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?
That was just awesome.
^^^ Sure it was awesome and any of us who have been gamers since before those fools were even a gleam in daddy's eye can have a good laugh. The reality however remains, that those 'idiots' are the one's the DEVS should and will be marketing to and who will make their game the great success it can be. All on STEAM of course!
Well, it will not be with Rebellion because sins need more that 2 brain cell for play and a win ingame is not clickfeast related...
By the way, sins is already a great success... sales over several million copy...
Sure some young people will like sins but the rush will not be like some other action oriented game... and rush will be very limited in time... trend change very fast with young people... Trinity was released on steam, have see a increase of multiplayer but today, several week after, how much of these new player remain to play online???
And really, if Stardock wish to target these young people, they don't need to add new features with Rebellion but remove features... just keep the space battle and remove all the economical and diplomacy part... make sins a click feast where online game take less that 15... almost forget, replace the faction picture by half naked women, it will work too... or use some of the "star" that teen like... if you target 12yo or below, a rose GUI for the girls and a blue one for the boy... for more younger audience, maybe replace the Vasari alien by :
Now now, Thoumsin...don't jinx Sins 2...hell will freeze over before I have to mod a game with those as the Vasari....
The way I look at it- you don't have to buy on Steam. The only thing that goes through Steam is the install. Basically, Stardock is using Steam as a wannebe Impulse.
If you truly do boycott buying on Steam, that wouldn't be a problem. Steam isn't going to suspend accounts unless you chargeback, which you're not doing if you're not buying on Steam.
That said, I personally would not want to buy a Stardock developed TBS from Steam- there's no benefit for me.
Brad or someone else from Stardock has stated that no matter where you buy Rebellion, it will require Steamworks. At least at this point in time.
It will require it to install, not to play. That's two different things. If you do not buy anything from Steam, such a system is not fundamentally different then Impulse.
Awesome, Thoumsin!
Install, update, and play multiplayer.
I could care less about the multiplayer. The updating would be no more or less a pain in the butt than my reinstallations of Impulse. At the same time, I just don't know if I care enough to bother, even if it doesn't require an online check with every start-up. I can feel for Thoumsin's cartoon there. Went kayaking with a member of my harem yesterday. Didn't even check e-mail all day.
^ Huzzah!
Are you so sure... look at the pic below to see when Steam server become unavailable with a game who normally don't need Steam to play !!!
Well, since i am not really stupid and that i have the same game buy long time ago in retail, i have found a workaround for this game... when i have compare the medieval2.exe from Steam and on the CD, they was fully identical... where steam have mess up thing is with the launcher.exe ... so, the only way to play Medieval II without the need of Steam is to not click on it in steam client for start the game, not click on the windows menu or desktop icon... browse your directory and directly click the medieval2.exe ...
For history purpose, for people who have follow the Steam release of Diplomacy, one of the main problem was with the Sinslauncher too... and the advice was to directly start the game with one of the .exe ( sins or ent or dip exe) ... some of the comment was that Trinity was a crap game, where people are not able to play... no very good for the Stardock reputation...
Well, it is not important that there is a work around or not... the point is that sometime, game say to no need steam, when in fact need it at some point... For the case of Medieval II, once the game is started, you can kill the launcher.exe and close steam... it will continue to work... steam is needed for the launcher.exe and not for the game itself...
Point is that if player have similar screen that these above with Rebellion, they will be unhappy with Stardock... if a work around is possible, not all player read forum or wish to manipulate files for have their game working...
Almost forget, not sure that it will be used in Rebellion but Steam have a regional lock-up feature too... pretty nasty thing for people who travel a lot... by example, you buy your game in UK because you live in UK... for summer holiday, you go to US or Australia.... you try to start your game at your holiday location and it is no way... you can only play the game online in the area where you have buy the game...
Valve also in some cases restricts game registration and playability to the buyer's country of residence.
Not a big problem for a US customer outside in case of foreign holiday, or in case of military stationed in foreign country, or in case of business man who travel the world... but in my case, my country being so small that i am at a foot step ( a big one, around 50 km ) of numerous country like France, Holland, Germany, UK, and more, it is a other story... Steam is filled with plenty of nasty features that Stardock can choose to use... Customer ( pre-order ) and potential customer have the right to be correctly informed...
My dad was just telling me that Steam admitted that they got hacked a couple weeks ago. He's the type that has Steam running silently in the background. Hmm... some of my point was made.
Not so much for just security reasons, but it has been interrupting his games.
That hack happened in November 2011 and didnt have any effect on ability to play games(only visible effect for customers was, that Steam forums were down for around 1 week).
Few weeks ago Valve released results of their investigation.
Also, important data was encrypted.
Oh, so my dad's woes are a normal part of the function? Nice.
Still don't see any benefits drawing me in. I expect Sins to make a lot of money with this move. I have no problem with those that use Steam. In fact, the impulse buy crowd seems heavy there and the constant sales means a lot of people will buy Sins for dirt cheap and, even if they don't like the game, not a fuss will be made on either end. I wish Stardock well with the move. It just doesn't agree with me.
Then again, I've heard people say those that don't move with the crowd are old-fashioned (when did personal taste become a matter of the times?) and that it's the lowest common denominator that should be marketed to (hopefully no one plans to see innovative gaming). So given that I don't fit well with either idea, I feel like there's a compliment implied.
What I find interesting about this mess is that the name of the game is 'Rebellion' and we as consumers are Rebelling against the fact we have to use steam. So correct me if I'm wrong but when I come home from work and want to fire up a game, I have to first, launch steam and then play Sins. To me that's like asking permission to play a game I bought from someone out side my home.
"Please sir, I have been a good boy today."
It's one thing if you can just by-pass this crap, but if not. Man, I'm really on the fence about this. I mean damn, this was 'Game of the Year' for Pete's sake, all without the use of steam.....
That's my problem with this decision, the original was a GotY without Steam and so do they need this now?
Don't you have read the Draakjacht post ??? Stardock need to follow the trend/fashion who exist now in the game industry...
- Be sure to target teen gamers because these one believe everything that you say... older one have learn to think can only be a source of argument and problem...
- If your game have sell very good and you have a good amount of trusted customer, be sure to mess up the next title of the serie or the expension for renew your customer base... if it become a commercial failure, you can always say that it is because of piracy.
- If for years, you have say/wrote that you are against something ( gamers bill of right )... don't worry about no respecting your own words, people always like something new...
- Same if your online player base is only 0.1% of all your customer, be sure to make everything for them... don't worry about the 99.9% who don't play online... they are not online and cannot post bad thing about you on the internet.
- If the majority of your sales are from retail, be sure to move to online only release... if you sales drop, again, you can say that it is the fault of piracy...
Well, it is only a few of the actual trend...
Sure, as encrypted data cannot be decrypted !!!
If there is not potential danger, why do you think that they wrote :
it's a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. ( http://www.destructoid.com/valve-gives-an-update-on-last-year-s-steam-intrusion-221497.phtml )
The market has moved in the last four years, yes. Steamworks lets you do more with lower implementation and ongoing cost. It's proven, it works, and it's available extremely widely. A huge number of very successful games already use it, and it's been demonstrated that it's not a real barrier in the market. The few people on the forums who complain about it are such a tiny minority that they simply don't matter.
There is no real alternative to Steamworks on the market except build it yourself, and I'd rather they have developers working on the gameplay over re-implementing stuff that Steamworks already does. That's just common sense.
Besides, the writing was on the wall once Trinity appeared on Steam and did well. The Steam audience is so big that getting your game featured there draws sales and attention, and multiplayer games thrive the more people have them. This is a win all around unless you're one of the Steam-haters... and I guess for you folks there's always Gamestop or Origin. (Both of which are the same thing only less functional.)
Totally number of canceled pre-orders in 2012 (for all reasons): <1.38%
Nice statistic...thanks for posting, as I think it will put these heavily one-sided threads into a better perspective...
I'm sure I've said this sometime in the past, but I think it'd be nice if only Steamworks was only necessary for 'multiplayer' functionality.
So if you just wanted to play Single Player you could avoid the red tape ... and if you later wanted multiplayer you could then dive in.
It's pretty clear by now that 95% of the public doesn't consider Steam an invasive DRM. It's not worth catering to the other 5% if anything over a trivial cost.
You could put Ubi-DRM on the game, and you'd probably keep 90% of the pre-orders. (you wouldn't do it obviously as it wouldn't be profitable, but most folks don't care)
Was this change announced in 2012?
I really like statistic... we can make them say what we wish...
How much of the people who have pre-order Rebellion are reading the forum and know about Steamworks being integrated in Rebellion in place of impulse reactor who was a announced feature ???
If it is "<1.38%" , it mean that 100% of people knowing about it have cancel their order...
By the way, the pre-order page at https://store.stardock.com/product/ESD-SDE-W011 was modified but it is really scary... now, it is wrote that seam is required for the protection but that impulse reactor is needed to support for chat, friends, achievements and more... people will think that they need Steam AND Impulse, running both at the same time !!!
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