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Metal Gear Solid V PC Disc Contains Steam Installer, Nothing Else
dotarray writes: The boxed copy of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain reportedly contains nothing but a Steam installer. That's right, even if you fork out real-world money for a physical copy of the game, you'll still have to download the whole thing from the internet.
The game officially launches tomorrow. Early critical reviews are quite positive, though you should take that with a grain of salt until the game is more widely distributed. Game Informer says, "Unlike the linear design of previous entries, The Phantom Pain rarely assumes you have particular weapons and equipment, so the missions are brilliantly designed with multiple paths to success." The Washington Post notes, "The Phantom Pain’s openness feels like Kojima finally found a technical platform broad enough to make use of all of those tools and trusts players to build their own narrative drama from the way they choose to put these tools together for each mission." IGN has this criticism: "... where Phantom Pain’s gameplay systems are far richer and meatier than any the series has ever seen, its story feels insubstantial and woefully underdeveloped by comparison." Metal Gear Solid 5 is launching for PCs, current consoles, and previous-gen consoles; Digital Foundry thinks is likely to be the last true cross-generation AAA title.
It's happening!
The Phantom Pain? Like the pain that amputees feel in the location of their removed limbs? That is truly an awful name for a game.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
I usually like to buy a game, play it through, and sell my used copy to GameStop to get back some of my original purchase price. Does this mean GameStop won't buy it? If not, are they charging a reduced price for the new game as there is no longer resale value?
he's so underrated. i wish a new MGS starred Raiden again.
Digital entitlements are here to stay. Goodbye, used video game market. Goodbye, replayability. Goodbye, minimum viable product.
This isn't a new thing, if you remember Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was the same, just a steam installer on the disc.
I bought CS:S,CS:GO and Bioshock 2 on disk, all of which required updates 60-70% the original download size of the game... the total amount of bandwidth saved by using the disk instead of downloading from scratch was minimal
This isn't a new thing in any software genre. "Physical goods" now means a scratch-off key you can use online to activate something you download.
(As a security guy, I think this is generally a good thing: no more insecure-out-of-the-box-and-never-updated software packages hitting end users' computers.)
What happen? ....
Somebody set up us the STEAM.
We get signal.
What!
Main screen turn on.
It's You!!
How are you, gentlemen!! All your GAMES are belong to us. You are on the way to pwn3d4g3.
What you say!!
You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha
Take off every INSTALLER!! You know what you doing. Move INSTALLER. For great justice.
Unless you have a POTS modem, your time is already wasted when you go to buy a Steam-"powered" game.
In some parts of the United States without access to cable, Internet access costs $5 per GB. People with a 10 GB/mo plan on cellular, satellite, or Iowa DSL could start a download now and not finish the 50 GB of a full 2-layer BD-ROM before the end of the year.
I wanted a hard copy of HalfLife2 not too long after it came out and this is exactly what I got: a disc with the Steam installer on it.
Pretty sure that HL2 has been out for at least a year already.
tell us when the last time was that you can recall security risks arising from a video game
Both the Sega Dreamcast and the Nintendo GameCube were compromised through a security oversight in the video game Phantasy Star Online. This allowed code not approved by the console maker to execute on the console. After that, the same thing happened with save files on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and most of the LEGO film adaptations on Wii, and Cubic Ninja on Nintendo 3DS. Furthermore, bugs in Super Mario World and Pokémon Yellow were recently discovered that caused a jump into the memory used for enemy positions or inventory items, allowing a Super NES or Game Boy system to be hacked purely through the controller port.
Well, there are plans which would provide more bandwidth.
Such plans are cost prohibitive: after already having paid $60 to buy a license for a game, one further needs to spend $250 at $5 per GB to download it.
I only have 6 Mbps myself, though with no cap, and [...] cannot download a game and game online at the same time
This is an instantaneous throughput limit, which you can work around by downloading a game overnight. Caps, on the other hand, tend to be applied around the clock, except for a few satellite providers that offer a "happy hour" type plan with a separate larger quota of data that can be used only between 12 and 5 AM local time when the bird is a little less oversubscribed.
TL;DR: AAA games are not for people with crap internet
Either that or this is another advantage of consoles over PCs.
First, I find it worrisome, but not as much as when it impacts the non-game software world, i.e. the world of operating systems and productivity software, stuff that either is something everyone uses, or people use to make money, or both. What do you do if your job depends on your computer booting, which it refuses to do?
Switch to free software. For example, some companies are subject to regulatory requirements for privacy, such as HIPAA. Once their leaders start to realize the implications of the "telemetry" that shipped with Windows 10 and is being added to Windows 7 and 8.1 through Windows Update, they're more likely to consider alternatives to Windows. And free software has historically been much better at providing alternatives to non-game software than at providing alternatives to AAA games.
And the used game market is dead because I can get my own copy in a year's time for less than a used copy would ever be able to go for.
Provided the game hasn't been pulled from the market. Some licensors let publishers adapt their IP on the condition that the game be sold only for a limited time. Tetris DS, for example, went out of print after two years while Nintendo's other best-selling DS games didn't, and the average selling price of used copies of Tetris DS on eBay shot up.
While it is egregious, it is what everything has moved to, and the seeds of this are quite old. Games are released in Beta form, with furious patching for the first month or two, followed by ongoing significant tweaks and bug fixes stretching out for more than a year at times.
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory was the first game I recall that was not playable after the disc install, and that was about 10 years ago.
Games like Battlefield 4 have changed quite a bit from when they first shipped (actually playable now...). The updates can be many GB at times, often with almost no apparent changes beyond more tracers and tweaks to reload times.
Probably a better discussion point is what games have gotten so HUGE? 50-80 GB games seem to be the new normal, and for folks stuck on DSL or who live in rural areas that just sucks. Even with my 25 Mbps I find these monsters to be really annoying to download. Perhaps the high resolution textures need to be optional free downloads for poor souls with small drives or slow connections (crap, those might get turned in to extra DLC to charge for...).
Who has compared their vast CD/DVD game collection to the 'old releases' on Steam/GOG, I can tell you that, other than during sale times, the regular prices for legacy games are as much if not more than the games were being sold for a year or two after release.
I have games that I bought as COMPLETE boxed sets for 10 dollars that are, today, 10 or 20 dollars on Steam/GOG. Similiarly I have duplicates of a few that I bought as empty boxes, or simply shrinkwrapped cd cases for 5-10 bucks that today cost 2-4 times my original purchase price, only without the potential to transfer, resale, or dig through a nice pamphlet in the front cover that cost at least .50 to a dollar to print.
What exact value addition am I getting for buying a game strictly online today that I would not by simply torrenting it?
That said, I have essentially given up mainstream gaming to focus on my back collection, or free/open source games of non-traditional values.
FUCK KONAMI!
Can you feel the pain, Snake? Loved it with every ounce!
Due to this nonsense i will be phantom payin' for it. Hohohohaw
The MGS series is known for a plot which is convoluted, nonsensical and pretentious and painfully drawn out over length cutscenes. If they've pared it back then that should be considered a good thing. I'm sure it might upset nerds who follow every twist and turn of this meaningless bullshit. For everyone else it means they can just enjoy a stealth game without so much whargarbl.
The steam installer probably is an old version by now, so you'll have to update the installer before you install your game
"Kojima finally found a technical platform broad enough to make use of all of those tools"
Except that the PS3 and 360 are 10 years old at this point?
Twinstiq, game news
I don't hugely care about PC games or very much the sillyness of MGS anymore but good lord, this is a terrible move.
Some countries have data caps. I haven't read the article, or googled a damn thing but I'm going to make my guess right now and speculate this game is at least a 30gb download..... probably more like a full 50. In my case, that would be 50% of my monthly allowed internet quota.
Someone specifically buying a retail copy to avoid this is going to get stung.
Super lame.
Konami
Just because people have different morals from you doesn't make it immoral.
And if they want to get paid it is up to them to figure out how to do so. Why should anybody else be responsible for whether or not they get paid. You say don't buy it, but what you really mean is don't acquire it. Won't they either lower their prices or make games that are more affordable whether or not you acquire whatever on your terms? I acquire a lot of things for free without infringing on copyright, I acquire things that I feel like shelling out money is a reasonable part of the process of acquiring it, and I do some copyright infringement. Nowhere in my consideration for all of this is whether or not other people in the chain are getting anything. That is for them to figure out. All these people need to take responsibility for themselves.
No, how about you get back to me when you can demonstrate to me that my morals are somehow insufficient to ensure the best outcome, and are therefore wrong. I don't deal with the concept of "rights" very much, just what is the most efficient way of getting me what I want, which is an ongoing process. If people focused more on what the most efficient way of getting themselves what they want instead of trying to convince others they are somehow wrong, I think we would all be better off. Instead you want to convince me I should be the one to change because someone else might not be getting what they want out of life.
So who do you think you are telling someone that they have no moral ground to stand on? You think your morals are the only game in town? I don't see how the only ethical response when a company produces a bad product is to decline to give them your money, because very often, the only way to figure out if the company has produced a bad product is to hand over your money first. As for Steam DRM, it comes with the ability for you to get all your games back if everything goes south and you lose your hard drives and backups.
I don't get what you mean by anything else you do is on your head, because everything you do is on your head, so to speak.
If you read a few comments up you'll see that we're talking about someone who advocated for stealing CD keys. It's not a matter of figuring out whether the company has produced a bad product.
Regarding Steam DRM, you're conflating two separate things: one thing is DRM, the other is the ability to get your games back in case of hard drive failure. Most such services will give you this ability regardless of DRM. Good Old Games, for example, allows you to get your games back and has no DRM. The Humble Bundle makes DRM optional, but provides this ability regardless of whether the game is DRMed or DRM-free. There are more examples.
"On your head" is a phrase which is generally only applied to negative actions, and is associated with feelings of guilt. So rescuing a busload of orphans is not something that would be described as "on your head," since you should feel no guilt stemming from such an action. Tying a shoe is also not something which a person would or should feel guilty about, so that too would not be described as "on your head." The person posting above, who was advocating in favor of stealing, was trying to suggest that it was somehow righteous. I disagreed.
And if they want to get paid it is up to them to figure out how to do so
They sell a product. You choose to buy it or not. Nothing needs to change there unless you start using the product without paying them then they will find a way to make you pay and usually that means you experience will be shattered such as forced DRM or other equivalent.
Nowhere in my consideration for all of this is whether or not other people in the chain are getting anything
It's absolutely not your responsibility to allow them to monetize the product as long as you play fair. Not playing fair = worst experience down the road. Our society is plague with rules and blockages because of people who don't care about others. Once all games are DRM you'll either quit using their products or you'll start paying. Question is, will you despise the model you force the company to adopt?
No, there are plenty of examples where not playing fair yields better outcomes. Mercy, for example. Fairness is a broken concept anyways. Some people think it's completely fair for everyone to go to hell. Just as long as everyone is treated the same, the worst outcome is completely fair.
I don't force companies to adopt DRM, that may be an option for them, but an equally valid option is not to produce anything, which I endorse for people who want to make what I do illegal. I don't infringe on copyright on games so much as I do on video and audio. However, there are plenty of people out there to get around DRM for a lot of things. If I really feel that the best way to get something that is a duplicate of something somebody is selling, which is a more correct description, by going somewhere else, I do it.
I buy lots of games in bundles from places like Humble Bundle and Indie Gala. There are many things that buying, (sometimes used, and some copyright holders want money from that sale as well) is the right way to go for me, but I have not heard any convincing reason to take infringement off the table. I now have enough things obtained legally that I may not ever get around to using them.
Then there's the MIT/BSD licensing model, which seems to get ignored by people.
But there's lots of legally free stuff out there: QB64.net has a lot of people in forums uploading stuff they made with it for free, and I think FreeBASIC has the same situation. Steam even has a whole section of single player games available for free. Entire massively multiplayer games are free to play and make money off of in-game trinkets. YouTube, broadcast TV and radio has commercials but they're essentially for free. Amazon and iTunes even have free sections.
Our society is plague with rules and blockages because of people who care about some people more than others, is an improvement but the situation is a lot more complicated than that.
your house is a pile of money that you can get back when you move
Unless you end up having to move after a real estate bubble has just burst.
No, there are plenty of examples where not playing fair yields better outcomes. Mercy, for example. Fairness is a broken concept anyways. Some people think it's completely fair for everyone to go to hell. Just as long as everyone is treated the same, the worst outcome is completely fair.
Mercy? You think we should run on mercy? To hell with the honor system then. Lets just have mercy on you and pay you minimum wage for what you do. We just need to make sure you can eat so you can return to work tomorrow right?
By playing fair I mean not stealing. If you can't afford the product don't buy it hence don't use it. It's no different than material goods. People don't go breaking into dealerships because they want to get the car they can't afford.
This mentality of entitlement gets old real quick. For some reason intellectual property gets completely different treatment than the purchase of material goods regardless of how much work is involved. If people think the makers make too much money then they should just stop buying the products.
Considering a large percentage of users here are software developers I'm not sure why /. users have a view that encourages NOT PAYING for software and entertainment.
Furthermore, the software developers do software work in addition to the work they get paid to do, for free, and copyright interferes by saying that even if you do work to make something, if someone else did something similar first, they have the wherewithal to stop you from doing things with the results of your work.
You also have a view of how mercy works that I am completely unfamiliar with. Also, your concept of a honor system.
People do however go to third parties that have already bought a car, had used it for awhile and then for whatever reason decided to sell it. Copyright protection can interfere with ability though, so no, it's not the same at all.
The argument is not that copyright holders make too much money but that they are stealing from the public domain, and society would be better off if they stop making stuff and using copyright to force others to stop making stuff that is similar.
I countered your assertion that "Not playing fair = worst experience down the road." with the statement that fairness is a broken concept and gave an example and you have yet to refute that statement choosing instead to focus on the mercy bit.
The situation with entertainment materials is that for whatever reason, they do the work and then expect to get paid after the fact over and over again without doing more work.
It's no different than the engineers that engineer a hammer. The hammer will be sold for hundreds of years and the engineers not having anything more to add. The part about entertainment that is better for those doing the work is that further funds usually equals another project or continued work on said project. E.g. COD1, COD2, COD3... and that goes on until today (over 10 years later). Music and movies are usually paid for and never purchased again unless on subscription.
Furthermore, the software developers do software work in addition to the work they get paid to do, for free,
I'm not sure what you mean by free. I don't know one developer that isn't paid for their work. Indie devs are different as they put up the work up front hoping to get paid later (identical model to self employment).
and copyright interferes by saying that even if you do work to make something, if someone else did something similar first, they have the wherewithal to stop you from doing things with the results of your work.
That's a separate issue from to buy or not to buy. If you consider a company as evil for abusing copyrights you have the option to not purchase their product.
You also have a view of how mercy works that I am completely unfamiliar with. Also, your concept of a honor system
Mercy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Honor System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Honor system as in you paying for a product even if you can get away by not paying for it.
People do however go to third parties that have already bought a car, had used it for awhile and then for whatever reason decided to sell it. Copyright protection can interfere with ability though, so no, it's not the same at all.
Hard copies can be sold, I think we can agree on that. Digital copies in most stores do not allow reselling. Origin for a while allowed transferring a product key but I don't know if it's still possible. Steam also allows for selling digital copies (to this day).
Now, I'll give you that music and movies in digital form do not offer an opportunity for resell but they still have hard copies which can be sold. CDs can be purchased for $18 while digital copies can be purchased for $9 or even less if you don't want all the songs. It's a cost model that is in some ways less lucrative as it doesn't force the customer to buy a whole album. I don't know about you but I prefer that model. Much better model but still not my favorite. I'm more of a subscription kind of guy because I like to keep adding to my playlist and that runs cheaper for me at the end of the day.
I'll say like you said about companies making money but the other way around. The copyright issues are issues for the content providers to deal with, not the customer. As a customer you simply pay for what you use and don't pay for what you don't use. If you don't agree with the companies practices you can avoid their products. I think's that's a valid way of functioning.
Keep in mind that I totally agree that copyrights are a huge issue and some countries are working towards changing the system to remove the abuse that comes from copyright.
How much software does one have to write to be a "developer"? Is it just writing software, or is there some other criteria that makes a person a developer, in your eyes?
I've written several programs that I haven't expected to get paid for.
http://www.qb64.net/forum/inde... has plenty of programs none of the writers expect payment for. I could show you more, but that should suffice. Galleon who makes QB64 itself, does not get paid for it.
I doubt you speak to very many people who write software about whether or not they write any programs for free.
Also, you ignore the fact that the people writing software to break DRM usually do it for free, though I'm not sure about what your definition of developer is, so in your mind they may not be developers.
No, that's never how I worked freelance. We agree on the payment up front. Sure, the agreed upon money is paid upon services rendered, but there are restaurants that work on the same principal, agree to the price first and then pay at the end of the meal.
You seem to think that it is the only valid way of functioning, but on contemplation I don't think it is a valid way of functioning, because it says that copyright is not your problem when wearing a customer hat. I also don't think the value you place in ensuring obeying the law is not a valid way of thinking.
http://www.academia.edu/115138... is a relevant read, though it interferes with copy and paste. In it, he argues that people always have the right to disobey the law on two accounts. First obedience of the law does not follow as a necessity from the reasons we might choose to obey it and second the law infringes on our autonomy in making moral judgments.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entr... says some philosophers now deny that law is entitled to all the authority it claims for itself, even when the legal system is legitimate and reasonably just.
I'm afraid the Wikipedia article on mercy does not explain how you connect mercy with paying someone a minimum wage for what they do. The article on an honor system is more illuminative on your way of thinking, but this line:
A person engaged in an honor system has a strong negative concept of breaking or going against it. The negatives may include community shame, loss of status, loss of a personal sense of integrity and pride or in extreme situations, banishment from one's community.
would seem to indicate that we are not on an honor system.
I did not say that mercy always has better outcomes than other things, just that it sometimes does and is always unfair. which is sufficient to prove your assertion, not playing fair = worst experience down the road false. I also said fairness is a broken concept, which you chose to ignore, but is more to the heart of the problem, which is that any decision making based on the concept of fairness is invalid.
Except when you are a customer apparently.
I'm trying to understand what makes something a company's product in your mind. If a company chooses to sell something after it has entered the public domain, is it still their product? A lot of food products completely wrapped get thrown in the dumpster. Is it still their product and therefore stealing to go dumpster diving? What about
You go first: prove that the second wrong is actually a wrong, and that the first person to do the work to produce something should be allowed to keep the end result even if the second person took similar steps to make a similar product.
Why should copyright be allowed to exist in the first place? What does being essential or not have to do with anything? One could argue that unless you are making something that is essential, you don't have the right to anything.
An internet search turns up On your own head be it, which is defined as used to âtell someone that they will have to take âfull âresponsibility for what they âplan to do.
I've written several programs that I haven't expected to get paid for.
That's a choice you make.
Also, you ignore the fact that the people writing software to break DRM usually do it for free,
Once again. Their choice.
No, that's never how I worked freelance. We agree on the payment up front. Sure, the agreed upon money is paid upon services rendered, but there are restaurants that work on the same principal, agree to the price first and then pay at the end of the meal.
Yes. Not sure why you bring this up. Your basically making my point. If you leave without paying at the restaurant you'll be charged with theft. It's no different for intellectual property. If you don't like the prices are the restaurant you don't eat there. Same should go for intellectual property.
I'm trying to understand what makes something a company's product in your mind.
Something you can purchase as it's own entity or a group of entities.
If a company chooses to sell something after it has entered the public domain, is it still their product?
That's a different debate. You can jump around the topic all you want (which I'm assuming your doing because you don't have any good arguments to justify your original reasoning).
A lot of food products completely wrapped get thrown in the dumpster. Is it still their product and therefore stealing to go dumpster diving? What about if a software company throws media with a copy of their software/video in a dumpster?
The product has left its ownership. As for software and entertainment it depends on it's licensing model. Entertainment is pretty easy as the legal hard media is the license.
Why are you so confused about all this. Why do you keep introducing tangents into the discussion? You appear to have lots of trouble staying on point and that's maybe because you don't understand what a sellable good is. Sure there's a difference between a material and intellectual good but even that's not complicated to understand. They make something and you either buy it or not. If you don't agree with the license model then don't consume the product.
But where is "there" for intellectual property. I never even left the house, and I don't go to the people who claim intellectual property to get the stuff that they insist should be theirs.
No, that's what makes it a product, not a particular company's product. By that definition, if I buy it from anyone, then it becomes their product.
We're not having the debate you think we are having then. The debate from my perspective, is over what obligates me to agree to someone else's terms to acquire something that the cost to reproduce is negligible, when we made no agreement before some work was done to have that item exist.that I would pay them something.
I have no idea what you mean by "legal hard media. Bing turned up zero results of those words used together like that on the first page of results.
Oh, I don't have too much trouble with what a "sellable good" is; what I do have trouble with is what makes a company think something is their sellable good.
Sellable good. Something two people can agree on a price for exchange of that something.
Now what's your definition of a "sellable good"?
You don't seem to understand what a copy is. A copy is not the thing that the first person made.
We're not having the debate you think we are having then. The debate from my perspective, is over what obligates me to agree to someone else's terms to acquire something that the cost to reproduce is negligible, when we made no agreement before some work was done to have that item exist.that I would pay them something
That's where your arguments falls off the table. You do not know the cost to make said intellectual properly. It could have cost them $1,000,000 or $100. If you want it, pay the price. If you can't justify the purchase then don't buy it hence don't use it. This applies even to material goods as they include their R&D into the cost of the product. The only difference is that you can't actually get away with not paying for R&D on material goods. When you buy the latest Intel processor, do you really think that inflated price is just materials? NO, it's the R&D that went into it that your paying for.
Maybe in your world intellectual property just appears out of thin air but in the real world there's groups of people that work on these projects to bring them to market
I have no idea what you mean by "legal hard media
My bad. Hard copy of entertainment material such as movies and music.
You don't seem to understand what a copy is. A copy is not the thing that the first person made.
So how does a musician make money from his work? By selling COPIES! He sets a price and it either sells or it doesn't. If the price is out to lunch he won't sell shit. It's not relevant if you have a copy in your hands OR NOT. You are making use of said product. It's that simple.
I'll take a different approach to see if I can understand how you think it should work because I still don't understand where you stand.
I believe that if you want access to software (games or apps), music or movies and that the producer is asking for $xx.xx, you pay $xx.xx or simply don't use the product. No different than when you buy a hammer, a computer or anything else that has engineering behind it. IMO that's how the exchange of goods and services has worked for thousands of years.
Now, explain to me how it should work instead. Ideally your solution should not be suggestive but rather based on successful methods in our current consumer market.
First, you do crowdfunding and maybe even some crowdsourcing. At some point, you may want to do some early access. Put as much or as little DRM as you want, but it shouldn't be illegal to crack it. Spyro 3 had notable DRM. [1][2] Get your game on GamersGate, GOG, and/or Steam. Steam has some early access features, and puts reviews right on the software's store page. Also, there are many websites that resell Steam keys. There are software bundle sites for when sales are lagging. Not that popular, but product placement, like a racing game having actual ads on billboard can happen. Then there are the free-to-play, pay to unlock shiny objects, MMOs. Skylanders and amiibo and Disney Infinity show another way to earn money. When trademarks actually involve a confusion of source the confusion of source should be prosecuted, but putting a large swish that looks like Nike's logo as a decoration on a shirt should not be prosecuted, but on a tag that is designed to prove source should. I was reviewing my philosophy of key generators, but if you go to the company's website, like Steam or Playstation Network to redeem a key, that should be prosecutable as you are misrepresenting your situation to those sites. Now that may sound like EULA's but you are usually presented with a EULA after you already bought the software, and there is some room to argue that the person who clicks on accept might be liable, but the people he enabled to use a copy of it without seeing the EULA didn't agree to it, so are not liable. Now that can be gotten around by cracking the installer too, but that means that there's more time to sell your product without the pressure of unauthorized copies.
But that's already how it works. They eat the cost of development and then find channels to sell it through. There's the odd company that chooses to be in control such as Origin and Blizzard but generally most games are available through most channels. Consoles offer resell of games if the publisher allows it. At least you know when you buy the game if you can or cannot resell later.
but it shouldn't be illegal to crack it
Depends what you mean by crack it. If I crack it so that I can use it without buying into it, I believe it's theft (copyright infringement). If you purchase it, crack it and play it, I don't see a problem with that. I'm pretty sure the publishers won't care either. The problem is those that crack it, distribute the crack and worst host cracked servers for non licensed copies of the game. Meanwhile the company can't profit from that use.
Last I checked you are allowed to reverse engineer anything you want as long as you don't attempt to copy for sale (that's where it becomes illegal). See wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This here speaks on both our behalf but mostly says that software reverse engineering is legal in the US as long as you don't reveal trade secrets if applicable (that's where the shit hits the fan IMO). http://lwn.net/Articles/134642...
Fact is, go ahead and reverse engineer anything your purchased because as long as you don't distribute your findings or copy protected content you aren't breaking the law.
The cost of development should be covered in the crowdfunding stage in my verson.
I'm not clear why you insist on the source of R&D dollars being crowdfunded. What if you have an idea you want to fund yourself? You take a risk by spending the dev cost building a game or piece of software. You set a price tag and sell it. If you make 100 times what you put in good for you. If you lose well that's unfortunate.
I insist on crowdfunding because it gets you the money without putting pressure on anyone who wants to participate in the flow of ideas after the MacGuffin was made. There was a situation where someone remade a Mario 64 level from scratch and Nintendo had the power to make him take it down. You also don't seem to have looked at the links I provided or the bits I described from them
Does not bother me personally as I use Steam for all my games anyway but I can see how this could upset anyone who prefers physical copies; worse yet if someone bought it without realizing and had a poor net connection preventing them from downloading it.
I wonder why couldn't they at least pre-load the base data and only use Steam for patching/updates.
You should see all the Star Trek spin-offs that are mostly crowdfunded and on YouTube and even have actors from the original series that could only come about in the current legal climate because CBS isn't being a nuisance regarding making derivative works.