I'm sorry but ETW was 0day cracked. Steam proved to be a particularly weak protection scheme as I predicted it would be before christmas.The anti-piracy stuff is just one part of Steam, & is pretty much just designed to stop zero-day piracy. If a product needs to be activated via Steam, the pirates can't beat the developers and get it out there before the release date. It's the ability for people to get a game before it goes on sale that can really kill a games sales.
Cheers
When I buy the game it's MINE. A retailer is not the same as a platform through which I have to go, which has to run on my system, to run a ing disk. He's a middleman in the physical sense.
Steam is a game-nanny. If you love nannies...go for it. If everything on a pc involved game nannies I would transport my pc to the dump and never look back. I'm an honest guy and I don't pirate, so it looks like I lose here, and it seems like that is what you are trying to rub in. Well rub it in. I can take it.
Steam is not a nanny, its a digital-distribution platform. It allows me to do away with game discs all together and download my games from a repository on Steam's servers.
If I want to make a game disc I can, if I want to re-download my games I can.
If I want to install my games on as many machines as I want, I can.
It can even keep my save games and configurations synced between multiple computers on supported titles.
Calling it a game-nanny is just hyperbole.
Okay, I'm glad you managed to tell us your conspiracy theory and proofs. It's so likely, that if I was you, I would consider going to the court. Hurry up. It's so big crime against privacy to collect information about you'r PC, after all it is your private pc. They could find out what you were talking to your video card that dark night...
What if CA got money ? I always thought that's what they work for.
And CA has also stated that Steam won't stop piracy. Why whine about it ?
That's enough ranting from me for a while I hope...
Last edited by Beggar; March 06, 2009 at 09:38 AM.
Steam is currently taking up 24k of my memory. To put that to scale for you, IRC, the most simple message program possible, is taking up 10k. Do you honestly think that's going to cut into my gameplay? If my system from 2004 could run steam without any issue whatsoever, I think my system NOW can do the same thing.
For the people saying we're renting the game, Valve has gone out of their way to say, specifically, that if they ever "went under" as a company (unlikely, because they are currently one of the only PC companies both making good games, and making amazing money) they would release a patch to allow the games off their server to run steam free.
As for giving out my email address... um, can't say I've gotten any spam mail on my email address. So I'm going to call that a downright lie. Like I said, only thing steam has ever done is a video card survey.
But oh right, tin foil hat.
Calling it anything else is a lie. They are there to make sure your game is legit first and foremost. In order to do this they will have a permanent presence on your PC. I am an honest gamer and don't really require up to 13,000 kB of background processes on my PC when I turn it on thanks very much. If developers have a problem with pirates well it isn't my problem, and I'll not make it mine. In fact it's NOT my problem at all. I'll go without games and live my life regardless. Guaranteed SEGA gets payed for every user by Steam also.calling it a game-nanny is just hyperbole.
If this is the future of gaming, then I'm over it.
Last edited by boofhead; March 06, 2009 at 09:44 AM.
It's not the future of gaming, its been gaming for the past 6 years. I don't think anyone complained about using steam with Half Life 2, considering its up there in a mountain with Ocarina of Time as the greatest games in history.
Not to mention the awesome deals, Bioshock for 5 dollars, Mass Effect for 20. Yeah these guys are criminals alright!
Steam works perfectly fine for me, I have over 2 dozen games on it. The download for ETW went smooth, and have not had any bugs.
In other words, don't blame CA. Don't blame Steam. Blame the user.
"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." -Oscar Wilde
Technically only the ability to use the software is yours, not the game itself.
But I've never really had any problems with Steam...maybe the occasional hiccup when the servers go offline while I'm playing a game online, but meh.
Beats having to switch CDs for every game and carry my discs around if I want to reinstall a game. Let's not forget that awesome deals I've gotten from Steam with their weekend sales...
But yeah...echoing others I'd rather have Steam than SecuRom/anything else. I haven't had any problems with Steam and Empire...in fact I'm glad it uses Steam since I can't freaking alt-tab in E:TW, so the only way I can communicate with my friends is through the Steam overlay.
Thirteen megabytes of memory usage for steam is actually a pretty small footprint in the whole scheme of things. Pidgin uses fourteen.
Its a good thing we measure our memory in gigabytes these days or we would surely be in trouble!
Seriously though, I think your problems with Steam are less about its merits or drawbacks and more about to do with being out of touch and resistant to change.
No they aren't criminals but they should be legislated against. There has for a long time been laws against 'fine print' contracts. Just because the PC world is at the forefront of breaking technology doesn't mean things won't catch up. There should be a massive label on the front of every Steam game "WARNING: RENTAL ONLY."
You're right. But I think it's a rort. No other industry could get away with it. It's never been done before, so they get away with it.Seriously though, I think your problems with Steam are less about its merits or drawbacks and more about to do with being out of touch and resistant to change.
iTunes has the same system Steam does and nobody complains there. Microsoft monitors anyone with an Xbox 360 to make sure you can't hack the console. Nobody is complaining there. Steam is nothing new. Where are you getting this idea of "RENTAL ONLY" anyway? You don't ever have to return the game or anything.
And you do not own the game, you own the rights to use it. This is in the license agreement you agreed to. Owning digital media cannot be compared to owning, say a car or a washing machine. It's just not the same. You can easily reproduce and resell a video game but are you going to pirate a car? There's no way Steam will ever be legislated against, in fact it's going the other way as the heads of digital entertainment are even more wary about how pirates will affect their industry. Why should DRM be legislated against?
edit: Could you elaborate on this lie in the fine print?
Last edited by Larry Blackmon's Codpiece; March 06, 2009 at 09:58 AM.
Well I have had alot of trouble with steam and ETW, but eventhough I like what it does to the PC-platform. It may not stop piracy as it is, but it sure reduces the numbers by declining the casual-piracy gamers. And it is something that may evolve into something better against piracy in the future.
Wait so Empire has lots of technical problems leading you to think it was a corrupt install and then you spend ages reinstalling? And you then blame steam for all your woes?
Welp sorry but I think the issue here is that CA have released a buggy game (whats new).
No, I wasn't. Who the hell are you? sega's employee of the month? why are you standing up for this ? we buy a game to play a game, not to have all this garbage publishersdish out. how would you react if you went to a bar and they slipped a ton of acid into your drinks? they had fine print on the doormat! didn't you read it!?!?
If you like steam, that's great, download it from Steam.com or wherever. we don't like steam and would like to excercise the freedom of not having it snuck onto our systems.
And once a game is opened, you can not return it for a refund in my country. you can only exchange it for another copy of the same thing. so they already have my money.