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Neon
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Posts: 18934
Location: Poland
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 Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 16:34 Post subject: Why I would rather have Steam DRM than no DRM |
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http://www.destructoid.com/why-i-would-rather-have-steam-drm-than-no-drm-218410.phtml
A great article (that's kind of weird for destructoid  ) that I agree with.
There's one thing he forgot though, but I guess it didn't matter to him because he's American.
I buy a lot of games from Steam because then I can actually play the game in English. Many games in Poland are translated fully (voices + subs) and that just totally destroy the immersion for me. I'd rather pay 5-10 bucks/euros more and play the game in English than settle for a sub-par horrible Polish version. And it's not like I have a choice in that matter- if I buy the game from a shop, some games are language locked, even if they are Steamworks games (Mafia 2, Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3). Thankfully I bought Mafia 2 on Steam, but my friends bought it retail, and what? Nope, no English for you, enjoy your Polish/Czech/Russian version.
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 16:48 Post subject: |
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As long as I don't lose access to my games for the next xx years, Steam DRM > no DRM absolutely.
You can already see this with the Humble Bundles etc, if there are no Steam keys people say so why should I even buy it? They don't even care there are DRM free copies included.
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Ashok0
Posts: 1733
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 16:53 Post subject: |
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Steam + DRM > Free games on Origin
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 16:56 Post subject: |
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I'm also in agreement on this, I love my Steam collection and generally prefer Stem titles to no-DRM titles, heh.
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 16:57 Post subject: |
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| consolitis wrote: | As long as I don't lose access to my games for the next xx years, Steam DRM > no DRM absolutely.
You can already see this with the Humble Bundles etc, if there are no Steam keys people say so why should I even buy it? They don't even care there are DRM free copies included. |
Agreed, although not all people say that. In the case of HIB, many of my friends and family (cousins) actually prefer to just download the games directly from the webpage as they find steam to be an annoyance.
1 and 2 are still amazing.
Last edited by Yuri on Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:00; edited 1 time in total |
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prudislav
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Posts: 29148
Location: The land of beer and porn
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 16:58 Post subject: |
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Even if i hate most of that nonsense net functions in games nowadays (FB-like,Conflux,...). Still its SteamDRM>NoDRM better for devs.
But hate regional restriction on steam here in Czech(mostly games published by Cenega).
Can't buy Fear,Skyrim,... here on steam and if i contact publishers/steam its nobody's fault.
So only way is to buy CZ/PL retail or get gifted EN steam version. And still we did not get CZ translation of F3AR (translation is finished but nobody cant get it on steam (Both Cenega and WB blames the other one ))
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:04 Post subject: |
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| yuri999 wrote: | | consolitis wrote: | As long as I don't lose access to my games for the next xx years, Steam DRM > no DRM absolutely.
You can already see this with the Humble Bundles etc, if there are no Steam keys people say so why should I even buy it? They don't even care there are DRM free copies included. |
Right, although not all people say that. In the case of HIB, many of my friends and family (cousins) actually prefer to just download the games directly from the webpage as they find steam to be an annoyance. |
Well of course there are people that would prefer the DRM free versions.
But I think if they find Steam an annoyance, they probably don't even have a Steam account or don't have (m)any games on Steam.
Once you build a small library of 5-10 games, I think it's more likely to prefer it over direct download.
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Neon
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Location: Poland
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prudislav
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Posts: 29148
Location: The land of beer and porn
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:27 Post subject: |
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I think they have the privilege to do this, since they were the first DD service and set the industry standards. EA on the other hand doing it.. now, feels wrong/annoying.
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:44 Post subject: |
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This article is a blatant Steam promotion.
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:46 Post subject: |
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I used to buy steam games, but now I'd actually prefer no DRM. Steam is usually quite slow when I want to download something. Going the free road (pirating) gives me max download speed (that is not that great to begin with at home anyway - mere 2MB/s) as opposed to Steam that often gives me only 300-800KB/s. It only encourages me to have everything I own on Steam installed so that I can play a game when I want to, which I really don't like. Currently I have about 300GB of Steam games installed, and if I wanted to reduce that in case I wanted to play some of those games at any time I'd have to wait like half a day before the game would finish download, and by that time I may not want to play that particular game anymore 
Secondly, I don't like regional regional restrictions that Steam enforce for some of their titles (although they can be bypassed, of course). Even if I bought game like Skyrim in country that I live currently I wouldn't be able to play in case I move to another country, because we have specific version of the game much like russian. And it's not only one game, I can think of bunch of other games that have such strict regional policy.
Thirdly, you don't own anything on Steam. Over the course of time I do things on Steam that may be on brink of breaching their Terms of service. At any time they could terminate my account with quite a few games on it. Fortunately for me in that case I could pirate almost all games and play them anyway, besides very few multiplayer titles I play.
Only thing I can think of that Steam is more convenient than traditional no DRM game installers is that you don't actually need to reinstall the game in case you reinstall your OS. Some games may require some registry keys. But on the other hand, there aren't that many games that do require that, and even if they do, restoring few backed up the registry keys is simple and easy task. Same goes with cloud saves. Although less convenient, using GameSave Manager makes backing up all your saves an easy task.
Last edited by tolanri on Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:49; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:49 Post subject: |
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| consolitis wrote: |
But I think if they find Steam an annoyance, they probably don't even have a Steam account or don't have (m)any games on Steam.
Once you build a small library of 5-10 games, I think it's more likely to prefer it over direct download. |
Actually you'd be surprised. Two of my friends had bought the orange box at the same time as I did and we had more or less played TF2 quite a lot a few years back. After they discovered the no-steam versions....  I wonder if they've started using steam again now that the game is F2P tho... 
Anyway, I personally feel Steam is great but its still far from perfect. Can they still not fix the game updating/pausing when another game is running? Not to mention some of the clientregistry.blob / steam.dll crashes which occur from time to time.
I don't hate steam but until it becomes more robust in the future, I would still prefer no-drm solutions.
1 and 2 are still amazing. |
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garus
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 17:51 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:27; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 18:00 Post subject: |
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| yuri999 wrote: | | Can they still not fix the game updating/pausing when another game is running? |
This has been fixed internally, but it'll likely be available once all games are being updated to use the new content system they have developed. http://store.steampowered.com/news/5856/
| Quote: | | In addition, the new content system will allow us to build several new features that we’ve often heard requested. Upcoming client releases will include things like download scheduling, bandwidth throttling, and prioritizing which games get downloaded first. You’ll also be able to download an update to a game while you’re playing that game; Steam will apply the update after you exit the game. |
Games are slowly being updated to use the new content system. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2109493 (the list is incomplete and outdated, check the other pages as well).
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 18:03 Post subject: |
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Great news conso! 
But steam  implement it faster???
1 and 2 are still amazing.
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 18:13 Post subject: |
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I must be in the twilight zone or something. NO to steam, NO to DRM. YES to bonus features for legit customers to incentivize purchase. Case in point: Witcher 2, which I bought twice for the box goodies and DRM-free on GOG, and still paid less than other full-price games.
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 18:34 Post subject: |
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| pillermann wrote: | | I must be in the twilight zone or something. |
^ This.
Steam is good for SOME games, but saying "oh yes, give me Steam over anything else (including DRM-free games) anytime" and supporting that attitude with a bunch of first world problems is just stupid. "Oh I have hundred games, over half of them are allways installed on all of my computers, it would be tiresome to install all of them from DVDs". You actually always need to have 50+ games installed, play most of them randomly and feel anxious if missing some of them? Then you should visit a psychiatrist to see when was the moment you become a dimwit instead of a realistic (wo)man.
If I can choose between DRM-free and Steam version of a game, I'll pick the first one anytime.
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nerrd
Posts: 3607
Location: Poland / USA
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 18:42 Post subject: |
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| Ashok0 wrote: | | Steam + DRM > Free games on Origin |
a stinky pile of dog poo > free games on Origin
| yuri999 wrote: | | Can they still not fix the game updating/pausing when another game is running? Not to mention some of the clientregistry.blob / steam.dll crashes which occur from time to time. |
Pause the update before starting the game you want to play. Start the game, alt-tab to windows, resume the update.
I have not had any crashes yet, but I was royally pissed when I couldn't play games in offline after I moved. Didn't have internet for few days, and whenever I tried to start a game I would get an error saying something like "can't start this game in offline mode, try starting steam in offline mode". It drove me nuts and I hope it was just some sort of bug.
Having said that I like STEAM for its convenience, ease of use and all the other aspects mentioned in that article. I also stopped pirating because of STEAM. The deals are too good to pass up, and I feel great about sending the money to the right people (developers) instead to the shitty publishers of the old (EA and the other stooges).
I have a collection of about 150+ boxed games, some still on 5.25 floppies. Many of them with original shrink wrap. I took pride in collecting them, and was hoping that some of it might be worth something in the future. But for the past 10 years, I have not done anything with them other then move them from one storage space to another storage space. It's a hassle and now I realize that probably no one will be interested in them unless I wait another 100 years. Now I would much rather have them on STEAM, neatly organised and ready to play after a short download. No need to deal with deteriorating floppies/cds/dvd, no need for patches etc, no need to put a peace of code in a oversized cardboard box. The only only issue that concerns me is what happens when STEAM shuts down for good. Fortunately Valve is not run by idiots, so that will not happen anytime soon.
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garus
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 19:05 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:27; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 19:32 Post subject: |
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FYI, MW3 can be played in all languages available since a week or so, even with a russian key... I'm sure people would be interested in it
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 19:37 Post subject: |
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garus
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| Posted: Sat, 31st Dec 2011 19:49 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:27; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sun, 1st Jan 2012 02:36 Post subject: |
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friends list and that i can see when people join or leave games who are on my list are the only reasons i tolerate it, it makes deciding what to play to easier if the game has co-op or multi, or for organizing groups.
other than that? i hate steam, wouldn't tolerate it, but... i'll give you it's not the most invasive and annoying DRM i could think of, not by a longshot.
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| Posted: Sun, 1st Jan 2012 04:39 Post subject: |
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Looking at trade sites (gamesindustry.biz, industrygamers, etc.) it's weird. From a consumer pov, Steam is where it's at. As has been noted with various articles, Steam is not zero-sum DRM; the consumer always gains something from Steam DRM. The problem comes in that consumers expect no DRM, but publishers/retailers seem to hate giving the consumer no DRM. Neither party can win whenn they approach this, though. Steam is the perfect miiddle-ground. Steam gives more to developers than most/all digital distro companies, and has DRM that works. Look at Civ V. No Scene groups have cracked it. Whether it's because Scene groups have a moratorium on PC cracking or not, it's still not "proper'd". Same with Deus Ex: HR. Even industry-insiders hate it. Yet, it stops piracy damn well. And that's all that the industry expects from DRM - to stop piracy, either dead in its tracks, or enough to stop 0-Day piracy. This in itself should make PC gamers like Steam. PC gamers should be against piracy and second-hand sales, since both negatively affect PC buying habits.
(just a time-out to say... Whoahhhh I'm drunk. )
Point is, people say they hate Steam. Sure. Steam may suck. But we want to help the industry. Steam is the best way to help it. No-DRM games get pirated. Steamworks games get pirated less. Best way to help the PC industry? Support Steam. There DRM gives something back to the consumer, and they give more to the developer. This isn't a perfect world, and out of all the imperfect systems we have, Steam is the least worst.
(may edit when I'm less drunk, for clarity. )
Pixieking
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| Posted: Sun, 1st Jan 2012 07:23 Post subject: |
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You could swap Steam with Origin or GfWL and it would read the same. Take out the community aspect (which those who (mainly) play singleplayer games may not need at all), and it boils down to convenience vs. DRM-free games. Seriously, he can't remember where he bought all his dd games? There's a little more to that than him obviously installing half of his library at once all the time. Too high prices, regional restrictions (hello, Germany), slow-ass connections at times (roughy 30-40% the time for me), to name a few.
Retail > Steam/Origin/GfWL/whatever anytime, DRM-free > DRM anytime.
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