Funny, I gave one of my friends a copy of HL2, because I had a second one from buying the Orange box. I did it straight through Steam, no customer service needed. Perhaps you haven't fully investigated the GUI.
Maybe you haven't fully investigated Steam's policies. The fact that you could transfer duplicate HL2 and HL2: Ep1 licenses from the Orange Box was a special feature of those two games with the Orange Box only. As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, they've since done it with a couple L4D packs. However, transferring a double license is decidedly not a generally-implemented feature.
That is to say, you took the gun classes, knew what you were doing with the gun, cleaned the gun, loaded the gun, removed the safety, carefully aimed at your foot, pulled the trigger, and then started complaining about the gun manufacturer because you shot yourself in the foot.
That would only be an apt analogy if the only way to buy the gun involved said process. If I could go out to Best Buy and pick up a copy of Portal that didn't have the license transfer problem, but I choose to get it on Steam anyway, then it would be my problem. As it is, the only way to get Portal is through Steam with the associated restrictions, and IMO that is clearly Steam's problem.
When games were requiring the CD to be in the drive did that also just positively infuriate you?
Steam is better than some of the other DRM things, like the dreadful stuff EA had on a few titles that limits the number of installations, or the whatever it is that installs a CD driver. That said... IMO "requiring the CD to be in the drive" is a far superior DRM mechanism than Steam is. Not even a question.
I'm complaining about it because it's is a real problem with Steam-like digital distribution with DRM.
slimjim8094 said he never heard of anyone having a specific problem with the DRM. I posted a problem I've had with the DRM. Just because I know it was a problem when I made the purchase doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
You could still sell off your entire library, get a new steam account, and only buy the one or two games you wanted.
Right, because every time I find someone who would want one game I want to give away, or wants to buy one game I'd like to sell, they're also willing to reimburse me for my replacement library.
Got any more realistic suggestions?
Also, why two? Did you forget?
I bought Portal, then later I bought the Orange Box.
Imminent hyperbole alert! No, it's not. It's an annoyance or a quirk at best, when everything else is taken into context.
What "everything else"? As far as I'm concerned, I get two main benefits from Steam: - Sweet sales (e.g. KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect for $20 total between post-Thanksgiving and post-Christmas sales) - The ability to play games like HL2 and Portal that aren't available not through Steam. (Okay, there are console ports, but those have several other problems.)
I don't consider the second thing a very big benefit from Steam to be honest; rather I view it more as Valve having my balls because their games are just so good that the problems I have with Steam are overridden.
Whoa! Something approaching a useful point. Yes, that's technically correct, but I could theoretically 'give' or 'sell' my Steam account to someone else, without any hassle from Steam, so I'm not sure how histrionic we need to be.
Well, technically the TOS say you can't transfer your account. You'll be clear, but the person you're selling to might not want to give you as much money because of the risk of you losing it.
And besides, who wants to sell their entire game library? Usually you just want to sell or give away one or two games. With Steam, you can't do it. Even explicitly contacting customer service didn't help me give away one of two separate Portal licenses I have.
So that's more than "technically correct," it's a very real problem.
...nobody can ever say "this thing doesn't work and it should"
I have two Portal licenses and couldn't give one away to someone I wanted to have it, even when I emailed Valve and asked them to transfer the license. I would consider that "this thing doesn't work and it should." I've also had games unplayable because my internet connection went down during updates that I didn't ask for.
Look up in the thread and you'll see several people with their accounts disabled.
I'm generalizing here, but I think the last thing the average Mac user will be impressed by is being told Steam doesn't work with their filesystem. AFAIK Macs sold today use case-sensitive filesystems by default.
As others above you have said, the last point is not true, which means that the average Mac user won't ever run into this problem. Hell, the 95th percentile hardcore geek Mac user won't run into this problem.
This type of protection is no more "evil" than requiring the CD to be in the drive...
Except for the fact that Valve can disable your account and prevent access to your games, you can't loan or sell your games, and you're depending on Steam's servers for access. Other than that, it's perfectly reasonable.
(I have quite a few games through Steam, and don't mind it too much most of the time. That said, if it's the choice of Steam vs "you must have the CD" (like Mass Effect 2), in my mind it's not even remotely a question which is more consumer-friendly -- CD all the way.)
Which is *less* than games with heavy DRM (according to those companies like EA et all). So it does support the world view: DRM hurts sales.
Don't forget to add in any figures of people pirating the games on BitTorrent or through other avenues. Remember, that 1/4 figure is only those people who got it through their servers and didn't pay for it.
If you want accurate numbers, compare overall sales of each game to overall pirate numbers. That 25% isn't even close to a fair comparison.
I can tell you that TIME IT TAKES TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS to get the payment done from many developed countries is equivalent to earning about twice to thrice the money if I used the same time to work.... And I'm not exaggerating. In some places, it's even harder. In some, it's impossible.
Somehow I suspect "World of Goo" is at the top of anyone's list who would be in said circumstance.
Maybe there are a few people... but not anything more than a handful relative to the 25% figure.
Besides, there's an easy way around filtering out the.xxx domain at the firewall or browser level. It's called URL shortening, and it's why I never click on bit.ly links any more.
By my understanding, tinyurl/bit.ly/etc.-style URL shorteners wouldn't do anything to stop.xxx from working. They just send back an HTTP redirect, and then your browser reissues the request (which would then be picked up by the filter).
Re:don't mock the Notepad++
on
Zen Coding
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· Score: 2, Interesting
A non-zero price can make it a practical impossibility to use in many organizations because of the paperwork involved.
But not always, and definitely isn't at home.
Since their are many free alternatives available in this category it's easily possible that the pay software is more trouble than it's worth even if it is otherwise superior, as the GPP was implicitly pointing out.
And apparently that's not true for the poster who originally mentioned it.
The other thing is that the HP employees didn't seem to want to press charges (aside from one, if I recall correctly)
To be fair, the Sarah Palins didn't seem to want to press charges either (aside from one).
Re:Let's see...
on
Zen Coding
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· Score: 3, Insightful
So it's kind of like Lisp macros, except that they are expanded in the source to make maintenance both more difficult and less efficient than just starting over from scratch.
If that's your attitude, feel free to go ahead and use Markdown or ASCIIDoc or one of the other markup lanugages that you can compile to HTML.
However, this is something you can use in documents that are already HTML, need to be HTML because that's what your employer or customer demands, etc. without affecting the end result. Saying "let's replace HTML with something better" is not exactly a realistic proposition.
Re:Let's see...
on
Zen Coding
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· Score: 2, Insightful
But again, with the instant feedback when it expands it for you, if that happens you can just hit undo and type it out yourself.
Re:Let's see...
on
Zen Coding
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· Score: 3, Insightful
What the hell, why not add another syntax?
To be fair, the syntax is very much like CSS. Further, it's not like it stays in the file for those who come after; it's just that the editor expands things for you.
Re:don't mock the Notepad++
on
Zen Coding
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Yeah, god forbid someone pay money for software they use and like.
...the author should return to square one and do his homework instead: this "new" topic has been around for decades - with the internet full of references, links etc. - maybe he never heard of search engines ?
And yet how many sources say "compare floating point numbers by saying "x - y epsilon" instead of the better solution here? I know I've seen the former method many, many times; I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone articulate the problems with it and suggest something like the latter ones.
The problem is that regardless of whether you agreed to anything, you never got a "commercial" license in the first place, so you can get sued. The manual just *informs* you of the fact that what you bought is a non-commercial license.
I wonder what mileage you could get out of a false advertisement suit against the manufacturers.
...doesn't it make more sense to just use the same OpenGL for both?
Depends on what they're doing. For example, geometry shaders have been available in DX10 for years, but only available in pure OpenGL for a few months. (Though they've been available as an extension for quite some time too.)
My impression was that you can only use the keyboard for text-entry fields, and that their SDK prohibited keyboard/mouse for games. (Same with Sony.) Is this not the case?
Ok, just did a search. Are guy said that this was true of the XBox 1, but not the 360. I send corrected.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, I gave one of my friends a copy of HL2, because I had a second one from buying the Orange box. I did it straight through Steam, no customer service needed. Perhaps you haven't fully investigated the GUI.
Maybe you haven't fully investigated Steam's policies. The fact that you could transfer duplicate HL2 and HL2: Ep1 licenses from the Orange Box was a special feature of those two games with the Orange Box only. As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, they've since done it with a couple L4D packs. However, transferring a double license is decidedly not a generally-implemented feature.
That is to say, you took the gun classes, knew what you were doing with the gun, cleaned the gun, loaded the gun, removed the safety, carefully aimed at your foot, pulled the trigger, and then started complaining about the gun manufacturer because you shot yourself in the foot.
That would only be an apt analogy if the only way to buy the gun involved said process. If I could go out to Best Buy and pick up a copy of Portal that didn't have the license transfer problem, but I choose to get it on Steam anyway, then it would be my problem. As it is, the only way to get Portal is through Steam with the associated restrictions, and IMO that is clearly Steam's problem.
When games were requiring the CD to be in the drive did that also just positively infuriate you?
Steam is better than some of the other DRM things, like the dreadful stuff EA had on a few titles that limits the number of installations, or the whatever it is that installs a CD driver. That said... IMO "requiring the CD to be in the drive" is a far superior DRM mechanism than Steam is. Not even a question.
I'm complaining about it because it's is a real problem with Steam-like digital distribution with DRM.
slimjim8094 said he never heard of anyone having a specific problem with the DRM. I posted a problem I've had with the DRM. Just because I know it was a problem when I made the purchase doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
You could still sell off your entire library, get a new steam account, and only buy the one or two games you wanted.
Right, because every time I find someone who would want one game I want to give away, or wants to buy one game I'd like to sell, they're also willing to reimburse me for my replacement library.
Got any more realistic suggestions?
Also, why two? Did you forget?
I bought Portal, then later I bought the Orange Box.
Imminent hyperbole alert! No, it's not. It's an annoyance or a quirk at best, when everything else is taken into context.
What "everything else"? As far as I'm concerned, I get two main benefits from Steam:
- Sweet sales (e.g. KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect for $20 total between post-Thanksgiving and post-Christmas sales)
- The ability to play games like HL2 and Portal that aren't available not through Steam. (Okay, there are console ports, but those have several other problems.)
I don't consider the second thing a very big benefit from Steam to be honest; rather I view it more as Valve having my balls because their games are just so good that the problems I have with Steam are overridden.
Valve only allows this for specific games and 4-packs. This is mentioned right in their FAQ.
So I said "Steam sucks in this way" and your response is "yeah, but Valve says they suck in this way so it's okay"?
Whoa! Something approaching a useful point. Yes, that's technically correct, but I could theoretically 'give' or 'sell' my Steam account to someone else, without any hassle from Steam, so I'm not sure how histrionic we need to be.
Well, technically the TOS say you can't transfer your account. You'll be clear, but the person you're selling to might not want to give you as much money because of the risk of you losing it.
And besides, who wants to sell their entire game library? Usually you just want to sell or give away one or two games. With Steam, you can't do it. Even explicitly contacting customer service didn't help me give away one of two separate Portal licenses I have.
So that's more than "technically correct," it's a very real problem.
...nobody can ever say "this thing doesn't work and it should"
I have two Portal licenses and couldn't give one away to someone I wanted to have it, even when I emailed Valve and asked them to transfer the license. I would consider that "this thing doesn't work and it should." I've also had games unplayable because my internet connection went down during updates that I didn't ask for.
Look up in the thread and you'll see several people with their accounts disabled.
I'm generalizing here, but I think the last thing the average Mac user will be impressed by is being told Steam doesn't work with their filesystem. AFAIK Macs sold today use case-sensitive filesystems by default.
As others above you have said, the last point is not true, which means that the average Mac user won't ever run into this problem. Hell, the 95th percentile hardcore geek Mac user won't run into this problem.
This type of protection is no more "evil" than requiring the CD to be in the drive...
Except for the fact that Valve can disable your account and prevent access to your games, you can't loan or sell your games, and you're depending on Steam's servers for access. Other than that, it's perfectly reasonable.
(I have quite a few games through Steam, and don't mind it too much most of the time. That said, if it's the choice of Steam vs "you must have the CD" (like Mass Effect 2), in my mind it's not even remotely a question which is more consumer-friendly -- CD all the way.)
Sure! Make it sound like we on the other side of Saturn will believe anything.
It has nothing to do with what they believe; it just took that long for the news to reach them.
Which is *less* than games with heavy DRM (according to those companies like EA et all). So it does support the world view: DRM hurts sales.
Don't forget to add in any figures of people pirating the games on BitTorrent or through other avenues. Remember, that 1/4 figure is only those people who got it through their servers and didn't pay for it.
If you want accurate numbers, compare overall sales of each game to overall pirate numbers. That 25% isn't even close to a fair comparison.
I can tell you that TIME IT TAKES TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS to get the payment done from many developed countries is equivalent to earning about twice to thrice the money if I used the same time to work. ... And I'm not exaggerating. In some places, it's even harder. In some, it's impossible.
Somehow I suspect "World of Goo" is at the top of anyone's list who would be in said circumstance.
Maybe there are a few people... but not anything more than a handful relative to the 25% figure.
Scarcity means higher prices, perhaps? There aren't that many Linux games to begin with.
I suspect a bigger effect is "I want more games on my platform, so I want to encourage this sort of thing." (Related, but different.)
Besides, there's an easy way around filtering out the .xxx domain at the firewall or browser level. It's called URL shortening, and it's why I never click on bit.ly links any more.
By my understanding, tinyurl/bit.ly/etc.-style URL shorteners wouldn't do anything to stop .xxx from working. They just send back an HTTP redirect, and then your browser reissues the request (which would then be picked up by the filter).
A non-zero price can make it a practical impossibility to use in many organizations because of the paperwork involved.
But not always, and definitely isn't at home.
Since their are many free alternatives available in this category it's easily possible that the pay software is more trouble than it's worth even if it is otherwise superior, as the GPP was implicitly pointing out.
And apparently that's not true for the poster who originally mentioned it.
The other thing is that the HP employees didn't seem to want to press charges (aside from one, if I recall correctly)
To be fair, the Sarah Palins didn't seem to want to press charges either (aside from one).
So it's kind of like Lisp macros, except that they are expanded in the source to make maintenance both more difficult and less efficient than just starting over from scratch.
If that's your attitude, feel free to go ahead and use Markdown or ASCIIDoc or one of the other markup lanugages that you can compile to HTML.
However, this is something you can use in documents that are already HTML, need to be HTML because that's what your employer or customer demands, etc. without affecting the end result. Saying "let's replace HTML with something better" is not exactly a realistic proposition.
But again, with the instant feedback when it expands it for you, if that happens you can just hit undo and type it out yourself.
What the hell, why not add another syntax?
To be fair, the syntax is very much like CSS. Further, it's not like it stays in the file for those who come after; it's just that the editor expands things for you.
Yeah, god forbid someone pay money for software they use and like.
...the author should return to square one and do his homework instead: this "new" topic has been around for decades - with the internet full of references, links etc. - maybe he never heard of search engines ?
And yet how many sources say "compare floating point numbers by saying "x - y epsilon" instead of the better solution here? I know I've seen the former method many, many times; I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone articulate the problems with it and suggest something like the latter ones.
The problem is that regardless of whether you agreed to anything, you never got a "commercial" license in the first place, so you can get sued. The manual just *informs* you of the fact that what you bought is a non-commercial license.
I wonder what mileage you could get out of a false advertisement suit against the manufacturers.
...doesn't it make more sense to just use the same OpenGL for both?
Depends on what they're doing. For example, geometry shaders have been available in DX10 for years, but only available in pure OpenGL for a few months. (Though they've been available as an extension for quite some time too.)
My impression was that you can only use the keyboard for text-entry fields, and that their SDK prohibited keyboard/mouse for games. (Same with Sony.) Is this not the case?
Ok, just did a search. Are guy said that this was true of the XBox 1, but not the 360. I send corrected.