EA Is Now Officially On Steam, Spore Loses SecuROM

Trevor DeRiza writes "Today, Valve and EA revealed that this week's earlier rumors were true: Spore (and other EA games) are coming to Steam. As of today, Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online, Mass Effect, Need for Speed: Undercover, and FIFA Manager 2009 are all available for download on Steam. In the coming weeks, EA will add Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, and Red Alert 3. On the official Steam forums, when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008, a moderator replied, 'It does not have third party DRM.' EA has also finally launched a 'de-authorization tool' to free up limited installation slots." Several readers have written to point out other news about Steam today: they've begun selling games priced in local currency for European customers. The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per €1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per €1.

Comments

AKA

[psnyder]

The fight against DRM gains Steam.

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[madhurms]

all it needed was a valve!!

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[YesIAmAScript]

Steam is DRM laden.

How can Steam fight DRM?

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[kat_skan]

Steam is DRM. It controls what you can and can't do with a product you have bought and paid for. It's dependent on activation servers, which it contacts every time you launch a game, just like Spore was going to before the outcry.

In a very meaningful sense it's less abhorrent than SecuROM, as it doesn't go out of its way dig its tendrils into the OS, breaking random things and throwing hissy fits if it finds innocuous software it doesn't like. There's no bullshit "activations" to use up, and it doesn't leave bits of itself behind when you uninstall it.

But in other ways it's worse. You don't really own a Steam game. You can't loan a copy of a Steam game to a friend, or sell it to someone, or even give it away for free, except in specific cases where Valve decides to let you. If something happened to Valve, or they just decided they didn't like the cut of your jib and aren't going to let you play your game anymore, you'd be shit out of luck.

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[Si-UCP]

Steam is DRM laden.

How can Steam fight DRM?

Steam's DRM, in my opinion, is much less intrusive than SecuROM. Sure, it requires an authentication server. Sure, it runs in the background while you're playing the game. But it's much less intrusive and much more transparent than installing a device driver (or something along the lines of that) that's hard to remove and putting a hard limit on the number of times a game can be authenticated.

Think of it as a "gateway drug" to what I hope will be a DRM-free future, like what iTunes did with its less restrictive DRMing (and eventually, the lack of DRMing) of music downloads (yes, I know that iTunes still DRMs a majority of their content, but that's because Apple's deal with the RIAA restricts them from DRM-free sales).

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[binaryspiral]

DRM in and of itself isn't evil, in fact Steam brings a lot of features that make it actually appealing to me.

No media, no serial numbers, just a single username and password for all my games.

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[psnyder]

Then perhaps just:
"Spore's DRM is Half-life'd"?

It is an improvement, after all...
>.>

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[SinGunner]

We used to let our friends log in with our Steam accounts to play Counterstrike back in the day. We were never all using our accounts at the same time, so it worked fine. And despite the fact that I've gone through about 5 computers since then, I can still boot up Steam and have my games running without wondering what the hell I did with my CD-key.

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[gparent]

Steam DRM doesn't limit you at all compared to modern DRM. You can play without an internet connection, at your friends house, etc.

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[gparent]

You can put it in offline mode. Don't criticize things if you don't even know how they work.

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[Psychotria]

Which games can't you play? All the games I have let me play even if I have turned off (firewalled) net access. Not saying that you're wrong, I'm just interested because my limited collection of games all work (for single player) with no net once they're activated.

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[Firethorn]

No media, no serial numbers, just a single username and password for all my games.

Free unlimited downloads, relatively automatic updates, etc... Though changing the install directory could be good.

I bought Crysis through the EA store download method as an experiment. While I captured the download file that should allow me to reinstall, I'm not sure I'd be able to today. With steam, that wouldn't be a problem.

I have to agree, I like steam. They manage to do online download gaming right.

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[Firethorn]

To put it another way, while I've given up the ability(for now) to lend/sell/give away my games, on the other hand I'm also able to play any games in the future with relatively no problems, simply by re-downloading it.

As the success of iTunes and such shows, the ability to redownload your purchases whenever you want often trumps the portability/sellability of physical mediums.

As all my friends are either non-gamers or get the same games anyways, it's not a big deal there, and I like occasionally playing an old game.

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[Aphoxema]

Steam is DRM, but it's very clever DRM. As for not being able to share games, just give your friends your account information. Oh, yeah, I mean, if you can't trust them you might have some problems... but, I trust all my friends... I think...

That's a good question to ask someone, "Do you trust your friends?"

"Oh yeah, I sure do!"

"Yeah, but would you let them use your Steam account you've spent like, 600 dollars on?"

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[GuldKalle]

No reselling of your games...

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[TubeSteak]

DRM in and of itself isn't evil, in fact Steam brings a lot of features that make it actually appealing to me.

No media, no serial numbers, just a single username and password for all my games.

You forgot "no right of first sale".

If you can't sell it, is it really yours?

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[Chyeld]

More to the point, if it walks like a duck and looks like a duck, and I can use it to pick up pretty girls. Do I really care if it can quack like a duck?

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[AuMatar]

And all it takes is one database quirk to lose them all at once. Or one person to steal/guess your password. No thanks. I guess I've bought my last PC game from EA.

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[Drakonik]

Yes, but Steam has assured us that in the eventuality of their auth servers going down, they'd give us ways to continue playing.

Also, any computer than can run the Steam client can install and play any game you've purchased via Steam. An unlimited number of installs, without the need to authenticate, then deauthenticate as you install on a new system.

Yes, it's DRM, in a technical sense, but in a practical sense, it's almost a liberating as owning a 100% un-DRMed game CD that does not do disk checking.

I would LOVE to have all my games on the Steam machine, because then I wouldn't have to dick around with saving CDs or installers.

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[Shadow-isoHunt]

You can still sell your account credentials.

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[mrsteveman1]

The driver issue is the dealbreaker for me, i don't want ridiculous DRM code touching the kernel, ever. Using rootkits to prevent removal of kernel code is even more absurd.

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[mrsteveman1]

Only if you have a quacking fetish, which, after hearing about you using ducks to pickup girls, i have to wonder...

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[tripmine]

It's not like you can do that easily with a boxed modern PC game anyways.

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[lgw]

You *can* still sell all of your games with Steam. What you can't do is sell *some* of your games.

Personally, I really enjoy going back and playing games 5 years or so after they were new, and come back to them 5 years after that and so on. Steam makes that a breeze. Trying to install and patch old games if I've switched PCs a few times and the company went out of business is a real pain. Of course, if Valve goes out of business I'm screwed, but the moment they srated selling Pop-Cap games, I stopped worrying about that (Pop-Cap sells roughly as many copies of PC games all all other companies combined, so Valves future seems assured).

I'm currently playing the original Doom, with no effort at all to get it to run, and more companies are offering their back catalog every day.

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[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes, but Steam has assured us that in the eventuality of their auth servers going down, they'd give us ways to continue playing."

Oh, really? This 'assurance' covers an out-of-the-blue bankruptcy filing, where employees show up to work one day to find the doors locked, with no opportunity to remove the digital chains from the software you paid good money for?

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[troll8901]

Not trying to be picky. Just picking up on some tiny parts. Be careful, I'm a troll! <g>

Though changing the install directory could be good.

My steam is installed in C:\Games\Steam (21GB for about 5 games).
There is no Steam folder in my C:\Program Files.

While I captured the download file that should allow me to reinstall, I'm not sure I'd be able to today. With steam, that wouldn't be a problem.

Quite true, understood.
On another note, some Steam-downloaded games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein requires that Steam be running in order to launch. This is the "DRM" portion of Steam, I guess.

I have to agree, I like steam. They manage to do online download gaming right.

My only complain is that the Steam Client is very slow (maybe its requirements are higher than Vista's), and that I can't transfer the games to another person. Other than that, I'm okay.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be trolling...

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[ViperAFK]

steam actually has good drm model though. unlimited installs on any pc anytime anywhere. and is VERY convenient to be able to download your games anywhere.

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[Chaos Incarnate]

By "changing the install directory", I think that he means that you can't, say, have Steam in C:\Program Files\Steam but install Half-Life 2 in E:\Games\Half-Life 2.

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[Chaos Incarnate]

At least, unlike boxed games that no chain will buy used, Valve doesn't pretend that it's a first sale; it's treated as a license, and you're informed of that before purchasing the license.

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[Chaos Incarnate]

"Clever" probably isn't the best way to put it, as that seems to me like it's talking about the technical design. What I would say is that it's DRM that rewards the user; in exchange for losing some options, you gain a boatload of features (like download-anywhere) that you wouldn't have otherwise.

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[Deltaway]

The series of tubes has just been upgraded to Steam-power.

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[Anonymous Coward]

It's dependent on activation servers, which it contacts every time you launch a game...

To be fair it is quite possible to leave that off for offline games. That doesn't make up for everything else, but if you're going to mislead on one issue the credibility on the rest of your points drops considerably. Luckily with my - Anonymous Coward's - *eh-hem* awesome reputation I can vouch for you one the rest of it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that parent and grandparent are modded troll only proves your point.

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[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

DRM in and of itself isn't evil,

Um, yes it is. What's not evil about buying something and then someone else having all the control over it? All those game you "bought" on steam can be taken from you any time valve feels like doing so. You have nothing, and no recourse.

Try doing a chargeback for something you paid for on steam one day and tell me how wonderful it is.

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[Aphoxema]

I guess it would be... flexible then, at least. I don't know, my vocabulamary is all bad or something. I'm freaking tired and I have a fever. I'm also freaking out, freaking out freaking tired.

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[tibman]

I think Gordon Freeman would come busting through a vent and crowbar down some rentacops (for their ammo).. push a few buttons and BAM, steam games saved..

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you CAN let your friends borrow games. Kinda. Just don't let them sign on. It's fairly easy to play LAN games with a single account (personally done up to 9 different users on the same account) and single player games just by copying the files. Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about.

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[arkhan_jg]

Nor can more than one person play from your steam game list at a time. What if I want to play TF2 while another of my household plays another online game from my list? You can't. You can hack about with offline mode for single player games, but for multiplayer, only one person can play from your list at a time. This has become more of a problem as time goes on. Short of creating a new steam account for every single different game, they've very effectively tied your entire list of software to single-user only - it's even more restrictive than secuROM in it's way.

Now, steam makes up for it with the plus points in some ways, but we should be wary of cheering on putting more and more of our games at a single point of failure.

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[davester666]

From the summary of the article "'It does not have third party DRM.'".

A statement like this could mean anything like:
-EA has removed all DRM from the title
-EA has purchased the SecuROM code, and is still wrapping the game in this DRM
-EA has come up with some other DRM scheme on it's own, details to come

If this person was in HR, and was called for a reference, they would probably say something like "I would recommend nobody before this person for a job."

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[Anonymous Coward]

EA releases games on Steam that have additional DRM in addition to the Steam system. This breaks the entire point / benefit of using Steam.

Just because Spore got all of the press (read: lawsuits), doesn't mean that the rest of their DRM-laden library should get a free pass.

It's getting beyond ridiculous when games are shipping with 2 or more layers of DRM that legit customers have to put up with.

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[Hal_Porter]

Steam is DRM. It controls what you can and can't do with a product you have bought and paid for. It's dependent on activation servers, which it contacts every time you launch a game, just like Spore was going to before the outcry.

In a very meaningful sense it's less abhorrent than SecuROM, as it doesn't go out of its way dig its tendrils into the OS, breaking random things and throwing hissy fits if it finds innocuous software it doesn't like. There's no bullshit "activations" to use up, and it doesn't leave bits of itself behind when you uninstall it.

But in other ways it's worse. You don't really own a Steam game. You can't loan a copy of a Steam game to a friend, or sell it to someone, or even give it away for free, except in specific cases where Valve decides to let you. If something happened to Valve, or they just decided they didn't like the cut of your jib and aren't going to let you play your game anymore, you'd be shit out of luck.

I dunno. I have no interest in selling old games, or even playing them. Games are ephemera IMO. What I like about Steam is that if I'm in some random country I can download and play a game as soon as it comes out without depriving the company that made it of their money rather than spend ages trying to find a store that sells the English version.

And the companies like it because they can sell the games online without worrying about them ending up on pirate bay.

And if you still want to have a box with resale value, most games are available in that format too.

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[Fallen Seraph]

Actually, they mean none of the above. They mean that it will be using Steam's DRM, which is probably some of the most unintrusive DRM out there. Basically, the games you buy are tied to your account, can be redownloaded any time however many times you want, etc etc. It's only restrictive in events where, for instance, Steam's login servers go down (which has only happened once, and they've fixed the problem since then), and it can be a bit of a hassle on slow connections, due to the fact that setting a game to "Offline Mode" is unintuitive. But on the flip side it also adds a lot of convenience that tends to be associated with Digital Distribution, plus a community, friends list, IM client that functions in lots of Steam games, etc. Adding SecuROM or other DRMs on top of it would only make it less effective, and as far as I know, is against Valve's policy for games they allow on Steam.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And then when Steam closes down, you can't continue to play. That's very appealing!

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[Ash-Fox]

Nor can more than one person play from your steam game list at a time. What if I want to play TF2 while another of my household plays another online game from my list?

The license is exclusive to you only, not another of your household -- Steam only enforces that.

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[Antique Geekmeister]

As a Steam user, I have to say "not quite". My slightly older system without a recent video card has no chance of playing Left 4 Dead because it lacks some of the rendering features, and my laptop has no chance of playing Darwinia because it lacks enough RAM. But in general, yes, their licensing works very well.

Unfortunately for me, my ISP seems to have installed some sort of brain-dead filtering that interrupts continuous connections after about 2 minute and makes them hang, probably as a Bittorrent blocking feature. They won't admit it, the call center in Delhi is clearly tired of the sound of my voice explaining that I've *ALREADY* done all their scripts call for and need to talk to an engineer who can spell 'TCP', and that no, I haven't installed any radiation generating equipment near my hub, my neighbors have the same problem, etc. So playing Team Fortress 2 is impossible for me.

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[dcam]

See also GOG

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[stephenhawking]

It sounds beautiful until steam decides you've done some questionable activity on your steam account, then they have the option of using a kill switch on your entire collection. I don't think they necessarily use it, other than to kill people's online gaming if they cheat, but the fact that they have the ability to take back what I paid for freaks me out. At first I was very happy about Steam and I have a few steam games, like Defcon, and HL2, but I don't play them because I took steam off my computer. I gave my steam account to my son cause he likes those games.

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[Cylix]

The crysis binary you captured includes a hashing mechanism that will only allow the installer binary to run on that computer.

So yes, it will allow you to re-install, assuming you don't change whatever vital components they use to fingerprint the host.

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[ozphx]

Well... it isnt actually like a driver at all. Its more of a launcher - plus some IPC so Steam can tell your friends what you are playing, and provide the shift-tab in-game overlay.

You don't get shit all up in your kernel :P

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[ozphx]

And then theres the ridiculous GTA4 bullshit.

Steam + GFW Live + Rockstar Social Club + SecureROM.

I mean FOR FUCKS SAKE ASSHOLES... enough already!

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[YesIAmAScript]

You can play without an internet connection (within restrictions) after you have set up the machine using an internet connection. You can play at your friend's house, but not without an internet connection.

Most importantly, you cannot sell your games or loan them to your friends, as you don't own them. And if Valve decides you have violated their terms of service and cut off your account, you lose all the games you "owned".

If they can take it away, then I never really owned it.

Steam limits you a lot. You just apparently don't mind the limitations. That doesn't mean they don't exist though.

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[KDR_11k]

And it only takes one guy burgling your house to lose your boxed games and one guy stealing your wallet and guessing your ATM PIN to empty your bank account...

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[ijakings]

Steam currently allows you to give a duplicate game you currently have away as a gift. I dont think it will be too much longer before it allows you to sell your game to another steam user. It would be far less risky than buying any other online game second hand as steam should be able to tell you the status of the account etc as they hold all the CD-Keys. Of course im sure it will take a comission in there somewhere, but Im not adverse to that they have to make money from the proccess.

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[Dramacrat]

I have the same problem with another game; I still have the EADM 'cache' files (10 GB worth) which I am going to backup soon, but I have my doubts that it'll actually let me reinstall through it. According to the EADM restrictions, I can only download it twice, and only within 6 months of the purchase date. Ouch. Here's to hoping the 10GB cache will keep me gaming!

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[arkhan_jg]

Unlike retail games, where anyone with the physical disc can play it - rather my point, in fact. I pay the same price for steam games as retail, but I can do less with the games.

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[Ceriel Nosforit]

Hey, don't bring drugs into this. Drugs' spokesperson announces that drugs have no affiliation what so ever with DRM and do not wish to have their name tarnished by the association.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to worry about reinstalling, either. You want to change your installation directory? Copy the entire Steam folder off to somewhere else.

That's it.

I haven't once reinstalled Steam since I got it and it's always been on my E: drive after reformats. So if you want it somewhere else, install it, shut it down and do a good 'ol cut and paste. That simple. Games under it are pathed to be subdirectories from wherever the steam executable is. You won't lose anything and everything still works. You can just copy it straight over onto a thumbdrive or external USB HD, if you so please.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you report them?
Find a way, or find someone who can.
Stupid ISP.

Oh, or the 3rd secret option, move ISP...

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[Anonymous Coward]

You don't own software. It's an infinite duration rental.

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[Coopa]

There was a bug not long ago in Steam that when anything was downloading for a few moments it would suddenly stop but still say "Updating".

It can happen now and then too - to fix you need to delete one of the .blob files in the Steam directory. It automatically generates it next time you log into Steam.

Have a google for the correct .blob file.

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[Anonymous Coward]

It's trollish because what the fuck does the "I guess I've bought my last PC game from EA.". The retard is acting like EA is going to use STEAM specifically, and that the other, worse DRM methods are somehow more tasteful and acceptable.

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[Kneo24]

Actually, you can loan them to your friends. Give your login to your friend, tell them to have fun. My buddies and I used to do that all the time. We don't really have a need for it anymore, however.

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[Kjella]

As long as you don't run under WINE. I don't know exactly what the deal is, but under WINE it seems to forget my login info very, very often. Which is not a problem during online use but when I was offline it very often told me that the machine had no steam account data and so forget offline mode. Ah well, it's still the most Linux-friendly DRM I've met so far...

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[AuMatar]

Which is why my ATM card isn't linked to my main checking account, it's on a secondary account with only a thousand or so in there. I'll risk the robbery for my games- the probability of being robbed and the robber taking video games are fairly low compared to the chance of a programming glitch. Or Valve going under. Or some employee at Valve deciding I'm a cheater. Or Valve deciding to start charging a monthly fee for access to Steam. DRM only causes problems, I will not support it in any form.

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[theaveng]

I sell PC games all the time. I just sold off Star Trek Dominion War for $40 via amazon.com

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[theaveng]

What happens in the year 2020?

Will the server still be up-and-running to "authorize" my playing of Spore? I doubt it. And even if it is still operational there's a possibility a new EA CEO decides to "change strategy" and revoke all licenses to the Steam corporation, thereby deauthorizing all Steam users from playing EA games.

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[mvdwege]

Yes, but Steam has assured us that in the eventuality of their auth servers going down, they'd give us ways to continue playing.

That's an empty promise.

Think on it. How are they going to make good on this? How are they going to track down all those who legitimately paid for their games? The auth servers are down, they are what identifies legitimate Steam customers. How will Valve decide the software on your hard drive is a legitimate download?

Mart

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[dougisfunny]

Delete the clientregistry.blob after you move the folder too.

Prevents undue redownloading of files it thinks may be corrupted.

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[Haeleth]

What happens in the year 2020?

You probably won't still want to play Spore.

Honestly, I don't understand this attitude. People -- even students who don't have much of an income yet -- will happily spend the price of Spore on a night out, where the pleasure lasts a few hours at most and is then gone forever. But somehow when it's a video game, they assume that it's not worth paying for unless they can retain the potential to play it forever?

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[Haeleth]

Just think of it as a consumable, rather than an asset.

You don't expect to be able to re-sell a restaurant meal, or a pint of beer, or a night at the movies. Do you "own" them? Maybe not, but I don't see many people whining about that.

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[tweak13]

That actually used to be a problem with steam that has now been fixed. I remember several years ago when steam first came out, I had a fairly flaky internet connection. If my internet went down and I wanted to play a game on steam I was out of luck. It would refuse to let you play unless you set it to offline mode while you still had a connection. I complained about this to a friend recently and he had no idea what I was talking about. I didn't believe him, so I was amazed when he disabled his connection and then proceeded to load Half Life 2 with no problems.

Anyway, to make a long rambling story short, the not being able to play complaint used to be valid, but is not anymore.

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[Anonymous Coward]

DRM in and of itself isn't evil

The fact that a statement like this gets modded to +5 on Slashdot shows how well the industry's brainwashing has worked.

Let me lay it out for you: there is no such thing as non-evil DRM. When I buy a game, I *OWN* the game, and I have the right to install it on as many computers as I want to (not necessarily at the same time, admittedly), without any need for activations, explanations or justifications; I have the right to give it to friends for free, resell it when I'm done, or also to let it sit in my basement for 20 years and then dig it out and play it again.

If I cannot do any and all of that, I am denied my legal rights as the game's owner. Any game that comes with DRM essentially makes you a renter of the game rather than its owner.

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[mrsteveman1]

I don't mean steam, i mean securom and all the other crap.

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[geckipede]

They won't. If they are releasing a tool to turn steam format encrypted games into freely usable games, you can just copy the freely usable end product. If the Steam business model fails so thoroughly that they can't even afford to keep their main moneymaking servers around, piracy is the least of their problems.

I'm not concerned about the safety of my games in the event that the company implodes, what I worry about is the drift of their old games into being abandonware. I've long been hoping that the original half life would eventually become a free download on steam. There's no sign of it happening yet.

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[Ash-Fox]

Unlike retail games, where anyone with the physical disc can play it

That depends entirely on the license. If the game is licensed to just you and not the computer you install it on, then no, you're not allowed to do so.

I pay the same price for steam games as retail

I pay more for Steam games than retail (honest truth)

I can do less with the games.

I seem to be able to do more. I can have more than one copy of the game installed, on as many computers as I wish. Most licenses tell me I can only have one copy installed at a time.

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[Shihar]

The fact that you can't resell it might matter it someone, put it doesn't to me. I can count on one hand the number of times I have sold my computer games... zero.

Even if you sold every single computer game it just means you are giving yourself a $10 discount in the future. Whoop-de-fucking-do. Personally, I find the fact that I can never lose a video game again to be vastly more useful than the fact that I can't pawn it off.

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[eu_virtual]

No, they don't. Only a handful of games allow you to give duplicate games as a gift, and even then only through special circumstances, as detailed here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4502-TPJL-2656
quote:
Extra copies are a special promotion for users who:
1. Purchase the "Left 4 Dead Four Pack" on Steam
2. Own "Half-Life 2" and/or "Half-Life 2: Episode One" and then go on to purchase "The Orange Box" or the "Valve Complete Pack"
3. Own "Half-Life 2: Episode One" and/or "Half-Life 2: Episode Two" and then go on to purchase the "Half-Life 2: Episode Pack" or the "Valve Complete Pack"

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[mrfaithful]

People -- even students who don't have much of an income yet -- will happily spend the price of Spore on a night out, where the pleasure lasts a few hours at most and is then gone forever. But somehow when it's a video game, they assume that it's not worth paying for unless they can retain the potential to play it forever?

A night out can carry no expectations of being long lived whereas a video game only has artificial restrictions. I buy games to play off and on for as long as the hardware lasts. In 20 years time I might just want to play any of Valve's games. The same as it's been over 20 years since Mario Bros and I'll still play that on my real NES.

With PC games there should be a reasonable expectation that if something worked one day on one set of hardware/OS it should work forever even after the developers and publishers have long been fed to the lawyers.

When OSs change and don't run it any more, that's MY problem and I or someone smarter than me will figure out a solution (DosBox or vmware) but I won't buy anything where a third party holds all the cards.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Valve doesn't pretend that it's a first sale; it's treated as a license, and you're informed of that before purchasing the license

Then why does it say "Buy [Game Title]: 49.99" everywhere?

"License" or "Rent" would be far more appropriate verbs there.

Re:AKA

[AlexMax2742]

Sorry, but DRM will never go away as long as piracy still exists. Zero-day and Day-one warez cannibalize PC game sales, and as long as DRM prevents that, they're golden.

Steam is really no better, it's just that it hasn't had the same sort of character assassination that SecuROM and Starforce have gone through because they happen to have made HL2.

Re:AKA

[AlexMax2742]

Wrong, if they detect that you've cheated then you are put out of good standing with VAC. Your games are intact, you just can't join VAC-secured servers in VAC-enabled games (All Goldsrc and Source games, plus Red Orchestra).

Re:AKA

[AlexMax2742]

Let me lay it out for you: there is no such thing as non-evil DRM. When I buy a game, I *OWN* the game, and I have the right to install it on as many computers as I want to (not necessarily at the same time, admittedly), without any need for activations, explanations or justifications; I have the right to give it to friends for free, resell it when I'm done, or also to let it sit in my basement for 20 years and then dig it out and play it again.

No you don't. It is not fair for someone to invest millions in intellectual property only to have them 'sold' to some schmuck for $50 with no strings attached.

Let's get something clear. This is intellectual property we are talking about, when you buy a DVD you're not buying the physical media (you can GET DVD's by the 25-pack at Best Buy if that's what you're after), you're buying the sum total of the work of a cast of thousands with the result being that particular arrangement of bits and bytes on the DVD itself. Unlike traditional property, you can make a 1:1 copy of those bits and bytes at almost no cost to yourself. Becuase of that, it's unfair to bind Intellectual Property to the same rules of traditional Property...in my opinion the Publisher is perfectly within their rights to not 'sell' you their intellectual property and instead license their IP to you for you to enjoy under certain conditions. This goes even for "free" software, because even their IP is licensed to you under the GPL, BSD, or some other license which has their own set of restrictions and things you can't do with their IP.

Now don't get me wrong, I think that some companies terms of use are stupid. In particular, I don't like installation limitations at all, I want to be able to nuke my hard drive and install my games anytime I like without worrying if I'm going over the limit (although usually activation services are pretty lenient and can add additional installs at your request). But some of your demands are asking too much of developers and publishers and are impossible to implement without rampant piracy occurring.

Re:AKA

[aka.Daniel'Z]

IANAL but I don't think they would allow anyone to revoke a license after you paid for it, since you could sue them for that.

A while ago, some games were removed from specific markets - for example, you can't buy Bioshock from within Brazil anymore - but before that happened, I bought some of those games.

They could have blocked me from playing them, but they're still available both for downloading and playing - a while ago my HD died and I downloaded all of them again with no problems.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

You must live a very sad life.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how young are you? I play galaga and nethack. Monkey Island, anyone? I have friends younger by those games.

Re:AKA

[theaveng]

>>>You probably won't still want to play Spore. Honestly, I don't understand this attitude....

I still play Pirates and Red Storm Rising and Elite, and those games were released ~25 years ago. Ditto Wing Commander from ~20 years ago. So yes it's likely that, if I enjoy Spore, I will still be playing it 11 years from now in 2020.

>>>even students who don't have much of an income yet -- will happily spend the price of Spore on a night out

Fools. Although I do go out from time-to-time I still watch my expenses, typically ordering a $15 plate, eating half now and half as takeout. Back to games: I mentioned elsewhere that I cleaned-out my N64/PS1/PS2 collection and gathered about $4000 in amazon/ebay sales. These games may seem trivially small as just one purchase, but add them up and you have several thousand invested.

Why would I want that several thousand thrown-away when the Authentication servers stop working?

Re:AKA

[theaveng]

P.S.

>>>Honestly, I don't understand this attitude

I don't understand the attitude that anything older than 5-10 years is not worthy of keeping. I still have favorite movies that are around three-quarters of a century old. "It's old" is not reason to discard good entertainment, and that applies to games as well as movies.

Re:AKA

[Fumus]

This, and the fact that I used a GFW offline accound for a few hours, and after I though "hey, let's play online" I had to register another account, this time live, and the saved games are not compatible. Great move Microsoft, great move.

And don't even get me started with the bloody game only accepting xbox game controllers.

Re:AKA

[FictionPimp]

Baulders Gate was released in 1998. I still play it and enjoy it about once a year.

Re:AKA

[IIEFreeMan]

Yeah because piracy is obviously not happening with DRM ...

Maybe you are right but DRM is obviously not the good answer to the problem at hand.

Re:AKA

[Joe U]

Any game over $35 that I buy on steam, I put in it's own account. That way if I want to give it away or sell it, I'll just give away the one account.

Re:AKA

[Chris Mattern]

You probably won't still want to play Spore.

You'd be surprised. I still like to play Robotron 2084.

But I can--legally--on GameTap. If Spore is that good--if people still want to play it--odds are it will continue to available in some form.

Re:AKA

[AlexMax2742]

Maybe you are right but DRM is obviously not the good answer to the problem at hand.

Wrong. Strong DRM is an excellent solution to Day-zero and Day-one piracy, which is when publishers stand to lose the most money. Martin Slater had this to say on Bioshock's DRM.

"We achieved our goals. We were uncracked for 13 whole days. We were happy with it. But we just got slammed. Everybody hated us for it. It was unbelievable.

It's a complex issue in the PC world, and it's something we need to actively address. It's a really hard question. As a company we need to maximise our sales so we can keep making games. I don't think we'll do what we've done before. There are other issues with downloading an executable. There is a lot of strain on our content-delivery servers and things like that, where everyone has to download a 10MB executable. I don't think we'll do exactly the same thing again, but we'll do something close. You can't afford to be cracked. As soon as you're gone, you're gone, and your sales drop astronomically if you've got a day-one crack."

For those with short memories, Bioshock's DRM had an absurdly limited number of installs, but the DRM itself was so good that working crack for Bioshock was off by almost two weeks. You can argue that they should have had a more reasonable number of installs, and it could be reasonably argued that DRM should be toned down or patched out altogether after a few months but that's a question of DRM implementation, and the simple fact is that strong DRM is necessary for software unless you want your sales to be cannibalized because the simple fact is that people like getting things for free as opposed to paying for them.

Re:AKA

[Antique Geekmeister]

Thank you for the thought. But you just did what the call center in Delhi does: suggest some possible issue that pretty clearly has _nothing_ to do with my problem because of the other facts I've already given, namely that it also happens to my neighbors. I can also verify that it occurs SSH, and rsync, and it disables DNS when it occurs. I can actually watch Bittorrent being happy, watch the connections start timing out, fail completely, then eventually re-establish new connetions. And via SSH, the screen freezes for as much as a minute and only then allows interaction again. And it doesn't matter if I switch router, and at least two of my neighbors have similar problems, but it doesn't bother them as much because they don't do interactive things so much.

So please don't suggest more ways for me to waste my time on my end. That's what the call centers in India have done already for hours of my time on the phone, passing the buck around and around. And they keep starting their scripts over at the beginning, _every time_ I call, so that they can pretend that when this intermmittent issue is not active their useless little 'did you plug in your computer? did you restart your router? did you replace your filter? I can't see your problem from my end!' script fixed the problem and they can close the call.

I'm switching providers, and put the ISP on the 'do not use this company, and warn employees using the VPN that we cannot support connections with them' list at work.

Re:AKA

[Hatta]

No, he's right. You probably won't want to play Spore in 10 years. Not because old games suck, but because Spore does, and without the hype it's nothing.

Nobody plays SimEarth or SimFarm anymore, but plenty of people play SimCity. Spore is in the first group.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it requires an authentication server.

See, there's a no-buy property already, for me. And from there it goes downhill.

So, yeah, I'll happily continue with my practice of not buying anything from any of these companies (EA, anything else on Steam, and in particular anything ever tainted by SecuROM or the like) and they can flail about with as much worthless rhetoric about "fighting DRM" (wtf?) as they damn well please. It doesn't mean anything - in the end all they want is to wrestle control from the customer anyways.

They want to fuck me over? Fine, I won't buy their products. Fair and square.

Re:AKA

[ravenshrike]

Well, that and they were rather upfront about the system. Instead of just tossing in DRM that you never even see until after it breaks your machine.

Re:AKA

[murdocj]

I hear ya... that's about as dumb as thinking that you'll be able to still play your CDs and DVDs 5-10 years from now. I mean, no way you're going to want to watch Lord of the Rings or listen to music that your currently love in 5 or 10 years, right?

Re:AKA

[MightyYar]

Exactly! That's why these oldies stations cater to young kids. Lord knows a 60-something doesn't want to hear music that's 40 years old!

Re:AKA

[Firethorn]

Correct. My Steam install is actually on D:.

But I'm running out of space on D:, so am looking at throwing another drive in and redoing the system a bit. It'd be nice to have the option to NOT have steam and all of the games on the same media.

Re:AKA

[theaveng]

>>>Balders Gate was released in 1998. I still play it and enjoy it about once a year.

Well there you go. I bet if it had DRM it wouldn't even work anymore, due to the server going down, or the owner of that game simply deciding "we don't want people playing BG anymore; let's make them buy it again".

Whoever holds the key controls your access, and they can withdraw the key whenever they feel like it. It's a perpetual rental, not ownership.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can hack about with offline mode for single player games, but for multiplayer, only one person can play from your list at a time."

"You can put it in offline mode. Don't criticize things if you don't even know how they work."

-1 For being rude while failing at reading comprehension.

Re:AKA

[kat_skan]

Actually, I speak from personal experience on that one. Earlier this year my Internet went out, and I figured I'd play HL2 while they worked on it. Steam wouldn't let me, since it couldn't contact the activation servers. Reading some of the other replies, I gather that was a bug that's since been fixed, but it still sticks in my craw.

Re:AKA

[Chaos Incarnate]

Well, if you're running NTFS, you could try using NTFS junction points under 2000/XP, or NTFS symbolic links under Vista; just make the Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\ directory a junction/symlink to elsewhere\.

Not as convenient as true put-games-elsewhere support, admittedly. :)

Re:AKA

[Urza9814]

I agree, I probably wouldn't wanna play spore in 10 or 20 years, because it's a crappy game. But I'm only 18 years old, and I'm still playing some of the same games I was when I was 6. The original Command and Conquer. Fantasy General. Even occasionally Zone Raiders. And some others. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually have played simfarm recently. It's still quite a fun game.

Re:AKA

[gparent]

These limitations are present on about every game out there. Very rare are the games that allow you to resell them - People do it because they don't read the EULA (Really, who does?), but most games out there state specifically that you only own a license to use the game and the install CD to play that game, but are not allowed to sell that CD to someone else because the license to play the game on it is non-transferable.

On the other hand, Steam DOES allow you to play at a friends house on your account, assuming you are able to have an internet line there. This is MUCH less limiting than not being able to play the game at all.

You're right. You don't own the game, just like you don't own 90% of the games you play. I assumed you stopped playing anything from every major publisher out there by now, though, so it's no surprise you weren't aware of these details.

So yeah, Steam limits you a lot less than other publishers, as I said.

Re:AKA

[gparent]

Well, Linux isn't supported, so that's no surprise. It might have to do with where it puts its data for offline mode and maybe WINE doesn't like it.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero-day and Day-one warez cannibalize PC game sales

Piracy's only effect on sales is increasing numbers as more people play the game and word of mouth about spreads.

There are only two types of people playing a game. Those that would pay money for the game (and have) and those that wouldn't pay money for the game (and if they don't have the option simply won't play it).

Re:AKA

[Nicolay77]

Bah.

As long as Steam is working, they can update their DRM.

As soon as Valve folds, their DRM becomes a static target. In short time 'opensteam' servers will pop up and DRM will no longer be a concern.

I however think that 'the big ones' like EA will cease to exist long before Valve does. Their distribution system is just way more convenient.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

While you can *put it into* offline mode, IIRC, you have to be on the internet at the time in order to do it.. thereby doing nothing but supporting his claim. your input ws indeed appreciated!

Re:AKA

[zarthrag]

Great, buy a game now, and have to pay for an entirely different service to play it later on...that's fair ^_^

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason they do that is so that you don't have ten people using the same account. While this does cause some inconvience, it works.

Re:AKA

[Manic Panic]

I'd actually sent Valve this exact question.

more specifically I asked them:
{
What happens if the Steam servers and services are no longer available [for example, you shut them down for business]

What happens to the games I have purchased and my ability to play them? Will they cease to be playable? All the games I own and play on the PC are on steam, and should this ever happen [say, 20 years down the line, I decide I want to boot up Dawn of War 2 or Portal and play it]
}
their answer was:
{
Hello

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

Should such an event occur, we will provide all necessary information at that time.
}

So... yeah. Fun times.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

drm does not prevent that...it just annoys people who buy the game!

Re:AKA

[SanityInAnarchy]

In the year 2020, I likely won't still be playing Spore.

Of course, I'm unlikely to play Spore at all -- I'm much more interested in Mirror's Edge, but I doubt I'll still be playing that in 2020.

Consider that without quite a lot of help, it can get incredibly difficult to play old games anyway. Can you still play Doom? Sure you can, because they opened the source, and there are now Doom ports to everything. Are you sure the DOS version still works on anything modern, without a rather large amount of emulation?

Regardless, I'm probably going to buy a few of these, if all they have is Steam's own DRM. Steam, I am willing to tolerate, because while it is more restricted, there is also quite a lot of added value -- the Friend system, Achievements, and all the other toys of an Xbox-Live-ish system, plus the ability to re-download any game I own, as many times as I want, on as many computers as I want, at speeds which can saturate my 100 mbit fiber-to-the-home Internet.

Re:AKA

[SanityInAnarchy]

Zero-day and Day-one warez cannibalize PC game sales, and as long as DRM prevents that, they're golden.

That raises two questions:

1: Who are these drooling idiots who didn't preorder, yet still must buy the game exactly one day after release? Are you saying that as soon as these mouth-breathers realize that they can wait a month and it'll be up on the Pirate Bay, PC gaming is dead?

2: Does DRM actually prevent that? It actually doesn't do anything close for movies. Most of those are online while in the theaters, if not before.

Steam is really no better, it's just that it hasn't had the same sort of character assassination that SecuROM and Starforce have gone through

I'll grant that it hasn't done that, but it is really quite a lot better. Consider:

  - Steam is quite clear about what DRM exists: Activation and continued contact with their activation server. That's it. Starforce and SecuROM do not come with a warning label that says "If you upgrade your computer, this game may stop working."

  - Steam doesn't install crap into your kernel. The others do, and this has forced people to reinstall Windows to use their CD burners.

  - The others tend to contain blacklists of programs you cannot run while playing the game. Steam doesn't -- it will happily run while I have a Daemontools image mounted.

  - Steam works on Wine. The disc-based systems require some commercial version of Wine, like Cedega, and then don't always work.

  - Steam actually provides some added value, as well as DRM. I can use it to IM friends from in game, and invite them to join a server I'm playing on, even if they don't have that game open at the moment. It autoupdates all my games, from one place. I can download the game, even saturate my 100 mbit fiber -- and I can download it as many times as I want, on as many computers as I want. And there's achievements. Most DRM-free systems don't have half these features.

Steam ties each legit license of the game to an account, meaning that it's easier to ban known cheaters, trolls, etc. No need to ban by IP address, just ban by Steam ID, and they're gone until they buy the game again.

because they happen to have made HL2.

And EA happens to have made Spore. So what?

I think the main reason is that Steam actually works. There are far fewer ways it's intrusive, and all of them are well-known.

And yes, it's possible to build a system like Steam without DRM. But at that point, I really don't care much. Steam is making me stay updated, stay online while playing, and use Windows and their software. The first two, I really don't care about. Last one, most games don't have Linux versions anyway, and I have to run the game anyway.

Re:AKA

[corsec67]

Unfortunately for me, my ISP seems to have installed some sort of brain-dead filtering that interrupts continuous connections after about 2 minute and makes them hang, probably as a Bittorrent blocking feature.

Here is a tool that was made to detect reset packets forged by the ISP to kill connections.

Also, you might try using some public DNS servers, like http://www.opendns.com/

Re:AKA

[UnknownSoldier]

> You probably won't still want to play Spore.
> Honestly, I don't understand this attitude.

Yeah and no one plays Chess, or Go which are thousands of years old. *snicker*

A good game stands the test of time. Age doesn't fucking matter.

Re:AKA

[YesIAmAScript]

That is against the Steam terms of service and if Valve catches you, they will shut off your account and you lose ALL the games you "bought".

I shouldn't have to risk losing all my games by loaning them out.

Furthermore, you cannot loan out one of your games this way, just all of them.

Re:AKA

[YesIAmAScript]

Games don't "allow" you to resell them. The LAW allows you to sell them. Even if the EULA says you cannot, you can.

Why are you bragging Steam lets me play at my friends house? This is some kind of advantage? I can take my game DVD to anybody's house and play there with non-Steam games.

Steam limits you more than you are with a non-DRM game, or even one with a conventional copy protection that doesn't tie all your games to a single account.

Re:AKA

[kiddygrinder]

DRM does not stop zero day warez. Spore, for example, has some of the most insane drm in existence on it and was pirated several days before it was released. So, how does drm in this situation do anything useful against piracy at all? Steam adds value, that's why it is better. i don't really care to crack steam games, usually because it's just flat out easier (and often cheaper vs a bricks and mortar store for us australians) to buy from steam than it is to dl a cracked copy. That's the reason it's not being character assassinated, it makes it trivially more difficult to pirate games and stays the fuck out of the way.

Re:AKA

[Antique Geekmeister]

Unfortunately, it also interrupts SSH sessions. Those are basically IP based: the forward and revrese DNS lookups are done at connect time, and I've also tried it with other DNS services. It's definitely a network issue, not merely a DNS issue.

The interference with SSH indicaes that it's not just an RST of popular Bitorrent ports: I can easily believe that these idiots drop RST's into *all* services, unannounced, to do traffic shaping.

Re:AKA

[neumayr]

There's also those who test games in their pirated form before buying them. If for whatever reason the game doesn't meet their expectations, they're less likely to pay for them.
Would DRM make it too much of a hassle to test games that way, it could lead to increased sales.
Personally, I'm a lot more likely to play an underwhelming title if I already payed for it.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

In a rare moment, an "IANAL" on Slashdot actually got the law right! Congratulations! Valve would be breaching their own contract (i.e., the license) by terminating it for no reason.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam IS DRM.

Re:AKA

[gparent]

Games don't "allow" you to resell them. The LAW allows you to sell them. Even if the EULA says you cannot, you can.

Considering the EULA has been upheld in court several times for that exact reason, I'm going to have to go with "No".

Thus, Steam has less restrictions.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ok. Haeleth probably hasn't yet noticed the millions of abandonware/emulation game sites. If people still play SMB nowadays, there certainly will be people wanting to play Spore in 2020.

Re:AKA

[FredFredrickson]

Oh, good, opensteam. Perfect. Nobody worry anymore. This solution is bound to pop up. Continue buying your games folks, nothing to see here.

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

the other, worse DRM methods are somehow more tasteful and acceptable.

They're both equally unacceptable. I'll not have my games tied to an online account where they can steal them from me with no provocation or warning.

Re:AKA

[AlexMax2742]

DRM does not stop zero day warez. Spore, for example, has some of the most insane drm in existence on it and was pirated several days before it was released. So, how does drm in this situation do anything useful against piracy at all?

Nothing. But just because Spore's DRM happened to have been cracked on day one does not mean that it is hopeless to even try, because effective DRM has been introduced in past games, such as Bioshock (which took two weeks to crack), and there is far too much money at stake to simply say "We give up, no more DRM."

Re:AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

An Opensteam project is not necessary. Patches to the steam DLLs that bypass authentication mechanisms, have existed for a long time. On Valve's own multiplayer games, cracked game servers must be used, rather than official ones, but at the point when Valve shuts Steam down, all servers will be cracked servers, since they would need to be, so that is no issue.

foreign currencies

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not new news, and its no longer correct.

Re:foreign currencies

[Narishma]

Sources?

Re:foreign currencies

[mpeskett]

Well the prices for the UK seem to have actually gone down when they were converted to pounds... I think to bring them in line with what we'd pay retail here.

That or they set the converted prices before the pound dropped in value

Will they remove SecuROM from other Steam games?

[mahsah]

If they remove it for Crysis Warhead I will buy it immediately.

Finally!

[Opportunist]

Now I can buy Spore! I knew they'd drop it sooner or later and then I can finally buy it.

Wait... why would I?

Maybe the lesson here is, if you avoid DRM like the plague, you avoid buying overhyped games as a beneficial side effect.

Re:Finally!

[narcberry]

Well I was excited to try it, and I will now.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Spore? Even without DRM, it's a seriously over-hyped game. It gets repetitive after the first run-through. I hope the Sims 3 won't be as lame...

Re:Finally!

[narcberry]

Aren't all games over-hyped?
I'm still excited to play it.

Re:Finally!

[poetmatt]

Lets rephrase:

"we've replaced a very restrictive form of DRM with another form of DRM. How do you like it?"

opportunist (166417): "I LOVE IT! *hands cash*"

This is not the drm you are looking for.

Steam is DRM - its better, but still DRM.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam is DRM - its better, but still DRM.

Steam as DRM hits the gamer sweet spot. It may be slightly more onerous for older and casual gamers, but the activation server and required network connection isn't even an issue for traditional video gamers. So yeah, Steam is still DRM, but it's *usable* DRM.

Re:Finally!

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

No. Not all games are over-hyped.

Really good games, for instance, are so under-hyped that they never get mentioned at all. That's why no one buys them.

Re:Finally!

[Firethorn]

Steam is DRM - its better, but still DRM.

But maybe it'll convince EA that at least over restrictive DRM IS an issue - and SECUROM, limited installs, complicated activation schemes and all that is the incorrect method to go about doing DRM.

Or maybe a correct wording would be 'you can't get something for nothing' - you CAN get consumers to accept DRM as long as you offer true advantages to go along with it. I happen to like the idea that even if my house is struck by a meterorite and everything is destroyed I'd be able to play my games again as soon as I got a new computer and an internet connection.

Re:Finally!

[Khuffie]

So the only really good games are ones that never get mentioned and no one buys?

Re:Finally!

[Bios_Hakr]

It's getting more annoying as time goes on. For instance, I bought a few games for the kids to play on the laptop. Last night, I wanted to play Left4Dead but couldn't because Steam was logged in on another PC.

Steam should allow the client to run on multiple PCs and then just ensure the same game isn't being played.

Re:Finally!

[Chyeld]

And once people start buying the game, it stops being good. Haven't you ever heard the term "Sell out"?

Re:Finally!

[Koiu Lpoi]

That's actually a recent change, this month actually. I've been running the client on both my computers for a long time, and only recently has it started giving me this same error. Which is annoying, considering their key-checking for online games is pretty much foolproof, so there's pretty much no need to do this... except to stop me from playing, uh, Half-Life 1 singleplayer on my Dell Mini 9...

Re:Finally!

[Opportunist]

It is as usual a matter of magnitude and a question of how much you're willing to accept.

Yes, Steam imposes a form of DRM. So far I didn't decide that I accept it, contrary to your assumption. I know your plight, and I miss the sarcasm tags just as much as you do.

The question is now, how much do people accept? Steam offers a solution most people find acceptable, so it will prevail. It does not allow you to play more than one game from your account at the same time, it puts your game to some extent into the hands of a company which will allow you to play them or refuse you to do the same, but it seems people are willing to accept this kind of restriction. So far, and after the HalfLife-from-Far-East problems, my jury is still out on it. So far, the verdict isn't positive.

DRM will be implemented in one way or another. Most companies do see copying restrictions as the way to go, and they will invent more or less restrictive ways. The perfect DRM would probably be one that the user does not notice while at the same time making the redistribution of copies as hard as possible. I say perfect not because I'd want this kind, but because this is what most customers will accept and not resist.

I can see a lot of resistance against the SecuROM copy protection scheme. Mostly because the average customer notices it. Yes, most people here would notice about any kind of DRM, but we're hardly a sizable customer base. Whether we buy a game or whether we don't isn't going to make or break a game's success. 99% of the people buying games don't know about DRM. They only get to know about it when it keeps them from playing the game they bought. Then they start noticing it, and then they start resisting it.

As long as they can play, they don't mind.

So, to some degree the old "keep the CD in the drive" kind of protection worked. Yes, it meant you had the hassle of finding the CD and slipping it into the drive to play, but people accepted that. Since it also worked most of the time, they didn't mind it too much. They do mind, though, if a game refuses to work because they reinstalled it too often.

So we'll see some sort of compromise emerge. Something that lets game makers retain control over the distribution, while allowing game customers to play. DRM will continue to exist. And it will exist at the level that customers accept.

Now, personally no DRM would be my favorite model. It's very unlikely, though, that this model will become too popular with game makers. Instead they will be searching for the most restrictive model that the majority of customers accept. And Steam seems to be that model.

Btw, and totally unrelated, is there a way to play Portal without Steam? I'd really love to play it...

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that after playing the game all the way through from start to finish that it gets repetitive starting from the beginning again. Isn't that every single game/book/movie/etc ever made?

Re:Finally!

[poetmatt]

I know you caught the sarcasm, thankfully.

I would like to just see the DRM dance end, really. When DRM that people don't notice is "perfected", the same situation as now will occur: The smart people will figure out how to get around it, and the rest will happily lap up.

I have portal on my steam account which I rarely if ever use; should you wish to play it you can use mine. Just leave me some comment with a way to contact you or something.

Re:Finally!

[FLEB]

You bring up a good point about this sort of always-authenticating DRM system. While the common question is "What if they close up shop", another question that's less-often asked is "What if they become difficult to work with?" "What if upgrades break or limit previous functionality?"

Re:Finally!

[FLEB]

Y'know, they could do just that, with quite a bit less restrictive DRM. Just off the top of my head, Nero's website, for instance, has an online "key registry" and downloadable, unlockable copies of the software. It's meteor-safe.

Re:Finally!

[Ash-Fox]

It's getting more annoying as time goes on. For instance, I bought a few games for the kids to play on the laptop. Last night, I wanted to play Left4Dead but couldn't because Steam was logged in on another PC.

It should of logged out the other computer and let you play.

Re:Finally!

[Antique Geekmeister]

That's actually a good feature request to Steam: "disconnect my other logins".

Re:Finally!

[Ash-Fox]

That's actually a good feature request to Steam: "disconnect my other logins".

That's what it does here, when I start Steam on another computer.

Re:Finally!

[Samah]

Or, find "TinyLauncher" and your problems go away (for single player at least).

Re:Finally!

[Opportunist]

That's actually a pretty good question. What if the rules change in the middle of the game, after your purchase? You bought the game under completely different circumstances, now it may not work for you anymore.

Imagine a change towards Steam requiring some sort of "reactivation" every now and then. You bought it under the impression that you only have to activate it once, not have a permanent connection to the internet because you don't have a constant internet connection, as a traveling salesman for example? Such a change would immediately render the game useless for you.

Or take something a lot more trivial and likely, what if they require you to have a certain version of an OS? I guess for some companies it would not take a lot of mone... I mean convincing that their verification software ceases to work with XP or below.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the same problem with Steam. I juggle a couple of Steam accounts for this very reason. It sucks.

I started with two Steam accounts - one for me, one for my wife. Both accounts had Team Fortress 2. One night I invited one of my buddies over to play TF2 on my spare PC. But my wife wanted to play Portal.

Yeah, I know there are ways around this with "offline mode" and such nonsense, but a better solution would be having an option to phone home with what game is being played, not just client authentication.

Re:Finally!

[Shihar]

Personally, I don't find DRM evil when it adds value. SecureRom doesn't add anything. It just cripples something that you bought for free. Steam on the other hand actually adds value. It is easy to buy stuff, quick to get it, your games don't get lost, and when you get a new computer you simply fire up Steam and can quickly reinstall all of your games. Steam's DRM stays out of my way and gives me something I want.

Rhapsody is another great example. Rhapsody's DRM is used such that I can download basically any song in existence on a whim. If the song sucks, I just discard it without a second though. I download a few hundred dollars worth of music on a whim. The DRM again actually adds something of value to me. Sure, I don't "own" the music, but I don't want to. I want to rent it. If collecting is your thing, you should just go buy a CD. If downloading everything ever made by some random band on a whim is your thing, the all you can eat buffet works great.

DRM has the potential to open up new business models, as seen in Rhapsody and Steam. When it is used for that purpose, I am happy with it. When it is used to simply cripple things, as was the case with Spore, or the old iTunes DRM, it pisses me off.

Re:Finally!

[poetmatt]

Ha, I never knew about that. Nice. Let's hope opportunist sees it.

Re:Finally!

[poetmatt]

DRM doesn't open a business model. When you say "we won't do this unless you cripple it" doesn't mean DRM enabled something, it means a company deliberately disabled something to take value away from the consumer. That's like saying "if you give me x amount, for an extra y amount we'll give you what you want even if it truly is only worth x amount".

Rhapsody reflects on 2 things: that the value to you for the music is effectively 0, since you're paying monthly for whatever you want which can be dwindled down to pennies. Also, it reflects on a misunderstanding: nobody cares to "own" music but people do like to play it in whatever they want, whenever they want. DRM fights that for the false sake of "piracy". If I can play the same thing in my car, mp3 player, cellphone, laptop, friends house, etc, why should rhapsody lock that stuff down? Why should I have to tether that to my money? Answer: I don't. I pay artists with checks directly. They recognize the difference.

Just like even though gaming systems have obscene DRM you can still take a disc to your neighbor's house for them to play with no magic restrictions.

The thing is, I don't want to HAVE to buy things through Steam. Notably it has a ton of problems with linux on occasion still. Of course, you can imagine how well that works if everyone jumps on board steam. At least EVE runs flawless on all forms of linux (DX9, DX10 included by the way).

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can choose to log out from the other PC from remote and install Steam on the other computer. You can't play single player from two computers but you can propagate copies for a temporary LAN session.

Re:Finally!

[Shihar]

Like I said, buying CDs or paying per pop might work great for you. For me, it is close to worthless. I don't want to collect music like they are stamps to be appreciated for all time. I want it so that when I want a song, or I want to explore a genera, it is simply there.

A great example of this is the other day I heard a great 50's blues song. It rekindled my interest in the genera, so I went out and merrily downloaded about 15 albums from various artists, tossed it into a play list, and hit the shuffle button. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn't. I deleted the stuff I didn't like and downloaded everything ever made by artists that I did like. All said and done, that exercise would have cost me a few hundred dollars if I had bought each song individually online or (worse) bought it as CDs. That, and I would have a pile of crap that I don't like. Instead, it cost me a boring old $15, which is an utterly trivial cost.

If you are an indie kid who hangs out with other indie kids and listens to nothing but indie music, buying CDs makes sense. If collecting stuff gets you off, buying CDs or MP3's makes sense. If on the other hand your taste in music expands into things that your friends are not interested in, is diverse, or you simply consume a lot of music, and collecting things doesn't give you a woody, renting access to every single song ever made for a measly $15 a month is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Like I said, it isn't for everyone. For someone like me though, DRM making it possible to rent access to nearly every single song ever recorded for a trivial cost is frigging awesome.

If I want to support a band, assuming they still exist and are not long since buried in the ground, I'll buy a t-shirt or something.

Re:Finally!

[ruadatha]

nope, unfortunately, it gets repetitive about 20minutes into it.. roughly 3 minutes after you get out of th water.

Re:Finally!

[mr_da3m0n]

Actually, I left a PC at my girlfriend's appartement, so I can have some sort of home away from home.
Whenever I log into steam from her place, it logs me out at home, and vice versa.
In no way does it actually prevents me from playing.

Re:Finally!

[Firethorn]

But even Nero has DRM.

It'd get quite annoying trying to keep track of all my games and all the distributers on steam. Stardock works closer to what you say, but I view it something like talking down a Heroin addict - you can't expect EA to back off 100% immediately.

Re:Finally!

[OzPhIsH]

"I happen to like the idea that even if my house is struck by a meterorite and everything is destroyed I'd be able to play my games again as soon as I got a new computer and an internet connection." The only game YOU need is Maniac Mansion...

Re:Finally!

[poetmatt]

ah, wish I had seen this earlier.

The thing is, in the same process of the Heroin addict, what are we going to do when EA hits withdrawal, panics, and pulls all the games from team with a giant media backlash of "whoops"?

I think we've been through this enough times that it needs to be no longer acceptable for a company to do that.

This is good...Maybe.

[peculium.infirmus]

Maybe I will purchase EA games again. I gave up on them after I tried to no end to get Battlefield 2142 to run just half way decently. I now buy most of my games through Steam, which means I miss out on a few titles, but the advantages of Steam far out weigh missing out on them for me.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[narcberry]

What are the benefits exactly? Digital download?

I don't know why Steam is so popular, seems like another point of failure to me. Someone please sell me on Steam.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[FishWithAHammer]

Digital download. Ability to download your games on as many machines as you want (and play on one at a time, which I consider fair). Integrated grouping/friends-lists with Steam Friends and a built-in matchmaker.

It's pretty excellent.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[timmarhy]

and i can't do that with non drm laiden titles because....? admittedly i used steam years ago, but it was shitty and the concept still doesn't do anything for me.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[svallarian]

EA was only partially at fault. Dice just designed the game badly and didn't test worth a damn against Vista clients before releasing it to the masses. Now whether or not that EA forced them to release early is something else, but just look at the SIZE of the patches for BF2 and BF2142. 512MB for the last BF2 patch...compared to the smaller 16-30MB patches for CoD4. It just screams bad early design.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[peculium.infirmus]

Digital download. Ability to download your games on as many machines as you want (and play on one at a time, which I consider fair). Integrated grouping/friends-lists with Steam Friends and a built-in matchmaker.

It's pretty excellent.

What he said :) Plus I don't sell my games, I still have and play on a regular basis Unreal Tournament 99, 10 year old game and still has plenty of replay left in it.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Ihmhi]

The only major feature Steam is lacking IMO is storing and being able to download your save games. Having your game installed at your buddy's house doesn't really matter much if you can't pick up where you left off.

Yes, you could just copy the save game files and take them with you, but it's something that could easily be seamless on Steam's part and should be.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

that's under works. steam cloud or steam works(not sure which) already syncs up keyboard set ups etc and they are in the process of doing that to save games/

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't do it legally. With steam, you know that it's legal because they're explicitly enumerating that right in the terms of your license and providing the mechanism to do it.

And that ignores the additional benefit that you don't have to worry about misplaced or damaged original media (free download is a lot cheaper than "cost of media plus nominal fee plus S&H" where available. And faster, too), or that nonsense about "insert disk to play" that other software uses.

Sure, it's DRM, but it's DRM done right: you get something in return for what you're giving up.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Nick Kirven]

Steam has that major feature. It's called Steam Cloud and was initially implemented with Left 4 Dead.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[corsec67]

Digital download?

Is there any other kind?

Or does "digital" now mean "not on CD"?

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Ihmhi]

On one or two of their proprietary games, yes. I'm talking the saves of every game you have, Valve or non-Valve.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital download. Ability to download your games on as many machines as you want (and play on one at a time, which I consider fair).

Reminds me of that Monty Python sketch about the Piranha brothers:

Yes, definitely he was fair. After he nailed me head to the table, I used to
go round every Sunday lunchtime to his flat and apologise, and then we'd shake
hands and he'd nail me head to the floor. He was very reasonable. Once, one
Sunday I told him my parents were coming round to tea and would he mind very
much not nailing my head that week and he agreed and just screwed my pelvis to
a cake stand.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[ion.simon.c]

http://bluehost.com/

You're welcome. :D

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[timmarhy]

"You can't do it legally"

it can be perfectly legal without steam, it's just up to the distributer to be more reasonable with thier t&c's. the question you need to ask yourself, is is piracy more or less of a problem now than before DRM? what's that, it's just as big of a problem??? that's right DRM isn't the solution. kthxbai.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Arthur Grumbine]

Digital download?

Is there any other kind?

Back in my day we only had analog downloads! And we were glad to have any at all! Why, if we wanted to play a video game one of us had to mentally interpret and reconstruct the current running through our hands back into the original binary! Then we had to crack the DRM - by slamming our heads just right against a stone wall to purge it from our memory. And we were grateful for the opportunity!

...
Then our father would cut us in two wit' a bread knife.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Draek]

it can be perfectly legal without steam, it's just up to the distributer to be more reasonable with thier t&c's.

But they aren't, so Steam it is.

the question you need to ask yourself, is is piracy more or less of a problem now than before DRM? what's that, it's just as big of a problem??? that's right DRM isn't the solution. kthxbai.

The question you need to ask yourself, is piracy more or less of a problem now for Steam-only games than it is for non-Steam ones? and the answer is, from what I've seen, that it's much less of a problem now. Yes, pirated versions do exist but most of the people I've met who've played HL2 have done so on a legit copy, which I can't say for Crysis or CoD4 for example. Therefore, by your own argument, Steam *is* the solution.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM has risen as the means of distribution for pirated software have increased (fast broadband). So if it is "just as big of a problem" then DRM is successful (from the publisher's point of view). Don't forget that napster almost put the music business out of business, and it is a hell of a lot cheaper to produce and market an album vs a video game.

And I'm not sure if "it's just as big of a problem". I just don't know - it could be more, less, or unchanged. But to pretend that if there weren't drm (or other barriers) to software piracy that there would not be more of it? I don't buy that for a second.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[FishWithAHammer]

So you should be able to play your games on as many computers concurrently as you want?

Gee, I can't imagine how that doesn't screw the publisher.

Idiot.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[lysergic.acid]

i prefer analog downloads using real steam. unfortunately, it took me several ruined hard drives to realize that analog steam downloads are incompatible with digital storage media. but i finally got a water tank installed in my computer, and it's been working great ever since.

see, whenever you download something the steam travels through a network of pressurized pipes--a series of tubes, if you will--until it finally reaches the computer, at which point it has to go through the Steam Condenser System Interface (SCSI) before it's finally written to the liquid state drive.

it is quite dangerous since the pipes are filled with highly pressurized scalding hot steam. if the network link ever becomes oversaturated it can easily result in packet loss and 3rd degree burns. but i think it's worth the risk. analog steam is perfect for cloud applications and downloading vaporware.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Chaos Incarnate]

So would their CEO; give it time. :)

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the "get off my lawn" part.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[tibman]

Steam Fact #81
If you come home and discover your home has burned down to it's foundations while you were at work, you can still go nextdoor to your neighbors and play all your Steam games.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[FLEB]

Why can't you do it legally? I'd be just as legal shuffling a CD-ROM over to someone's house, installing it, using it, and removing it when I'm done.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[FishWithAHammer]

Right, but with this, you can install it as many places as you want, no CD checks--it only plays on one at a time.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Frogbert]

I know I'm being a douche but radio stations used to transmit programs over the air that I would record on cassette for my Commodore 64.

If anything is an analog download that would be it.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[jabithew]

Oh for mod points...

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Kneo24]

• Digital Downloads
• Infinite Installations
• Can Install STEAM Anywhere (ties in with previous point)
• Integrated Community Features
• Large Selection of Games, Both Old and New
• Non-intrusive DRM
• Works Nicely As A Game Manager (I can put non-STEAM games up on my games list so I can just open up STEAM and launch them through there, all without STEAM's DRM)

I'm sure there are other things that I missed, however STEAM is generally nice. I've never had too many issues with it.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Kneo24]

I forgot automatic updating! It will also automatically update your games for you when a patch is available, and you go to launch the game. This doesn't work with the non-STEAM games on your list, but any other game you bought through STEAM, this works.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

see, whenever you download something the steam travels through a network of pressurized pipes--a series of tubes, if you will--until it finally reaches the computer,

Wait, wait; you mean it's not like a big truck?

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[neomunk]

Many posts get modded to +5 funny, but this is above and beyond. Your post is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time, slashdot or otherwise. Bravo.

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, nice!

Re:This is good...Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

glad to see you have your priorities straight. =P

Well.

[Warll]

Well about time. About what two years ago I bought BattleField 21**, they had released it with their then new downloading service. It was, annoying to say the least, your account had to match the email you had used to buy, not that this was well sated. After that things only got worse, on my end at least, the service went through two other names till a year or so later I come back and try to play the game I bought. Guess what? They donâ(TM)t even have my account anymore! Turns out at some point in time they decided that I would only be able to download my purchase X amount of days after I bought it, oh and it was retroactive. Of course they never sent me a check for the money they stole. Well at least they're smartening up now.

Re:Well.

[Barny]

There was an "extended download" option (about an extra $5) that you would have unticked to save some extra cash on that purchase.

I got the 2 x-pacs for BF2 in the same way, I have since lost my BF2 disks but I can still download the update packs.

Not defending this opt-in, just stateing that at the time you purchased they were doing that kind of thing, I was "this close" to opting out as well, then I figured, what the hell.

Re:Well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck EA after their treatment.

I bought the expansions to Battlefield 2 on their EA Downloader service. After I bought Battlefield 2, the old school CD edition.

At some point, they demanded that the expansion games be played on a game bought online. The server wouldn't register my cd key to my account as it had already been registered to it, but the game didn't recognize the cd version.

They said tough shit.

No problem

[sleeponthemic]

The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per â1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per â1.

Yeah but they don't have to physically ship pixels when they change money. Pixels are heavy, bytes are dense.. it's a complicated system of pipes and transmission lines.

Re:No problem

[moriya]

It's not complicated. It's a series of tubes. It's as simple as that!

Re:No problem

[Arthur Grumbine]

Whenever I see this I'm always expecting it to be followed by the obligatory long explanation of how "it's not a bad analogy blah blah blah" scattered with links to other people who are saying the same thing.

I'm kinda happy that there wasn't one after yours, although I'm secretly cheering for it-wasn't-a-bad-analogy to become its own meme, representing that portion of the tech community that cares just a bit too much about the logic of memes.

Hmmm...now that I've spent so much time on this response I feel like a should copy-and-paste it everywhere I see a lonely "tubes" comment...but I won't.

Or will I?

No, no I won't.

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't believe the stupid politicians, they are all lying scheming manipulative fraudsters bent on deceiving the general public. In reality, the internet is a big truck. Don't believe the hype!

Re:No problem

[troll8901]

You've been in Slashdot far longer than me. Therefore, your experience is indisputable.

But I don't remember seeing the "not a bad analogy" meme.

Maybe I just need to practise my Slashdot-fu some more...

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing a MMO thats been doing this for years, though it started when â1 = $0.90. Basically, they dont care about an exchange rate, which may or may not harm you in the long run. I've seen â1 peak at $1.70 as well, so I guess its coming back in line with the global recession

Re:No problem

[Antique Geekmeister]

Well, considering that a lot of the Steam games are pretty cheap, I'd be willing to pay a premium for downloading it online while overseas rather than having to find media there. This came up when I was looking for Team Fortress 2.

Re:No problem

[jabithew]

This is actually a major problem for me. Steam used to be my first port of call (before the recent run on the pound) because it was always less than half the price of the high street (because of the $2 pound).

In converting $1 to £1 they are merely following standard practice for the games industry and ripping off the Brits.

Re:No problem

[pwilli]

The conversion USD to GBP is the only one that was done right (the brits are the only ones that profit from this recent change).

The fun thing is, although GBP and EUR have almost the same value nowadays, most games cost 26 GBP or 34 GBP and at the same time 49 EUR in Steam. That is what r e a l l y upsets the rest of Europe and possibly will be a matter the EU will have to handle in future: I, a EU-citizen, have the right to pay the UK prices and not be forced to pay the higher EUR prices for my home country. Apple already lost a similar case with iTunes.

Re:No problem

[an unsound mind]

Nope. The global recession caused EUR to crash pretty hard when it started. Now it's climbing back up again.

Is this really an improvement?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Its been widely hypothesized that EA's intent with the DRM on Spore was not really to prevent piracy, but to impede second-hand sales. Doesn't Steam do exactly the same thing? Can you feasibly resell a license/copy of a game purchased on Steam?

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[GFree678]

Can you feasibly resell a license/copy of a game purchased on Steam?

Nope. There's no way to detach a game once it's purchased onto a Steam account. The best you can do is try to sell the account and hope that Valve doesn't find out if done on eBay or something similar, since they will do their best to deactivate the account.

Steam really isn't the best option if you like selling your games after a while.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[Bios_Hakr]

I don't know about Spore, but you can de-authorize Half-Life and sell that component.

You can also sell the Steam account as a whole.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[dcam]

Because one of the side effects of EA's changes make it very hard to install at a later date. On the other hand with games purchased via steam you can back them up and install them at a later date.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[ozphx]

No. You can't really sell.

Also theres the question of finding a buyer. The cost of a "second hand era" game on Steam is quite cheap - eg Half-Life 1 is $10, Half-Life 2 is $20.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/

Theres not really much point selling my Steam "second-hand" games collection for me anyway. All the old games (HL1 and expansions) I'd want to sell are avaliable in the "Half-Life Anthology" pack - for $15.

You could buy everything I have installed in the "Valve Complete Pack" with the exception of GTA4 for $100.

So I guess it inflates the cost of older games slightly. I'd probably prefer to buy HL1 "new" from Valve for $10 - rather than messing around with HeadCrabHumper23 on ebay to save a couple of bucks tbh.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[moonbender]

Finding a buyer is no question. You just need to price it 5 bucks below what Valve asks. Since it's only a license anyway, he hasn't anything to gain from paying Valve those additional 5 dollars -- and that's exactly why Valve is unlikely to ever allow it.

A nice compromise would be to create a sort of used Steam games market, where HL2 (to stick with the example) would be offered for $15, $5 of which go to Valve and the rest to the seller. Or just offer a buy-back system where you can sell back licenses for half their current price. That'd be really nice for the consumer. But they're never going to install a system like that unless somebody forces them to -- maybe a competing service could start doing it, for instance.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[ozphx]

Yeah, just saying - you have to price it so low to beat the "new" price that you start to reconsider whether its worth selling. Case in point - HL1 + expansions - $15 new, so I'm selling for $10. At that price I think a lot of people would rather keep the games.

I don't disagree that people should have the choice - but people aren't being seriously disadvantaged by losing their right to sell.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can create a new Steam account for purchase you make on Steam, and sell the account.

Re:Is this really an improvement?

[Drakkenmensch]

Second-hand sales have become the new second-hand smoke. The new leprosy, the new social evil now that communism has fallen out of fashion. Expect the movie theaters to have the Munite of Hate ads encouraging you against it very soon, because "when you buy a used game, you're buying from Hitler."

This may sound extreme, but all this talk of publishers not getting money from used game sales is utter nonsense. Does Ford get money from used cars being resold? Do house builders get money when someone flips a house? No, they don't. If they want more of my money, they just find noriginal and interesting ways to get me to buy new instead of pre-owned.

It's about time that game publishers start thinking the same way instead of taking a leaf from the RIAA and launching a new inquisition.

Run as Admin

[Anonymous Coward]

Now why, why on earth would Mass Effect be required to Run as Administrator?

For most of the games it also says "INTERNET CONNECTION AND END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY." Well, yeah, Steam games already require that. Are they trying to say that Offline mode is disabled for that particular game? There an extra EULA hand-crafted by EA on top of the Steam one?

This all sounds very suspicious to me.

Not a problem

[the eric conspiracy]

The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per â1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per â1.

Not a problem for me. 25 years ago I got a bottle of St. Emelion that tasted funny. Paid big money for it too. Later I found out that it was from a vintage that had been doctored.

The French have been keeping the good stuff and exporting the dregs forever.

Revenge is sweet.

Nice Try, but No

[ewhac]

Sorry. I won't install Steam, either. I've been very consistent on this point. It's the reason I still haven't played Half-Life 2.

It may also be worth pointing out that, since a company the size of EA believes Steam is a reasonable substitute for SecuROM, that Steam may not all the harmless sugardrops and fairydust that its supporters have been adamantly claiming all these years. Which is, pretty much, what I suspected all along...

Schwab

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Broken scope]

No one is claiming anything about steam.

It is what it is.

A service that allows you to buy(rent), download your game to any computer with the client, and play. It has a functional offline mode that works for every valve developed or published title I have played. It has introduced me a to few indie games that were fun. The prices are good, and I've bought most of my games on discount. It has community features that I find useful. It keeps my game up to date.

It is the only authentication system that actually gives you something in return for authenticating your game, and it doesn't bitch about me having virtual drive software.

The only major issues I've had with a game on steam was when a publisher(THQ not Valve) decided that the steam authentication wasn't good enough and decided it needed another DRM solution on top of steam, and it didn't let me actually play the game while their authentication severs were buggered.

Steam is what it is. Nothing more nothing less.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[gparent]

Might giving a reason for all that worthless critic? Steam is a kickass platform for game delivery, and has been widely adopted by multiple high-profile companies now.

Its DRM is a LOT less limiting than pretty much every alternative on the market (except no DRM), and it brings a load of features to boot.

But hey, you can just stop playing some of the greatest games ever made because you *gasp* need an internet connection (ONCE). Nobody will stop you.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Firethorn]

It is the only authentication system that actually gives you something in return for authenticating your game, and it doesn't bitch about me having virtual drive software.

Well, there's also stardock

, but their game list is more second-tier, if you know what I mean.

Steam is winning on number of games in my list right now, mostly due to their offering package deals quite frequently, as well as the 75% off deals. Even though I have a physical CD somewhere, I might just buy their 75% off($5) Stalker deal right now.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on steam for 5 bucks. five bucks. That right there should be worth installing steam.

If for some reason steam goes away and I can't play it ten years from now, or even a year from now, it was only five bucks.

But, since steam was released (ha ha) I have never had a problem with it, and even my old half-life and expansions install and play without issue on new xp and vista machines.

How many of your "DRM free" games from 10 years ago install and play on modern OS without issues? I normally end up spending a bunch of time hunting for long removed patches when attempting to get older games running on current systems. As a service, Steam keeps the games functional on modern OS.

And Steam makes your content easily available. I have installed my copy of steam on probably 2 dozen different machines over the course of its existence. No issues with "you've installed too many times so we turn you off now nice knowing you a-hole"

Steam is a great solution for modern commercial software distribution, because you need to face facts, DRM is not going away. Not buying things (at reasonable prices) because you have a moral objection to commercial software (and the associated DRM) is one thing, but if you are not purchasing games distributed on steam because you fear them going away in the future, well I think you are only punishing yourself.

I can't understand all the steam haters...

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Draek]

Or, it could mean that EA has finally seen the light and is trying to be an actual videogame company instead of the marketing-driven behemoth pushing yearly crap it has been until now, and is now trying to sell good games in consumer-friendly formats for a change.

Call me naive, but after Mirror's Edge I'm willing to give them the benefit of doubt, and if IBM could change, so can EA.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam may not all the harmless sugardrops and fairydust that its supporters have been adamantly claiming all these years.

I think you accidentally a whole verb.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Broken scope]

I love stardock's games.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[v1]

I think you accidentally a whole verb.

C|N>K

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Ash-Fox]

Sorry. I won't install Steam, either.

You have had no impact on the industry obviously.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Opportunist]

I wouldn't call it seeing the light, I'd call it seeing customer complaints drowning their support lines. So they decided to outsource that problem to Steam.

Re:Nice Try, but No

[Firethorn]

Not saying that I don't love them as well. What I meant by Second tier is that Steam gets games that get TV advertising and places on the shelf at every store that sells games. Stardock, doesn't.

The current exchange rate isn't helping right now either. Steam games are frequently cheaper at the moment, if you buy them on special. Also, steam games are the prettier visually. ;)

Re:Nice Try, but No

[rtechie]

FWIW, I have seen and personally experienced technical problems and incompatibilities with the Steam client.

Though the fundamental problem is the one you highlighted at the end of your post. Steam's servers HAVE gone down in the past. And, eventually, they will go down for good. What do gamers do then?

There have been other server-based authentication schemes in the past (and eventually all their servers were permanently disconnected) and in some cases the companies released patches that effectively cracked the DRM or, in most cases, gamers had to rely on "community" cracks.

The lack of data recovery is the fundamental problem with all DRM schemes and is one of the reasons all such schemes are anti-consumer.

Wait, what?

[Kranerian]

EA doing something intelligent? Something that is appreciated by users? No... It can't possibly be true.

Great, any benefits to adding my copy to Steam?

[Praetor.Zero]

I didn't want to buy Steam because I didn't want to support EA in their DRM habits. However, I had no problem installing it when it was given to me for my birthday. Is it possible to associate my serial with the digital copy that EA will provide with Steam? Right now, I just have a shortcut in the My Games tab. Would there be any benefit or downfall in doing so?

Re:Great, any benefits to adding my copy to Steam?

[bakedpatato]

Nope. When you add the game via "My Games", you only enable the Steam overlay in the game and it tells people you are playing the game when they look at your Steam Friends status. For non steam games(even if there is the same game on Steam), the "My Games" way of adding games makes Steam merely a launcher with the benefit of using the overlay ingame.

Re:Great, any benefits to adding my copy to Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, converting retail to steam only works for games made by Valve.

Re:Great, any benefits to adding my copy to Steam?

[Dude McDude]

Not true. I bought Football Manager 2009 and used the key on the manual to install the game via Steam's 'Activate a product on Steam...' feature.

Re:Great, any benefits to adding my copy to Steam?

[Dude McDude]

It doesn't seem to be possible at this time. Only these games can be added using retail keys: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-WUSF-3601#which

Conversion rate

[psnyder]

The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per 1 euro

Converting currency properly isn't Freeman.

Wait a minute...

[Drakin020]

I am seeing praise here that they are dropping the SecureROM for Steam.

Why?

The way I see it, I still have to rely on some kind of authentication server in order to play my games. What if 10 years down the road I want to play some spore, and Steam is no longer online. What then?

Sorry, but I still refuse to buy until I have a hard copy in my hands that I can install at any place any time.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am seeing praise here that they are dropping the SecureROM for Steam.

Why?

The way I see it, I still have to rely on some kind of authentication server in order to play my games. What if 10 years down the road I want to play some spore, and Steam is no longer online. What then?

Sorry, but I still refuse to buy until I have a hard copy in my hands that I can install at any place any time.

Doubtful that such a large platform will drop off the face of the earth in such a short span of time. Hell EverQuest is still pretty lively.

Re:Wait a minute...

[JimboFBX]

If steam went under, someone would probably release a hacked steam client that lets you play without authentication (similar to offline mode in steam but without the week-long or whatever it is timelimit). They might also do a client update that would do the same.

I find that very unlikely though. Steam would be bought out and passed around before it would go away. Its like trying to imagine a once popular website going away. Think about the sites from the '90s you dont use anymore, like excite.com or ubid.com. They're STILL there.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

so instead of

1)break the law
2)play video game

you're saying i should

1)pay money
2)lose my rights to play when they go under
3)break the law
4)play video game

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're talking about has already existed for a while. Essentially, you can play all the single-player Steam games without Steam... and some non-Steam hacked servers.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or someone not authorized could pick up their domains and distribute virus/trojan updates.

Steam may be more convenient than other DRM, but it's still DRM, and it's still bad. Not one of the so-called advantages I've seen listed requires the DRM that screws this all up.

Convenient does not necessarily equate to good.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Koiu Lpoi]

Uh, yeah, somebody probably would release a hack. Like the one that already exists for non-steam Spore. So what you're saying is that it's no different?

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they'd probably call it UnDeadPatch333 or something:

http://www.d3scene.com/forum/counter-strike-source-hacks/12834-its-here-undeadpatch333.html

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since day one, Valve has said they have a contigency plan for when their servers are gone. The games will all be unlocked, and they already allow you to burn your games to disc after you download them.

Re:Wait a minute...

[skuzzlebutt]

Point taken, and conceptually I agree (I guarantee the first class-action suit for this kind of activation scheme is less than five years away when a company fails and software dies along with it), but do you ever really go back several years later and play games again? I have hoarded everything I've ever purchased over the years (Word 2.0 on 5.25", anyone?), and they're all coasters now. For me personally, that applies wholesale to music, but not software.

Case in point: my kids have three year old hand-me-down Dells, and we tried to install Myst and Nine and Seventh Guest on them for grins...fail, fail, and fail. Having the medium in-hand didn't help...I was stabbed in the face by the progression of hardware. Hell, I even tried to install Far Cry on my 1 year old HP last summer and the GT 8500 just didn't know what to do with the texture maps.

My point is: as long as they aren't installing wormish, obscure, sinister things on my computer that I haven't authorized, I'm OK with the Steam model, because it suits my needs. Steam as DRM doesn't matter to me because I play games, and then forget about them. The days when I shared games, we never really paid for them anyway. Heavy DRM is a waste of time for all three reasons: it's going to get pirated anyway, they're running the risk of becoming Streisand-ish, and as a long-term strategy, it just doesn't matter... But, bits or plastic, they'll all be worthless long after most people care.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

What if 10 years down the road I want to play some spore, and Steam is no longer online. What then?

You activate Steam's offline mode?

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

They already have. There are several programs that emulate Steam and allow you to play on.

This is the only reason I accept Steam DRM. The game browsing and Friends network are extremely nice, but I always keep a copy of the most recent utilities to continue on if Steam goes down.

~5 minutes for Steam to go down and I realize it isn't a fault on my end, ~10 minutes to call up my buddies and see if they have the same problem, ~10 minutes later we're all gaming on with the cracked version.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Opportunist]

Care to tell us why they should release a client update for a game that they produced (by then) a decade ago and will not create any revenue anymore?

Re:Wait a minute...

[Vitani]

If Steam's authentication server went down, you could still use Offline mode, and if you want hard copies, then just right-click on any Steam game in the menu and select "Backup game files"

Job done.

Re:Wait a minute...

[nautsch]

No. Valve has stated multiple times, that THEY will release the "crack". If the publihser does it, it is not braeking the law in my opinion.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

A hard copy that you can pry from my dead, cold hands!

It's funny that in the digital age, where the cost of a copy tends to 0, the companies try to emulate the analog medium, and then some.

If they want me to buy an immaterial good on a disc, they better provide me with something that ties it to the real world which has *all* the properties of an analog copy.

Otherwise they should really start finding a new business model that goes well with their product, i can spend my money on lots of other nice and shiny things.

Re:Wait a minute...

[mxs]

You are thinking short-term. Think long-term. I still play games that are 20 years old. Are you going to tell me that Steam is going to work in 20 years ? Can you guarantee it ? Will I be able to find the deactivation software ? Will it be legal ?

How is "someone" releasing a hacked steam client any different from getting a crack today ? It's the same kind of bullshit.

Sorry, no sale. Steam burned me once, it will not burn me again. They can keep their games.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

In practice, it wouldn't go away, it'd just get bought out and you'd have your information sold and possibly charged to play games you already own.

I've seen some pirate copies of games that are just the vanilla steam version of the game, and a hacked steam client that thinks it's authenticating. You could go completely independant today.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

barrysworld :)

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the reaction factor.

1. Declare something really really horrible.
2. Wait for predictable public outcry.
3. Take it back and declare something just really horrible.
4. Watch public thank you for only raping them one hole at a time instead of 2.

You see it in things like this just as you see it in law making and other types of scenarios. The idea is to work them into a frenzy so that when you bring out the alternative, they'll focus on the differences between the two things, instead of concentrating on what they SHOULD be focusing on - the fact that neither was a good idea to start with, and just because there's 2 options given, the third option of "Don't Fucking Do it." isn't any less valid.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

If steam went under, someone would probably release a hacked steam client

That may well be true, but I hope you'll understand why it's not something I want to RELY on if I decide to spend a significant amount of money on games.

Think about the sites from the '90s you dont use anymore, like excite.com or ubid.com. They're STILL there.

The 90s were a mere nine years ago.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

If steam went under, someone would probably release a hacked steam client that lets you play without authentication (similar to offline mode in steam but without the week-long or whatever it is timelimit). They might also do a client update that would do the same.

You can already get hacked Steam games to play without authenticating. If that's what you're going to rely on to be able to play your games in the future, why wait? I can't help but be reminded of that XKCD strip about keeping your legally purchased music..

I find that very unlikely though. Steam would be bought out and passed around before it would go away. Its like trying to imagine a once popular website going away. Think about the sites from the '90s you dont use anymore, like excite.com or ubid.com. They're STILL there.

And Microsoft's and Yahoo's music services. Oh wait...
You're probably right that Steam will be bought out and passed around a bit before it finally goes lights out, which just makes it all the more damning. Who's to say what Steam's future owners will do? What good is Valve's promises to remove the need for authentication for Steam when it goes out, if they're not the ones in control when it does?

Re:Wait a minute...

[PHLAK]

Valve has already announced that in the event they go under or for any other reason decide (or are forced) to terminate Steam support, they will issue a final patch to all games they host allowing you to play the games without having to authenticate them with their servers. As for re-installation, all you would have to do is use the (provided) Steam backup and backup each of your games to an external HDD or DVD, then reinstall them from these backups.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why fight it. The games industry thinks you are a pirate, they treat you like a pirate. Don't you think it's time you started living upto their expectations?

Go pirate some games. It's what they want and expect.

Re:Wait a minute...

[VGPowerlord]

iirc, most sane countries (including, surprisingly, the United States) have provisions making it legal to crack defunct DRM schemes.

Re:Wait a minute...

[TrekkieGod]

No. Valve has stated multiple times, that THEY will release the "crack". If the publihser does it, it is not braeking the law in my opinion.

Is that a clause in the EULA when you sign up for Steam? If so, is there another clause that says, "we can change this EULA at any time"? Will that also work for games distributed on Steam which have addition DRM (because Valve apparently aren't capable of saying, "it's our way or you don't use our store" and they allow for additional DRM if the publisher wants to use it).

You're accepting their PR department's word about what's going to happen if they go bankrupt? You don't think that under those circumstances they might be too busy worrying about their stock to waste resources telling their programmers to release a steam-deactivator?

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you're relying on the word of Gabe. Someone who hasn't always been honest with their customers. Also, what if Valve gets bought out?

Valve needs to put their money where their mouth is and put the patch in escrow. Anything else is just hot air.

Third-party?

[Hurricane78]

a moderator replied, 'It does not have third party DRM.'

So it only has their own DRM? And lots of it?

Sorry EA management. You're still a bunch of greedy criminals in suits, sniffing drugs, threating your programmers like slaves, destroying nice companies and making shitty games (or no games at all) out of their ideas. And you can't sue me, because I got proof of all I said right now!
That's the problem when you screw over the people that you need(ed). They know what you did. And they collected proof on the go.

Even if you remove all DRM, you would still have to stop behaving like assholes before I would even start thinking about buying something from you.

Re:Third-party?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has serious issues. Baby need a bottle?

Re:Third-party?

[Hurricane78]

Well, work at EA for more than a month, and then tell me how you feel... if you still haven't jumped down a bridge or shot yourself...

If you haven't got a clue, simply STFU for a change.

Sheesh...

[Anachragnome]

"The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per 1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per 1. "

Man, this is a huge step in the right direction and this all you can fucking think of?

Re:Sheesh...

[dmneoblade]

Must live in europe..
Plus, paying an extra 20% is a bit of a kick in the pants.

Re:Sheesh...

[bemymonkey]

I live in Europe, and if I was still using Steam (or gaming, for that matter), I'd be seriously pissed. Why do we have to pay more for our games? Currency exchange rates exist for a reason... I'm actually surprised so few people actually noticed (or care about) that part of the article...

Re:Sheesh...

[teg]

Why is that a step in the right direction? My credit card will handle conversions anyway. My experience is that the prices in NOK or EUR will not be lower or comparable to the prices in USD, they'll take advantage of the different currencies to increase prices.

Re:Sheesh...

[Anachragnome]

It is a step in the right direction because it is ELECTRONIC ARTS making the first real statement that DRM did NOT work, and are moving to a delivery method that does not include it.

Is this not what everyone has been asking for?

All seriousness aside, maybe they discovered that the U.K. had a higher percentage of downloads of Spore then any other country and are simply relaying the cost of doing business to the customer.

There's a better alternative to Steam

[Kashell]

Companies such as Stardock have zero DRM on their games.

It explains why Stardock, even as an extremely small company in hard economic times, is having incredible profits. Their game Sins of a Solar Empire got rave reviews back in March and is now receiving top 10 game awards from almost every game site / magazine.

They even released their company report to the public! That's a cool company.

http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:saGoWJP1dCsJ:www.stardock.com/media/stardockcustomerreport-2008.pdf+stardock+2008+report&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

From a business prospective, it's important to create DRM that doesn't prohibit the user, but still protects your product at the same time.

That's what I've observed in the industry anyway.

Re:There's a better alternative to Steam

[Psychotria]

They even released their company report to the public! That's a cool company.

Well, their method worked... at least for you. That is not a "Company Report"; it's a "Customer Report". The two things are very different. The latter is a kind of advertising. From a business perspective it makes sense to release such reports. It makes the consumer feel as though they're part of a community. At the end of the day though they're another business doing buisness-like things--nothing new here.

From a business prospective, it's important to create DRM that doesn't prohibit the user, but still protects your product at the same time.

Great observation. But I don't see how you can support that. How did Stardock create DRM that protected the product and at the same time created no prohibitions for the user? I ask because I am sure there a heaps of users (not to mention publishers) that would benefit from this great result that you say Stardock achieved. Yes. I am cynical.

Re:There's a better alternative to Steam

[Psychotria]

The more I read Stardock's report, the more I feel that they're just playing the masses and producing "spin". For example:

* Legitimate complaint: Requiring the user to always be online to play a single-player game. Though we do think publishers have the right to require this as long as they make it clear on the box. *Borderline: Requiring the user to have an Internet connection to install a game. If the game makes this explicit on the box, that's one thing. Customers should be able to make informed purchasing decisions.

And, from their "Gamers Bill of Rights":

Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game

Don't these things seem contradictory? They're just pretending to be on the customers side when they're, in reality, no different to any other company. They use weasle words. They say things that "sound good" to, perhaps, make them seem like they're on the side of legitimate purchasers. I am not sure they are though.

Re:There's a better alternative to Steam

[Opportunist]

Stardock can do without DRM because of a simple philosophy: Make games for buyers, not for users. It sounds odd, but it's a pretty interesting and appearantly also quite successful strategy.

They target an audience that is simply less likely to copy games instead of buying them. Their games are hardly "flashy" nor anything new and exciting. They're solid, well done and polished, but there's no WOW-effect to them. SINS is a great game, but neither the graphics nor the sound are something that would blow your mind. It's a RTS game, but not the twitch kind like WC3 or the like. I guess their target audience is the older, more mature player who also happens to have the money to go and buy games, instead of the effect-hungry, gotta-have-the-latest gamer that I'd guess would be of a younger generation which also suffers from a lack of funds and is for this reason alone more likely to search for a cost free download.

Personally, I'm in the first group. I have some money, but I don't have the time to go through the hassle of searching for torrents and downloading it, then trying to get it to work despite the attempts of the creators to make it impossible. It's easier and more convenient for me to just go and buy the game. Also, SINS is quite a bit cheaper than the average game from leading studios, so the decision was easy for me.

If you target an audience that has to watch their spending habits carefully and is easily tempted to download instead of buy a game, you cannot use this business model. So I don't think it would work for EA or other studios.

Re:There's a better alternative to Steam

[Ash-Fox]

Flamebait? Okay, show me a blockbuster game from Stardock like Left 4 dead, Crysis, Fallout 3, Rage, Starcraft 2, Spore.

Seriously, whenever there is a DRM discussion, people bring up the most popular games being pirated, and the most popular ones get pirated to hell. Then others bring up niche games that most gamers likely have never even heard of, pirates too (which pirated versions still exist, just check the pirate bay) and of course they aren't pirated so much, there is no advertising, there is no mass interest like the games mentioned above - in result, there is no interest in pirating it.

Hell, everyone wants to go on about how DRM always fail, well, here is a niche one for you where DRM did work:

X3: Reunion, when the game came with DRM, the DRM was never cracked. Eventually, Egosoft (being the nice company they are - they don't believe on keeping the DRM permanently on a game), offered patches that removed the DRM on the game and at that point, a lot of pirate versions of the game surfaced on trackers. What does that tell you?

Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Sparr0]

I see so much praise for Steam these days. Has it improved significantly over the monstrosity I swore off ~four years ago? I am talking about the years when you could not play a Steam game offline if you did not put yourself into offline mode while still online. Steam trying to authenticate itself killed the network at dozens of LAN parties, and that behavior could not be stopped without closing Steam.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't fucked with Steam since they banned the account linked to my copy of Half-Life 2 with no provocation and no warning. They refused to amend the issue in any way. DRM is a bad idea as long as the company handling it has the ability to take your games away from you.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Erie Ed]

I haven't fucked with Steam since they banned the account linked to my copy of Half-Life 2 with no provocation and no warning. They refused to amend the issue in any way. DRM is a bad idea as long as the company handling it has the ability to take your games away from you.

This happened to me to, since then I refuse to buy any steam/valve products anymore.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[troll8901]

Yeah, those were mistakes alright. But they do learn a few lessons (after many years).

Well, what can I say? There's Steam fanboys everywhere!

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[zarthrag]

Obviously, he doesn't have a wife and kids - the only way to get some serious, uninterrupted multi-player is to round up your other man buddies, placate the wives, abandon the non-teenage kids, order pizza & beer (I know you kids like dew, but that goes south once you're done growing pubes).

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Protip: you're wrong

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Hal_Porter]

Amtip: You're right.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Grimbleton]

I'm 22 and still don't subscribe to the "Gotta Have Alcohol To Have Fun" mentality.

Give me some Mt Dew any day.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[ravenshrike]

Or you despise the taste of alcohol as you do brussels sprouts and so would rather have something to drink without a nasty undertone.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Firethorn]

As far as I know they've fixed most of those issues. Had a bit of problem with steam being a resource hog- but that seemed to be fixed sometime last year.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[basicio]

No, it still sucks.

I spent 45 minutes a few months ago waiting for it to start. In offline mode. This has happened several times to me.

Steam is something that I avoid as much as humanly possible.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[dadragon]

That's because by 22 you had several years to get over the "gotta have alcohol to have fun" mentality :)

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Grimbleton]

Please re-read my statement.

I don't do alcohol. Just caffine

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Grimbleton]

CAFFEINE. Gah. Spelling.

Re:Steam doesn't suck any more?

[Cowmonaut]

VAC Bans don't get warnings. I've known people who have been VAC banned because their account got hacked and they got their account back and unbanned inside of two weeks. I know people that got their account hijacked from phishing attempts and got them restored within a week. If you throw a hissy fit about it without trying to find out why something happened you have no right to complain. VAC banning is automatic and has VERY few false positives if any. You get an aimbot or a wallhack and play online, you'll probably get VAC banned (now that its VAC2, VAC1 was easy to get around) and you have no one to blame but yourself, or whomever you let access to your account.

Exchange rate not 1:1, some better, some worse

[mattbee]

Contrary to the headline, I think the prices are all "locally adjusted". Left 4 Dead is now £26.99 where it was $49.99 (£33.34), so that is discounted. However World of Goo was $19.99 (£13.33) but has now gone up to £16.99.

So I'll carry on checking against amazon.co.uk / Game boxed prices for big releases. For indie titles, it's always worth looking at the $ price they charge on their own web site, which are sometimes more and sometimes less than what Steam charge.

So nothing changes, but maybe Valve realised that the plunging £ had lost them some sales in the UK (it was $2 : £1 not so long ago, now it is $1.4 as the story points out, so Steam prices used to be pretty sharp for us).

Re:Exchange rate not 1:1, some better, some worse

[mattbee]

Ah, oops, headline was talking about EUR prices, I am talking about GBP. That *is* insane if they're suddenly asking 50EUR for Left 4 Deaad ($70) though.

Re:Exchange rate not 1:1, some better, some worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, oops, headline was talking about EUR prices, I am talking about GBP. That *is* insane if they're suddenly asking 50EUR for Left 4 Deaad ($70) though.

Perhaps.
amazon.de lists Left 4 Dead for PC for 47.95EUR.
It's 67.95 for Xbox 360.
So, uh, yeah.
Germany is well-known for insane prices though.
Especially tv shows on dvd. While normal countries like the US and the UK sell complete seasons, in Germany a season often gets split up into 2 or 3 DVD releases.
An example with moderate prices would be "Murder She Wrote", each season split into two DVD releases, selling for 20-25EUR each, whereas amazon.com sells a complete season for 33-37$.
This is really convenient when they don't sell the rest of the show.
It's even worse with cartoon DVDs.
Very often cartoon dvds only contain 2-4 episodes in Germany.
Imports are even more insane.
Example:
Ronnie Barker - The Ultimate Ronnie Barker DVD Collection
amazon.de currently lists it for 120EUR (saw it for 150EUR before)
amazon.co.uk 56.68GBP (bought it in England for 43GBP)

Interesting step, but nothing has changed.

[dtmancom]

Interesting step. But I'm still a collector, I still want the box, and I wont buy any of that while it has SecureRom. And the used games market still suffers.... can't sell your Steam download to a store or buddy. EA has given up nothing except an expensive license to SecureRom.

So does this tool remove SecuROM in existing Spore

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought Spore on launch day. Does this tool uninstall SecuROM for the pre-common-sense versions of Spore? Or do only Steam purchasers of Spore get the benefit?

GTA IV pc

[qwertyatwork]

I know they are different companies, but I wish rockstar (take two whoever it is) would remove the drm from GTA IV for the pc.

And I'm now officially off of EA Games

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought so many titles from them, for myself and my kids.

But I'm not using some stinking online DRM-infected Internet-only no first sale phone home to the mothership for permission purchasing system to buy games, or anything else.

For myself, I'll just forego their games. No game is important enough to submit to serfhood.

For my kids, I'll just pirate their upcoming Harry Potter games. And laugh while doing so.

Instead of pirating, I'd much rather buy, in the traditional "I give you money, you give me a product" capitalism purchasing system.

But if you're going to take away my ability to buy from you, take away the very essence of a capitalistic system from me, then bite me, EA.

Valve subsidized EA games

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

by forwarding extra revenue on the euro conversion rate to subsidize the DRM removal for all EA games.

EA Lawsuit...

[Khyber]

I wonder what this does for my lawsuit against EA for the SecuROM contained in Spore? Will those that purchased Spore or the Creature Creator be able to download a DRM-free version from Steam, or will they have to pay again for the DRM-free version?

This just reeks of EA trying to appease the masses and the court system.

huh?

[JM78]

"It does not have third party DRM."

Ahem... Steam IS third party DRM you dolt.

I'm sorry friend but you are confused.

[mildness]

It is not a purchase. You are renting the software. End users are no different than massive corporations.

It may not be logical to you but that don't make it wrong.

Peace,

Mild Bill

Re:I'm sorry friend but you are confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a purchase. You are renting the software. End users are no different than massive corporations.

It may not be logical to you but that don't make it wrong.

Peace,

Mild Bill

The US Court System disagrees with you.

Re:Wait a minute... Agree. Same thing.

[guidryp]

The central issue is the reliance on a central server, this changes nothing.

I have no problem with this RENTAL model. But as the same with music, this is not a purchase model.

So when it is $5, then it will be priced right for a rental model.

$50 for a game rental is a gross rip off.

If I buy a game, it shouldn't need a central server check to allow me to play it...

European prices

[Shin-LaC]

And Europeans got burned when it vented.

I'm not sure why the slashdot editors have decided to combine two unrelated steam stories, effectively denying the localized price story its own discussion. Maybe nobody reads slashdot in Europe? I'd say that, for anyone interested in using Steam living in the EU, the huge price increases are much bigger news than the EA thing.

How huge? For example, Call of Duty 4 went from 49,99 US$ to 71.97 US$ overnight, according to TFA. As a result, for most (all?) games on Steam it is now cheaper to buy them in brick-and-mortar stores, and you get a box too!

It looks like the message is "If you want to be free from Securom, you'll have to pay more. Actually, scratch that, you'll just pay more regardless."

Re:European prices

[tokul]

And Europeans got burned when it vented.

It is not Steam only issue. Check prices on Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Corel stores.

I suspect that those multinational corps are violating WTO protocols.

Re:European prices

[rogue780]

Europeans have computers?

Re:European prices

[FlyveHest]

As a result, for most (all?) games on Steam it is now cheaper to buy them in brick-and-mortar stores, and you get a box too!

This is actually not new behaviour.

Before the change, some of the larger AAA titles were cheaper to buy in a brick and mortar store also, this has just made it true for most, if not all, games on Steam.

I love Steam, its easy, clean and "Just Works"(TM), but, I will not be paying a significant markup, just because Valve have decided to make a 1:1 conversion rate, where the rest of the world have not.

Its just sad, really

Re:European prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, I'm pretty sure that in European brick and mortar stores, the currency conversion's close to 1:1, too. At least here in Belgium and next door in Germany.

Re:European prices

[n3tcat]

i live in europe and no, it's now the SAME to buy on steam as it's been to buy in regular stores for years now. When I goto mediamarkt and see a game for 60 that costs $50 online, it was a no brainer. Now I gotta actually shop around, because sometimes it would be cheaper to just buy the real thing rather than the virtual thing.

Re:European prices

[Fred_A]

Europeans have computers?

Of course we do, they run on steam !
* puts more coal in *

Re:European prices

[arkhan_jg]

I'm in the UK. I have the choice of buying in dollars, or enabling the european prices and paying in sterling. You're right that the exchange rate is pretty poor, so it still works out cheaper to buy in dollars and let my bank handle the exchange, even including UK VAT (sales tax) which is still charged on the online download. I can see how it might be cheaper to buy in sterling if your bank's exchange-rate costs are higher.

So far, they haven't taken away the option of buying in dollars yet. If they do, then it'll be time to kick up a big stink. So far, you can buy in either currency.

Re:European prices

[arkhan_jg]

Oh bugger. I've just checked, and they have turned the beta off. Now I can only buy in sterling and the prices are higher than normal retail! Screw that valve, you just lost a loyal customer.

Re:European prices

[Anonymous Coward]

While the observation that many companies like to fuck European customers over with ridiculous (they should damn well be fucking illegal, as far as I'm concerned) "exchange rates", i.e. pretending that 1 Euro is worth as little as 1 measly USD, is a correct one and should be condemned, made publicly known and (I'd hope) even litigated, I'll stick to my own routine:

Since I hate Steam almost as much as I hate EA, and both of those almost as much as I hate SecuROM, I refuse to buy anything from either of them. This deal actually makes it easier for me, since the overlap increases.

So, yeah, fuck around with the prices as much as you want, I'll continue not buying any of your products.

Re:European prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Discrimination against Europeans

By nerds no less. You would have expected Slashdot to be a more internationally focused place; guess we need to setup our own slashdot.

And also by Valve to charge a special your not the chosen-kind tax. Well, fuck you americans. FUCK YOU.

Oh well. It's recession anyway; I should do what I can to help crash YOUR economy. Help out too please: dear Europe, please stop buying games from steam until they stop discriminating against race, religion, nationality.

It's time to pull a godwin.

The nazi's would charge the jews more.
Ergo Valve == Nazis.

Re:European prices

[Tony Hoyle]

By conflating the issues it also omits the fact that spore is only released on the US store, as the press release makes absolutely clear.

European users are still forced to use securerom.

Re:European prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, apart from spore, three things:

a) have you heard of a thing called "online shopping"? Nobody pays 60 â for a game if you simply search for it.

b) Why on earth would an english speaking German person buy action games at mediamarkt or steam? You get: Worse audio dubbing and, as a special bonus to all Germans buying at steam or media markt, a crippled game that has nothing to do with the version played everywhere else in the world.

c) Currency rates for british pound are low :)

I used to buy at steam when you could get the games uncensored, but now I buy them uncutted and add them to steam - you then keep the uncutted version ;)

Not quite there

[The Mgt]

Spore (and other EA games) are coming to Steam.
So near.
they've begun selling games priced in local currency for European customers. The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per â1.
Yet so far.

*Rehoists the Jolly Roger*

Haven't had a problem with Steam

[NinthAgendaDotCom]

I downloaded and have been playing the 21-day trial of EVE Online via Steam. Haven't noticed any problems. The download saturated my 7 mb/s pipe. Steam stays out of the way when I play the game. Prices are good, better than average I find. I get the intellectual argument against DRM, but in this case, I don't care enough to be concerned. DVDs with some of the newer copy protection schemes are a pain, since I can't back them up to my external HDD as easily. But that's a tangible effect. With Steam, I just don't see one.

Re:European prices - you forgot VAT

[Anonymous Coward]

it wasn't quite $49.99. Certainly in the UK VAT (now 15%) was added to that taking it to $57.48, its been a requirement of HMRC for a couple of years that significant overseas sales should have UK VAT added and paid to UK treasury.

Apart from that yes its a typical shafting we get here. I bought the orange box in USD because it offered great value for money. Single games priced at £40 do not interest me (actually very few are worth even half that money. I mean "Left 4 Dead" - played the demo. wander, shoot, get rushed, lather, rinse, repeat. looked nice though)

SecuROM contributed to piracy?

[MikeUW]

...when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008...

Ok...I understand that people get mad about DRM (at least, those who even notice it), etc., etc. But how is this statement any different that the **AAs saying that piracy has contributed to their decline in profits? Everyone gets all pissy about that kind of claim, but here we have the same thing in reverse, and nobody notices the flaw.

I know the whole Spore/SecuROM thing was a big media piece in tech circles, but is there any validity to saying that SecuROM is actually responsible for increased piracy? Could it be that there were just more people that wanted to download/play the game for free? Could it be that the media that hyped up all this DRM vs. piracy about the game that maybe raised people's awareness/interest in pirating the game?

In all reasonableness, sure, there are some who have pirated it because they didn't want the DRM...but I think the game's popularity plus the not-wanting-to-pay factor probably has alot more to do with this than the fact that SecuROM was used. Further, if someone did pay for the game, then cracked the SecuROM functionality because it sucks, then I'm not sure that really counts as piracy, even if it is a violation of the DCMA in the US.

Re:SecuROM contributed to piracy?

[rtechie]

...when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008...

Ok...I understand that people get mad about DRM (at least, those who even notice it), etc., etc. But how is this statement any different that the **AAs saying that piracy has contributed to their decline in profits? Everyone gets all pissy about that kind of claim, but here we have the same thing in reverse, and nobody notices the flaw.

Credible reporting from unbiased sources has shown that Spore has been downloaded through torrents and through "the Scene" far more frequently than other games this year. Commentary within the pirate community suggested SecuROM was an issue long before "the media" began to hype up the problems. Long before the game was released, in fact.

Could it be that the media that hyped up all this DRM vs. piracy about the game that maybe raised people's awareness/interest in pirating the game?

Definitely. Receiving negative press for using DRM is one of the side effects of using DRM in your products. DRM is fundamentally anti-consumer for a variety of reasons and a reporter speaking AS A CONSUMER will certainly have negative things to say about DRM.

Thank you...

[Nathrael]

Thank you, Valve. I always thought highly about both Valve and it's product Steam, but that changed now. I consider myself very lucky, having bought the Orange Box (yeah, I originally played a pirated copy much earlier, but then, after buying HL2E2 over Steam I decided that they not only deserve the money but also have really reasonable prices so that there is no need for me to pirate) just one or two days before they made their new localized currency "feature" compulsory. Before this happened, Steam had always a couple of huge advantage over local retail stores - at first, they'd sell me the uncensored English version of a game, and also they sold it to affordable prices (the US prices always where cheaper than the UK prices which still are cheaper than the Austrian prices). If I had bought the Orange Box now instead of some days ago, I would have paid about 10â more - and for a student like me that's already quite a bit of money and something that really makes me reconsider if it wouldn't be better to just use TPB.

Steam is as bunch of hot air

[thirty2bit]

Steam is still DRM, just spelled differently. If EA hadn't had the install count limitation on the original shipped product, there would be little difference to consumers- aside from having physical media, than buying the thing from Steam. It's news, but not really much to get excited about, except for recognition of complaints being heard by EA.

Re:Steam is as bunch of hot air

[Nathrael]

Actually, there is - as far I know, Steam doesn't install any software on your system without your knowledge, and they also try to keep it from being a security hole.

Careful ginding that axe, there.

[Anonymous Coward]

"when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008"

A thief's rationalizations for his thievery are not exactly a credible indicator of his motivations. Pirates steal software because they don't want to pay for software.

And yes, if you pirated Spore because you wanted to play it but you didn't want to deal with the DRM, you're still a thief. Don't like the DRM? Don't play the game.

Oh, and I almost forgot it...

[Nathrael]

[/rant]

spore deauthorization...! finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

now I can fix my laptop. Oh to the horrors of having software go awray, just to find out if I were to have formatted I would have lost one of my super valuable slot's to spore....

And of course, no slots, no spore. $75 down the drain.

As insane as the whole thing has been, the inability to un-install has been NUTS. I'm glad this has been finally addressed.

2010 update

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, so if they get in password battles they don't have to change it until 2010

"Merry Christmas from Steam"

[Anonymous Coward]

This just suck and blew so hard.

I was going to buy Left 4 Dead in a nice, cheaper bunch of four game copies for the price of three from Steam.
This 4-pack would've been a christmas present for me and a bunch of dudes, something nice to play during
the holidays and long after that.

Now, I'd just managed to accept the price during a month or so of watching others play the game,
and then it suddenly skyrocketed just as I was about to buy the damn thing.

Maybe I'll have to order it from Amazon or something to get it a bit cheaper, or just wait for
some miraculous 30% (or more) off sale for who knows how long...

Two inaccuracies (at least) in the article.

[Grumbleduke]

As a UKer who refused to buy either Mass Effect or Spore (and was slightly disappointed about it) after the SecuRom controversy (I had enough trouble with the "removed" drm on Bioshock) I was rather excited about this press release and immediately bounded over to Steam to see how much they were going for. However, having read the press release on Steam it appears that these EA games are only available to "North American" customers. The rest of the world is (as always) overlooked.

Also, prices for UK customers are in £s (pound sterling) rather than euro (â) - from what I remember of the prices before, they may have changed them, but - well, the pound is doing so badly at the moment it probably does not matter all that much. All the same, it looks like we'll be forced to go back to the whole "region-encoding" price-fixing scam again, it was nice to escape it for a while.

So Steam is DRM...and?

[cjb110]

A lot of the posts seem to basically poke fun at the article, as EA haven't removed DRM, just used Steam instead, and then pick holes in Steam.

It's this level of argument that gets us no where. Steam is the type of DRM we should be commending, it does a damn good job of satisfying both sides.
The consumers get an easy to use product, and there no intrusive drm or over the top restrictions.

In the fact its only the right of sale that I think you give up, and yes it would be great if Steam had a built in 'demo' mode so that you could try without paying...that gets around the problem of buying 'blind'. But I think this is a small compromise, esp given the mass of information that is now available to potential customers.

Now if someone could explain why this is North America only? Why the hell would you purposely shrink your potential sales market???

Re:So Steam is DRM...and?

[SpinningCone]

I don't get it why do people actually *like* steam? to me its worse than most of the DRM out there.

I need to have it installed
it likes to run all the time
it serves unwanted ads
it needs to be running and connected to the net every time I play a game (unless you completely disable you connection then you can use offline mode)
forces updates (great for online games but crap for single player)
and 10 years down the road if Valve goes under all your steam games are pretty much boned (just like the original spore DRM)

to me steam is just as bad as the other DRM. last couple months I've wanted to go back and play g-mod but right now my comp is steam free and I haven't been able to bring myself to re-install it.

Re:So Steam is DRM...and?

[cjb110]

mmm, the trouble is your assuming that there is a possibility of a DRM-free entertainment world. Which although that would be ideal, is not going to happen.

So I would prefer a system that at least attempts to be fair.

As for your list:
Yes it needs installing, but also allows easy uninstall, better than every other DRM.
True, but then again it is an option, and doesn't need to run to play the game.
Ad's? The only ad's I see are when you start an unpatched game, and even then they are poor (as in wouldn't convince anybody of anything) advertising for valves own stuff.
Connected to the internet is a problem for mobile gamers, but MS and the other OS's also assume constant online, so can't blame valve there.
Force's updates, that's a good thing...most games are buggy even single player, at least you get a simple to use system (no arsing around with versions, patch levels etc)

10 years down the road, tbh who cares, it will have either been replaced or outdated. Tbh I think it now has enough backers, can't think of many publishers left not on it, that it will survive. Besides no worse or better than any other DRM.

Drug addict talk...

[Firethorn]

That's why we're not going cold turkey - we've put EA on methadone for the moment.

Probably what they're finding out is that steam games are actually pirated less than their own Securom ones.

Of course, I looked to buy a EA game on steam to reward them, but I don't really care for spore, it's still too expensive, and Crysis Warhead still has securom on it. Oops...

Maybe next month, EA.

Parent and GP aren't troll/flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, the idiot/fanboy mods are out in full force.