Its the end of an era folks.
Quoting Yarlen, reply 41The Steam client will be required for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion for initial install, updates and Internet multiplayer, regardless of purchase location. You can choose to play in offline mode via the Steam client after initial install, though ICO features and achievements will no longer be available.
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8. Gamers have the right to use their games without being inconvenienced due to copy protection or digital rights management.
Now its debatable whether this news actually goes against the PC gamers bill of rights Stardock pushed forward 3-4 years ago, but it certainly seems an ominous change of pace for the company to me. Are the other Stardock gaming communities concerned? Will other Stardock titles follow suite? Does this symbolically show the finalization of the Steam monopoly, short of the self sufficient EA and Blizzard titles? What does the wider community think, and what can we do about it?
Unreal I have already been billed.
I never agreed to Steam or DRM. I had the right to a DRM-free game according the company that is now forcing it upon me. I should have been notified about this change of faith before they removed funds, not after.
This is disgusting and completely unethical.
That's what we tried to tell them. Don't register the key and email support for a refund. If they refuse or take to long email your bank that they sent you the wrong product or something...
Did I sound 'pissed off ' ?
Of course you must know saying something like 'kids these days' is at best a loaded statement and at worst condescending to the kids these days. While I am not one of those....my kids actually are 'kids these days' and I don't think it's fair to imply what you were implying with that satement. That is all. No one is "pissed off".......at least not yet!
Oh and by the way..........this is me being chill...dude.
See Boshimi? This is what happens when you tell jokes poorly...no one understands you, feces get thrown, and feelings get hurt...
Now....go eat a pudding cup....
Basically, it's fine if you make Sins Steam only. What is not fine is doing it in an underhanded way, and doing it part way through the cycle of a single release (AFAIK Rebellion is still essentially part of Sins 1).
So you have two choices now. Remove the Gamer's Bill of Rights, and say on the forums IN VERY OBVIOUS PLACES that you don't support it anymore, or make Sins not require Steamworks. You were the one who made the Bill of Rights, presumably to show your high moral values and attract more business (one or the other). Well, what is worth more to you now, your moral values or your business at-any-cost max-em-dollars? Make your decision carefully.
Choose now.
You didn't just sound it, you apparently were Else you could let this overraction on your part go.
Oh please. Did you get sand in your lady parts or something?
Steamers gonna Steam I guess.
...or what? Haha, really.
Well, he chooses the latter if he doesn't make any changes. But I daresay he's already entered into a contract with Steam, despite all the things people are angry and upset about.
I'm not sure using Steam constitutes a business-at-any-cost max-em-dollars strategy. Steam rules right now, both in potential audience and tools offered to developers. Not using it doesn't make any sense. So why should the company follow the apparently strongly held convictions of a vocal minority instead of common business sense?
I just want to say it's pretty nice of Brad to let these bitchfest about how he runs his company go on as long as he does on his message boards. And it's only a very small number of people who hate Steam as compared to the number of people who use it. Why aim to satisfy 1% of people to spite 99%? But, I really don't give a shit to argue, so feel free to ignore, I doubt I will respond to any response to this post.
That's fine, but then he needs to take down or amend the Gamer's Bill of Rights. He specifically said in that that no gamer should have to put up with a program that must be running for games to be played. This obviously goes against that., so it has to be one or the other - removing support for an important tenant of the GBOR or the whole GBOR, or not putting Steamworks into Sins. It's fine for future games as people can decide to get the game or not, but Sins: Rebellion is a continuation of Sins 1 and such, people don't appreciate putting Steamworks into it when all previous Sins 1 releases didn't have it.
Question: will current Sins releases stay separate of Steamworks?
If you don't like SD distribution policy don't buy their games. It's this simple, really.
Brad obviously made the GBOR to vaunt high moral standards and increase business. If he made new business on a false premise, well that would make him like a lot of business leaders but it would also make him less special and unique and well "different from the pack" in my eyes.
It's really the thieves who copy and download the games that we love, you guys should direct your anger towards.
And if anyone every obtained a illegal version of ANY game in their lives, you can't bitch about companies trying to protect their investment.
How does having Steam protect a product from getting pirated?
Give it a rest, StevenAus.
I already responded to you earlier but I'll repeat it here:
Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf? Since Stardock/GPG published the Gamers Bill of Rights, it has been used, as a blunt instrument against us thousands of times. No issue was too trivial or too small for someone to try to use the GBOR as a blunt instrument to attack us with -- regardless of the validity. At some point, playing the GBOR card loses its impact. Especially when it has been played so cynically over the years. The reason for the GBOR was pretty straight forward: PC games inconvenienced legitimate users and rewarded those who pirated games. Everyone, at the time, knew exactly what was trying to be accomplished. At the time, games were installing root kits. Games required players to keep their DVD in the drive. Games were checking what software they had installed (remember Star Force?). Games would come out, buggy and have no recourse for the paying customer who couldn't get it to work (no refunds). The state of affairs of the PC gaming industry today are vastly better. If a game is buggy, the user gets refunds. Games don't install root kits. DVDs in the drive? Laughable. Having your game crash because you have a DVD copying program? Nonsense. Are things perfect? Not by a long shot. But it's a night and day difference from the pre-GBOR days. And while I am sympathetic to the perspective that using a game SDK shouldn't require the developer to have to bundle the SDK developer's digital store, the fact is, that's the deal. They provide the world's most advanced, battle tested and featured game SDK -- for free -- in exchange for bundling their digital store client. And we have decided that this is a good deal for us and our customers. But the days of screaming about the GBOR in an attempt to "shame us" into doing what they want have long since passed. In the meantime, Stardock will continue to operate in the open, honest, and ethical way that we always have. Users who don't think that it's "good enough" are welcome, even encouraged, to vote with their feet.
Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?
Since Stardock/GPG published the Gamers Bill of Rights, it has been used, as a blunt instrument against us thousands of times. No issue was too trivial or too small for someone to try to use the GBOR as a blunt instrument to attack us with -- regardless of the validity.
At some point, playing the GBOR card loses its impact. Especially when it has been played so cynically over the years.
The reason for the GBOR was pretty straight forward: PC games inconvenienced legitimate users and rewarded those who pirated games. Everyone, at the time, knew exactly what was trying to be accomplished.
At the time, games were installing root kits. Games required players to keep their DVD in the drive. Games were checking what software they had installed (remember Star Force?). Games would come out, buggy and have no recourse for the paying customer who couldn't get it to work (no refunds).
The state of affairs of the PC gaming industry today are vastly better. If a game is buggy, the user gets refunds. Games don't install root kits. DVDs in the drive? Laughable. Having your game crash because you have a DVD copying program? Nonsense. Are things perfect? Not by a long shot. But it's a night and day difference from the pre-GBOR days.
And while I am sympathetic to the perspective that using a game SDK shouldn't require the developer to have to bundle the SDK developer's digital store, the fact is, that's the deal. They provide the world's most advanced, battle tested and featured game SDK -- for free -- in exchange for bundling their digital store client. And we have decided that this is a good deal for us and our customers.
But the days of screaming about the GBOR in an attempt to "shame us" into doing what they want have long since passed.
In the meantime, Stardock will continue to operate in the open, honest, and ethical way that we always have. Users who don't think that it's "good enough" are welcome, even encouraged, to vote with their feet.
At the end of the day, we are going to do what we think provides the best experience for our customers overall. And we decided that the features in Steamworks would provide the kinds of features gamers want (achievements, account leader boards, multiplayer performance improvements, stat tracking, etc.).
I am, not sympathetic to anyone who argues that us choosing to use Steamworks is some sort of "moral" failing. To those people, I ask you to depart my forums. You are not welcome here.
Life sure seemed so much more simple when Brad and SD didn't give a crap about the MP community.
Oh well, it is what it is.
Good luck with everything Brad, but after seeing the messes here and over at Kerberos with the SotS][ release fiasco, and the tone of Martin over there, it's not bringing me any warm fuzzies anymore.
Guess I'll have to look for the 'next' small development house/team/whatever and see if they fall prey to the same cycle.
It really isn't that simple you see, because people were billed for their games without knowing the distribution policy...
Posting on the forums is not enough either...there are people who pre-ordered the game that do not participate on the forums....
Bitching about the anti-steam community being "old-fashioned" or "paranoid" does not change these facts...even if steam isn't all that big of a deal, it still is an entirely different distribution policy that was not explicitly made aware to customers...people placed pre-orders on the assumption that they would never be involved with steam, and only found out after they're billed that a controversial 3rd party client is required (one that wasn't even impulse or some form of SDC)...
Any reasoning or justification for the use of steam does not have any bearing on this issue....even if SD is 100% justified in using steam, they still should have informed (via e-mail) their customers who pre-ordered...
For you steam lovers who simply cannot understand how steam changes things at all, imagine buying a game from steam, and only then finding out after your purchase that you can't play the game unless you have Linux on your computer...
For the sake of argument, let's just assume you already have a partitioned or 2nd hardrive...Linux is free, takes up hardly any space, and is relatively easy to install...but, it still is an abuse of your trust...it still has to be on your computer whether you want it there or not, there's always room for complications, and most importantly you were not informed of the need for this software until after you made the purchase...
Stop arguing about whether steam is "good" or "bad"...IRRELEVANT...
Stop arguing about whether anti-steam users are "paranoid" or in the minority....IRRELEVANT...
Stop arguing about whether SD is justified to use Steam or not...IRRELEVANT...
SD took people's money on a false premise...however minor it may seem, it was an abuse of trust...a simple e-mail to all pre-order customers a week in advanced would have completely prevented this entire problem...
There is nothing to argue about here...SD made a mistake....it happens, even to the best, and one mistake doesn't magically transform them into the devil incarnate...now let's move on instead of bouncing feces off of SD, Steam, and unhappy customers...
I don't agree with your rationale, Sele.
I'm not even sure what "false premise" you think people pre-ordered. I can assure you that most gamers think of Steam in the same way that they think of say Miles, Bink, or any other value-add that game developers put on their titles. They don't care one way or the other.
A user who has a problem with Steam can get their pre-order refunded just in the same way that a user who finds that their system can't run a game for whatever reason can.
I don't think the anti-Steam demographic is large enough to justify giving it special attention. In fact, I know it's not.
People have to realize that there are games on Steam that you just can't find anywhere else, all in one package.
Now if Valve(Steam owner) would stop jerking around and give us some incite on a HL2 ep 3, that would help.
What good is that realization?
If you can't find it anywhere else, and you won't use Steam (for whatever reason) then you don't play those games.
Oh well?
The list of games (and movies for that matter) which I would like to play is incredibly long, on the other hand, I don't have time for all of them anyway, and I'm not married to any particular game or developer in some weird fanboish way such that I *MUST* play it or die or whatever the mindset of the people who can't seem to live without whatever stupid game they have a huge boner for is.
So I set my personal standard to say no to Steam, and if that entails that certain games I otherwise might prioritize over others to slip on that list, no big deal. No dev house owes me anything, but conversely, I don't owe any of them a damn thing either. Do it the way I want and I'll buy, don't do it that way and I won't. That's pretty damn obvious though isn't it? Pity more people don't seem to think that way and get all worked up on both sides of the issue.
Pity the industry has slipped to where it is, where complete cluster-Fs get released and everyone just says, 'oh, it will be better after the patches are out'. But hey, that's just the reality, I can only 'fight' it by not buying any of those products and refusing to preorder anything either. Demo or die is how I approach all games at this point. My time is simply too valuable to me to waste on beta releases.
But that's a rare opinion I suppose, and one I normally take crap over. Not that it bothers me in the slightest
I agree with you that very few people find steam problematic (though I think Bink and Miles are far less problematic than Steam)...but some do, and as clearly exhibited by this thread and others, some of those people were not aware steam would be required until they were already billed...I think the real gripe they have is that they would never have pre-ordered the game (or would have cancelled it) had they known it would require steamworks...
All it would have taken is one e-mail to all pre-order customers that the game will require steam...not asking for a "non-steam" version or for SD to stick to some silly, overrated psuedo "moral high-ground" and never use steam...just one e-mail, that's it...
It may not be big (less than 1%, yes?) but clearly this demographic is upset and feels they should have been notified...and:
That is all that needs to be done...the people who did not know it would require steam and don't like it, well, they simply get their money back...
Exactly. I don't consider someone objecting to Steam being any more unreasonable for wanting their money back than someone who has Windows Server 2003 wanting their money back (and in fact, there are more of the latter than the former).
As for me, I just want to make great games. I don't have an ideology about it. I just want them really cool. I do take market considerations into account of course otherwise all our games would require Windows 7 64-bit and DirectX 11.
Hey that's legit...and for what it's worth, I think going to steam was a good idea...
Not a huge steam fan but I've learned to live with it, and if it grants a much better MP experience then I think it was the right call, both business-wise and "let's make an awesome game"-wise...
I'd like to ask on how many other gaming forums regarding a well recieved and popular game have you seen the owner of the company personally and regularly respond to people complaining not just about the game but implying his ethics are corrupt, that he's a liar, that's he's a greedy rip-off artist, etc.
It's pretty clear that if he wasn't a gamer and it was all just "cash in a download" for him, he wouldn't give a rip.
If I had been reading the forums in his place, I'd have had a Q&A thread with strict rules for tone and behavior and then closed the subject after it had been aired out repeatedly for the billionth and a half time.
After that, I'd have been giving time bans from the forum to people who rudely and insultingly brought it up or kept opening new threads on the subject with no new contributions and the same negative attitudes.
The only reasons he possibly can have to keep responding and not blow his stack are first, that he actually is grateful to the long-time players and second, that he actually does want to let you know that by giving you his time.
If you ever run a service oriented business with regular clients you always have one who thinks it's the CEO's obligation to respond personally to them on every issue at their demand...to drop anything he is doing and give them whatever they want...and to always do it after a threat and a demand are made. They usually are also your cheapest client and ones who never help the business grow.
You know what you do with those guys after nothing you do pleases them? You stop making time for them.
I have had only two games that I absolutely loved, Freelancer and Sins of a Solar Empire. Both were made by teams who loved the genre and wanted to do something no one else had done. Both succeeded. Neither are perfect but they are unique.
Eve Online is a beautiful game and has incredible potential but it is an endless loop of repeated activity. It's this way because the company is so beholden to its "plank owner" players that it lets them decide the future of the game. I played it over a year but aside from using it as a platform for corp owner battles, there is no charm or thrill or life in playing it. You know what's going to happen and how and when all the time. It's clear the creators of Eve love scifi and want the game to be more but when you read the venomous hostility whenever they suggest a change that the old-hands don't like, you wonder why they bother trying.
Appreciate Sins for what it is. Other companies don't care much about this genre. I'm glad they made it. Thanks for letting me blow up stuff real good Stardock.
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