your single-player-only games then, I guess. pretty much all multiplayer games today have some kind of account authentication required

Re:Bah,.

[Toridas]

My only complaint about Steam is that they won't let me change my account name. I created my account back when you had to use your email address as your account name. I moved, and my ISP wasn't available in my new town so I had to lose it, and my email address with it. Now I haven't had that email address for years, but I'm still forced to remember just in case I have to manually log into steam. Being able to just change my account name would be so much easier.

Re:Bah,.

[NovaHorizon]

I only said it because 3 meals a day and bills would leave me satisfied. Anything above that is bonus.

As for expensive living, and selling your games for half price due to currency conversion.. that sucks dude. Good luck for the future.

Re:Bah,.

[PFI_Optix]

Nevertheless, the browser and media player are directly related to purchasing games. They allow you to browse the catalog and watch previews without depending upon external software that may not render their products properly.

As for the community, it's a great feature for those of us who play socially. The ability to click a menu option and land in the same game as my friends in TF2 makes the Steam community worthwhile. If you don't like it, you don't even have to log in to it, but its impact on your system is minimal and a LOT of people find it most useful.

Re:Bah,.

[Morkano]

It's funny, but they actually DO do a reasonable job of making sure old games work. They just have to be actually old. Like, DOOM and X-Com.

When you grab those games, it comes with DosBox preconfigured for you, ready to play. Not that setting it up is the worst thing in the world, but it's terribly convenient to be able to just download them and play and not have to worry about it.

Also, nice and cheap.

Re:Bah,.

[ozphx]

They may not be making huge money like EA

Perhaps they should consider raping their customers in the ass harder then?

If EA tried that shit with Madden Yet Again 2009 then they'd get 10% of their usual sales.

Re:Bah,.

[ozphx]

Not people that have paid for them. ;)

Presumably GameSpy is either counting the myriad of mods for the old hl1 pre-steam-cracked version and/or bots.

Re:Bah,.

[strikethree]

Well, to be honest, the offline mode is not terribly reliable. I spent 2.5 years in Iraq and for most of that time, I could not play any steam games. It would work for maybe a month and then say it had to finish downloading an update. I am unsure how it could say that as it never could have even started downloading any updates... but whatever. I will not willingly choose to buy a game that uses any kind of "being-online" DRM. I made the mistake once and I have learned. Waiting 7 months for a trip home to have internet access so I can play Half Life 2 sucks.

strike

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

lol. Thank you. That is fucking brilliant.

So Steam is acceptable DRM because if they legally revoke your access as you agreed to let them do you can perform an illegal act to get it back?

Re:Bah,.

[Rhone]

I'm not a Steam basher, but it occurs to me that most of the games I've been enjoying lately are almost 20 years old and developed by companies that either don't exist anymore or are shadows of their former selves that don't support their old products.

I'm very glad the ability to play those games does not in any way depend on the continued success of a particular publisher.

I guess the typical gamer who doesn't play anything older than a year or two has little reason not to use Steam, though.

Re:Bah,.

[Mascot]

Look, offering valid points is fine. But neither of the above applies to Steam. Its offline mode works just fine.

Re:Bah,.

[freakmn]

I'm sorry, I believe you're thinking of Austria.

Re:Bah,.

[Littleman_TAMU]

You can disable automatic updates for each game and you can play in offline mode.

Re:Bah,.

[Goldberg's Pants]

MOST games can be. I believe the developer makes a choice of whether to allow it. I've got several that won't work in offline mode for no apparent reason.

Re:Bah,.

[LingNoi]

They disallowed people who purchased half-life 2 in Thailand from playing. Those who bought a copy in Thailand and were using it in a different country where locked out of their game.

This effected me because I hop between countries a lot.

It's not a license clause, it's actually happened. Valve has taken back without refund their perfectly working single player product.

Re:Bah,.

[Mooga]

You better change the contact e-mail address. I know someone who's account got stolen because he used a hotmail account and it expired. Sure enough, someone re-registered the e-mail account on hotmail and took over the account. Steam support was unable to help him :(

Re:Bah,.

[Mooga]

Dedicated servers should check for matching steam IDs, even on the LAN. As for listen servers, I have NO idea...

Re:Bah,.

[Cornflake917]

How is it illegal when the company who created the software no longer exists?

Re:Bah,.

[harl]

Copyright is independent of company. It is a transferable commodity. If Steam goes under someone will buy the ashes. They will own the copyright.

Steam and Virtual Console

[Anonymous Coward]

That's it.

Re:Steam and Virtual Console

[sycotic]

Agreed!

*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[plasmacutter]

TPB

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us prefer not to steal games, thanks.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[cliffski]

Explain to me why you would take a game without paying it from there rather than buy it direct from a developer that uses no DRM?

unless of course you don't give a fuck about anyone except yourself, want to save a few dollars, and wish to encourage even more developers to abandon PC gaming entirely?
In which case, good work! things seem to be going according to your plan!

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Anonymous Coward]

mod "+1 uninsightful"?

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Haeleth]

Yes, I suppose TPB is a convenient place for children and the morally immature to violate copyright law. Some of us, however, are adults, and have grasped that if something costs money then either you pay for it or you do without. For us, services like Steam are quite useful.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Anonymous Coward]

YEAH! That's why I pay $10 a month for usenet access.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us are really mature enough to not believe that copyright and patent laws are good for society, so..

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Spatial]

Or we avoid all limitations, and buy the game AND download it from TPB. Best method if you ask me.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Spatial]

Order it from Amazon... Then download it anyway. Many of the games I own have never had their discs taken out of the box. :)

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Dogtanian]

Yes, I suppose TPB is a convenient place for children and the morally immature to violate copyright law. Some of us, however, are adults, and have grasped that if something costs money then either you pay for it or you do without.

I'm selling a roughly 80/20 nitrogen-oxygen gas mixture (with traces of other chemicals) for $1,000 per litre. If you don't want to pay for it, you'd better do without, otherwise you're morally immature. Don't even think about just taking it for free from the atmosphere!

Regardless of whether you agree with the GP's opinion, your analogy is obviously flawed. Air exists already and is necessary for life. A given game wouldn't exist without the effort of the developer, and isn't necessary for life.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Kreigaffe]

I generally don't pirate games (though I do legally buy more than I should).. but there are cases I'll do it (at least I finally figured out why I was having such problems with torrents.. hai2u comcast!)

Some games can't be found anywhere. With consoles, there's a thriving used game market. Computer titles? Much much much less so -- so much less so that you could spend years searching for X and never find it (or pay MORE than original retail... wtf no thanks), or just grab a copy and "pirate" the no-longer-available title.

That, I will do.

With the ease of digital distribution these days, there's no excuse for Abandonware. Put that shit for sale somewhere, even if it's 15 years old. Somewhere! Or I'll just pirate it if I want to play it.

Sadly many of the old titles from my 286 don't really show up on torrents or abandonware sites too often. BOO.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[RoverDaddy]

Regardless of whether you agree with the GP's analogy, your counterargument is obviously flawed. It assumes that slashdot readers, especially the ones that condone piracy, are operating with any kind of logic or maturity instead of your basic "Information wants to be free! Power to the Peeps! Screw the Man!" bullshit.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[10101001 10101001]

Yes, I suppose TPB is a convenient place for children and the morally immature to violate copyright law. Some of us, however, are adults, and have grasped that if something costs money then either you pay for it or you do without.

Most games cost more than the $9.95 you paid. Perhaps you're referencing the price? If so, I've got a $1 billion finger painting of a cow to sell you that costs me less than $2 to make. I hope that the price doesn't disgust you. At least I know you'll never pirate my finger painting. Thanks, adult.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[harl]

That's fine. Not a single person has ever been charged with theft for downloading a game.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Hatta]

With the ease of digital distribution these days, there's no excuse for Abandonware.

Sadly, copyright law is at fault here. Many of these old games were made by companies that no longer exist, and no one knows who actually owns the copyright. Since there's no registration, and copyright lasts 70 years after the death of the author, it could be over 100 years before you can legally get your hands on a lot of old games. By then, I'm sure most of them would be lost to history if it weren't for the efforts of abandonware sites.

Sadly many of the old titles from my 286 don't really show up on torrents or abandonware sites too often. BOO.

Underground-gamer has just about everything. I'm talking DVDs full of ancient dos games. If you want, you can send me a PM on racketboy.com and I'll give you an invite.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Macthorpe]

It's kind of sad that you don't understand what is wrong with everything you just said, from the insane "$2 to make, $1 billion to sell" comparison to the failure to take on any part of GPs point.

You are perfectly free to make something for $2 and sell it for $1 billion. Don't be surprised when no-one buys it, and it still wouldn't be moral for anybody to copy it.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[10101001 10101001]

It's kind of sad that you don't understand what is wrong with everything you just said, from the insane "$2 to make, $1 billion to sell" comparison ...

It's called reductio ad absurdum.

... to the failure to take on any part of GPs point.

The point raised was "to be an adult you can only enjoy what you pay for". I considered pointing out the absurdity of that as well, as there's tons of stuff no one can reasonably pay for (sunlight, language, land rights, culture, etc) in a moral way (especially the land rights, as there doesn't seem to be any universal consistency when it comes to land claims and land abandonment, and odds are pretty good that the land you're on was owned by someone at some time in the past who never agreed to pass on ownership to whoever sold the land to you). But, I instead chose to mock the attempt to the condescending "child" and "adult" talk.

You are perfectly free to make something for $2 and sell it for $1 billion. Don't be surprised when no-one buys it, and it still wouldn't be moral for anybody to copy it.

I assumed that'd be the reaction, actually. The problem with reductio ad absurdum is that it assumes the audience isn't willing to tolerate the absurd. So, I'll just spell it out: there is no morality behind copyright. While it'd certainly be nice that (a) people who worked hard on something were compensated and (b) people who benefited from others work were to adequately compensate its creator, neither (a) nor (b) are covered under copyright law.

There are many artists who have worked diligently to create masterpieces yet never seen enough money to cover even the bare supplies of their final creation. And while many people have used copyright to acquire compensation for their creations, there are many more people who have created whole cultures who can't begin to claim a copyright or any other monopoly that would effectively guaranteed they would be compensated for their work. Copyright itself doesn't require that the price set on a work have any relationship to its cost of production, that a work continue to be made available at any price, nor that people who wish to adequately compensate an artist for a work can actually do so in some way (look no further than the inability to buy most arcade game roms*, band contracts with the RIAA, and my absurd example with the fingerpainted cow).

Perhaps if copyright were less of a blank check for copyright holders to withhold their work from people and more of an attempt balance to actually promote the arts and sciences, copyright holder's wishes be damned, I'd feel there was some actual moral backing behind copyright. But, as it stands, copyright is just an absurd law with all sorts of negative consequences. Even if I were to acknowledge that copyright law is necessary for the time being, which I don't, there's enough negative moral consequences to retract the ability to gloss over it all and claim there's one morally acceptable interpretation.

*I guess it might be technically possible to buy out the company owning the copyrights on said arcade games. But, then having to spending several millions dollars to acquire a few hundred games seem pretty absurd to me, although less absurd than my fingerpainted cow.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Anonymous Coward]

While I purchase my games, copyright laws have become morally immature corporate protection schemes.

Oh and yes I do hold copyright in a few commercial endeavors and would rather see it reduced to a sensible time period.

Or as an immature response ... Fuck Disney and his little mouse too!

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Macthorpe]

If "nobody has been caught" is the only justification you need to steal something, then go right ahead.

Disclaimer: I know it's not "theft", but I can't be bothered to increase the size of my post tenfold just to make a point.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Macthorpe]

It's called reductio ad absurdum.

You throw that out like it's a good thing.

The point raised was "to be an adult you can only enjoy what you pay for"

Actually, his point as I understood it was that if a price is set, then if you're morally mature (adult or child) you'll pay it or do without as the creator wishes. I think that's the way it should be - if someone wants to give it away, let them, but at the same time it's a creator's prerogative to want recompense for hard work, which I think you agree with. You disagree with copyright as the method, and I have proposed changes to the way it works to make it fairer myself, so I'm not unsympathetic to that.

Really, I think you only picked up on that part of the sentence not because you actually disagree with him, but because you wanted an excuse to rail against copyright in general. That's fair enough, but let's not pretend it's actually relevant to the point at hand, which is - if someone makes something and puts a price on it, depriving the maker of that price is not moral by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Macthorpe]

Ignore me, I re-read and a lot of what I said wasn't relevant.

I'm going to stop posting till I'm off my night shifts ;)

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Kalriath]

Or, you can skip the "invite" crap and just browse Home of the Underdogs.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[plasmacutter]

who says you wouldn't buy the game, then get the "no drm" version from TPB.

my point stands.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[plasmacutter]

yep, the corporate game studio is the "creator".

I see a lot of abstract concepts of law doing things of their own volition.

why, I just saw public enemy number one, "Terror", driving down the street in MY old car!

clearly "terror" is trying to frame me.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[isorox]

Some of us prefer not to steal games, thanks.

If you steal a game DRM won't hinder you any more than if you buy it.

What are your thoughts on copying games?

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Hatta]

HOTU has been down recently. It hasn't seen an update in years. Who knows if it's coming back.

But it just so happens that there's a full set of all games hosted on HOTU on Underground Gamer right now.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[harl]

I did not use the words you put in quotes. Copyright infringement is distinctly different than theft. Are you saying manslaughter and murder are the same thing? Are you saying there is no difference between assault and battery?

I'm not justifying anything. I'm saying it's not theft. No one has ever been charged with theft. Why do they need to create volumes of new laws? If it were theft they could use the existing theft laws or the new copyright laws would apply to theft.

Copyright violation is not theft.

Re:*tosses article out the window*.. 3 letters

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I suppose TPB is a convenient place for children and the morally immature to violate copyright law. Some of us, however, are adults, and have grasped that if something costs money then either you pay for it or you do without.

Cry moar. You either pay for it or do without. I either pay for it, download it or do without. Mostly the second option :)

And thanks for paying, you keep game industry afloat so that we pirates could continue getting our shit for free.

torrents

[niteice]

BitTorrent.

Re:torrents

[L4t3r4lu5]

Bittorrent is a peer to peer distributed file transfer protocol, not a game download service.

Stop listening to the MAFIAA.

I love steam, but...

[DragonTHC]

I'm terribly worried about account security. I think it's an issue they need to work on. They need to put in place some sane policies regarding account security.

If your account gets stolen, you may end up losing hundreds of dollars in games.

I've bought from D2D before, no complaints really, but steam has a convenient application to store your games in and downloads are always available.
I've bought from ubisoft direct download store. Sort of lacking in value though.

Never heard of any others.

Re:I love steam, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm terribly worried about account security. I think it's an issue they need to work on. They need to put in place some sane policies regarding account security.

If your account gets stolen, you may end up losing hundreds of dollars in games.

I've bought from D2D before, no complaints really, but steam has a convenient application to store your games in and downloads are always available. I've bought from ubisoft direct download store. Sort of lacking in value though.

Never heard of any others.

I had my Steam account stolen a couple months ago and their account security policy seemed to work fine for me, I think it was a grand total of maybe two hours between when I opened a support ticket to when I was able to use my account again.

Opened a ticket, said "I think I had my account stolen, bought all my games on disposable credit cards except for BioShock which I used my real credit card ending in XXXX, please send me a new password." About two hours later my OS reinstall to be sure I didn't have any keyloggers or anything to get it stolen again was complete and my Steam support ticket had a reply to it with a new password.

Unless you either buy games retail and add the keys to Steam and then throw your product keys away, or don't know how you paid for your games, or don't know what your Steam account name is it's pretty hard to lose anything if your Steam account is stolen.

ONTOPIC: Only download services I can recommend are Steam, TPB (I just got added to the trusted uploaders list, yay!) and Impulse.

Re:I love steam, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget "anti-cheat" measures. I have not had issues, but some people claim if you have Visual Studio installed or some type of programming/debugging tools, some people have said Valve's anti-cheat stuff considers that as hax, then bans your account from anything online.

I don't like the fact that I can in theory lose hundreds of dollars in games just because some snooping program thinks something like an Eclipse IDE is a hacking tool.

Of course, Steam is nice... as long as Valve cares to maintain the servers. Valve can just shut them all down and give everyone the middle finger at any time.

Re:I love steam, but...

[ozphx]

I'm pretty certain VAC works of known hacks, not hack-creating possibilitys or heuristics.

Mainly because theres a large amount of hacks doing obviously dodgy things to the running game that don't get picked up... until they are specifically put on the "detected" list.

Also I tend to leave my whole dev suite running when I want a quick game of TF2 :P

Re:I love steam, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget "anti-cheat" measures. I have not had issues, but some people claim if you have Visual Studio installed or some type of programming/debugging tools, some people have said Valve's anti-cheat stuff considers that as hax, then bans your account from anything online.

I've never heard that one before. And until my Windows XP install finally FUBARed after a full 5 year run I had many flavors of Visual Studio along with various other development tools and debuggers installed.

Not once did I ever have any problem getting online with Steam. Never had any problem with using games online. No VAC bans, nothing of the sort. My account is still in good standing since I created it.

I agree with ozphx. Unless you've got stuff dicking around with the game processes or their network data streams there's no reason for VAC to raise any flags or alarms.

Re:I love steam, but...

[PainKilleR-CE]

Even in the early days of the anti-cheat software (when you had to run PunkBuster outside of the game), it didn't have any issues with Visual Studio, or even with hacks on the computer that weren't active while you were playing.

Their primary concern is what's active in memory that might access the game's memory space, or the memory space of the DirectX layers it's interacting with.

Now of course if you're actively debugging the DirectX libraries while you're playing online, you might get flagged, but since I haven't run a Valve game frequently in a few years, I don't know the exact details of how the current anti-cheat system works.

Due to the closed nature of the whole system, though, you get a lot of excuses from people that are flagged for cheating, and people want to believe the people they thought they knew pretty well. Since the people that rely the most on the anti-cheating measures also have the most to lose if they're caught by them, they tend to pass a lot of these rumors around with little to no basis in the truth.

Re:I love steam, but...

[revlayle]

BS on Visual Studio bit, at least - I run VS 2005/2008 + SSMS/SQL 2005 and have absolutely no problems with Steam

Re:I love steam, but...

[cube135]

This should be true.

VAC works with Natural Selection, and wallhacks are a part of the game(there are scan abilities on both sides that allow this). If VAC was going on pure heuristics, it would be easy to ban everyone that played that.

New Service

[Enderandrew]

http://www.playgreenhouse.com/

It is affiliated with (and I believe run by) the Penny Arcade guys. They sell games cheap, don't push DRM, and try to find games that offer Windows, Mac and Linux versions. They seem to offer trials for everything as well.

Re:New Service

[Anonymous Coward]

3 games eh?

Re:New Service

[Kneo24]

It's relatively new, and it seems like it will stay small. One new game per month? I don't know what Jerry and Mike were thinking there, but whatever.

Re:New Service

[rsmith-mac]

The thing about Greenhouse that worries me is that they have "well meaning but not meant to succeed start-up" written all over them. There is no nicer system out there right now when it comes to DRM, but I'm not even close to being convinced that they have any staying power. I'm afraid it will end up another Triton; one day they go tit-up and it turns out that they can't just turn the DRM off, because they were too small to correctly establish a plan for winding down.

Re:New Service

[Enderandrew]

Possibly. They are new and small. They haven't dumped a bunch of money into the venture, and their side business (Penny Arcade) is so vastly successful, that Greenhouse doesn't have to be very successful in return. It isn't like they are worried about making a quick buck on their initial investment, which allows them the luxury of running the site how they see fit.

I can't imagine it competing with Steam, but for me, it is perfect.

Uh, Xbox Live?

[EGSonikku]

Is this limited to just PC? Because, yeah, I know it's popular to hate on the Xbox 360, but Xbox Live Arcade has some pretty nice stuff on it, especially lately. Castle Crashers, Geometry Wars 2, etc.

And then there's the Wii with WiiWare and I think the PS3 has some stuff too ;-)

Re:Uh, Xbox Live?

[Nato2k]

I definitely agree, there are some great games on XBLA. Wii Virtual Console as well. XBLA is nice because it has more of a broad variety of games.

Re:Uh, Xbox Live?

[solcott]

Is this limited to just PC? Because, yeah, I know it's popular to hate on the Xbox 360, but Xbox Live Arcade has some pretty nice stuff on it, especially lately. Castle Crashers, Geometry Wars 2, etc.

And then there's the Wii with WiiWare and I think the PS3 has some stuff too ;-)

Don't talk such rot, everybody knows there are no games on the Playstation 3. :-) But yeah, TPB is great for WiiWare.

Re:Uh, Xbox Live?

[EGSonikku]

Wow, modded -1 troll? I guess the hate is alive and well on /. :P

Do I get modded up to break even if I posted this comment from my Linux laptop? :P

Re:Uh, Xbox Live?

[CastrTroy]

I think they left out a lot when leaving out the consoles. Because other than Steam, I've never heard of any of these download services. One of them is still in Beta, and hence, didn't even get a rating. When I read the summary, I immediately thought of WiiWare/Virtual Console. It's a great service, with some really top notch games. I've heard really good stuff about XBox Live Arcade also.

Re:Uh, Xbox Live?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, Xbox Live Arcade is headed to PC in the near future.

GOG

[Kid Zero]

I mean, I've got brand new copies of my fallout and fallout 2 disks, which have been ruined in between many moves.

Re:GOG

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in beta right now but GOG is freaking awesome. I just bought Fallout 1, 2 and Giants Citizen Kabuto for 19 bucks. Web based download, no DRM, wallpapers, soundtracks, manual, all kinds of stuff. I hope they get off the ground as 6-10 bucks for old games with the download convenience is something I'll happily pay for.

Re:GOG

[cavtroop]

I agree - I've had a great experience with GOG. The 'extras'they toss in - manual in .pdf, concept art, extras etc. with each game are an awesome addition.

At the $6 or $9 price point, games are almost an impulse buy for me now. I just hope they can get more publishers to sign on with them, and expand their catalog.

Re:GOG

[Hatta]

If you've already bought the game, why pay for it again? There are plenty of places to download replacement disc images.

Re:GOG

[Daetrin]

"If you've already bought the game, why pay for it again? There are plenty of places to download replacement disc images."

Convenience? For $6 i get a download that i can have a fair level of trust in. The odds of getting a trojan or virus from a GOG download are much smaller than from a random torrent. The download goes a lot quicker, the 500 or so meg copy of Fallout i got last night took less than ten or twenty minutes. I was playing the game itself within a half hour of purchase. (That's probably even faster than i could have driven to the local GameStop and come back with a new game.) A torrent of the same file might have taken hours or days to finish, or might have gotten stuck at 87% and _never_ finished. GOG also has a team of developers who make any changes necessary to make sure the game is playable on modern platforms. A lot easier than having to futz around with DosBox myself or make obscure configuration changes. And having paid the $6 once, i can now download another if it's ever needed (as long as the company stays in business of course, but that's the case with all the other stores being discussed as well.)

Of course in my case that's all beside the point since i never owned the original Fallout. However there are plenty of games that i've owned in the past that i'd be happy to pick up a new reliable copy of if they ever make it onto GOG. (MoO and MoM, X-Com, etc. Perhaps even StarCon2, despite the excellent Ur-Quan Masters project, on the chance that it might support the creation of a "real" StarCon3.)

Re:GOG

[Optic7]

Make sure to post your game requests to GOG's games wishlist on their forum.

Maybe this says something...

[Thrull]

I use Steam and I actually sometimes look at the store tab with the intent to buy something, because it's easy. Lots of good independent games, and allows me to install on other computers with no major fuss (cept for Bioshock, curse you EA). The games are almost always cheaper too.

I used the older version of Impulse (Stardock Central) and it seemed to work well enough, although the selection of games is low quality compared to Steam.

And I know they rated Direct2Drive pretty high, but even they note:

"You can't patch D2D games with downloadable patches; they require their own special patch procedure."

If Direct2Drive has to rework every patch for every game they've ever offered to work with their locked down version, you have to wonder if some patches might get "delayed" or games wholly abandoned eventually... I seem to remember this coming up in one of my decisions to get a D2D or boxed version of a popular game in the past.

Re:Maybe this says something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its 2k not EA thats responsible for BioCock even though they have regressed the state of gaming recently.

Signed up at Good Old Games Today

[joetainment]

I used Good Old Games today. I was pretty happy, because it worked instantly and no fuss. Even came with pdf manual and mp3s of the soundtrack. The game I got was descent 1 and 2, replaying those games reminds me that its not just nostalgia, the games were actually great. I've played similar games since, but even though they have better graphics, they've not been better games. The early descent games *nailed* it. Also, I was impressed at the way it came with a pre-prepared version of dosbox, so it ran right away, no hassel. Very worth the purchase price, and the lack of DRM sealed the deal for me. I'm planning to grab Freespace 1 and 2 shortly.

Re:Signed up at Good Old Games Today

[Hatta]

You know, FS2 is open source and the data is freely redistributable. Works great on Linux too.

my favourite

[Anonymous Coward]

the piratebay

http://www.thepiratebay.org/

[MrMista_B]

http://www.thepiratebay.org/

For informational, theoretical, hypothetical purposes, of course.

Re:http://www.thepiratebay.org/

[ozphx]

OMG I claim Super-DMCA-Triple-Ass-Violation!

You linked to a site which links to files which tell you about a server which has a list of addresses for people which might have pirated software!!

YOU NASTY PIRATE

GamersGate is missing

[NateE]

GamersGate is a good service. Has some exclusives and hard to find games. Just picked up King's Bounty. The Legend and will be picking up the 2nd Sword of the Stars expansion soon.

http://www.gamersgate.com/

DRM doesn't seems to be a big deal,
"How many times can I download and/or install my games?
Any game bought on GamersGate is yours to download and install as many times you like. Some games are protected with an activation limit but that limit is easily reset with an email to support@gamersgate.com"

Steam

[wfulks]

I have been using Steam.com for a while and like it pretty well. I usually only buy the weekend deal stuff, though. My problem with those download sites, and really iTunes, is that the downloads have ZERO resale value. You can spend a ton of money on that stuff and then you can't sell it when finished. Lame!

What's DRM got to do with it?

[raehl]

Seems the primary criteria would be, can I conveniently download, install, and play the game I want to play?

As long as Steam's DRM doesn't interfere with that (it doesn't) it should be a non-issue.

Re:What's DRM got to do with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, D2D's DRM does interfere with that -- at least, if you want to play any player-created content.

Pity the fools that bought Oblivion from D2D; they were unable to use any mods, which are half the point of the game.

Steam doesn't pull crap like that, thankfully.

Re:What's DRM got to do with it?

[Kneo24]

It sort of, kind of, can, but it's really not attributed to STEAM. Publishers sometimes have completely different versions for STEAM and other download services which can ruin such things, or so I've heard.

There is only one answer: Good Old Games

[Dimble ThriceFoon]

http://www.gog.com/en/about_us/ You buy it, you keep it. Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

direct from the developer?

[cliffski]

Is there a reason why people are so keen to stick a middleman between them as gamers and the game creators?

How much effort is it to just remember who you bought the game from, in case of needing any tech support. For multiplayer I can see how a buddy list might be nice, but for singleplayer, why add a new layer of middlemen, precisely the thing that the web was supposed to free games developers from?

Every service you mention takes a cut off the money and gives a royalty to the actual game developer. Many devs support direct sales, and they ALL want you to buy direct, as they often get 90%+ of the money then, rather than the 40%+ they get from the mentioned services.

Re:direct from the developer?

[MWoody]

So your solution is to purchase all digital downloads directly from the game publisher/developer, then. Meaning you have as many different download systems/clients/logins/ etc. to remember as you have games. I hope you detect my oh-so-subtle sarcasm when I say THIS IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA.

(See: EA Download Manager.)

Re:direct from the developer?

[cliffski]

*sigh*

if you buy my games, you get a direct .exe link to an installer. there is no client, no services, no bullshit, no account, no login needed.

Don't tar DEVELOPERS with the same shit publishers try to pull.

When games buyers decide to stick with just one middleman to cut down on the installed bullshit, they just give that publisher huge monopoly power to fuck over the developer. If you buy direct from the developer, 90% of the time they won't install ANYTHING but the game.

You don't need to have an account to re-download my games either, you just need to remember your email address and your name. Easily done surely?

That is exactly what you want right?

Re:direct from the developer?

[c0d3g33k]

Is there a reason why people are so keen to stick a middleman between them as gamers and the game creators?

How much effort is it to just remember who you bought the game from, in case of needing any tech support.

Overhead and trust are 2 reasons that come to mind.

Overhead: I've been online since before the internet became mainstream and have accumulated a sizable list of user accounts during that time. Security considerations compel me to maintain a different password for each. User ids vary as well, sometimes because the one I want is unavailable, sometimes because I wasn't sure about the vendor and chose a 'throwaway' alternate. It's become a major PITA to keep track of all this, and as a result, I actually avoid creating new accounts unless I really can't avoid it. Having a small number of accounts that let me purchase what I want is a huge benefit, both from the information management perspective and the security perspective. It may not be much effort to remember a single site that I bought a game from, but it's a big effort to remember a lot of different ones. I don't buy my groceries direct from the individual farmers/butchers/bakers either - the local supermarket is much more efficient.

Trust: Pretty simple in concept. I trust those who I have done business with for years and don't trust those I don't know or have come to trust. Unless I really want the product, my lack of trust (justified or not) will send me to the cancel button nearly every time when presented with a purchase option on an independent site. I can, however, trust my preferred middlemen (eg. Amazon, Newegg, Walmart, Target, my local comic shop etc.) most of the time.

So there exists a tension between the needs of the customer and the vendor when it comes to direct sales. Going direct is probably feasible and efficient up to a point, but doesn't scale well for the customer when the total pool of direct vendors in the marketplace grows beyond a certain point.

Re:direct from the developer?

[cliffski]

Interesting...
given that the 'needing an account' thing isn't an issue (I don't use that, but just store all the order details, so I can basically look up an order from anything you can remember), what else can I, as an independent seller do to persuade you to trust me?

My site has been on-line since 1997, is this worth really pointing out to surfers? or are you swayed by stuff like the hackerproof logos and other certification? How about customer testimonials, or are they assumed to be false?

basically what can help build trust in a website other than super bowl commercials and similar size budget ad campaigns?

Re:direct from the developer?

[c0d3g33k]

My apologies - I should have elaborated a bit on "trust", but I got tired of typing in this tiny little text box.

Trust involves more than "will not steal from me" - it's bigger than that. "I trust that this vendor will *reproducibly* give me the best overall purchasing experience" might be a better way to articulate the concept. Not that you or other independent developers can't do the same, but the risk that you won't is greater than with someone already trusted. I suppose size and scale might be an influence too, since I presume your core competency lies in making good games, not in making all aspects of the customer experience the best it can be. I'll start with a vaguely related (to games and online purchasing) anecdote and finish with something more specific.

I like Starbucks. My coffee purist friends ridicule this, pointing out that their coffee isn't as good as it could be, is more expensive and is sold by an evil multi-national corp. Small independent coffee shops are the best they say (if you can't roast your own beans and brew them fresh, that is). However, I've learned that I can walk into any Starbucks anywhere and the quality of my drink will always be what I expected without a lot of variation, and usually on the high side. Same with the overall experience in general. Local independent coffee shops, in contrast, are all over the map. Sometimes the coffee is great (better than Starbucks), more often it's not that good. The service is almost always worse (which I attribute to poor training on part of management who don't have enough experience to do it right usually). So what do I do when traveling and in a hurry? Starbucks. I trust them to reach and maintain a certain standard of quality that others can't.

Same thing with Amazon. Looking for stuff is easy. The reviews are helpful. Alternatives are easily found for comparison shopping. Ordering is a snap. Shipping works. I can save stuff for later, make a wish list, send gifts to others and so on. Works great every time. And here's the tie in to the middleman concept: I get all the benefits of the above even when purchasing from a 3rd party through Amazon. I can trust them to deliver the same positive experience and not rip me off too. My experience with small indepenent vendors? All over the map. So I go to the places I know I can trust first, because I know what I will get every time.

(No, I don't work for or own stock in the companies mentioned above).

I suspect the same kind of thing causes people to go back to Steam or other download services they like. In addition to the things I mentioned in my previous post, the middleman provides a level of consistency (both of quality and experience) that direct purchases can't always match, even if both the product and service can be better (because it can be much worse too).

So what can you do as an independent seller?

I think you're doing it. Publicity, marketing, adapting to the needs of existing and prospective customers, makeing quality products. You're on my radar screen for sure, and likely on others as well.

Also, maybe offering your games in a few places (like Amazon) for the exposure, assuming the costs aren't too huge. Even then, passing on some of the cost to the customer doesn't seem too awful. People can always choose to purchase direct once they are aware of you if the overhead is too much.

The thing is, you have to go where the people are, even if there is some overhead. If they never find you because they find enough of what they need elsewhere, your opportunities are fewer.

Independent sellers remind me a bit of the folks that set up booths at my local farmer's market. I buy their products when I'm there, but I still go to the supermarket more consistenly, so I'm more likely to buy a similar product while I'm there rather than driving out to someone's farm unless it's right on the way home.

Re:direct from the developer?

[brkello]

cliffski, you kind of bug me because I think you use Slashdot as advertisement for your games. Which may or may not be your intention, it just rubs me the wrong way.

In any case, Steam does allow you to buy direct from the developer...at least when it comes to Valve game. They are lucky enough (or good enough) that their service has attracted other big name companies to distribute using that method. Steam isn't a middleman, it is something that adds value to the overall system by allowing you to make groups and friends and know what they are playing and on what server. For a single player game, just knowing your best friend got online to play x gives you the option of saving your game and going off to play with them.

We all want our money to go directly to the developers of the games we love. If this isn't happening for you, then it is probably because the games you provide aren't something that people perceive as worth the cost (despite your cost reduction) or that you are too small and don't feel they can trust your company with their credit card numbers. I am not familiar with your games but I imagine that it is a trust thing and that most people have never heard of your games or if you do, they are not the type of games they are looking for.

DRM?

[278MorkandMindy]

I have used D2D and found it to be fine. I don't know why people are complaining about DRM, If I want the game on another computer I d/l it again? Or did I miss something? DRM is only crap where it stops you using the software for its intended purpose. In this case, playing the game. If you can play the game and re-install it later, what is the issue? (not root-kits etc)

Not much of an article

[Tridus]

Hardly any content here, really. Far as I can tell, his scoring system isn't based on the platforms themselves at all, but simply how many games there are. Nothing got less then 3.5.

In particular he's got no problem with D2D games requiring special patches and usually being unmoddable, unlike the other services.

So why is this on Slashdot?

How about Gametap?

[WDot]

Gametap is a subscription service, yes, which means that if you stop subscribing your games stop working. However, they have tons of arcade games, classics, Sega console games, and even a startling amount of PC games for roughly the price of an Xbox live subscription. They try to sweeten the deal with tv shows and other extras, but you can take 'em or leave 'em. Some of the games you can buy to own.

Whether Gametap's the best or not is up to you, but it seems odd that they left it out but put Good Old Games in (nothing against GOG, but Gametap's been around a bit longer and offers more games)

Re:How about Gametap?

[astro]

I second this. I've been a Gametap gold subscriber for over a year, and I love the service. No, they don't get top-tier new titles. However, they have tons of B-grade, still good (Rogue Trooper is a good example) modern titles alongside hundreds of classic console, arcade and puzzle titles, as well as dozens of modern and classic RPGs... I think the $10/mo has been well worth it, given the amount of time I have spent playing games via GT. Strange omission from this roundup.

ThePirateBay, definitely

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us claim themselves `mature enough not to seal games', but some of us are really mature to not believe that copyright and patent laws are sane in any way and needed in modern society.

Re:ThePirateBay, definitely

[Spatial]

They're currently unbalanced because of the excessive copyright duration, but I wouldn't call them insane. Gaming would be worse off without it. I think that there wouldn't be any games if copyright wasn't available to the creators. It takes a massive amount of time and effort to make a modern game, and if they didn't get paid for it, nine times out of ten they just couldn't make the game.

Re:turd post

[Anonymous Coward]

ok.

Another possibility..

[Cookie3]

I recently happened to stumble across Good Old Games -- GOG.com -- which is a (supposedly) new download site. If it lives up to the claims on the first page, it'll singlehandedly be the best direct download game site ever. No DRM, cheap (under $10) games, Vista/XP-compatibility, after-sales support, etc.

Whether it's legit or not, and/or whether it's actually capable of being as awesome as it sounds remains to be seen. Supposed to go live sometime this month (but we're running out of month, so..)

Re:Another possibility..

[FishAdmin]

Well, now, you should have signed up for the Beat! I got their Beta early access, and the site was a breeze. They even take PayPal now, for that matter! They ran a special for the Beta users over the weekend, where you buy one, get one free. For $5.99 (the current cost of all their games), I got 2 great older games I'd missed out on the first time around. Honestly, the service couldn't have been any easier; you pick the game(s), pay, and then you can download them numerous times, and install them all willy-nilly, if you like. You get the pdf manual, some wallpaper, even artwork and avatar icons, if they're available. The download speeds were great, and I easily maintained 1MB/s downstream. Just my $.02 worth, but I'll definitely be using GOG again!

Re:Another possibility..

[lowlymarine]

I'm in the private access beta, and it is legitimate and every bit as awesome as it seems (and then some). I bought Fallout 2 and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division for $6 and both were packaged as completely self-contained, DRM-free executable installers and run flawlessly on XP x64. Not to mention the games come with lots of fun extras, including full PDF manuals, MP3 soundtracks, wallpapers, etc. And there's no program to install on your computer, just a sleek website and they store everything for download later on as many computers as you want.

Put simply, it's how business should be done.

Look at the upsides.

[faloi]

He might not offer 90% of all games ever made, but I bet there aren't any trojans hidden anywhere in his games.

Re:Look at the upsides.

[Anonymous Coward]

He might not offer 90% of all games ever made, but I bet there aren't any trojans hidden anywhere in his games.

If it's not open source, you can't know for sure. Open source, which is not the same as GPL/Free Software, doesn't mean you'll know, but closed source means you can't.

Sony CDs with root kits show you can't really trust any vendor 100%. You can't trust the pirates either, but you don't have the downside of $ to worry about.

If the choice is download it from your site for $1+ or download it from another site for $0, you're in a fundamentally unsound position if you don't offer anything else. I think CD keys are fine - preferably cut and paste-in-able. CD requirements, online activations, those are bad for the consumer. Harsh US copyright law will not protect you from foreign servers. If you want protection from outsourcing, become a bricklayer...

That said, I've got 4 copies of Never Winter Nights that I bought on sale, so if you offer a convenient price/service, people who actually are interested in your product, and who have the means, will buy it.

"hobbled"

Direct2Drive would be good...

[Xest]

But unfortunately it has stupid region protection games. I tried to buy Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 off it for the PC the other day but it said it's not available in Europe. The game also wasn't available on Steam.

If they think I'm going to drive all the way in to town to buy a physical copy in Europe due to some artificial restriction they've created based on my IP they have another thing coming.

Oh and then they wonder why people resort to piracy.

Steam doesn't seem to impose these stupid restrictions but it also unfortunately didn't have GRAW2 for sale on it else I'd have just purchased from there.

The problem with rating these game download sites is just that, whilst D2D may seem awesome in the US it's pretty crap in Europe etc. due to the fact you're not actually allowed to buy half the games on it if you live here.

Re:Direct2Drive would be good...

[Fweeky]

While I really enjoyed GRAW, GRAW 2 had the feel of a community driven map pack, so unfortunately you're not missing much.

How 'bout a spoiler warning!

[RoverDaddy]

Next time WARN me if you're going to give away game information!

*stops trying to open the horse in cliffski's game*

Trygames.com?

[owlman17]

Has anybody had experience with Trygames.com? They don't have the latest and the greatest, but they got Civ IV, Warhammer 40k, Supreme Commander, World in Conflict, Shogun, etc. Also classics like the Might and Magic Series plus a ton of casual games. I'm not sure if their games have DRM.

The NES had DRM as well

[Anonymous Coward]

if your 3rd-party NES cart didn't have a certain Nintendo-supplied chip, the cartridge wouldn't run.

Or did you mean "since the NES, inclusive"?

Note to self (and Slashdot readers)

[mr_mischief]

Actually, the quote is "Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one in which you are least interested and say nothing about the other." and it's known as "Weed's Axiom".

I still don't know anything about who Weed is, or if it's actually the name of the original speaker or writer of that quote. I just found that attribution in some quote files.

Others do not refuse to rent games

[tepples]

I'm happy to buy games, I refuse to rent them.

There are enough console gamers who disagree with you to keep plenty of Blockbuster stores and Gamefly.com afloat.

Re:Others do not refuse to rent games

[flitty]

Woosh. Ok, I'll clarify since you missed the point... he refuses to rent games for $50. Sure if these DRM laiden stores let you rent a game for 2 weeks for $10, we'd be having a different discussion. But if these "bought" games verification servers are ever taken down, guess what, that $50 purchase just became a rental that you can no longer use.

Re:Others do not refuse to rent games

[calmofthestorm]

1) I want it to be upfront it's a rent. I recently bought a game I'd pirated to support the company's DRM free business model...only to discover it has SecuROM (Shivering Isles). Since it's only on install I don't mind so much, but there was nothing on the amazon.com page or game packaging to warn me. If find this disgusting, especially if we disallow refunds on open games if they don't work. (Another reason to use a creditcard...if they refuse your rights...chargeback)

2) Sure that's their right to rent games...for a reasonable and known in advance price. To me, buying a game means I can play it 10 years later and yes I do this. Not advertising a game's crippling DRM or calling it a "purchase" when it's not is blatant false advertising.

-1 slashvertisment

[Don_dumb]

Alright, alright calm down - you don't need to plug your company here, in an article about your services.

Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?)

No

Linux Support

[ThomasMc1337]

i would buy more games if more cool games came with native linux support without the need for Wine

Re:Linux Support

[c0d3g33k]

That's a happy dream, but the economics involved don't justify the effort of porting to Linux in most cases. But you probably knew that already.

GOG Beta is Great So Far

[kevin.fowler]

But I seriously doubt I'll buy anything aside from Fallout 1&2 + Tactics from there.

GameTap is somewhat broken with Vista and gimped on Mac so I gave it up. I've got the Source engine pack from Steam, but I played it to death and got a bit bored with it. Steam overall seems to be relatively painless.

Physical DVDs have recently lured be back, especially when they contain both Mac and PC versions (as much as I want to hate EA, I can play Spore on the road and on the beast PC at home).

PSN = best of the lot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a PS3, PC and Xbox360, I prefer Playstation Network over the lot of them. The quality is extremenly high (better than the Xbox offering), it also has the advantage of full blown games, like Steam. The prices are usually quite neat. (WipeoutHD = £10, Last Guy = £5, SuperstardustHD = £5)...

Lastly the DRM is quite relaxed. Upto 5 different consoles.

NO DOWNLOAD SERVICE.

[Khyber]

If you buy digital distributions of games, there is NO GUARANTEE you're going to get all the latest and greatest updates. Take STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl. I got it from Direct 2 Drive. The digital distribution only has patches up to 1.0005, while all physical-disc installs can be patched up to 1.0006. This leaves me with absolutely NO WAY to join in on multiplayer games. I paid for the game, have a legit multiplayer key, and can't play online.

Off topic, just how the hell would I go about suing a game company based overseas?

Re:NO DOWNLOAD SERVICE.

[Optic7]

Someone mentioned in a post above quoting the article saying that this is a limitation with Direct2Drive only I believe. The other services supposedly allow you to use the regular patches.

You should read the contract, I just did.

[Khyber]

According to the contract:

"In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game)"

They make it quite clear a sale is being made. The word "Purchase" makes that VERY CLEAR in legal terms.

Re:You should read the contract, I just did.

[harl]

Reading your own words. "In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license." You are licensing the game not purchasing it.

Section 1:
"as a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content ("Subscriptions") available to Subscribers." No mention of sale or transfer of ownership.

Section 2 Licensing:
"The Steam Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership"

They also have separate sections for Merchandise (3) and Subscriptions (4) in the contract.

Plus there's the fact that you can't transfer your game to another account. Go check. Either you don't have ownership or Steam is acting illegally this whole time and no one has done anything about it.

They're subscriptions. You have no ownership and no rights. Steam can revoke your access at any time at their whim.

Re:You should read the contract, I just did.

[i.of.the.storm]

Maybe, but if they did there'd be hell to pay, and in any case Valve doesn't seem like a dick of a company so I doubt they would do that.

Re:You should read the contract, I just did.

[harl]

Zero hell would be paid. Say they revoke your subscriptions they will receive no backlash. You have no legal recourse. The general public doesn't care about you having your items revoked. You're one person in a sea of short attention spans.

Your second part is just ignorant. Don't sign a contract and then expect it to not be enforced. The purpose of a contract is to say what each person's rights and intentions are. There's no such thing as a default clause. With forethought and intent they put in the ability to take back what you paid for.

Now are they going to wide spread yank subs? No. But what happens when an individuals does erroneously. It's an uphill battle to get it corrected?

You are the epitome of slippery slope. You allow this now and it becomes the norm. Revoking all access at any time for no reason is not acceptable DRM. Would you accept it with your food? Your clothing? Your car? Your computer? Your house?

:D

[sgt scrub]

apt?

WildTangent?

[kayditty]

I didn't read the article; I barely read the summary, then skimmed the comments. Normally, I wouldn't comment on a post like this. But something caught my eye: isn't WildTangent the notorious malware company? Wikipedia seems to agree with me. I remember when I still used the official AOL AIM client 5+ years ago and they started bundling WildTangent spyware. I won't forget that name, and I won't ever use an AOL product again (not that I really intended to).

What about the BAD download services?

[Rutefoot]

It's easy to make a list of the download services everyone already knows are good. I think it would be doubly informative if a list of download services to avoid were listed as well.

For example, despite being a massive game company, EA's download manager is the biggest, broken piece of crap out there. You're lucky if you can get the download manager to install without problems. Even luckier if you can get the game to download and install without problems. You're forced to PAY to redownload any games you've had to reinstall. And, my favourite is EA's choice to implement regional pricing which allows EA to charge the most money the market will allow in that region despite what it's selling for everywhere else.

SecuROM removed in latest SI patch

[Nick Ives]

In the latest SI patch they removed SecuROM and replaced it with the basic disc check found in the original Oblivion. I reckon they did this to maintain compatibility with the Oblivion Script Extender - a utility used by a few mods that would almost certainly make SecuROM throw a wobbler as it's an exe hack.

I found this out by accident when I recently loaded up Oblivion with only my original Oblivion disc in the drive.

My favorite didn't even *get* reviewed

[pugugly]

My version of Windows Vista came with a great downloader with all sorts of games on it, plus other software, an office suite, astronomy programs . . . I think everyone should get it, it seems a lot better than the ones they review here.

Pug