Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Mongoose on May 16, 2012, 09:11:37 pm
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Now that GOG.com has expanded their service to cover more recent (and even brand-new) titles, I've started facing a bit of a dilemma with where to purchase several games. We all know that GOG is an awesome site, and I fully support the trust they show in their customers by offering DRM-free games with unlimited downloads. They offer all sorts of fun bonus material with most of their releases, and the price is usually right too. On the other hand, while Steam does implement DRM, it's probably the most unobtrusive I've ever seen, and the overall integrated client makes it extremely easy to keep your whole game library organized in one place. I'm also only slightly ashamed to admit that I'm a total achievement whore, so I see Steam offering them with certain titles as a definite bonus, and one that unfortunately can't be resolved just by creating a shortcut in Steam to the GOG purchase. The crazy part of my brain has even thought about double-dipping on a few titles, until I remember that I don't even have enough spare cash to single-dip on everything that I want.
So have any of you guys run into having to make this choice? And if so, what did you go with?
(As a side note, the main game that brought this thread to mind was Alan Wake, which everyone and their mother needs to play. I got a free copy of it with my brother's 360, and I'm planning on buying it for PC too...as soon as I figure out where to buy it...)
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I try to buy from GOG whenever I can. I don't like DRM and I like to have full control over my games.
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I honestly prefer Steam. Then again, I really like Valve, and try to support them wherever I can.
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If price and all other factors are identical, I usually lean to GOG if only to support them. Usually I buy my games in sales though, which means I buy way more titles on Steam than anywhere else. Both have their strengths, so it's really nothing more than personal preference.
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I prefer hard copies of my games
There's no new game smell when you download something from Steam or GOG
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I prefer hard copies of my games
There's no new game smell when you download something from Steam or GOG
Also no physical media to store and get scratched, lost, or broken. :)
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Buy everything on sale, wherever it's on sale!
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If a title that I'm interested in buying is offered on both services, I will get it from GoG.
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Since I A)Care absolutely nothing about achievements and B)Have limited funds, I always buy at whatever is cheapest.
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I prefer hard copies of my games
There's no new game smell when you download something from Steam or GOG
Also no physical media to store and get scratched, lost, or broken. :)
Physical copies usually also come with cd-checks. So you either have to keep the CD in drive when you play, or download a cracked game exe. Both are annoying and stupid. But in the end it comes down to where price is cheapest. At least for now, we finns have an unusual opportunity to buy games tax-free from certain place, it means retail physical copies are cheapest to us.
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The price is pretty much what it's come down to for me, too, which in most cases means Steam. GOG has decent half-off publisher sales, but they can't exactly compete with the insanity that is the Steam summer/winter smorgasbords. There are definitely several GOG exclusives that I still need to buy, though, to say nothing of working through what I already have.
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@Sushi: Quite true unless you're OCD about taking care of your games
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Can't you buy it from GOG then add it in Steam?
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You can add it via the shortcut thing, which works great for some titles, but not so much for stuff that has achievements in the Steam version. If you don't care about those, though, then it's good.
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How's about you buy it from GOG and we give you the achievement "Not a DRM Whore!" :p
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If something was on both, I'd go with GoG, purely for portability.
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GoG hands down.
You order it. You download it. You actually get to keep it.
I do have a lot of Steam games, granted, but if I could have gotten them on GoG instead, I would have.
Steam is still a hassle for me when I want to do some mobile gaming on the notebook or tablet.
I don't want to check that 3G is off so Steam doesn t ruin my data plan by downloading gigabytes of updates....
I don't want to mess with WLAN because it's still connected to some hotspot on the train (without internet access) and Steam just doesn't get it.
I don't want to deal with the hassle that is steam offline mode at all. Heck... I don't want to start up another program... especially not a bloated ressource hog like steam that takes ages to start on a tablet with a weak CPU.
When I want to play a game on the train or the bus... I want to click it and play it.... GoG allows me to do that. Steam does not.
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I use whatever is cheaper. Both are good, and both offer decent prices. Also, both occasionally practically give games away, and that's what I like in such services. Yes, I'm a cheapskate. :)
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In terms of game ownership, I prefer GoG because, on my archaic system, having Steam run in the background squanders resources, and at times when Steam can't even get to offline mode, I can't play any of my games on it. That said, I like to spread things around a bit, that way if one service goes belly-up, I don't lose 100% of my library.
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You can also get newer games from Gamer's Gate apparently, and from what I understand that doesn't include a middle-man client like steam:
http://www.gamersgate.com/
Never used the service myself only heard about it
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You can also get newer games from Gamer's Gate apparently, and from what I understand that doesn't include a middle-man client like steam:
http://www.gamersgate.com/
Never used the service myself only heard about it
The big question, as always, would be "What kind of DRM do they use?"
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You can also get newer games from Gamer's Gate apparently, and from what I understand that doesn't include a middle-man client like steam:
http://www.gamersgate.com/
Never used the service myself only heard about it
The big question, as always, would be "What kind of DRM do they use?"
A cursory search of the web suggests they use whatever DRM the game originally came with.
Though some of their games are "DRM Free", which, from that same search suggests that the only authentication is when you initially install it.
Most of what I've heard on this is just from Total Biscuit who says he prefers it to Steam and buys through them whenever possible, though as to the specifics of how the service operates I'm not sure. Steam's convenient though I think Valve+Steam get way too much of a free pass from gamers with regards to what thier service actually is.
I still remember the day I bought the HL2 Episode pack from London Drugs and discovered I couldn't even play the game without downloading the last 5% off of Steam. Which is a crock of **** if you ask me.
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"DRM free" games do not need to authenticate. Anything else is false advertising.
So Gamers Gate games only authenticate during installation (next question: how/details?) and may indeed have very light/convenient DRM... but I can't help but to be put off by a company who calls their games DRM free and then makes you authenticate online.
That's bull**** and takes away from other companies, i.e. GoG, who also advertise "DRM free games" , but... you know, actually deliver DRM free games.
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"DRM free" games do not need to authenticate. Anything else is false advertising.
So Gamers Gate games only authenticate during installation (next question: how/details?) and may indeed have very light/convenient DRM... but I can't help but to be put off by a company who calls their games DRM free and then makes you authenticate online.
That's bull**** and takes away from other companies, i.e. GoG, who also advertise "DRM free games" , but... you know, actually deliver DRM free games.
As I say I've never used the service so I'm not really advocating it, just throwing it out there as an alternative. An alternative not to GOG but to Steam. I don't really like Steam, I hate clicking on Terraria and getting a "loading steam" window. I hate some middle management program being loaded every time. I hate getting inundated with stupid ads after I quit my game.
Steam advertises itself as a digital distribution service but it is effectively DRM. And given the choice I'd rather take run of the mill, unobtrusive DRM than Steam any day. Of course, I'd prefer zero DRM To both (ie GOG)
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A) Most of us presumably leave Steam running all the time anyway.
B) You can turn off the ads.
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A) Most of us presumably leave Steam running all the time anyway.
B) You can turn off the ads.
A) The less programs that start up with my computer the better.
B) You shouldn't have to. Why should a person PAY for a game, and be subjected to ads every time they play it? Until they're forced to go to the options or whatever and disable all that crap. And not just some stupid ad off to the side, but a full window that opens up requiring you to close it. Buying a game should be buying a game, not signing up for a service. Valve seriously gets waaaaaay too much of a free ride from gamers. It's absurd.
But then again, now everyone's buying Diablo 3 with a REAL money auction house for silly virtual items which features auctions were Blizzard takes a cut three times. Worse than Ebay. But everyone's just getting in line :doubt:
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I think most Steam users tend to like those ads, since they let us know about the next crazy sale that's going to be making our wallets cry. Regardless of that, complaining about ads on Steam seems akin to complaining about a GameStop putting up sale placards in the windows...if your business is selling games, of course you're going to want to inform customers about other games you sell. And it's one option to disable "all that crap," hardly some crazy hardship.
And who said you have to have Steam as a startup process? I don't, but I still keep it running most of the time my machine is on.
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I think most Steam users tend to like those ads, since they let us know about the next crazy sale that's going to be making our wallets cry. Regardless of that, complaining about ads on Steam seems akin to complaining about a GameStop putting up sale placards in the windows...if your business is selling games, of course you're going to want to inform customers about other games you sell. And it's one option to disable "all that crap," hardly some crazy hardship.
And who said you have to have Steam as a startup process? I don't, but I still keep it running most of the time my machine is on.
Your Gamestop analogy is flawed. I didn't download Steam to buy games. I downloaded steam because I BOUGHT a game and the game didn't work without steam. Hell I didn't even have the full game before installing steam and downloading the rest. I was sold an incomplete product that required a store install that by default showed me ads. You know what sorts of other games by default show you ads? Free ones. Not 60 dollar ones.
And I don't have steam as a startup process, but guess what it starts up whenever I want to play a game through steam.
And then the same people who defend steam to the last man will attack EA's Origin to the last breath, even though they're the same thing effectively.
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Except that Steam doesn't poke around your disk as much and is much more generous with sales. And if it ever starts fooling around my HD without premission, it's COMODO sandbox for it.
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I didn't download Steam to buy games.
Yet you are in a thread discussing services from which to buy games. What is your purpose here then, if not to discuss content delivery?
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Due to my boycotting stuff that needs on-line activation, Steam has always been off the table for me so my vote has to goto GoG :)
I can see why Steam breeds so many fanatics, but I don't like it because it's become so insidious. There are games I'd love to pay actual money for but I don't want Steam more than I want to play the game so it gets passed over. Steam DRM is in so many titles now that it's basically single-handedly killed off the PC games retail sector and pushed the line of distinction firmly over from something you OWN to something you LICENCE.
Yes I know software companies want you to believe that all virtual things are only licensed, but at least with a physical disc they can't take it away from you at will, whereas with things like Steam they can.
I know a few people who, for one reason or another, have had their Steam accounts banned which has also lost them access to *all* their games and, while it's rare, the fact that it's even a possibility scares the hell out of me.
(One particularly odious one was a friend of mine who had the entire DoW1 collection prior to getting Steam; As you may or may not know, DoW had all the DRM patched out fairly early on (WA and DC didn't have any from the start!) but the last expansion didn't so like most people he had a CD crack for it. One day he discovered that he could add existing games to Steam, which he thought was an awesome idea, but apparently Steam DOES check your computer in some way as some time later his account got blocked for 'activity related to piracy'. Being rather naively honest, he tried to explain to them that he did own the game but stupidly admitted the CD crack just for Soulstorm and that was basically game over; They refused to even discuss it after that and so there went several hundred quid's worth of games down the proverbial toilet!)
The unparalleled shift in control is just something I can't deal with; Heck, it's only one small step from here to it being a rental system (In fact there are already Netflix-style services for games out there but they never made much penetration because few people would accept the terms and restrictions; Steam has built up a big enough RDF that I can see them going down that route in the future, with their customer's blessing even!)
My source of games is pretty much limited to indies who don't use DRM, GoG and the various humblie/indie bundles these days... but not having to repeatedly deal with stupid stuff like the recent Diablo 3 sillyness makes me feel like I'm on the right track :)
That and the games are generally better; Visual production values tend to be are a lot worse, but the music and game play more than make up for it.
These days I don't have time to play a lot of games, never mind work around the hurdles to get them to run! (And it's not just games now but even Audio CDs and DVDs too; I've had to return several over the years (Thank **** for distance selling regs) due to some stupid new copy protections on some of them that somehow prevent them working on my drives!)
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I didn't download Steam to buy games.
Yet you are in a thread discussing services from which to buy games. What is your purpose here then, if not to discuss content delivery?
I like how you quote my sentence out of context and accuse me of going off topic when you're not even involved in the discussion.
So what is YOUR purpose here then, if not to discuss the merits of different delivery services, is your purpose to be an asshole? Seems like. So get lost.
And to put some context to my out of context quote, I never downloaded Steam to buy games. Yet it is on my computer, why? Because it's DRM. I think CHOICE is relevant to content delivery, and if I have no choice but to install some service I have no interest in then that's a black mark against that service. And yes I have bought a handful of games through Steam simply because it put itself on my computer and I knew of no other service, but now that there are options available I will exhaust all of those options before supporting any sort of invasive storefront.
Thank God Microsoft has the balls to tell Valve where to stick steam or I'd be forced to use it on Xbox as well.
(And yes, Xbox has its own storefront that is part and parcel of the service but I knew that well before I purchased it).
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(One particularly odious one was a friend of mine who had the entire DoW1 collection prior to getting Steam; As you may or may not know, DoW had all the DRM patched out fairly early on (WA and DC didn't have any from the start!) but the last expansion didn't so like most people he had a CD crack for it. One day he discovered that he could add existing games to Steam, which he thought was an awesome idea, but apparently Steam DOES check your computer in some way as some time later his account got blocked for 'activity related to piracy'. Being rather naively honest, he tried to explain to them that he did own the game but stupidly admitted the CD crack just for Soulstorm and that was basically game over; They refused to even discuss it after that and so there went several hundred quid's worth of games down the proverbial toilet!)
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I like how "Activity related to piracy" is justification for taking away legitimately purchased games. If I buy 10 games and pirate one does anyone have the right to deny my ability to play those 10 games? Or if I bought 7 seasons of Doctor Who but downloaded Torchwood would the BBC have the right to come into my house and take away 1000 dollars worth of DVDs? That's what it amounts to.
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I like how "Activity related to piracy" is justification for taking away legitimately purchased games. If I buy 10 games and pirate one does anyone have the right to deny my ability to play those 10 games? Or if I bought 7 seasons of Doctor Who but downloaded Torchwood would the BBC have the right to come into my house and take away 1000 dollars worth of DVDs? That's what it amounts to.
+1
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Steam Subscriber Agreement - Section 5, Paragraph 2
Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers. You acknowledge that Valve is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Subscriptions(s) and/or Account, but it may choose to do so.
Steam Subscriber Agreement - Section 13, Subsection C, Paragraph 2
In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase.
Valve likely believed that the no-CD crack that Cyker's friend was using constituted a breach of that game's EULA (and if I had Dawn of War and its expansions, I'd pluck out the relevant sections to show where Valve might have gotten that idea). Being that Valve is a company with enough money to make them a tempting target for litigation, they don't want to be a party to anybody who's actively breaching contracts with other companies that have lawyers. Valve wasn't meting out punishment, but making an effort to keep themselves out of court. When you think about it that way, it makes a little more sense why they decided to completely terminate that Steam account.
Now, if Cyker's friend had read the Steam Subscriber Agreement and his games' EULA, he could have realized that he was walking into a costly trap by activating a game with a no-CD crack applied. Is it ****ty that he got caught in that trap? Sure, but he should have seen it coming.
Make no mistake: This is no defense of Steam. I recommended GoG, further up in the thread, because no DRM is the best DRM, while Steam is pretty lousy DRM, with a pretty veneer layered on top. But if there's one thing I find equally annoying to bad DRM, it's people who patently refuse to read the contracts to which they are agreeing, and then act surprised and indignant about that contract coming back to bite them in the ass. With games in particular, you've got to wait for the software to download/install, so even if you clicked past the EULA to get that process underway, you may as well reopen the EULA and give it a read, while you wait.
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I like how you quote my sentence out of context and accuse me of going off topic when you're not even involved in the discussion.
So what is YOUR purpose here then, if not to discuss the merits of different delivery services, is your purpose to be an asshole? Seems like. So get lost.
There is no context. That's literally the context of your entire post. "rar steam ads bad" isn't much of story, but hey, it's what you wanted to tell.
My purpose here is to point out you're mindlessly waving your personal prejudice around, like an asshole, complaining about the ads for content delivery service in a content delivery service thread, like an asshole, and making insane comparisons of piracy (by the way, they would have the right to take away your DVDs if they think you're originating pirated material) like an asshole.
You've become completely wrapped up in your own bull****, seizing on anything that will confirm your existing views eagerly, dismissing anything that challenges them. It was amusing to watch the first few times. Now it's just boring. You contribute nothing but your hate to these discussions, parroting the complaints of others as fast as you can, inventing non-substantive ones that reflect your biases rather than anything legitimate. Do yourself a favor and take a break from this issue.
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<RANT! This is now basically a rant ;_;>
Yeah, that gets said a lot. :( But I suspect 99% of people don't read the EULAs. Even if he did I doubt he would have understood or digested it all (I know I couldn't!). If you do then more power to you!
Out of curiosity, how many of you have actually READ and FULLY UNDERSTOOD the EULAs that come with pretty much everything?
When was the last time anyone checked the SCP licensing terms for instance?
I sat down and went through the Steam one after it happened to see if there was anything we could do (I couldn't believe the whole '1-strike, lose all games with no comeback' thing), and there is so much legalese I was getting a headache before I was any significant way through!
But what it amounts to is that you have practically no rights at all; The 'agreement' is totally one-sided - For instance: They accept no liability for anything, reserve the right to terminate your account with no reason, own rights to anything you do in conjunction with steam and if you actually abide with the agreement, apparently you can't even take legal action against them unless you're willing to do it in Washington!
To be fair, it's more or less a standard EULA as with most software right down to the clauses about you not actually owning anything, except that unlike normal software they *can* actually pull the plug!
I think if people actually paid attention to most EULAs and took them seriously, very few would actually buy any software!
I sometimes wonder if half of the EULAs out there are even legally enforceable, or legal for that matter; They often claim to revoke or nullify rights that, by law, cannot be, and then there was the classic cases where you couldn't even read the EULA until AFTER you'd bought the game and opened the box (No more refunds!).
Often you are already in possession of the thing before reading the EULA and have not explicitly agreed to anything beforehand, but they get around this by implying you have agreed by installing the game or reading the text or whatever.
This, in my mind, is not far off me saying: "By reading this text you forfeit the right to take any legal action against me ever and also agree to pay me the sum of 2 million pounds! Bwhaha!" And expecting that to be somehow legally binding...
</rant>
(As an aside, I had a laugh at the Apple one as another friend was setting up his iPad; The agreement screen fit on the iPad screen and looked refreshingly concise, until I tapped on one of the paragraphs and it expanded into a giant monster! :lol: Then I realised all 8? paragraphs/sections did the same thing :eek:)
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When was the last time anyone checked the SCP licensing terms for instance?
the SCP license is:
Copyright (C) Volition, Inc. 1999. All rights reserved.
All source code herein is the property of Volition, Inc. You may not sell
or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based
on the source.
while this could be construed to be somewhat sinister, :v: does not seem to be interested in acting on it in any way.
Also note that the enforceability of EULAs, and their actual texts, vary wildly between jurisdictions. In Germany, for example, EULAs as special case license agreements covering a specific product are only binding if they are known prior to the purchase being made; a "do you agree to this license" query at the start of the install procedure does not fill this requirement. In addition, if the only way to get that agreement is the aforementioned preinstall dialogue, then the EULA is treated as an extension of the companies general terms of use, and are subject to the rather harsh consumer protection laws we have around here.
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And if we want to talk about advertizement, GOG sends me email spam about games I'm consistently less likely to care about even as something to know is going on and be able to converse with others as a subject. (In fact the only email they sent me I actually cared about was a recent one for SimCity2000.) They do it pretty much with the same frequency Steam throws big ads at me.
It might be slightly less visible, assuming I don't check my email often, or assuming I'm totally uninterested in getting free or cheap stuff that I've lost access to via time and block it with my spamfilter, but neither of those things sounds that plausible. I can probably turn it off, but I've never checked, and as a process it's likely just as involved or more involved than turning off Steam ads.
Basically crapping on people who sell games for trying to sell games is usually pointless and it's a matter of selecting the poison you find least offensive personally, not the one that's objectively least offensive. Until Ubisoft rolls out an online service.
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...tangentially, I, for one, would like to see Steam add an email notification or some other notification feature when games on your wishlist go on sale. I don't log onto Steam every day, and missing a ridiculously low 1-day sale price is quite annoying.
Also, I tend to defend Steam over Origin because Origin came into a market where there already was an excellent distribution platform purely because EA wanted to gouge for DLC, and despite having Steam as a template for functionality where all the hard work had been done, Origin is buggy (cloud service), doesn't discount games as steeply, has nowhere near Steam's features, and doesn't fully integrate with the games it sells for patching and updates. Oh, and their store interface is awful and doesn't show the DLC unless you are IN GAME.
Steam is good, GoG is good, Origin is meh - it all depends on your own preferences, and a lot of the raging against Steam seems to come from people that don't really give it a chance. While I prefer no DRM to some DRM, Steam's model is such that I will intentionally buy software there that I can get elsewhere despite the knowledge that it has DRM.
And people who don't read EULAs, violate them egregiously, then complain about the fact that they lost access to a service for which they did not read the legal terms they agreed to deserve what they get. EULAs are notoriously difficult and generally what I consider a ****ty business practice, but you DO have the option not to agree to it. Games are not an essential service; if you don't like the terms they are delivered under then vote with your wallet.
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@The E - What about if the EULA is available on a website or some such?
I was thinking along those lines with my friend as strictly speaking, he didn't agree to any EULA until after a purchase was made. (I'm not even sure there was any EULA agreeing when he added DoW...!).
However, it is available on the website and there's the implication that if he didn't read it before paying for stuff, that's his problem.
Then again I'm not even sure if EULAs are enforced the same way here in the UK...! :nervous:
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I was thinking along those lines with my friend as strictly speaking, he didn't agree to any EULA until after a purchase was made. (I'm not even sure there was any EULA agreeing when he added DoW...!).
There wouldn't be a separate EULA presented, when registering a non-Steam copy of DoW on Steam. The game is governed by the EULA presented at installation, and Steam is governed by the subscriber agreement, presented before its installation.
Then again I'm not even sure if EULAs are enforced the same way here in the UK...! :nervous:
A point that's often raised about EULA's is that there is very little case law surrounding them, and so wherever you are, it's questionable how enforcable they are. The rub is that nobody really wants to be the test case. Publishers will rarely sue over a breach of an EULA, because they don't want to risk a court overturning the validity of those contracts, and on the occasions that they do sue, it's pretty easy to get a defendant to agree to a settlement, because at the end of the day, who wants to get dragged through court over a video game?
And of course, regarding your friend being cut off from Steam, it doesn't actually matter whether or not DoW's EULA is enforcable. Valve reserved the right to terminate his account if he did anything with it that Valve believes to be illegal.
I think if people actually paid attention to most EULAs and took them seriously, very few would actually buy any software!
I think you're absolutely right, and that's why it's doubly-frustrating that people don't read their EULA's. If bad EULA's caused software sales and usage to drop to the point of losing (or at least endangering) commercial viability, then they might just get rewritten to be more appealing to consumers.
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@The E - What about if the EULA is available on a website or some such?
In theory, if you display the EULA clearly during the checkout process (before processing payments, that is) you're in the clear. If you link to it visibly on the product's page, you're also in the clear.
However.
In all cases, all stipulations in an EULA have to conform to the laws and regulations as laid out in the BGB (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, "Civil Code", all the laws that govern businesses and contracts and stuff), which boil down to the stipulation that no single side may be unduly disadvantaged. In the case of game EULAs, with their numerous clauses that restrict user's rights combined with lots of disclaimers, this means that at least some clauses will be null and void for private consumers (There are different rules for dealings between businesses, but those are in general not interesting to us).
I think the only clauses that have held up are the "unauthorized replication" clauses, everything else is generally considered to void.
Then again I'm not even sure if EULAs are enforced the same way here in the UK...! :nervous:
That's definitely something you need to investigate.
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I think you're absolutely right, and that's why it's doubly-frustrating that people don't read their EULA's. If bad EULA's caused software sales and usage to drop to the point of losing (or at least endangering) commercial viability, then they might just get rewritten to be more appealing to consumers.
C'mon, we both know this isn't true. They'd just blame it on piracy and put in more DRM! :lol:
I suspect there are a lot of people like me who have just stopped buying mainstream games in protest and I like to think that is why the PC games industry sales are down vs console, but the blame is put on piracy (Despite piracy not increasing in-line with supposed lower sales) and used to justify increasingly draconian systems being put in place. We just can't win! :(
@The_E - Wow, how do you know so much stuff!? :D Short of asking a lawyer I wouldn't even know where to look for relevant info; When I do have to find law-related info, the sources I do find tend to be confusing and/or contradictory. (Not specifically games stuff; Most recently I was trying to find info to get me out of a suspect parking fine :lol: )
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I think you're absolutely right, and that's why it's doubly-frustrating that people don't read their EULA's. If bad EULA's caused software sales and usage to drop to the point of losing (or at least endangering) commercial viability, then they might just get rewritten to be more appealing to consumers.
C'mon, we both know this isn't true. They'd just blame it on piracy and put in more DRM! :lol:
That's why I said sales and usage. If people's idea of a protest/boycott is to pirate the game instead of buying it, then legitimate consumers would just wind up with worse EULA's and more draconian DRM. If sales drop off without an increase (or even with a decline) in piracy, it sends a clearer message that there's something wrong with the product and how it's being distributed.
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Wouldn't make a difference - We already have a similar correlation with DRM; That was sort of my point about how PC games piracy is not increasing in-line with sales decreasing - This is known, but they ignore the lack of correlation between copy protection and piracy levels and pile it on.
They ignore all other correlations, e.g. the games that do well sales-wise are often the ones that are most pirated.
Ubisoft's experiment with the Prince of Persia remake showed that piracy rates were not significantly different than with non DRM games but sales were slightly higher which should have proved how useless DRM was, but Ubisoft instead clammed up about these findings (There is no official word from them on sales figures; All available data was from third party sources. If the lack of DRM showed a massive piracy spike, you know they'd be trumpeting it!), and jacked up the DRM even more (IIRC they were one of the first large publishers to implement hard limited on-line activations).
The only way I can see them being proved wrong is if piracy drops to zero as well as sales, but a) That will never happen, b) If it did it'd be too late anyway and c) They still wouldn't be convinced
The only way out is to find publishers who don't do these things and abandon mainstream games entirely, but thankfully there are a lot of great indie games out there. I've been discovering a lot through the various humble and indie bundles :)
Plus of course there is stuff like our beloved FS SCP and its myriad mods and campaigns. The stuff we have here is of such high quality that it rivals and in some cases surpasses modern commercial space games! And you'll rarely see something as professionally done yet absolutely bat**** crazy as JAD in the mainstream, for instance :D
And it's all for free!!!! I do wish donations could be spread around to everyone whos hard work goes into this community as well as funding the site as I always feel a bit guilty that I can access all this stuff for nothing!
Hmm, that reminds me... (Goes off to poke the donate button...)
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I like how you quote my sentence out of context and accuse me of going off topic when you're not even involved in the discussion.
So what is YOUR purpose here then, if not to discuss the merits of different delivery services, is your purpose to be an asshole? Seems like. So get lost.
There is no context. That's literally the context of your entire post. "rar steam ads bad" isn't much of story, but hey, it's what you wanted to tell.
My purpose here is to point out you're mindlessly waving your personal prejudice around, like an asshole, complaining about the ads for content delivery service in a content delivery service thread, like an asshole, and making insane comparisons of piracy (by the way, they would have the right to take away your DVDs if they think you're originating pirated material) like an asshole.
Right to take away my DVDs? The BBC has the right to come into my house and seize my property?
Oh wait, you're getting a NEWS AGENCY confused with the POLICE you moron.
So if I buy games from Best Buy, London Drugs, Future Shop, EB Games, HMV, etcetera why should a company have the ability to prevent me from playing those legitimately purchased products. Law is not about punishment, it's about balance, and denying a person access to hundreds of dollars worth of games that they legitimate purchased on grounds of some alternate issue is not balanced. It's like if someone got caught shop lifting clothes and then the Banana Republic raided their house and took away their entire warddrobe.
Basically crapping on people who sell games for trying to sell games is usually pointless and it's a matter of selecting the poison you find least offensive personally, not the one that's objectively least offensive. Until Ubisoft rolls out an online service.
This quote pretty much sums up your entire lack of understanding on the issue.
This isn't an issue of service or delivery it's about freedom of choice and control for the consumer. Services like Steam and Origin take control and power away from the onsumer and put it all in the hands of the corporations, they ARE objectively more offensive from the point of view of the consumer. And your apologist whitewashing isn't going to change that.
Though, after "discussed" this with you over 2 replies I now understand completely where you got your forum "title".
And if we want to talk about advertizement, GOG sends me email spam about games I'm consistently less likely to care about even as something to know is going on and be able to converse with others as a subject. (In fact the only email they sent me I actually cared about was a recent one for SimCity2000.) They do it pretty much with the same frequency Steam throws big ads at me.
I've received FOUR emails from GOG since August of last year.
That's a little different from receiving an ad EVERY TIME I play a game.
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And on the subject of this:
My purpose here is to point out you're mindlessly waving your personal prejudice around, like an asshole, complaining about the ads for content delivery service in a content delivery service thread, like an asshole, and making insane comparisons of piracy [/b](by the way, they would have the right to take away your DVDs if they think you're originating pirated material)[/b] like an asshole.
Analogy time:
#1 You steal property or IP from another individual
1. They catch you
2. They lay charges or file a suit in the courts
3. The courts fine you or force you to pay damages
#2 You steal clothes or other merchandise from a brick and mortar retailer.
1. They catch you
2. They call the police and lay charges
3. The court fine you and put the offense on your record.
#3 You pirate movies from Universal or some other production company
1. They catch you.
2. The police/FBI are informed and lay charges
3. The courts fine you and put the offense on your record.
#4 You do something that violates a EULA while on Steam/Origin/similar
1. They catch you
2. They ban your account and take away everything you've ever purchased
DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE?
The entire concept of EULAs or DRM is offensive quite frankly. You should buy something, and it should be yours. Simple as that.
If a violate some IP law, they can charge me or sue me through the proper channels (ie the police/courts). The fact that corporations like Valve, EA or other digital distribution/DRM services have such powers is absurd and any self-respecting consumer should be offended.
They are OBJECTIVELY worse for the consumer, and the fact that people both put up with it and defend such practices is shameful.
Steam itself is openly deceptive in the way it conducts business as well (as origin probably is):
When you purchase a game, it doesn't say "purchase the rights to play" or "subscribe" it simply says "buy or purchase".
Or at the checkout ll digital goods are delivered via the Steam desktop application.
Digital goods? You mean like, POSESSIONS? Something I OWN? No. It's a subscription that they can cancel at any time without being required consulting legal authorities whatsoever.
So I "subscribe to steam".
I purchase hundreds of dollars of "subscriptions" to games through steam.
And they can deny me access to all of those for any reason they feel is justified at any time.
And you're saying there's no difference between Steam and GOG?
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#4 You do something that violates a EULA while on Steam/Origin/similar
1. They catch you
2. They ban your account and take away everything you've ever purchased
Yes. It's called a breach of contract. You violated the terms of a contract that you signed, and the company you signed it with ceased providing you with the service that had been guaranteed under that contract. I don't know why you're so baffled and/or enraged by that. It's how contracts work, when one party violates the terms of the contract.
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#4 You do something that violates a EULA while on Steam/Origin/similar
1. They catch you
2. They ban your account and take away everything you've ever purchased
Yes. It's called a breach of contract. You violated the terms of a contract that you signed, and the company you signed it with ceased providing you with the service that had been guaranteed under that contract. I don't know why you're so baffled and/or enraged by that. It's how contracts work, when one party violates the terms of the contract.
So, did I sign a contract when I purchased Half Life 2 at London Drugs?
What if I start to install it, decide I don't want to sign that contract and try to take the game back?
Oh whoops, stores don't take PC game returns.
So by buying a game from a store shelf (a game which is btw incomplete and unplayable out of the box), I'm agreeing to a contract which I've yet to read and if in the end I don't agree to this contract I've never read I'll be wasting my money because I'll assumed to be a pirate who copies games and returns them.
The difference between you and I is that while you blame people for not reading a EULA and not knowing what's going on, I blame the corporation for the EULA existing in the first place. If I'm paying 60 dollars for a game from a store, I better be paying to OWN it, or at least EFFECTIVELY OWN IT, not to subscribe to access to the game through a service. And why? Because that's how it's advertised.
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/
The relevant portion: Already own Half-Life 2 or Half-Life 2: Episode One?
So . . . .If you're entering a "contract" which they can revoke at any time, you don't Own ****. Get it?
Do you not see something wrong with being "SOLD" something which you "OWN" with digitally delivered "GOODS" which is actually, in reality nothing more than a subscription/license which they can take away at any time? It's false advertising. Ie, deliberate dishonesty. And frankly I don't know how they get away with it.
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What if I start to install it, decide I don't want to sign that contract and try to take the game back? Oh whoops, stores don't take PC game returns.
That depends on the store policy and your local laws. I'm not familiar enough with London Drugs or Canadian law to know if there is a way for you twist their arm into taking a return. If this is a contingency that you're really that worried about, though, there are tools that you can use (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22Half+Life+2%22+EULA) to find the full text of an EULA (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/13793-13-half-life-eula#t104715), before you go to the time and trouble of buying the game.
The difference between you and I is that while you blame people for not reading a EULA and not knowing what's going on, I blame the corporation for the EULA existing in the first place.
You're pretty badly misrepresenting my position. EULA's effectively spell out a load of actions and consequences. I said that I get annoyed with people who take one of those actions and are surprised and angered by the consequence, because they were too thick-headed to do the two minutes of reading necessary to see that consequence coming.
Yes, EULA's suck, and gaming could be more pleasant without them. That's a nice, little dream world, though. Here, in reality, software EULA's have been around for over twenty years, and they're unlikely to disappear anytime soon. (I'll get into why in just a moment.) Since that's the case, you may as well read the damn things, so that you know what rights you do have under the contract and what might be construed as a breach of that contract.
As to how gaming publishers have gotten away with selling you licenses, instead of games, for over twenty years, the narrative went a little something like this: EULA's were introduced. Consumers saw a great big block of text, prior to installing the game. Assuming it wasn't important enough to invest the time into reading this big block of text, consumers failed to react in any meaningful way to the presence of the EULA. Because little to no attention was being paid to EULA's, publishers were able to make them more and more stringent, retaining more rights and protections for themselves, at the expense of the consumer's rights, ultimately leading to the situation we're in today, where licenses are sold, not games.
If you don't like a specific game's EULA, then there's an easy solution: Don't buy the game. If nothing else, you'll save yourself the trouble of breaching the EULA and having to face the associated consequences. If you don't like the terms of service for a digital distribution platform, then don't buy games on that platform. You may have to go without some exclusive titles, but isn't that better than getting butthurt over being stuck in an unacceptable contract? If you don't like EULA's in general, then the only way you're going to bring about any kind of change in the structure or existance of EULA's is by abandoning PC gaming (or more properly, PC use, since games are hardly the only software bearing draconian EULA's) altogether. Simply ignoring the EULA's and then impotently whining about it, when that habit comes back to bite you in the ass, just reinforces the cycle that has resulted in what EULA's are today.
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If you don't like a specific game's EULA, then there's an easy solution: Don't buy the game. If nothing else, you'll save yourself the trouble of breaching the EULA and having to face the associated consequences. If you don't like the terms of service for a digital distribution platform, then don't buy games on that platform. You may have to go without some exclusive titles, but isn't that better than getting butthurt over being stuck in an unacceptable contract? If you don't like EULA's in general, then the only way you're going to bring about any kind of change in the structure or existance of EULA's is by abandoning PC gaming (or more properly, PC use, since games are hardly the only software bearing draconian EULA's) altogether. Simply ignoring the EULA's and then impotently whining about it, when that habit comes back to bite you in the ass, just reinforces the cycle that has resulted in what EULA's are today.
I pretty much have abandoned PC gaming as it is anyway, and almost exclusively run xbox, and the habit's never bit me in the ass it's just a matter of principle. If the software providers are selling a license, that's fine, advertise it as such. Don't advertise ownership where none exists. Because it's lying effectively, and as I say how it's legal or how it's never been brought up in court I don't know. Big brand software like adobe is actual upfront about this, it says on the webpage buy a license, not "own photoshop" or whatnot but obviously video game publishers don't want to raise eyebrows from consumers so people spend hundreds of dollars on games they don't own. I've even heard of people being denied access to EA games for violating forum rules. Trolling is annoying but I wouldn't want a guy to lose 100 dollars worth of games for being a prick, just boot him off the forums.
I should actually raise this issue politely on Valve's forums and see how long it takes me to get censored. Can't say I care about any of the games in my library and since Episode 3's never coming out nothing to lose.
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If you don't like a specific game's EULA, then there's an easy solution: Don't buy the game. If nothing else, you'll save yourself the trouble of breaching the EULA and having to face the associated consequences. If you don't like the terms of service for a digital distribution platform, then don't buy games on that platform. You may have to go without some exclusive titles, but isn't that better than getting butthurt over being stuck in an unacceptable contract? If you don't like EULA's in general, then the only way you're going to bring about any kind of change in the structure or existance of EULA's is by abandoning PC gaming (or more properly, PC use, since games are hardly the only software bearing draconian EULA's) altogether. Simply ignoring the EULA's and then impotently whining about it, when that habit comes back to bite you in the ass, just reinforces the cycle that has resulted in what EULA's are today.
I pretty much have abandoned PC gaming as it is anyway, and almost exclusively run xbox, and the habit's never bit me in the ass it's just a matter of principle. If the software providers are selling a license, that's fine, advertise it as such. Don't advertise ownership where none exists. Because it's lying effectively, and as I say how it's legal or how it's never been brought up in court I don't know. Big brand software like adobe is actual upfront about this, it says on the webpage buy a license, not "own photoshop" or whatnot but obviously video game publishers don't want to raise eyebrows from consumers so people spend hundreds of dollars on games they don't own. I've even heard of people being denied access to EA games for violating forum rules. Trolling is annoying but I wouldn't want a guy to lose 100 dollars worth of games for being a prick, just boot him off the forums.
I should actually raise this issue politely on Valve's forums and see how long it takes me to get censored. Can't say I care about any of the games in my library and since Episode 3's never coming out nothing to lose.
You might not like the next console generation.
lol.
Heck, even the current console generation there are several platforms with download only titles and games bound to your account and other resale restrictions built in.
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Ugh, tell me about it! Soon they'll be selling them direct-only; No discs! Yay for downloading a 50GB game over ADSL! Or streaming the game data over your 'net connection!
There is talk games consoles may end up being glorified X terminals that play the games via a remote server with little local processing...!
Windows 8 is headed in the virtual distro direction for their Metro programs too...
It'll be a bit like Linux distro repos but with extra evil added :lol: