There aren't any figures for that, and I can't back the estimate up. It's a wild ass guess (WAG) and you can feel free to make up your own number. However, it would -not- be an additive to what the numbers are now.
The piracy we see now isn't completely -rampant- as it still involves keeping up with patches and other things that break the cracks on a semi-regular basis, I would think. And, it involves downloading multiple gigs of data. That alone has probably sent at least a few would-be pirates to the store.
When you're playing the full game through, about the Nth time you think to yourself "I need to lower my gun so I can see if there's a monster under the stairs" you really REALLY wish they had some goddamn duct tape.
Let me try and clarify a little bit about what exactly Steam is. Steam is most certainly designed to be proprietary, at least at this stage. Valve has made a little noise about using it as the basis for online game distribution in general, but is currently in the middle of a large legal battle with Vivendi over whether or not Valve needs to share the profits from Steam sales with them. Vivendi's claiming that Valve stabbed them in the back by developing the Steam option and undercutting the traditional sales channel.
So as it stands right now, Steam is a completely centralized system operated by Valve. It will probably stay that way.
SecuROM is one of the most common forms of checking to see whether the CD in your drive is the game you're being asked to put in. "Please put your DOOM 3 CD in the drive now." - It's not just checking the label, or the first sector or two. It's actually checking against a pretty complex system including things like weak sectors to see if the disc is truly legit. Other systems out there have gone so far as to replace your ATAPI driver. SecuROM is known for loading up in the machine's memory and slowing computers down pretty significantly, when you're playing your games.
Where Steam improves on this, is by eliminating the need to screw with the drivers on your machine by doing it all online. I believe boxed copies had some form of SecuROM or its kin on the discs, but this was actually removed in an early Steam patch for just the reason I described above. It was redundant and Valve thought it was silly.
The concept behind Steam is very well something that could spread - and I'm a bit concerned about that too. Nobody wants five or six applications running in the tray all authenticating different games unless you specifically don't load them. The market may go that way for a time, but it'll pull back once the tray gets saturated (or once Microsoft comes out with Microsoft Software Authentication Server in order to take over from everyone.)
And the more I think about it, the more I'm afraid Microsoft will do just that. But for now, what we have isn't as bad as what's come before. (No dongles, nothing burning out your floppy drive heads) And you -do- get the great benefit of a license that lets you run your game -anywhere-. On any machine. No other game license offers the same flexibility here, and few other publishers have given as much value for the dollar as Valve did with HL1.
I was under the impression that iD did use a DRM system for Windows, though maybe not for the other operating systems. There sure are enough Doom 3 cracks out there as to make me think they did.
iD is one of those companies that tries to do a lot of good, especially in regards to cross-platform capability. They made a great game, with an amazing engine - and horribly, horribly high system requirements and shitty network code.
Valve made decent money on Half-Life, but they were getting huge cuts taken out by Sierra, and the expenses of using WON got multiplayer hosting and authentication. Are the people that bought Half-Life 1 playing multiplayer games on that through WON's network now? Nope, that network's gone now - but you can still play Half-Life 1 games through Steam.
In fact, your original Half-Life 1 purchase attaches to your account on Steam and allows you to use all the modifications that're associated with the original key. Hell, my CD key from the very first sales day of HL1 not only unlocks HL1 and all the multiplayer addons, but Opposing Force as well. (Blue Shift isn't on Steam due to licensing issues, I suppose)
I remember the days of the Commodore 64 protection systems, Maverick and Renegade were my "friends" in those days. Today's systems don't hold a candle to those in terms of being dangerous to the health of your gaming experience (sure, let's seek to bad sectors on the disk and let your drive grind a while!)
If Valve hadn't given you the ability to use any computer with a Steam install to log into your game and play, I'd be singing a different tune right now. But between that, and the fact they're fighting to break away from the entire business model of "let the publisher take most of your profits" I see Valve as the good guys. I bought it through Steam because I want to see more of my money going to the people that actually design the games - not the publisher, who in this case didn't give Valve one red cent to make Half-Life 2 with. It was entirely self-financed.
Eventually people will crack, and MAYBE a strong enough resistance to the more intrusive forms of DRM will emerge. But this won't be it. When Microsoft requires a dongle and an online check on boot, maybe then.
And you'll pirate Half-Life 3, and Half-Life 3's authentication system will be even worse for legitimate users? That makes a lot of sense, sure thing.
Would you rather Valve spend tens of millions on developing Half-Life 2 and 3, sell it without DRM and barely sell a maybe a quarter of what they sold now due to rampant piracy? Let's see, estimates of cost on HL2 production range around... what, 30 million plus? They've sold 1.7 million units so far, so cut that back, say 250,000 units to be generous. That means they'd have made $12,500,000 -gross-. With an ungodly amount of that - more than half - going to the distribution channel.
Sounds like a great way to lose money hand over fist... Oops, I think I just came up with the XBox Next marketing plan for Microsoft. Again.
I've actually taken to the habit of saying right up front when checking out at Best Buy. Right after they start:
''I don't want to buy anything else. I know you have to say it, but stop.''
I swear I must have had a little bit too much asshole in my tone of voice the first time I did it, because the poor girl just blanched like I'd told her to go to hell or something. But now, I just say that with a mostly-sincere smile and go on with my life. So far, none of them have insisted on continuing. If one does, I'll simply leave my purchases on the counter and walk out the door.
This isn't seriously. Release day wasn't even -seriously-. It was definitely a cockpunch, and this is a good kidney blow, but it's not -seriously-. When I say seriously, I mean in a way that undermines my ability to trust Valve to at least attempt to do the right thing whenever possible.
HL2 is not an MMORPG, but people never seem to complain about the possibility of those servers going down after shelling out fifty bucks, do they? That's a lot more likely than Valve closing up shop, but all people complain about is Steam.
... Where'd you buy your crack, it sounds like it must have been good shit.
Why not -ask- Valve what the long-term public domain rights answer is? I've been wanting someone to simply ask them that question for months. Your comparison is absurd to the point of super-absurdity. Maybe a better analogy is that Valve is the street musician telling people they can't record his playing and listen to it at home? Nope, still silly. Maybe a street musician writing a song, playing it in public then being ripped off by someone with connections to getting some pop-band on the charts with it? Nope. If that street musician covered his ass and got date-stamped copyright on his song, he's going to be rich - he was stolen from.
Leave the Jingoism to Bush, okay?
on
Steam Users Steamed
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· Score: 1, Insightful
It's not about "freedom", it's about a video game. The point to a video game is to be fun, if you feel as though your fun would be intruded on by something like Steam - that's fine. But crusading against Steam without any valid alternative proposal is simply childish.
And... Fascist state? What the fuck? A server crashed. It's not like Gabe Newell walked in and drunkenly pissed on the 0:1* SteamID auth server. (Well, maybe he did. But we don't know for sure.) Everything's going to have DRM whether you or I like it or not. Spend some time trying to mold the future by encouraging things like Steam that at least offer something in return, rather than fighting the inevitable. Crusading for a cause is a great thing, but you need to pick your battles.
This isn't one that the consumer can win. DRM will always be with us - so shape it. Encourage systems that offer something new, like Steam does, rather than fight it and push us back into the hands of the SecuROM type people.
The screens look... okay, but definitely lacking in some pretty major areas, like depth. There's nothing remarkable that I can see, and the site seems a little bit vague in several areas. So what's the game about? Can't tell. That's not really all that good then, is it?
I applied, we'll see how it is. I got into Planetside and Star Wars Galaxies because of a 10 day trial, and now getting into an open beta could be fun. (I'm laid off, so I have some time to kill.)
From what I saw though, I'm uninspired. Almost as uninspired after playing the free trial of Anarchy Online. Now that game just... well...
Friends don't let Open Source Developers design User Interfaces(tm). Though I'm sure the people at AO that designed it weren't into Open Source, they sure designed a shitty UI.
This is the biggest legitimate concern about Steam that most people voice - what happens if Valve goes under? I've been hoping someone in the gaming industry with enough pull could simply ASK Valve the question:
''If in the unlikely event that you were unable to continue providing authentication services within a reasonable amount of time, would you make certain people could activate the game?''... or some variation on that theme. Newell should have an answer for this, if he doesn't, he should be pushed hard enough to need one. I feel as though there's no reason to distrust any response he gives, so if he says they've got a plan, that's enough.
And you, apparently have found a lack of balls with which to make your post. HL2 has already been far, far, far more cost-effective entertainment than any game I've bought in the last 3 years. My money, my fun, I'm happy. Ninety-nine-ninety (Gold package, Steam download) later, I've probably played 200+ hours of gaming. Fifty cents an hour? Worthwhile to me.
And honestly, I can't say I have any major problems with Steam/Source. Things like what're happening tonight is one thing, but then again I waited 9 hours for them to fix Star Wars Galaxies the other day. I suspect this will be fixed by Valve quicker than SOE fixed SWG.
Let's see, in order to publish a video game today you need DRM - shut up. I can hear you bitching already "But what about X, Y, and Z! They don't use DRM!" Shut the fuck up. We're not talking about Joe's Self-Published Title, we're talking about something being sold through a major distributor. DRM is a must - so what options are there?
Lock to the physical CD? Easily cracked by many different groups out there. Major hassle to the game player, has the most potential for incompatibility issues.
Serial key lock without serverside verification, or one-time verification? Again, not easily cracked, and will either have the same problem Steam will long down the road (no server to unlock) or will probably be backed up by a physical disc lock.
License terms on all these options? One machine, occasionally one machine + laptop (though that's rare for games)
And then there's Steam. Yes, Steam has flaws ranging from major to minor so let's look at those:
Major flaws: Must authenticate to server or declare offline after authentication. Reliability of the server system is questionable. Will it be up tonight, next week, next year, a year after Steam 2 comes out? Twenty years down the road for retro-gaming?
Minor flaws: Still can be cracked with some effort. Requires you to wait a few moments to launch the Steam.exe and load that before the game loads. However, in some cases this actually takes LESS time than some games that force you to watch six screens of technology trademark videos first.
Now what does Steam give you after all this hassle? The ability to keep your game up to date without worrying about it. The ability to log onto and play your game from any computer with Steam installed. Any computer, just one at a time. This is great for people with multiple computers, or the ability to game after-hours at work or school. You no longer need to worry about the old hassle of installing your game at your college terminal and removing your CD-key before leaving so people don't sniff it out of the registry.;)
(Okay, the last probably just describes my school)
Honestly, until Valve fucks it up seriously, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. They put enough time, energy and improvement into the first game that they earned a shot at changing the status quo. Publishers would NEVER let them distribute without some form of DRM, and I'd much rather have Steam and the benefits it does bring than anything like SecuROM and its ilk.
A DRM-less world would be fucking incredible, yes. But guess what? Even if every person on Slashdot never bought another DRM-enabled program again, DRM will still be here. Idealism is fine, and breaking the rules is just fine too - but when people lash out like I see here it's just annoying. If you don't like it, fine. But acting like spoiled kids and calling the people at Valve all sorts of names is just pathetic.
I don't see people bitching about the DRM built into the latest MMORPG, but they still shell forty or fifty bucks up front, then twelve bucks a month to keep on playing, but everyone complains about Steam as if they're stealing your soul. Many MMORPG's haven't given you the extra content Valve pulled into Half-Life since 1998. Team Fotress Classic, HL Deathmatch, acquiring DOD and Counter-Strike, that weird Ricochet thing, patch after patch after patch. Yet when HL2 comes out with something new, everyone goes off the deep end like they cloned Hitler.
The problem is that Linux gets more technical the more people want to try new things with it. What options are there on Linux for some of the things you can do with OS X? Find me suitable replacements for iPhoto, iMovie, iCal and iTunes and that'd just be a good start. Yes, there -are- some excellent packages out there, but none of them are as complete and as simple to use as what Apple offers.
Now, if Apple would stop being litigous pricks and start being a bit more friendly about OS version pricing and backwards compatibility, I'd feel a lot less guilt. I like Apple products, I really do. But they're total cocks in several annoying ways.
What's the answer? Well, you could have pushed Linux until you said non-technical. Otherwise this thread could pretty much just be an ad for the Apple Mac Mini or even the iMac G5.
No, I won't add links to those. They're everywhere this week. And yes, I want one. Either one.
You know, I heard this wild rumor about a year and a half ago that they were working on this ultra-secret project called "Counter-Strike: Source" that would be really nifty and actually come free with Half-Life 2. And I guess the original Counter-Strike was something like the most popular FPS multiplayer on the planet, with leagues and prizes and everything.
What you need to keep in mind is the second of the qualifiers for the MPAA to be likely to bring a lawsuit. They'll initially only target places that have blatant demonstration and claims of offering the "best warez" and the like. I think you'll see a lot of those blatant places get hit first, and fast. Once your Torrent site offers categories including the titles of movies or genres, you're gonna get nailed.
That's exactly the point right there. It's all about "Knowingly" in this case.
Offtopically, I find the Signull reference in your sig interesting. On my commute home from work many nights I see a silver VW with SIGNULL as a license plate that heads along 101 to I93 like I do. I drive a green Mazda with NRDCORE. Probably not you, but I figured I'd say something anyhow.:) I live in Manchester, NH and I know Salisbury, MA isn't -real- close by, but.
Actually, I'd rather the movie industry started to do something about making the experience of going to the movies more fun than hassle. I've gone to damn few movies in theaters, simply because the seats suck, the theaters are always crowded, and morons (particularly in the theater in Methuen, MA) talk through the whole fucking movie all the time. No shit, last time I was there some kids started talking shit to me for simply looking behind me when I heard someone yelling.
Yes, they were black. I hate seeing stereotypes reinforced like that.
I'd also prefer them to run the commercials -before- the start time, as some chains do now. Trailers are one thing, but 15 minutes of "Let's all go to the lob-by!" type stuff is fucking ridiculous.
What they're going to argue is that the tracker sites are designed and operated specifically for the distribution of copyrighted materials. We might like to think they're on shaky ground with that kind of argument, but legally they have a pretty good chance of winning if certain things are evident.
1: Jurisdiction.
2: Intent.
Jurisdiction is something the MPAA has been good at manipulating for years. They'll find a way to get jurisdiction over anyone they actually sue, or mirrors, etcetera. Intent will be really easy in case of sites like Suprnova that have entire sections named off for things like Movies, Comics, Music, Games, etcetera. The sub-grouping of categories, show titles and other such breakdowns within those areas I listed above will be the most presentable evidence used to show "Hey, these people knew they were distributing copies of X TV show or music by this specific artist - they have a section with X's name on it.".
But seriously, this was something I think everyone could see from the very first time you saw "0 day" movie warez on the trackers. Suprnova may be a hard target to get, due to jurisdictional issues, but there're a lot of other sites that're out there that may well become really big bullseyes for the MPAA.
The real threat is going to be from Suprnova in round three of the file sharing wars. A distributed torrent network like WinMX but without a central server? Holy crap. Once that's on the loose, the MPAA, RIAA and BSA are pretty much boned.
I picked up a Tapwave Zodiac last year, and was really looking forward to getting back into a Palm device two major OS revisions newer than my old Palm IIIc (which was eventually traded for a Newton 2100) but boy, was I surprised by how little had really changed. Sure, the resolution was higher, the expandabiltiy was there at last (Two SD card slots), it was designed for "gaming" with an actual 8M ATI video chip in it, 320x480, the works and then some. The only things it lacked were WiFi and a camera......and a decent fucking OS. Sure, my Zodiac can run in 320x480 - but the actual PalmOS dialogs all run in 320x320 at best, popping up the graffiti area even when not needed. If I use the toolbar to remove the graffiti area, it just puts black space on the sides of the dialog. And speaking of the toolbar, it's just so wonderful that Palm made every manufacturer come up with thier own way of doing more than 320x320 resolution. Apps to modify the toolbar on the Tungsten T2 or Clie series Palms, do fuck-all on the Zodiac. Well, I take that back - they're great for crashing it. You can't skin the graffiti area or toolbar, you -still- can't change your icons from the ones included with the device and applications, and multitasking? Nope, that'll be in PalmOS 6.
The Zodiac is great hardware. It feels right. Well made, sturdy. Quality stuff. But the OS it got saddled with makes me feel like I'm running the PDA equivalent of Mac OS 9. It'll be great for people that require OS 9 apps, but there's a lot more out there. Palm stayed still without INNOVATING for way, way too long.
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There aren't any figures for that, and I can't back the estimate up. It's a wild ass guess (WAG) and you can feel free to make up your own number. However, it would -not- be an additive to what the numbers are now.
The piracy we see now isn't completely -rampant- as it still involves keeping up with patches and other things that break the cracks on a semi-regular basis, I would think. And, it involves downloading multiple gigs of data. That alone has probably sent at least a few would-be pirates to the store.
Fun, but silly.
When you're playing the full game through, about the Nth time you think to yourself "I need to lower my gun so I can see if there's a monster under the stairs" you really REALLY wish they had some goddamn duct tape.
Let me try and clarify a little bit about what exactly Steam is. Steam is most certainly designed to be proprietary, at least at this stage. Valve has made a little noise about using it as the basis for online game distribution in general, but is currently in the middle of a large legal battle with Vivendi over whether or not Valve needs to share the profits from Steam sales with them. Vivendi's claiming that Valve stabbed them in the back by developing the Steam option and undercutting the traditional sales channel.
So as it stands right now, Steam is a completely centralized system operated by Valve. It will probably stay that way.
SecuROM is one of the most common forms of checking to see whether the CD in your drive is the game you're being asked to put in. "Please put your DOOM 3 CD in the drive now." - It's not just checking the label, or the first sector or two. It's actually checking against a pretty complex system including things like weak sectors to see if the disc is truly legit. Other systems out there have gone so far as to replace your ATAPI driver. SecuROM is known for loading up in the machine's memory and slowing computers down pretty significantly, when you're playing your games.
Where Steam improves on this, is by eliminating the need to screw with the drivers on your machine by doing it all online. I believe boxed copies had some form of SecuROM or its kin on the discs, but this was actually removed in an early Steam patch for just the reason I described above. It was redundant and Valve thought it was silly.
The concept behind Steam is very well something that could spread - and I'm a bit concerned about that too. Nobody wants five or six applications running in the tray all authenticating different games unless you specifically don't load them. The market may go that way for a time, but it'll pull back once the tray gets saturated (or once Microsoft comes out with Microsoft Software Authentication Server in order to take over from everyone.)
And the more I think about it, the more I'm afraid Microsoft will do just that. But for now, what we have isn't as bad as what's come before. (No dongles, nothing burning out your floppy drive heads) And you -do- get the great benefit of a license that lets you run your game -anywhere-. On any machine. No other game license offers the same flexibility here, and few other publishers have given as much value for the dollar as Valve did with HL1.
I was under the impression that iD did use a DRM system for Windows, though maybe not for the other operating systems. There sure are enough Doom 3 cracks out there as to make me think they did.
iD is one of those companies that tries to do a lot of good, especially in regards to cross-platform capability. They made a great game, with an amazing engine - and horribly, horribly high system requirements and shitty network code.
Valve made decent money on Half-Life, but they were getting huge cuts taken out by Sierra, and the expenses of using WON got multiplayer hosting and authentication. Are the people that bought Half-Life 1 playing multiplayer games on that through WON's network now? Nope, that network's gone now - but you can still play Half-Life 1 games through Steam.
In fact, your original Half-Life 1 purchase attaches to your account on Steam and allows you to use all the modifications that're associated with the original key. Hell, my CD key from the very first sales day of HL1 not only unlocks HL1 and all the multiplayer addons, but Opposing Force as well. (Blue Shift isn't on Steam due to licensing issues, I suppose)
I remember the days of the Commodore 64 protection systems, Maverick and Renegade were my "friends" in those days. Today's systems don't hold a candle to those in terms of being dangerous to the health of your gaming experience (sure, let's seek to bad sectors on the disk and let your drive grind a while!)
If Valve hadn't given you the ability to use any computer with a Steam install to log into your game and play, I'd be singing a different tune right now. But between that, and the fact they're fighting to break away from the entire business model of "let the publisher take most of your profits" I see Valve as the good guys. I bought it through Steam because I want to see more of my money going to the people that actually design the games - not the publisher, who in this case didn't give Valve one red cent to make Half-Life 2 with. It was entirely self-financed.
Eventually people will crack, and MAYBE a strong enough resistance to the more intrusive forms of DRM will emerge. But this won't be it. When Microsoft requires a dongle and an online check on boot, maybe then.
And you'll pirate Half-Life 3, and Half-Life 3's authentication system will be even worse for legitimate users? That makes a lot of sense, sure thing.
Would you rather Valve spend tens of millions on developing Half-Life 2 and 3, sell it without DRM and barely sell a maybe a quarter of what they sold now due to rampant piracy? Let's see, estimates of cost on HL2 production range around... what, 30 million plus? They've sold 1.7 million units so far, so cut that back, say 250,000 units to be generous. That means they'd have made $12,500,000 -gross-. With an ungodly amount of that - more than half - going to the distribution channel.
Sounds like a great way to lose money hand over fist... Oops, I think I just came up with the XBox Next marketing plan for Microsoft. Again.
I've actually taken to the habit of saying right up front when checking out at Best Buy. Right after they start:
''I don't want to buy anything else. I know you have to say it, but stop.''
I swear I must have had a little bit too much asshole in my tone of voice the first time I did it, because the poor girl just blanched like I'd told her to go to hell or something. But now, I just say that with a mostly-sincere smile and go on with my life. So far, none of them have insisted on continuing. If one does, I'll simply leave my purchases on the counter and walk out the door.
This isn't seriously. Release day wasn't even -seriously-. It was definitely a cockpunch, and this is a good kidney blow, but it's not -seriously-. When I say seriously, I mean in a way that undermines my ability to trust Valve to at least attempt to do the right thing whenever possible.
HL2 is not an MMORPG, but people never seem to complain about the possibility of those servers going down after shelling out fifty bucks, do they? That's a lot more likely than Valve closing up shop, but all people complain about is Steam.
... Where'd you buy your crack, it sounds like it must have been good shit.
Why not -ask- Valve what the long-term public domain rights answer is? I've been wanting someone to simply ask them that question for months. Your comparison is absurd to the point of super-absurdity. Maybe a better analogy is that Valve is the street musician telling people they can't record his playing and listen to it at home? Nope, still silly. Maybe a street musician writing a song, playing it in public then being ripped off by someone with connections to getting some pop-band on the charts with it? Nope. If that street musician covered his ass and got date-stamped copyright on his song, he's going to be rich - he was stolen from.
It's not about "freedom", it's about a video game. The point to a video game is to be fun, if you feel as though your fun would be intruded on by something like Steam - that's fine. But crusading against Steam without any valid alternative proposal is simply childish.
And... Fascist state? What the fuck? A server crashed. It's not like Gabe Newell walked in and drunkenly pissed on the 0:1* SteamID auth server. (Well, maybe he did. But we don't know for sure.) Everything's going to have DRM whether you or I like it or not. Spend some time trying to mold the future by encouraging things like Steam that at least offer something in return, rather than fighting the inevitable. Crusading for a cause is a great thing, but you need to pick your battles.
This isn't one that the consumer can win. DRM will always be with us - so shape it. Encourage systems that offer something new, like Steam does, rather than fight it and push us back into the hands of the SecuROM type people.
The screens look... okay, but definitely lacking in some pretty major areas, like depth. There's nothing remarkable that I can see, and the site seems a little bit vague in several areas. So what's the game about? Can't tell. That's not really all that good then, is it?
I applied, we'll see how it is. I got into Planetside and Star Wars Galaxies because of a 10 day trial, and now getting into an open beta could be fun. (I'm laid off, so I have some time to kill.)
From what I saw though, I'm uninspired. Almost as uninspired after playing the free trial of Anarchy Online. Now that game just... well...
Friends don't let Open Source Developers design User Interfaces(tm). Though I'm sure the people at AO that designed it weren't into Open Source, they sure designed a shitty UI.
This is the biggest legitimate concern about Steam that most people voice - what happens if Valve goes under? I've been hoping someone in the gaming industry with enough pull could simply ASK Valve the question:
... or some variation on that theme. Newell should have an answer for this, if he doesn't, he should be pushed hard enough to need one. I feel as though there's no reason to distrust any response he gives, so if he says they've got a plan, that's enough.
''If in the unlikely event that you were unable to continue providing authentication services within a reasonable amount of time, would you make certain people could activate the game?''
And you, apparently have found a lack of balls with which to make your post. HL2 has already been far, far, far more cost-effective entertainment than any game I've bought in the last 3 years. My money, my fun, I'm happy. Ninety-nine-ninety (Gold package, Steam download) later, I've probably played 200+ hours of gaming. Fifty cents an hour? Worthwhile to me.
That's funny.
Right-click the Steam tray icon. Click "Exit".
Done.
And honestly, I can't say I have any major problems with Steam/Source. Things like what're happening tonight is one thing, but then again I waited 9 hours for them to fix Star Wars Galaxies the other day. I suspect this will be fixed by Valve quicker than SOE fixed SWG.
But it does have some funny ideas coming to mind.
*zing zing*
CT-Affleck: ''Sniper, on the balcony!''
CT-Farrell: ''Not on balcony, fucking gay wallhacker!''
*zing WHACK*
T-Bale killed CT-Affleck with AWP.
CT-Farrell: ''FUCKING HAXOR N00B!''
Okay, maybe not so funny.
Let's just be glad Hollywood skips this concept and maybe get them to make Rainbow Six?
Let's see, in order to publish a video game today you need DRM - shut up. I can hear you bitching already "But what about X, Y, and Z! They don't use DRM!" Shut the fuck up. We're not talking about Joe's Self-Published Title, we're talking about something being sold through a major distributor. DRM is a must - so what options are there?
;)
Lock to the physical CD? Easily cracked by many different groups out there. Major hassle to the game player, has the most potential for incompatibility issues.
Serial key lock without serverside verification, or one-time verification? Again, not easily cracked, and will either have the same problem Steam will long down the road (no server to unlock) or will probably be backed up by a physical disc lock.
License terms on all these options? One machine, occasionally one machine + laptop (though that's rare for games)
And then there's Steam. Yes, Steam has flaws ranging from major to minor so let's look at those:
Major flaws:
Must authenticate to server or declare offline after authentication. Reliability of the server system is questionable. Will it be up tonight, next week, next year, a year after Steam 2 comes out? Twenty years down the road for retro-gaming?
Minor flaws:
Still can be cracked with some effort. Requires you to wait a few moments to launch the Steam.exe and load that before the game loads. However, in some cases this actually takes LESS time than some games that force you to watch six screens of technology trademark videos first.
Now what does Steam give you after all this hassle? The ability to keep your game up to date without worrying about it. The ability to log onto and play your game from any computer with Steam installed. Any computer, just one at a time. This is great for people with multiple computers, or the ability to game after-hours at work or school. You no longer need to worry about the old hassle of installing your game at your college terminal and removing your CD-key before leaving so people don't sniff it out of the registry.
(Okay, the last probably just describes my school)
Honestly, until Valve fucks it up seriously, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. They put enough time, energy and improvement into the first game that they earned a shot at changing the status quo. Publishers would NEVER let them distribute without some form of DRM, and I'd much rather have Steam and the benefits it does bring than anything like SecuROM and its ilk.
A DRM-less world would be fucking incredible, yes. But guess what? Even if every person on Slashdot never bought another DRM-enabled program again, DRM will still be here. Idealism is fine, and breaking the rules is just fine too - but when people lash out like I see here it's just annoying. If you don't like it, fine. But acting like spoiled kids and calling the people at Valve all sorts of names is just pathetic.
I don't see people bitching about the DRM built into the latest MMORPG, but they still shell forty or fifty bucks up front, then twelve bucks a month to keep on playing, but everyone complains about Steam as if they're stealing your soul. Many MMORPG's haven't given you the extra content Valve pulled into Half-Life since 1998. Team Fotress Classic, HL Deathmatch, acquiring DOD and Counter-Strike, that weird Ricochet thing, patch after patch after patch. Yet when HL2 comes out with something new, everyone goes off the deep end like they cloned Hitler.
The problem is that Linux gets more technical the more people want to try new things with it. What options are there on Linux for some of the things you can do with OS X? Find me suitable replacements for iPhoto, iMovie, iCal and iTunes and that'd just be a good start. Yes, there -are- some excellent packages out there, but none of them are as complete and as simple to use as what Apple offers.
Now, if Apple would stop being litigous pricks and start being a bit more friendly about OS version pricing and backwards compatibility, I'd feel a lot less guilt. I like Apple products, I really do. But they're total cocks in several annoying ways.
What's the answer? Well, you could have pushed Linux until you said non-technical. Otherwise this thread could pretty much just be an ad for the Apple Mac Mini or even the iMac G5.
No, I won't add links to those. They're everywhere this week. And yes, I want one. Either one.
You know, I heard this wild rumor about a year and a half ago that they were working on this ultra-secret project called "Counter-Strike: Source" that would be really nifty and actually come free with Half-Life 2. And I guess the original Counter-Strike was something like the most popular FPS multiplayer on the planet, with leagues and prizes and everything.
But it was just a rumor.
What you need to keep in mind is the second of the qualifiers for the MPAA to be likely to bring a lawsuit. They'll initially only target places that have blatant demonstration and claims of offering the "best warez" and the like. I think you'll see a lot of those blatant places get hit first, and fast. Once your Torrent site offers categories including the titles of movies or genres, you're gonna get nailed.
That's exactly the point right there. It's all about "Knowingly" in this case.
:) I live in Manchester, NH and I know Salisbury, MA isn't -real- close by, but.
Offtopically, I find the Signull reference in your sig interesting. On my commute home from work many nights I see a silver VW with SIGNULL as a license plate that heads along 101 to I93 like I do. I drive a green Mazda with NRDCORE. Probably not you, but I figured I'd say something anyhow.
Actually, I'd rather the movie industry started to do something about making the experience of going to the movies more fun than hassle. I've gone to damn few movies in theaters, simply because the seats suck, the theaters are always crowded, and morons (particularly in the theater in Methuen, MA) talk through the whole fucking movie all the time. No shit, last time I was there some kids started talking shit to me for simply looking behind me when I heard someone yelling.
Yes, they were black. I hate seeing stereotypes reinforced like that.
I'd also prefer them to run the commercials -before- the start time, as some chains do now. Trailers are one thing, but 15 minutes of "Let's all go to the lob-by!" type stuff is fucking ridiculous.
What they're going to argue is that the tracker sites are designed and operated specifically for the distribution of copyrighted materials. We might like to think they're on shaky ground with that kind of argument, but legally they have a pretty good chance of winning if certain things are evident.
1: Jurisdiction.
2: Intent.
Jurisdiction is something the MPAA has been good at manipulating for years. They'll find a way to get jurisdiction over anyone they actually sue, or mirrors, etcetera. Intent will be really easy in case of sites like Suprnova that have entire sections named off for things like Movies, Comics, Music, Games, etcetera. The sub-grouping of categories, show titles and other such breakdowns within those areas I listed above will be the most presentable evidence used to show "Hey, these people knew they were distributing copies of X TV show or music by this specific artist - they have a section with X's name on it.".
I did, so nyah!
But seriously, this was something I think everyone could see from the very first time you saw "0 day" movie warez on the trackers. Suprnova may be a hard target to get, due to jurisdictional issues, but there're a lot of other sites that're out there that may well become really big bullseyes for the MPAA.
The real threat is going to be from Suprnova in round three of the file sharing wars. A distributed torrent network like WinMX but without a central server? Holy crap. Once that's on the loose, the MPAA, RIAA and BSA are pretty much boned.
I picked up a Tapwave Zodiac last year, and was really looking forward to getting back into a Palm device two major OS revisions newer than my old Palm IIIc (which was eventually traded for a Newton 2100) but boy, was I surprised by how little had really changed. Sure, the resolution was higher, the expandabiltiy was there at last (Two SD card slots), it was designed for "gaming" with an actual 8M ATI video chip in it, 320x480, the works and then some. The only things it lacked were WiFi and a camera... ...and a decent fucking OS. Sure, my Zodiac can run in 320x480 - but the actual PalmOS dialogs all run in 320x320 at best, popping up the graffiti area even when not needed. If I use the toolbar to remove the graffiti area, it just puts black space on the sides of the dialog. And speaking of the toolbar, it's just so wonderful that Palm made every manufacturer come up with thier own way of doing more than 320x320 resolution. Apps to modify the toolbar on the Tungsten T2 or Clie series Palms, do fuck-all on the Zodiac. Well, I take that back - they're great for crashing it. You can't skin the graffiti area or toolbar, you -still- can't change your icons from the ones included with the device and applications, and multitasking? Nope, that'll be in PalmOS 6.
The Zodiac is great hardware. It feels right. Well made, sturdy. Quality stuff. But the OS it got saddled with makes me feel like I'm running the PDA equivalent of Mac OS 9. It'll be great for people that require OS 9 apps, but there's a lot more out there. Palm stayed still without INNOVATING for way, way too long.