Probably wants to have legal, working copies of the games. Steam fulfils one. Downloading fulfils the other. Just buying them again fulfils both at once.
Steam bundles features people like - easiest possible way of acquiring games, InternetFriend stuff, and the DRM. Strip away the crap and leave only the DRM, and people would turn against it fast enough.
The irony of this is that up until now the Irish have been able to sit back and watch as the US, UK, and on occasion the continent get DMCA or equivalent legislation enforced, while no-one really cared enough about us to bother implementing it here.
As for this, I might care if I or anyone I knew was actually with eircom.
The LIVE profile doesn't need Internet access of any kind. When you first run the game, after activating it, it will force you to create a LIVE profile (or log in an existing one), somewhere in there is the option to make it an offline one, use that and you can create the profile there and then even without Internet access. You never have to interact with the 'actual' LIVE service. Incidentally, RGSC doesn't even require that much, just tell it to start the game, it will remind you that you aren't logged in, but the game will work.
I'm pretty sure the LIVE stuff has to be done in-game to get an offline profile. A friend signed up for LIVE in advance of installing the game and gave the game the online details (he has Internet access on the machine), and I'm pretty sure that if he wants the ability to save offline that he will lose all his current saves in the process of switching to an offline profile.
SecuROM has the option to require a server, and that server is only required to activate the game when it is first installed, and the activation can be done via another machine that is on the Internet if your gaming machine doesn't have access.
As I understand it, any Steam game is inherently protected by Steam, and so requires an Internet connection whenever you want to play or use of the sometimes unreliable offline mode (and is it true that you have to activate offline mode while online?), and the game must be activated from the machine it is installed on.
The biggest difference for me is that with SecuROM you still get a disk. Get a crack, keep it with the disk, and you have a product which will work servers or no. If you rely on the Steam 'cloud' to hold your games however, both the activation server and the game itself are gone when the servers close, along with any record you ever bought it.
Not that I'm trying to defend SecuROM of course, I don't buy SecuROM games either, but I see it as smaller step towards the so called 'rental society' than Steam.
The fact that you consider the EOL of a server/platform a mere hypothetical situation reinforces my perception of Steam users as the technically disinclined.
Ethics don't come into it if it is given for free, a feeling of obligation due to being used to paying for things maybe, but not ethics.
As for the other points, they are a different kind of reasoning. You originally suggested that people want everything for free, but it is negatives which dissuade them, not wanting the effort, not wanting to be unethical. An artist says, "here I made this, will you give me money?" and they say "I don't want to, but it's bad if I don't so here".
The NIN example is "I made something, do you want to give me money?" and they say "yes I do". Yes it is to continue getting more, and to get it in a DRM free way, but these are part of the product too, not just the actual download. People value the music, the continued production, the digital freedom, enough to cough up the cash.
If it was magically possible for it to all be free, even the supporting of the artist, people would choose that of course, but in that magical world economics as we know it could not function so it is a moot point. In the real world, where we must pay to get more of it, (some) people pay because they value it, not because someone tells them it is unethical to take it for free. And there is a significant difference between those people and the others who pay merely for convenience, with no more interest in supporting the artist than the pirates.
If you pirate games, the cracks come included, sometimes even integrated into the installer. In my experience cracks only give trouble when trying to get a recently released legit game working.
Enjoy figuring out how to get your steam games working again with no steam servers in years to come.
If this kind of reasoning goes unchalleneged and becomes the norm, we will have a whole generation of kids who don't study and dont get jobs, because they have no need for money.
Yeah, they'll just download food and shelter!
It's not surprising that you can afford the things you want, since you seem the sort to think of money in terms of how much discretionary stuff you can buy rather than whether or not you can come up with next month's rent.
They can just take everything they want for free because "they dont have enough money".
If they just use an excuse to take everything, rather than actually only taking when they can't afford to pay, that puts them under group 1 anyway, just a variety who want to feel better about it. Trying to posit these dire consequences as a result of group three is a red herring following by a slippery slope.
Is there *NO* offline mode at all? Are dial-up users completely SOL?
GTA IV requires online activation (which can be done from a browser on another machine using codes etc.). Both LIVE and RGSC have offline modes, while both must be running you do not need to sign up for either. Make sure to create an offline LIVE profile, otherwise you can't save unless online (a feature which is a sign of things to come if this nonsense of downloadable/online-activation games continues to be accepted).
By the time valve runs itself into the ground (I don't see it happening in the next 2 years anyways) all the games you can get on steam will be available on bit torrent.
Why rely on piracy to save you from the downfall of online-activated games after the servers go away, when it can free you right now?
Personally, downloading cracks is as far as I am willing to go in terms of relying on criminals to make my legitimately purchased games work.
Anyone who can get as far as playing the trial without already hearing about what it is that EVE tries to offer players probably wouldn't enjoy the game anyway. It does require a level of tolerance of the need to read up on things before you try them.
Trying to introduce the game as a whole over the course of the entire trial - whatever about the NPE - is a failing proposition anyway, since the game is largely what you make of it. You can tell players that they can do X, Y or Z in EVE, but they can do X, Y or Z in other games too, just with orcs instead of spaceships. The difference between the two really does seem to be something you either 'get', or not, either like, or not. The NPE has enough to cover ('long', 'boring', 'information overload' enough?) without trying to put fuzzy 'this is what EVE is all about' crap into it as well.
And it's not like CCP aren't trying to grab new sections of the market. Aside from continually improving the NPE (and since it was plenty good enough three years ago, I can only imagine it actually flies your ship for you these days, if it is as far improved as I've heard), they are going to add Ambulation. Why go after the small in-between "I like complexity and depth in my games but need information spoonfed to me" when you can spend time and resources grabbing the larger "I want IRC in space" crowd instead?
Perhaps when EVE is heading towards its final days they will try to make it easier, to keep the numbers up. But for now it is doing fine with people who know something about the games they try, or go in knowing nothing but offering the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, given the number of people who make it through the NPE and the trial and end up subscribing, but who are actually looking for WoW in Space, I have to wonder if this 'in-between' market actually exists. If lost WoW players can enter and survive the game, anyone who would actually like the gameplay surely would as well.
But a really good introduction can also provide the impetus to get a person out and exploring the game world, which I think is somewhat lacking in EVE's at the moment.
People who want to play EVE for what it is, who aren't just looking for 'a space MMOG', already have this impetus. It is the reason they come to the game. As for the rest, they are looking to be told what to do, which is never going to happen in EVE.
The number of posts saying that you 'have' to do anything in terms of skill specialization really shows that EVE's biggest problem is players who think they are playing WoW.
Yes, if you specialise in two different areas it will take twice as long. That's how division works. EVE does not care that you cannot make decisions, and does not care that you want instant gratification. This is a feature, not a flaw.
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What is broken is the fundamental design. Phone calls are unlikely to change that. Only killing the service by staving it of customers will work.
Probably wants to have legal, working copies of the games. Steam fulfils one. Downloading fulfils the other. Just buying them again fulfils both at once.
Steam bundles features people like - easiest possible way of acquiring games, InternetFriend stuff, and the DRM. Strip away the crap and leave only the DRM, and people would turn against it fast enough.
For anything which doesn't require the Internet to function, Internet connectivity is an unreasonable expectation.
The irony of this is that up until now the Irish have been able to sit back and watch as the US, UK, and on occasion the continent get DMCA or equivalent legislation enforced, while no-one really cared enough about us to bother implementing it here.
As for this, I might care if I or anyone I knew was actually with eircom.
The LIVE profile doesn't need Internet access of any kind. When you first run the game, after activating it, it will force you to create a LIVE profile (or log in an existing one), somewhere in there is the option to make it an offline one, use that and you can create the profile there and then even without Internet access. You never have to interact with the 'actual' LIVE service.
Incidentally, RGSC doesn't even require that much, just tell it to start the game, it will remind you that you aren't logged in, but the game will work.
I'm pretty sure the LIVE stuff has to be done in-game to get an offline profile. A friend signed up for LIVE in advance of installing the game and gave the game the online details (he has Internet access on the machine), and I'm pretty sure that if he wants the ability to save offline that he will lose all his current saves in the process of switching to an offline profile.
SecuROM has the option to require a server, and that server is only required to activate the game when it is first installed, and the activation can be done via another machine that is on the Internet if your gaming machine doesn't have access.
As I understand it, any Steam game is inherently protected by Steam, and so requires an Internet connection whenever you want to play or use of the sometimes unreliable offline mode (and is it true that you have to activate offline mode while online?), and the game must be activated from the machine it is installed on.
The biggest difference for me is that with SecuROM you still get a disk. Get a crack, keep it with the disk, and you have a product which will work servers or no. If you rely on the Steam 'cloud' to hold your games however, both the activation server and the game itself are gone when the servers close, along with any record you ever bought it.
Not that I'm trying to defend SecuROM of course, I don't buy SecuROM games either, but I see it as smaller step towards the so called 'rental society' than Steam.
Or you can just select the option in Steam to burn the files to CD or DVD
I could, but then I could just buy a nice silver CD/DVD in the first place instead, and remove the server requirement in the process...
You equate intelligence and computer literacy?
The fact that you consider the EOL of a server/platform a mere hypothetical situation reinforces my perception of Steam users as the technically disinclined.
Ethics don't come into it if it is given for free, a feeling of obligation due to being used to paying for things maybe, but not ethics.
As for the other points, they are a different kind of reasoning. You originally suggested that people want everything for free, but it is negatives which dissuade them, not wanting the effort, not wanting to be unethical. An artist says, "here I made this, will you give me money?" and they say "I don't want to, but it's bad if I don't so here".
The NIN example is "I made something, do you want to give me money?" and they say "yes I do". Yes it is to continue getting more, and to get it in a DRM free way, but these are part of the product too, not just the actual download. People value the music, the continued production, the digital freedom, enough to cough up the cash.
If it was magically possible for it to all be free, even the supporting of the artist, people would choose that of course, but in that magical world economics as we know it could not function so it is a moot point. In the real world, where we must pay to get more of it, (some) people pay because they value it, not because someone tells them it is unethical to take it for free.
And there is a significant difference between those people and the others who pay merely for convenience, with no more interest in supporting the artist than the pirates.
If you pirate games, the cracks come included, sometimes even integrated into the installer. In my experience cracks only give trouble when trying to get a recently released legit game working.
Enjoy figuring out how to get your steam games working again with no steam servers in years to come.
Enjoy wasting bandwidth downloading the same data over and over right up until the servers shut off and take your rented games with them.
Valve is pushing the worst, most destructive kind of DRM there is. I'd take EA+SecuROM over Valve+Steam.
Though to their credit, it is transparent enough to win over the ignorant masses, unlike EA who just look like assholes.
-Everyone- wants to do it for free. It just happens that there are a lot of people too lazy or too ethical to pirate.
O rly
If this kind of reasoning goes unchalleneged and becomes the norm, we will have a whole generation of kids who don't study and dont get jobs, because they have no need for money.
Yeah, they'll just download food and shelter!
It's not surprising that you can afford the things you want, since you seem the sort to think of money in terms of how much discretionary stuff you can buy rather than whether or not you can come up with next month's rent.
They can just take everything they want for free because "they dont have enough money".
If they just use an excuse to take everything, rather than actually only taking when they can't afford to pay, that puts them under group 1 anyway, just a variety who want to feel better about it. Trying to posit these dire consequences as a result of group three is a red herring following by a slippery slope.
Is there *NO* offline mode at all? Are dial-up users completely SOL?
GTA IV requires online activation (which can be done from a browser on another machine using codes etc.). Both LIVE and RGSC have offline modes, while both must be running you do not need to sign up for either. Make sure to create an offline LIVE profile, otherwise you can't save unless online (a feature which is a sign of things to come if this nonsense of downloadable/online-activation games continues to be accepted).
By the time valve runs itself into the ground (I don't see it happening in the next 2 years anyways) all the games you can get on steam will be available on bit torrent.
Why rely on piracy to save you from the downfall of online-activated games after the servers go away, when it can free you right now?
Personally, downloading cracks is as far as I am willing to go in terms of relying on criminals to make my legitimately purchased games work.
Apparently books have the same effect too.
I look forward to playing UT2020 by waving my hands in the direction I want to turn and shouting 'fire'.
I'm already training for the steady decline toward inferior input interfaces by playing FPSes on the Wii.
Anyone who can get as far as playing the trial without already hearing about what it is that EVE tries to offer players probably wouldn't enjoy the game anyway. It does require a level of tolerance of the need to read up on things before you try them.
Trying to introduce the game as a whole over the course of the entire trial - whatever about the NPE - is a failing proposition anyway, since the game is largely what you make of it. You can tell players that they can do X, Y or Z in EVE, but they can do X, Y or Z in other games too, just with orcs instead of spaceships. The difference between the two really does seem to be something you either 'get', or not, either like, or not.
The NPE has enough to cover ('long', 'boring', 'information overload' enough?) without trying to put fuzzy 'this is what EVE is all about' crap into it as well.
And it's not like CCP aren't trying to grab new sections of the market. Aside from continually improving the NPE (and since it was plenty good enough three years ago, I can only imagine it actually flies your ship for you these days, if it is as far improved as I've heard), they are going to add Ambulation.
Why go after the small in-between "I like complexity and depth in my games but need information spoonfed to me" when you can spend time and resources grabbing the larger "I want IRC in space" crowd instead?
Perhaps when EVE is heading towards its final days they will try to make it easier, to keep the numbers up. But for now it is doing fine with people who know something about the games they try, or go in knowing nothing but offering the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, given the number of people who make it through the NPE and the trial and end up subscribing, but who are actually looking for WoW in Space, I have to wonder if this 'in-between' market actually exists. If lost WoW players can enter and survive the game, anyone who would actually like the gameplay surely would as well.
But a really good introduction can also provide the impetus to get a person out and exploring the game world, which I think is somewhat lacking in EVE's at the moment.
People who want to play EVE for what it is, who aren't just looking for 'a space MMOG', already have this impetus. It is the reason they come to the game. As for the rest, they are looking to be told what to do, which is never going to happen in EVE.
If they could get 500,000 casual, rubbish players they would.
No, if they wanted to kill the server, they'd just switch it off.
Apart from a handful of missions there *is* no single-player game to speak of.
I found trying to make it on my own in 0.0/lowsec to be quite an entertaining single-player game.
The number of posts saying that you 'have' to do anything in terms of skill specialization really shows that EVE's biggest problem is players who think they are playing WoW.
Yes, if you specialise in two different areas it will take twice as long. That's how division works.
EVE does not care that you cannot make decisions, and does not care that you want instant gratification. This is a feature, not a flaw.
Pretty much every response to this focuses on enhancing the environment so that it is not so uniform and predictable.
Perhaps the answer is to stop exclusively interacting with the environment, and interact with the other players once in a while.