Let me get this out of the way: I like Steam. I like Valve.
We have a poll up right now that asks whether you use Steam. Let us know please.
I’ve been in digital distribution since before digital distribution was a thing. The very first computer game that was launched at retail and digitally distributed was Galactic Civilizations back in February 2003.
For us, digital distribution was a matter of life or death. Consider this, how many other independent (or heck, just non-publicly traded) game studios have been around 20 years? Go ahead. Count them up. Not many eh?
I incorporated Stardock back in 1993 from my college dorm room. And I can tell you, if it weren’t for digital distribution, we would have stopped making games a long time ago. That’s because the more people that are between you and your customer, the more opportunities there are for theft. Not by players but by retailers, publishers, distributors, etc.
One of the reasons why the whole “piracy” bellowing from publishers irritated me was because the biggest obstacle to getting paid for my work wasn’t from pirates. It was from the middle men.
In 1994, we released our first game. Galactic Civilizations for OS/2. It was published by a company called Advanced Idea Machines. The game was a huge hit. So I heard anyway. We didn’t get paid. And being a poor college student at the time, I couldn’t afford a lawyer.
So in 1996, we released Galactic Civilizations 2 for OS/2. This time we released it ourselves. But our retail distributor, Micro Central, went bankrupt and didn’t pay us and our mail order distributor, Blue Orchards went out of business as well and didn’t pay us.
So then we moved to Windows and we released Galactic Civilizations for Windows, published by Strategy First….and again, didn’t get paid.
Do you see a pattern here?
What saved us was digital distribution. With it, we could sell directly to customers, cutting out the middle man.
As you can imagine, when Steam came out we started to get a little nervous. Not because of the competition but because we feared the idea that we would one day need to sell our software through a third party and hence risk not getting paid…again.
As it had turned out, our fears have been unwarranted. Impulse, now owned by Gamestop, pays like clock work and so does Steam. By contrast, with a retail distributor you were lucky to get paid merely 90 days late. And that’s not counting the obnoxious and expensive RMA games they play. I like the service Steam provides. They’re easy to work with, they’re honest, and they’re passionate about what they do. And most importantly, they let me, as a game developer, focus on what matters: making games.
Anyway, the point here being, what are your feelings on Steam these days?
Thats not a problem - I do that quite often - only difference is that in such a case client wont "remember" password and you will have to type it there.
I recommend to any and all before you buy from Steam look for another source to get your games from like Gamersgate, GoG, Gamefly, and of course independent publishers/distributers like Matrixgames, Shrapnel, Slitherine, HPS simulations and others. Make sure when you buy from them they don't say 3rd party client source required because that usually means STEAM gestapo SS!! Remember EA games and distribution are like STEAM now also and they are even worse than STEAM.
I used to be frustrated with Steam, but lately it has been working fine. I do see the advantages, but several times I have been stuck in a situation where offline mode is not available until an upgrade has been installed, and the upgrade is not available due to different issues.
Luckily for the last month or so I have not had any issues with Steam. So many of my favourite games requires Steam that it becomes an offer I can not refuse, and already being on their list of "clients" I am happy to see as many good titles as possible in their store. Really, I am under "her" spell, tendered by steam, knowing that "she" watch over my gaming, logging my every achievement and watch over my credit card information - so Steam is like an ugly wife to me.
Actually all of it is true, so I will believe facts over fanboyish blindness, TYVM.
Bah, fanboyism ftw. get steam now, or die trying...
I like steam because it suits me, end of story
(If you didn't catch it, first line is ironic, second line is not ironic).
Sincerely~ Kongdej
I didn't say it was a problem I said it was proof of the DRM you claim does not exist
Not for all games.
I was given Empire: Total War as a Christmas gift, and you can neither install nor play it without a permanent online connection.
That was my first bad experience with Steam, but not the last.
I refuse to buy any game where I purchase a disk but have to be online to either install or run it. Not going to rant and rave about it, but there are good reasons not to have to be online to play, and Steam pushed me over the edge in my first experience with it.
The only exception I expect to make to that rule is Stardock; I have never had a bad experience with any Stardock game, and I will give anything they publish a try if it's a genre that interests me, even if it requires me to be online.
I wasn't aware of that. I thought online mode was only required for multiplayer. My son has ETW, I'll check that out.
Whether or not a game has this DRM is up to the publisher, not Valve or Steam. They just comply with the publishers wishes. At least direct your anger towards the right target.
I can run Empire: Total War without a permanent online connection. I think you are mistaken here.
Exactly. Just because a game is sold on Steam doesn't mean you have to be online. It's up to the publisher/devs of the *game itself* if you need to be online for some reason. Steam or Valve has nothing to do with it. So agreed, direct your venom to the correct source. I have several games I've purchased on Steam that don't even require Steam to be running let alone online. Just all depends on the game.
So if you don't want to be forced to be online then don't buy those games.
I would like to point you at GOG which does not allow the publisher to include DRM.
They are actually selling EA games with no DRM at all
Nothing that is new. Heck, hardly anything from the last 10 years. I love those old games but please...it's not like they are selling Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age games DRM free. Most of these old games didn't even have DRM in the first place other then a disc check. *Floppy* disc check no less. LOL
HAHA, yea, GOG games sells old shit, it's not the same. I don't get how people can use that argument.
When STEAM was first released I was also skeptical. The application always had to be running and STEAM itself was very restricted. It broke many defragmentation programs and disk utilities as they would stall when they tried to defrag the STEAM files. However STEAM has matured and now allows you to defrag the files, and while the application still has to be loaded it does offer an offline mode. Valve also polished it up with a plethora of features and functionality which goes well beyond that of say XBOX Live and it's free. Not to mention Valve seems to have the best deals around and is always offering special promotions on various games new and old.
There is also something else I want to bring up here and that is the consoles. Currently PS3 is the only console that features STEAM. The reason I bring this up is that currently many smaller development studios and indy developers are having a hard time supporting their products on the consoles due to certification costs. Even big publishers like Codemasters are only able to provide limited support to their software because of these hidden costs that most end users don't even know about. Not only do the patches that the publishers put out cost money paid to Microsoft and Sony but they are delayed as they go through certification with their respective owners. The problem here is that it doesn't allow a cost effective way to support the software which is becoming even more and more complex, up to 25Gb or more. Even when the money is put forward to support the product on console there is a delay in getting the patches to the consumer.
This has me concerned with Games on Demand and the Sony Online Store and the future of consoles in general. In a perfect world it would be fine to sell the first party or in house software via these distribution channels. However selling all the 3rd party software at a more expensive price on Games on Demand, then making the publisher pay a fee to support the product with a patch is rediculous. It also prevents MMO's from showing up on consoles or any other software that requires frequent updates like *cough* Blizzard games. Ever wonder how much Bethesda had to pay Microsoft to provide all the Skyrim patches on XBOX? LOTS! Well at least until they cut a deal to add Kinect support that is...
If Microsoft and Sony don't approach the next generation and resolve this issue I can see more and more developers switching platforms and moving back to PC. STEAM in my opinion is the only 3rd party vendor that really offers a solution to this problem. That said I want to see STEAM on all the next generation consoles. Why not let developers sell direct and support their products on the consoles and not just PC? We would see better support, more games, and more kinds of games in general. Civ 5 anyone? Galciv 3 anyone?
We are also starting to see more and more multi-platform sales. This could also evolve into a PC/console relationship if done right. You buy the game and play it on whatever platform works best for you. Again STEAM is the only viable option here and for many reasons. As a consumer it makes more sense to support STEAM and as a publisher/developer it also makes more sense to support STEAM. Paying for XBOX Live and these premium console subscriptions is just not worth it. Especially with all of the issues I posted above. You pay more and you get less. I don't know about you but I want to encourage people to make better games and to be able to buy them at a better price.
I would also like to add that given the current situation Valve is currently in a better position to build a better console then say Microsoft or Sony. If you can mass produce the hardware for cheap and provide next gen power with STEAM in the box then the battle is over before it even begins. I wonder why there is no more wired XBOX controllers hrmmm....
/rant off and good post Frogboy.
Gog has rebranded itself from "Good Old Games" to just GOG and the majority of their releases since then are new games.
But no new games from EA and their ilk of course. Its mostly indie games but not ONLY.
Also, nothing you said has ANYTHING to do with with the fact that it is POSSIBLE for a store to set DRM policy.
A lot of the indie games on GOG are also available on steam and direct from seller, and the steam version requires steamworks DRM while the direct version does not (so, again you have an example of the store setting the DRM policy; just in this case it is in reverse where steam is adding DRM rather then removing it)
Oh really, so GOG is selling new games without DRM? These are new games that are not just indie titles/low budget games? Wow, I might have to take a look at that.
EDIT: You tricked me.
Is GOG not selling new games because they don't want to or because the publishers aren't willing to part with their precious DRM? IMO, the issue there is not with GOG. Witcher 2 is not that old.I'll support GOG's efforts every chance I get. No third party app has to be running in the background (offline or not). No updates are forced upon me everytime I log into that app regardless of the settings I've set for the game. I just spent a week trying to figure out which mod was no longer compatible with the latest Skyrim patch...even though I have the preferences set to 'do not update'. I install their games and play.Considering SD released GC, GCII and FE w/o DRM, I don't know why they wouldn't consider releasing their suite of games on GOG. It wouldn't generate the sales they get from Steam, but a sales are sales.
The same company that ownd GOG owns Witcher 2, thats why you see it there.
Gog original policies were "no DRM", "only old games", and "no game over 10$".
Due to popular demand they pared it down to just "no DRM" (which is what I voted for on the user polls )
So now newer games and higher priced games are possible but at the moment publishers are not biting. While GOG is owned by the company that owns Witcher 2 publishing rights, it doesn't change the fact it was released completely DRM free on GOG. They are also publishing a bunch of brand new indie titles that are DRM free as well.
I own many games through Steam but for some reason don't really like it. I haven't given too much thought as to why, I think it has to do with how often I upgrade my computer and how many different computers I use, which is as many as 4. With Impulse (the old one) I easily installed Gal Civ 2 on all 4, Steam is a pain in the ass for that.
On an Impulse note, I have not bought anything on it since Stardock sold it to gamestop.
GoG is where it's at for me too, first choice. Maybe you should see if you can release Gal Civ and Gal Civ 2 over there.
Me neither. Nor will I ever again.
Same here
harpo
Ummm last I check The Witcher II is not an OLD SHIT game. You lose.
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