(Im posting this in the forums since I can't post it like an article in the blog section.)
I remember the old days of gaming. That long gone era called 2008. Back when games were provided with their own custom installers, and were self-contained products that installed themselves separatedly on the computer you instaleld them. I like to call this era the "Installshield Era" of gaming. Back when game media only contained asset and binaries, and a registration window, when dialog box wizards ruled the gaming land, and when there weren't any remote validation hooks attached to executables. That is why, with increasing concern, I am watching nowadays the way our most amazing form of entertainment is rearranging itself, how market forces and anti-consumer tendencies are beggining to shape the new landscape of gaming, at the expense of the average gamer.
Big game releases nowadays are abandoning these old, anticuated components such as autorun main menus, install wizards, or dedicated servers, and have moved to the all encapsulating remote delivery methods of popular DRM schemes, such as Steam. By itself, Steam is convenient, fast if you have good internet connection, and easy to deploy. Many games were released in normal "retail" form, and were offered in Steam's store shortly after. Those instances however, are nowadays mostly the case with PC only releases from eastern european studios it seems. Steam's "next step" in gaming convenience is anything but that, and could mark the beggining of a new mandatory requirement for gaming in the future. More and more games are now announcing their complete deployment based around Valve's new Steamworks framework, touted as the "least intrusive" DRM scheme, "convenient" to gaemers and publishers alike, which takes care of formerly manual tasks like patching. They claim it isn't intrusive when compared to the likes of Securom or Tages. But I would like to point out that it is more than that. It's not only indeed intrusive, it's THE most intrusive DRM scheme to come along yet. The game is not at all installed or even located completely in your computer when you realize it. At least Securom installed itself after it let the installer copy YOUR game to YOUR hard drive. Steamworks' remote always-on cloud network remotely controls one of ITS game's installation, patching, running. When you start the game, you send a signal to the autenticathion servers situatied remotely from your location, and the order is sent back before you are able to game. You are asked for an authorization each time to play the games you paid a hefty premium to be allowed some few hours of playimte. It's the arcade coin-up model. We've gone back full circle, to the arcade machins of old times. It may as well place a coin slot in your computer. It's like trying the games you paid for thru a remote terminal. A service that, much like an arcade place, can close up in after hours, or at the discretion of their owners. The access to the games you are allowed to try remotely can be switched off at any moment without any explanation from the providers, and you are effectively out. Cloud based gaming, and software as a service don't look like a good idea afterall under these terms.
"Blah blah, who cares, I don't have to deal with DVDs anymore!" Maybe this is really making mountains out of molehills. Steam does have it's merits, which mostly come from giving smaller indie developers a storefront to showcase their creations without needing a traditional expensive distribution contract. Companies like Tripwire and 2d boy have been the most vocal about their praise for steam, with Tripwire saying they wouldn't be around without Steam. This piece is not an anti-steam call to arms, it's just an informational soundbyte, just to express concern about the trend Steamworks is creating, which isn't 100% in reality as advertised in the package. A steamworks game instantly becomes a steam exclusive game. That situation could become the beggining of a monopoly. Maybe this is a good time for competitors to shine.
I'll be happy when Steam does have the monopoly. I tried stardock for the first time today and it's a nightmare. Still have not been able to download game, hidden 3rd party download site, awful navigation anf no support at all. I can't believe there is no live support. This site sucks, never again.
That's a stupid thing to say. I think you will find yourself very unhappy when steam has a monopoly, because monopolies have a profit maximization that increases prices for consumers.
You my good sir, must be a troll!
Stardock actually responds to issues: case in point Double Account.
I'm in Steam hell right now trying to get a legally purchased retail copy of Fallout: New Vegas installed on my PC which I can't because the Game Key was hacked prior to my purchase or double sold by steam.
Does steam have a support # I can call? no. Does steam have a live support chat system? no. Does steam give updates on tickets beyond the initial create confirmation? no. Hase it been several days with zero response from steam? yes. Will I be purchasing games from steam in the future? no. Will this limit the games I can play? yes. Do I care steam is ruining the pc gaming industry? yes.
Steam needs to make some decisions about their business practices and stop punishing legal customers before lawyers figure out there is money to be made with class action lawsuits against steam. If you don't think it's possible just look at some of the class action lawsuits filed against other industries.
My past experiences say neither one of them has live support. I hate buying a game on the weekend, you know when I actually have a lot of time to play games, only to run into a problem that has me sitting around and waiting until Monday to get any sort of support.
Are you refering to the same Steam that for the latest Divinity II hofix you had to manually download it even if auto-update was turned on? Without competition companies have no incentive to improve (nevermind the high prices) which results is lower quality goods/services for consumers.
I don't think that Stardock is struggling financially. They ship products that are preloaded onto millions of computers worldwide. Impulse itself may not be making a huge amount of profit, and Elemental's release didn't make as much money as they had hoped, but I have every reason to believe that Stardock is still "afloat" financially, even if they weren't as far as they may have hoped to be.
Furthermore, Stardock is a privately owned company and there is no way to know how well or poorly Stardock is doing without Brad giving us hard numbers. They aren't required to release those numbers.
Brad has already confirmed that Stardock primary's income is from it's customisation software, not it's games. They'll be around for quite a while, as they have been for some many, many years.
Does the article foresee the shutdown of a DD service? To me it sounded more like it was referring to the overall state of the DD services businesses now.
The question is: How do you resist buying from them?
As long as they have their special sales and achievements I'm buying. I bought Puzzle Quest II from Steam because of the achievements and their big community.
I'm gonna buy Defense Grid from them as well because of the achievements. Impulse got Defence Grid Gold but their version don't got any achievements and can't be imported into Steam either. The version at GameStop also can't be imported into Steam so I don't any choices left.
The other DD centers version of Defence Grid don't got achievements and I've also read that they're not good. Big Fish Games f.e. are slow with patches. It also just feels "safe" buying from Steam since they are the standard. I understand the people wanting ONE platform.
Edit: By Steam, I didn't mean to bump it like that. But it doesn't matter, good posts in good threads are no problem
Well if achievements are that important to you then I suppose great for you. Rmember though, that Steam reserves the right to remove the games you bought from your account at any moment, without telling you why. It's in their EULA. That's their standard.
All digital distribution services have pretty much same thing in their EULA.
Quote from Impulse EULA:
It may not be as easy to enforce those rules as with Steam accounts (it can still be evaded by using Offline mode), but licence terms are pretty much same.
True, but the one time I know of where Stardock did this in the past, they provided refunds. (was due to abusive customers during the GCII era)
There may have been a 2nd case of this, I'm unsure.
So the games will be *gone*? Not even offline mode like if you're banned from the onlineportion of a game like Battlefield where you can still play singleplayer?
I that's true then I'm concerned, but I also think of myself as paranoid since "everybody else" who buys from Steam seem to not care = they don't believe their games are in danger.
But I'll tell you this.
If Impulse or another DD service would rise up and challenge Steam with as many features, achievements and stuff then I would switch.
The ideal would be a platform which is "above" the digital sellers and which holds all community features, achievements and everything else from every digital seller. Kinda like if the Steam community were available to every game.
I recently bought and downloaded Civ3 Complete from Impulse. Took about couple of hours to download and install and worked without any problems. Whether logged on the web or not, the game plays the same. Even plays several year old mods I made back when I had Conquests. I looked around the Impulse forum for a F.A.Q. listing of the limitations of their downloads, but couldn't find one. Things I was wanting to know were:
Whether it was possible to load the games on to disk for transfer to other computers or for reinstalling on the same computer after a Windows reinstall (I find I usually have to reinstall Windows at least once a year)?
What if I want to have 2 copies of the game installed, I mod a lot and having an unaltered back-up so I can replace the files I screwed up is essential?
Can a downloaded game be moved to another spot on the same computer, such as another drive? Or is the place you downloaded and installed the game on the only place it will work in? I'm always moving files around the different drives on my computer to free up space.
If I terminate my Impulse account, and remove the program from my computer, will it affect the games downloaded from Impulse?
Alstein's post had me wondering if this Civ3 game I downloaded is as permanent a purchase as a store bought disk version of the game, where as long as you have functioning game disks, you can reinstall and move the files about as often as you want. I quoted Alstein here, cause this person seems to know about Impulse's workings, but if any one can can help with some these questions, and especially if they can direct me to where Impuise states all their can and cants, I will greatly appreciate it.
1) You can move games easily by using the "download and archive" function of Impulse, which can be accessed from the My Games tab (right-click the game you wish to download and archive, but make sure you set the archive location to a convenient directory, which you can do by following the answer to question 3)
2) Not really sure about the question or the answer
3) You can change the game installation directory by clicking the blue menu button in Impulse, and clicking Preferences (go to the Folders section)
4) No, the games that are installed are unaffected by the presence (or lack thereof) of Impulse and your Impulse account, but you will be unable to update them without Impulse (you can simply reinstall Impulse to do so)
Melamine
Thanks, that was very helpful. I'll try that archiving out when I next get a chance.
I was wondering if it was possible to have 2 full copies loaded on the same computer. One to experiment with modding the game on and the other to serve as a back-up in case I need to undo something I messed up while changing stuff. I think what you wrote about archiving probably answered this question. Thanks again.
I've never considered that, but I doubt it, so no.
I share the OPs sentiments. I only started PC gaming in 2007, and have probably 60 or so games made between then and now. I used to complain about Securom disk checks, but then I realized it wasn't the technology but loss of personal control over my computing environment that I despised.
I'm not that old that I don't remember dumb terminals and mainframes. The Cloud is nothing more than that with a faster connection. Folks have been hoodwinked on this one like nobody's business.
Bethesda introduced me to RPGs with Elder Scrolls IV, and since then I've been like a kid in a candy store. Then New Vegas came out with Steam, so I bought the Xbox 360 version. Given all the bugs and Steam on PC I'm on the fence about Elder Scrolls V. I cannot get that excited about a game that will probably have it. Honeymoon is over I guess.
The bright side to all of this is gog.com. I am rediscovering some great RPG classics all without a client between me and the games - ever. Even bought the Witcher 2 from CD Project since I wanted to support companies that make bold moves like they did.
I support Stardock, but I'm at the point of simply not buying as many triple A just - released PC games anymore. Not good for commerce but good for my sanity.
Just LOL
Love the last one
Pretty much share all of that. I love gog.com too, it doesnt have that whole thin-client model now called cloud-based computing with the games, and now not only for old games, but for a forthcoming release. I'm more inclined to buy The Witcher 2 than the Elder Scrolls V now.
I don't think you can terminate an Impulse account. Stardock might if you asked them, but it would make no sense for you to do so. If you have the game downloaded, and get rid of Impulse from your computer, the game will play 100% fine. No game requires Impulse to run ever- this isn't Steam.
Downloaded games can be moved as is, just like any other game. Moving to another computer is different, but there is an archive feature in Impulse where you can archive a downloaded game, move the Archive, then run Impulse to activate the achive. You can then delete Impulse if you wish.
2 copies can be done via copy/paste, just like with a disc game.
You have nothing to worry about.
Alstein
Appreciated the response. Very helpful.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
