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?
Valve has already said in the past that IF steam goes down foe what ever reason, THEY WILL make all the games still available to the customers. So no worries on that front.
I love Steam, but that's bullshit. They can do that for their own games, but not for the games from other developers.
If they go down, they would not be able to maintain servers. Without maintaining servers, it would be impossible to make sure that only former steam customers will have access. Without a way of controlling access, they would be doing nothing short of facilitating piracy. It's naive to think that they would do that to other developers, let alone that they would be allowed to do so.
But you know what, that does not bother me. When Steam has some of my old games on sale, I buy a Steam version just for the ease of use. Just recently I got all the old Total War games on Steam, and logged 500+ hours on Rome. I doubt I would have gone to the trouble of finding my old disk, patching, etc...
Yes, one day the games will go away. When that happens, I will feel free to use a crack. I do not feel bad about using a crack on games that I cannot possibly play in another way, especially since I have already paid for them. I currently play a cracked Dark Omen, and my conscience does not bother me, because I own two original CDs.
Ahhhh, steam lets you just buy off your CC without putting money on your steam account actually...
Its exactly the same as Impulse (I have bought many games from both steam and Impulse and its the same process, add credit card info for the one time purchase and thats it).
I bought Civ V and a couple of other games on Impulse in May that required Steam to play. Like usual, things did not go smooth for me when I tried to setup Steam, computer just freezes. Go to Steam forums and look at the long long list of progroms that have issues with Steam, decide it must be my anti-virus suite, unistall that, try again and computer freezes. Hmm now own Civ V, DD etc that I can't play, annoyed.
That said, recieved an email to buy the new SINS game at a discount, due to the fact that I own the previous ones, it requires, Steam. No thanks, checked this forum and read that Frogboy stated that FE will not REQIRE STEAM, happy! I like GOG and Impulse since they don't cause me problems, just buy the game, download then play.
"In the unlikely event of the discontinuation of the Steam network, measures are in place to ensure that all users continue to have have access to their Steam games."
Valve and steam have never lied to me in the many years Ive been using steam and valve games. Don't see what would be so hard about putting out a crack/Offline/Nonsteam file or something for the games IF steam went down for some reason.
Don't see what would be so hard about putting out a crack/Offline/Nonsteam file or something for the games IF steam went down for some reason.
And how will you make sure that only legitimate users get access? Did you read what I wrote? Furthermore, if they go broke, their creditors do not have to keep any of their promises. Those have as much value as the ones by companies who swear that they will NEVER sell your information. THEY may not. If they go broke, those who are owed money can and will.
Once again, I trust Valve and I love Steam. I could even imagine that they have set up a trust that will keep authentication servers running. But with the best intentions and all the money in the world, you cannot fight IP holders and the lawyers and politicians in their pockets. If Steam goes belly up, I do not expect my 100+ games to continue working without a serious, probably illegal effort of my part.
This sums up my feelings exactly. Also having patching done automatically is much easier. My only reservation is pricing. Amazon are usually cheaper in the UK. But I'm getting to the point now where I might even pay a small premium to have the game through Steam for the convenience it provides. I have just looked and I see that now have 87 games on Steam.
Actually, it turns out that what I have the handful of games on is GamersGate, not Direct2Drive.
Actually no they aren't. The fact that they are private means they cannot be bought out based on stocks and shareholders. You are right when you say Gabe & Co might sell it, but that's like saying Peter Molyneux might jump on board and co-develop the next iteration of Microsoft Office.
Gabe is a damn PC Gaming hero, and I think he loves his job too much to sell out.
I'm a huge fan of steam. I don't mind the DRM and I absolutely love the sales. The way they handle sales has COMPLETELY changed the way I purchase games. I'm not just talking about getting them digitally instead of at retail. I'm well aware of the pricing trends now and fully realize that I can expect any game released today to eventually drop to an excellent price via a sale. So, its really a matter of keeping an eye on steam and other deal sights and picking up when I want after a little bit.
I never really cared for impulse over steam and just picked up games from there because it was either the only place to get certain games or to support SD. Impulse never quite got to the same level as steam with regards to marketing and sales imo, so steam got a bigger chunk of my business primarily for that.
Anyway, steam is a great service, imo, and I'm glad for valve's success.
I prefer the digital downloads to be honest. You can not break or lsoe a CD, you do not lose the book or case with the registration.
I was a great customer of Impulse. Used to spend $20-50 a month on games through Impulse. Then Gamestop bought them out and the customer service went to hell. I got shafted with Stronghold 3 (original EWOM was in better condition), got a refund after a few weeks. Took that refund and got Heroes of Might and Magic 6, somethign was wrong with the game so I had ended up paying $50 for basically a demo version. Gamestop refused a refund despite their techs knowing about the problem, Ubisoft customer support was non-existant. So I forced a refund through Mastercard and have not bought a game form Impulse since. Well except I had to buy the Hearts of Iron Stars and Stripes expansion through them. Not to mention most games require Steam these days, why pay one company to have to use another company.
I been buying form Steam ever since. My only issue with Steam si that it will sometimes not run in offline mode which screws you out of your library of games.
While I agree with you there, that doesn't cover Gabe's accidental death and his beneficiaries cashing out. Or hell even divorce has an off chance of forcing a sale of the company. Unlikely scenarios, I grant, but still better chances than say getting hit by lightning or winning the lotto.
I had tried steam in the past, twice in fact, but in both cases I was left with a strong dislike for the system. I may not be the most experienced steam user, but I'm not speaking from ignorance when I talk about steam.My biggest gripe is the fact that steam is a form of DRM. You need steam to be running in order to play games. In my books, its essentially a statement that they don't trust their customers with a game they paid for. My response is, I won't be a customer then. I also don't pirate their games as I figure pirating games only helps to encourage the development of DRM.As a security conscious computer guy, I very much favor keeping online businesses and services on a need to know basis. I also like keeping things lean and mean. When I discovered that Starcraft 2 required an online account to play single player, I choose to avoid that game. *I think* that no one needs to have an online account to play single player. Recently, I found out that Paypal had a spending limit on my account. In order to lift such restrictions I would have to offer them my banking information information so that my Paypal account can be "verified". I've since chosen not to use Paypal.I do think its acceptable to require an account to buy and download games. Same goes for multi-player services. Its costs money to maintain online servers and such. I think companies have the right to keep the gates to such servers closed to those who didn't pay for products that require them.I suppose the best way to describe my consumer behavior is: I have standards. If I feel that those standards have been violated, I won't stand for it. I'll stop doing business with the offender (until I think they've changed) and I'll usually ask for a refund. Steam doesn't currently meet those standards, so I choose not to do business with them.
I've only one game (Metro 2033) that needs Steam and i bought it only because it cost just 2.50€.
^^ This.Requiring a user to be online has been a serious killjoy for me time and time again. The most dissapointing moments I've had as a gamer have been a) having to repeatedly blow into the underside of uncooperative cartridage games and attempting to play /single-player-only/ games on Steam only to be reminded by a chearful "d-d-d-ding" that I'm not connected to the internet and although I paid money for a game, as someone stated earlier, I really only own a license. [ and C) facing the same issue with E:FE from a developer I've trusted (and still do!) for many years! =O ]
Don't get me wrong, digital distribution is totally awesome and is, as was said, truely "the future." It's just the digital lockdown bit that I'm not such a big fan of.
switch to offline mode
My 2 copper pieces:
If your games become Steam only, you will lose me as a customer permanently. I don't rent games. Either the game is mine to play/install/mod/delete/whatever from now till the end of time, barring failure of my backups, or I am not paying for it.
I did buy one Steam game by mistake - Skyrim. I bought it from a distributor and there was no clear label informing me that the game was Steam only or I wouldn't have purchased it. I purchased every single Elder Scrolls game and several in Gold or Ultimate versions... Skyrim is the last they'll see of my money and patronage for as long as they keep insisting on Steam. I purchased every single Civilization game, sometimes several times (lost CDs, different versions, impatience). I haven't purchased Civilization V and never will, for as long as it remains Steam only.
I bought up a whole pile of CRPGs - Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, their expansions, basically the whole series up until Bioware started using Steam. Again, that's that for me, no more Bioware purchases.
And just so it is clear - I am not rabidly against paying money for regular access to a game server for games where this is a component of play. I've been playing Eve Online for almost a decade now and will likely continue. If a game is online only then I don't mind centralized control. If a game has an offline component, such as a single player experience, then I won't tolerate any loss of control over the game if I pay money for it.
On the point of popularity of Valve and their promises to unlock access to games in case of bankruptcy or sale, I can only point to Direct2Drive -> GameFly transformation. I had a number of games purchased from Direct2Drive which GameFly doesn't support so those games are lost to me. Valve may go the same way at one point and there's nothing any of you can do to prevent it or influence it. I've learned from personal bitter experience that *everyone* that can screw you over when money is involved, will do so without blinking. Unless you have some leverage over them, that is. And I have no leverage over large companies. What, are they supposed to shake in their boots over my empty threat to sue? Personal promises from random people are worthless without having the ability to enforce those promises. Does anyone here have a personal relationship with head of Valve they can lean on? Perhaps a private army they can send after him? Several politicians in your pocket? A pile of money Scrooge McDuck would be proud of to pay an army of attack lawyers? No? None of the above? Well, then, Valve's promises are worthless to you.
If Stardock wants to distribute over Steam, I don't care as long as you also offer a non-Steam version, or more precisely, a version which is under my control (as a customer) if I purchase it. Any form of third-party software, phone-home, Internet-required crap is unacceptable to me.
I'm confused. I haven't played Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2, but every other Bioware game does not require steam.
And while yes you could lose access to all of your Steam games, thats pretty unlikely. Meanwhile, people lose physical cds and cd keys very often.
Steam is cheap enough for me that even if I lost all of my steam library (75 games/expansion packs) I could get it all back for maybe $150 during the december sale.
Which you can only do if you're already online to begin with. My internet connection fails without notice. --> Often while I'm currently logged into Steam online, or playing multiplayer. Heck, I've been kicked off while trying to get into offline mode, while I was trying to log in!
It's like telling a man with a lost dog, "use a leash" when the leash is more often than not frayed and otherwise unreliable. First you gotta catch the dog. And besides. I don't like leashes.
given that most forum users here are in the Beta anyway, saying that they will lose a customer is akin to telling someone you won't accept their free sweets.
Please, don't do any more steam works games. Continue selling it on steam, but give us the option to buy it directly from Stardock without a middleman. The one thing that might have made steam worthwhile was lots of new multiplayer features, but as far as I can tell the only thing steamworks did for Sins was stopping smurfing. Which probably could have been done with some changes to ICO, no steam required.
And what exactly do if I want to play my game at an area without an internet connection. You can only go offline if you're already online, which is complete bull. Steam should just require you to connect to the servers every month or something, not after you have already connected to the internet that session.
Actually you only have to go online once, when you switch to offline mode that first time Steam catalogs whatever files it needs to verify to play. Normally that what it checks for when your in online mode.
EDIT: This is just my guess, but my point is you must be in Online mode the first time to use offline mode correctly. Which is no different than the one time registration Stardock currently uses.
I played alot of my SP Steam based games last weekend when I lost my internet for most the weekend. Rebellion among others games worked just fine.
And I dont think Rebellion or any other Stardock game is Steamwork protected, since you can launch the .exe and play the game without Steam running or even online.
I like and use Steam. I did not like it at first but not I enjoy not having to manually update my games.
Someone on this forum once compared Steam to an evil entity. I don't think that's quite it. Steam is more like a shepherd. It leads you where the grass is green and plenty, and while you sleep, it keeps the wolves away. It's good to you. It's comfortable... Just don't question it's motives, stray from the herd, or look too far into your future.
That said, i don't buy games that require steam. I don't even know how i could buy them. As far as i understand it, you can pay for those games, but you can't own them. They belong to Steam. The money you paid just gives you the right to play them. At least as long as Steam can and will permits it, that is.
I also don't buy the argument those online-only-drm's are mainly for protection against piracy. That never worked well, which is not a secret. On the other hand, everytime you have to visit Steam, it is a great opportunity to see fantastic new products and/or games on sale... Advertisement is pure money.
If you think that really bothers me, you are mistaken. What actually bothers me, is that the business model of Steam is so successful, that it allows them to build a monopoly. Not for every game ever made, but right now for more and more of them. It's a freaking spiral. And like someone allready said, it will go on for quite some time until things change.
Yes, things will change. They always do. And at that point, the same majority that now loves the comforting guidance of their shepherds hand, will be the one who gets screwed by it.
I don't like Steam. I finally broke down and am using it, because I wanted to play SkyRim.
Steam has too much DRM for me. That's why I always use Impulse whenever I can. I really like being able to archive the game on disk. That way, if Impulse ever goes away, I still have access to my games. Steam? I don't see a way to do that. Also, requiring an Internet connection to play is too much. Oh, and Steam - when and how often I play is none of your doggone business!
True story - I install games via Impulse, which gives me an actual shortcut to click on to run the game. No need to enter Impulse (which is WONDERFUL!). So, I always click on the shortcuts. Impulse says I have never played my games. Heh. I have, but THEY don't need to know that.
Why do I HAVE to enter Steam to play the freaking game? I don't even want to RUN Steam, much less have to ENTER it.
I much prefer Impulse. But, judging from the poll results, I am in the minority. *sigh*
I find steam very convenient. I buy most of my game on it. It has pretty much led me to stop pirating games now that I can get them even faster through steam. GOG is good too, i haven't tried impulse.
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