Steam is just another form of DRM - Why encourage it?

PC gamers have a high regard for Valve's Steam. It's a nice and easy way of buying PC games online, getting updates for them, etc. It's also a splendid way of interacting with your PC gamer friends. Some even go as far to claim that Valve is "saving" PC gaming through this manner.

I use Steam myself, and I am very satisfied with it. But there are some quirks:

1. Steam forces you to authenticate your game before you can play it, every single time. Sure, you can authenticate once and then set Steam to use the "offline" mode, but you can only stay offline for so long, right?

2. Steam also gathers information about your computer regularly - often without your consent. In this vein, it can be argued that Steam is spyware is some ways. Why doesn't Valve at least offer an opt-out for those who don't want Steam to gather information about their computer? Is it necessary for Valve to know what programs I have installed or what kind of processor I may have?

3. Games on Steam retail for just as much as a boxed copy at a store. Plus, for paying the same amount, you can't even resell your games. On Steam, you are just merely buying a license to use the software. You don't own your games on Steam.

With all this talk about SecuROM being the scourge that PC gamers must deal with - little do they know, that there is a little program called "Steam" installed on their computers, doing the same as SecuROM - and even more. At least you can resell your SecuROM-protected games. But you can't do the same for your Steam-protected games.

Sure, we all love Valve for making Half-Life. But let's not forget that they are just another corporation, set out to protect its own interests and maximize profits.

And for this reason - unless I have to use Steam to play certain games (i.e, Half-Life, Counter-Strike), I try to avoid it and buy a comparable boxed copy at a store instead.

I'm not sure about the legality of it, but people do sell their steam accounts all the time. I guess even though steam is a DRM, it's just soooo convenient, the pros outweight the cons by far. The thought of owning my gaming collection where I may go is just badass, and you can't ever loose your games. I guess that's just it, convenience.

Yes valve is out there to maximize their profits, for their own, capitatlistic, greedy needs! ...but isn't every gaming company doing that? :P

I love it, if i lose a disk.. so what, it's on my steam account, forever there for me to download.. And stores aren't offering Bioshock for $5 at the moment are they....ferrari2001

Bioshock is selling for only 9.99 at my local Microcenter. For an extra five dollars, I get to have a disk, a printed manual, and the guarantee that I can resell it at any time in the future. Steam offers none of that.

1. Steam forces you to authenticate your game before you can play it, every single time. Sure, you can authenticate once and then set Steam to use the "offline" mode, but you can only stay offline for so long, right?The_Capitalist

2. Steam also gathers information about your computer regularly - often without your consent. In this vein, it can be argued that Steam is spyware is some ways. Why doesn't Valve at least offer an opt-out for those who don't want Steam to gather information about their computer? Is it necessary for Valve to know what programs I have installed or what kind of processor I may have? The_Capitalist

3. Games on Steam retail for just as much as a boxed copy at a store. Plus, for paying the same amount, you can't even resell your games. On Steam, you are just merely buying a license to use the software. You don't own your games on Steam.The_Capitalist

Are you serious? Technically, you never own a game, you buy the liscense to play it. Semantics aside, I love STEAM because:

1.) Your games are linked to your account. Wipe your hard drive? Lose your disks? Go to a friend's for a long weekend? Just download your library again.

2.) Sales. I save more money through STEAM sales than through all of the other retailers at which I shop, combined.

3.) VAC. People will think twice about using cheats in an online game if they know it will disable their multiplayer on EVERY STEAM-owned game. To help avoid the annoyance of cheaters, I only play on servers that use VAC.

4.) Gas money. If the prices are the same, I'll save more money if I download it than if I drive to the store.

5.) No tax on my purchase.

6.) Unified friends/community list. Sure X-fire is great, buy STEAM does it too.

7.) Cloud. No longer do I have to spend time mucking through my options menu when I download a previously-played game. All of my settings (and saves) come with it.

8.) Although I love Goozex for trading my old PC games, I'm willing to lose my ability to trade games when you factor in points 1-7.

Because Steam in a non-invasive type of DRM. Not only that, the whole service is built to be utterly convenient. Reasonable people don't complain about DRM just for the sake of complaining, they complain because DRM causes inconvenience and makes them feel like criminals. SecuROM isn't that bad in and of itself, it's how developers and publishers utilize it. Not every SecuROM game inflicts limited installs on the user - those that do will get trashed and rightfully so.

DRM sucks and we would definitely be better off without it, but there's no denying that Steam is DRM done right.

Are you serious? Technically, you never own a game, you buy the liscense to play it. Semantics aside, I love STEAM because:

1.) Your games are linked to your account. Wipe your hard drive? Lose your disks? Go to a friend's for a long weekend? Just download your library again.

2.) Sales. I save more money through STEAM sales than through all of the other retailers at which I shop, combined.

3.) VAC. People will think twice about using cheats in an online game if they know it will disable their multiplayer on EVERY STEAM-owned game. To help avoid the annoyance of cheaters, I only play on servers that use VAC.

4.) Gas money. If the prices are the same, I'll save more money if I download it than if I drive to the store.

5.) No tax on my purchase.

6.) Unified friends/community list. Sure X-fire is great, buy STEAM does it too.

7.) Cloud. No longer do I have to spend time mucking through my options menu when I download a previously-played game. All of my settings (and saves) come with it.

8.) Although I love Goozex for trading my old PC games, I'm willing to lose my ability to trade games when you factor in points 1-7.

Gammit10

This sir, is epic win. Nicely played gentlemen.

[QUOTE="Gammit10"]

Are you serious? Technically, you never own a game, you buy the liscense to play it. Semantics aside, I love STEAM because:

1.) Your games are linked to your account. Wipe your hard drive? Lose your disks? Go to a friend's for a long weekend? Just download your library again.

2.) Sales. I save more money through STEAM sales than through all of the other retailers at which I shop, combined.

3.) VAC. People will think twice about using cheats in an online game if they know it will disable their multiplayer on EVERY STEAM-owned game. To help avoid the annoyance of cheaters, I only play on servers that use VAC.

4.) Gas money. If the prices are the same, I'll save more money if I download it than if I drive to the store.

5.) No tax on my purchase.

6.) Unified friends/community list. Sure X-fire is great, buy STEAM does it too.

7.) Cloud. No longer do I have to spend time mucking through my options menu when I download a previously-played game. All of my settings (and saves) come with it.

8.) Although I love Goozex for trading my old PC games, I'm willing to lose my ability to trade games when you factor in points 1-7.

trijity

This sir, is epic win. Nicely played gentlemen.

That's the point of keeping a disk.

2.) Sales. I save more money through STEAM sales than through all of the other retailers at which I shop, combined.

True, but it's only when they have their little sales, right? Most of time, their games are similar to the retail price.

3.) VAC. People will think twice about using cheats in an online game if they know it will disable their multiplayer on EVERY STEAM-owned game. To help avoid the annoyance of cheaters, I only play on servers that use VAC.

Your point? Punkbuster does the same thing. VAC could be easily made separate too.

4.) Gas money. If the prices are the same, I'll save more money if I download it than if I drive to the store.

That is negligible. You have to drive anyways to buy your groceries, right? You can't download your groceries, right? And plus, you can always order your games off Amazon, too, and sometimes they cut the shipping fees.

5.) No tax on my purchase.

True, I guess, depending on where you live.

6.) Unified friends/community list. Sure X-fire is great, buy STEAM does it too.

You are absolutely on the money with this. I love Steam friends too.

7.) Cloud. No longer do I have to spend time mucking through my options menu when I download a previously-played game. All of my settings (and saves) come with it.

Only Left 4 Dead does that currently.

8.) Although I love Goozex for trading my old PC games, I'm willing to lose my ability to trade games when you factor in points 1-7.

Good for you. But some people can't stand losing their ability to resell their games.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]Agent_Kaliaver

To spend $10 worth of gas driving in my Accord, the closest Wal-Mart would have to be 260 miles away. Sorry, I love Steam and prefer it to retail (I don't keep manuals or boxes anyway) but your argument just doesn't hold water.

Your views are fine, but come on. You use the example of buying groceries digitally which is horrible. If you are going to give an example at least give one that makes sense and works. Now it doesn't change the fact that you are heavily biased anti-steam and that is your opinion.

Mine is not like that at all. I have bought plenty of games from Steam and saved a bit. I bought STALKER for what $5? That is how much cheaper than any retail store? Also it saved the gas and tax. I also bought Red Orchestra for $5. You tell me what store even sells that... Steam is very good for indie devlopers (like the people behind AudioSurf) and some of those games are supossed to be quite good. 90% or more of Indie games don't come out in disc form so Steam is a great place to put them all.

But while many things are good it does not mean i'm buying all my games from there. I just bought Cyrsis (Collector's Edition) from EbGames' website because it only cost $20 (free shipping, but $2.50 tax) while it cost $26.99 on Steam during the sale. Even then Steam is cheaper then almsot anywhere else on that game (it is normally $30). At Walmart the game is $40 and same with BestBuy (at least their websites). It just so happens EbGames was even cheaper than steam.

Another reason it is nice is say your store runs out of stock. That means you won't be able to play the game for maybe a few days to a week (not that, that is so bad), but it will always be in stock on steam. Also if a game goes on sale in a store they may only have like 5 copies to sell while a sale on steam has unlimited copies untill they end of the sale. Another thing is stores eventually stop selling games when they get older, but games could stay up on steam for years and years. I mean i've wanted to buy Final Fantasy 7 (i know its PS1, but still PC), but nobody sells it and not even PSN sells it. As long as the game gets put up on Steam it could say there for a long time.

Also it is a hub for games. I have actually played mods/games that i normally wouldn't think of playing (Red Orchestra and Insurgency) because they were just right there. I normally don't play multiple games when i have to put in the disc and all that (don't ask me why i just really don't).

Also game discs scratch. My Starcraft disc barely works and once it stops it means i will have to spend another $20 to get it again.... Also companies drop some DRM. Spore doesn't have an activation limit or SecuRom on the steam version. That makes me happy... It doesn't mean i'm buying the game still.... but i'm happy.

Even though i like steam, if i find a game somewhere else cheaper than i will get it, but if it is the same price i probably won't. I bought Fallout 3 (disc form) and the SecuRom on it barely makes it works (luckly Bethesda put in their own crack for the game..... for the install and to launch it... you don't even need the disc). I spend $50 on the game disc and i can barely get it to function (i didn't take it back because it worked for awhile...). That makes me never want to buy a game with SecuRom on it again. And i am really happy i didn't have to download a crack for a game i legally bought the disc of. And that is not something you should ever have to say.

P.S. Also just because you have the disc of a game it doesn't guarantee it will sell. I mean it probably will 90% of the time, but it doesn't guarantee it.

1.) Your games are linked to your account. Wipe your hard drive? Lose your disks? Go to a friend's for a long weekend? Just download your library again.

That's the point of keeping a disk.

2.) Sales. I save more money through STEAM sales than through all of the other retailers at which I shop, combined.

True, but it's only when they have their little sales, right? Most of time, their games are similar to the retail price.

3.) VAC. People will think twice about using cheats in an online game if they know it will disable their multiplayer on EVERY STEAM-owned game. To help avoid the annoyance of cheaters, I only play on servers that use VAC.

Your point? Punkbuster does the same thing. VAC could be easily made separate too.

4.) Gas money. If the prices are the same, I'll save more money if I download it than if I drive to the store.

That is negligible. You have to drive anyways to buy your groceries, right? You can't download your groceries, right? And plus, you can always order your games off Amazon, too, and sometimes they cut the shipping fees.

5.) No tax on my purchase.

True, I guess, depending on where you live.

6.) Unified friends/community list. Sure X-fire is great, buy STEAM does it too.

You are absolutely on the money with this. I love Steam friends too.

7.) Cloud. No longer do I have to spend time mucking through my options menu when I download a previously-played game. All of my settings (and saves) come with it.

Only Left 4 Dead does that currently.

8.) Although I love Goozex for trading my old PC games, I'm willing to lose my ability to trade games when you factor in points 1-7.

Good for you. But some people can't stand losing their ability to resell their games.

The_Capitalist

1.) What part of "that's the point of keeping the disks" applies to you losing your disks, or scratching them? How convenient is it to bring disks (note the plural) to a friends' or a cottage when you can just download them?

2.) No, sales seem to occur at least twice a month. Also, you can't beat their "everything from publisher x" for 50%.

3.) Punkbuster is easier to counter.

4.) Why should I have to pay extra money to go to another store when I can download games at home? Please don't use the "you have to go out to buy groceries" argument; I don't buy my games from my grocery store. In fact, both stores are not even remotely close to each other.

5.) 49 out of 50 states. I'll take those odds.

7.) I've been told that more games will support Cloud. If not, one game with Cloud > zero games with cloud.

8.) That's personal preference. Either you're willing to save money and gain convenience, or you're willing to sell your used games. Nobody really cares either way, and may I remind you that you brought this up.

Pay for ames, play them and stop failing.clembo1990

What are the "ames" that you are speaking of? I don't know anything about "ames".

1.) What part of "that's the point of keeping the disks" applies to you losing your disks, or scratching them? How convenient is it to bring disks (note the plural) to a friends' or a cottage when you can just download them?

I have never scratched a single disk. I have been playing computer games for almost a decade. My copy of Age of Empires (which is almost a decade old) still works. But the convience comes at a price. What if you can't access your account? This happened in late 2006, when the Steam root authentication servers were knocked offline due to a severe winter storm in Seattle. You can kiss your games good bye for the moment then. At least, with regards to disks, it all falls under one's personal responsibility for keeping them in good shope.

2.) No, sales seem to occur at least twice a month. Also, you can't beat their "everything from publisher x" for 50%.

Even considering that, their games are similar to retail prices most of the time, right?

3.) Punkbuster is easier to counter.

To a degree, yes. But that doesn't stop hackers from introducing VAC-proof cheats for $30.

4.) Why should I have to pay extra money to go to another store when I can download games at home? Please don't use the "you have to go out to buy groceries" argument; I don't buy my games from my grocery store. In fact, both stores are not even remotely close to each other.

Maybe for you. But the Target and Best Buy I go to has a Stop and Shop right near it, and the Microcenter I go to has a Trader Joe's right next to it. One can buy games off Amazon, too, you know?

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, and but Steam does have its drawbacks. I just wanted to point them out. I use Steam myself, and while I love it, I also keep in mind of the drawbacks that Steam brings with its many conviences.

Nobody is saying that STEAM is perfect. But I'm willing to bet that for a LOT of PC gamers, it's better than the alternatives.

That being said, you asked why we should encourage STEAM (your topic). My (and most others') answer is: because it's pluses far outweight it's minuses.

Case closed

I recently read a really good piracy article that makes some of the points you do. It's true that steam could be a lot more competetive with their pricing, and their prices are only good when they have their sales. Ninja_Dog

because its the right way to do it.

With traditonal DRM, I can only install on like 3 PCs.

With Steam, I can install the game on as many as I want

Steam is also non-invasive, doesnt mess with your registry or anything, and doesnt have crappy stuff like securom and whatnot. You simply log on, and play.

And if for some reason your internet goes out, you start it up in offline mode.

The FAQs and forums are also extremely helpful.

In short, Steam is DRM done right

[QUOTE="Ninja_Dog"]I recently read a really good piracy article that makes some of the points you do. It's true that steam could be a lot more competetive with their pricing, and their prices are only good when they have their sales. markop2003

Steam is awesome, end of story :Pkozzy1234

pretty much

At least you can resell your SecuROM-protected games. But you can't do the same for your Steam-protected games.

The_Capitalist

[QUOTE="The_Capitalist"]

At least you can resell your SecuROM-protected games. But you can't do the same for your Steam-protected games.

Hewkii

tbh I'd rather have D2D with no DRM, than Steam with DRM done right.F1_2004

I've never used Direct2Drive, but their own FAQ says they do employ DRM.

Our products are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). These are systems in place to license your purchase to you only. It keeps it safe and gives you the exclusive ownership of that purchase.

[QUOTE="ferrari2001"]I love it, if i lose a disk.. so what, it's on my steam account, forever there for me to download.. And stores aren't offering Bioshock for $5 at the moment are they....The_Capitalist

Bioshock is selling for only 9.99 at my local Microcenter. For an extra five dollars, I get to have a disk, a printed manual, and the guarantee that I can resell it at any time in the future. Steam offers none of that.

[QUOTE="The_Capitalist"]

[QUOTE="ferrari2001"]I love it, if i lose a disk.. so what, it's on my steam account, forever there for me to download.. And stores aren't offering Bioshock for $5 at the moment are they....blade55555

Bioshock is selling for only 9.99 at my local Microcenter. For an extra five dollars, I get to have a disk, a printed manual, and the guarantee that I can resell it at any time in the future. Steam offers none of that.

[QUOTE="The_Capitalist"]

[QUOTE="ferrari2001"]I love it, if i lose a disk.. so what, it's on my steam account, forever there for me to download.. And stores aren't offering Bioshock for $5 at the moment are they....blade55555

Bioshock is selling for only 9.99 at my local Microcenter. For an extra five dollars, I get to have a disk, a printed manual, and the guarantee that I can resell it at any time in the future. Steam offers none of that.

And when the Steam servers are offline what are you going to do? It has happened.

Exactly. You find yourself locked out of a game you have purchased for a few hours, sometimes even a few days.

[QUOTE="markop2003"][QUOTE="Ninja_Dog"]I recently read a really good piracy article that makes some of the points you do. It's true that steam could be a lot more competetive with their pricing, and their prices are only good when they have their sales. Ninja_Dog

That's different. I'm talking about games that you can buy on Steam, but however aren't necessarily tied to it. Left 4 Dead and all of Valve's own titles must be registered on Steam, retail or online.

Out of curiosity, how many of you consistently sell your games after you play them?

The whole "you cant sell games downloaded via Steam" argument seems a little weak, but if Im the only guy that holds onto all my games then I guess Ill shutup lol