Wasteland 2 Kickstarter

[Blodhemn]

If by "cracking" one means "downloading the unprotected DRM-free files from the Internet," sure.

You have to crack some games to even get them to run. VTMB won't run on my Windows 7 system through steam - I tried every fix out there and nothing worked. The only thing that did work was downloading a cracked Exe.

[Serrano]

I don't think I'd dare crack a Steam or Origin game even if it meant I couldn't use that game anymore. It's not worth risking the whole account.

[Majek]

I won't register W2 on steam, no point in that.

[Lexx]

Well, the game will be pirated in any case, as every game will be. And if any Kickstarter backer is pissed about it then... he needs to get a reality check. Also as Wasteland 2 will be DRM free, it just requires one guy who uploads the game to somewhere and that's it.

[Blodhemn]

I don't think I'd dare crack a Steam or Origin game even if it meant I couldn't use that game anymore. It's not worth risking the whole account.

That's ridiculous. My history would show that I purchased the game, why can't I use a workaround to make it run? I guess I'll just have to throw the original exe into the steam folder everytime I open steam just in case. Thanks for the heads up.

[Humodour]

I don't think I'd dare crack a Steam or Origin game even if it meant I couldn't use that game anymore. It's not worth risking the whole account.

That's ridiculous. My history would show that I purchased the game, why can't I use a workaround to make it run? I guess I'll just have to throw the original exe into the steam folder everytime I open steam just in case. Thanks for the heads up.

 

You don't own your Steam games, I don't think.

[pmp10]

I don't think I'd dare crack a Steam or Origin game even if it meant I couldn't use that game anymore. It's not worth risking the whole account.

That's ridiculous. My history would show that I purchased the game, why can't I use a workaround to make it run? I guess I'll just have to throw the original exe into the steam folder everytime I open steam just in case. Thanks for the heads up.

By cracking/hacking a game you break Steam EULA.

Moreover steam cracks often enable any DLCs and preorder bonuses available regardless of your owning them.

Pretty sure the same applies to Origin.

[Rostere]

I thought this was relevant to the discussion about Kickstarter in general: http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

 

Is Valve a successful model for an "independent" developer? Steam is generally thought of as "big business", but is it really what "independent" distribution of games would look like, scaled up? What if Steam would adopt the same ideas as GOG (for example, primarily ideas concerning DRM), would it work? Why isn't Steam and Valve the obvious partners for indie developers?

[Humanoid]

Not sure how it could adopt ideas from a platform that's almost its diametric opposite, at least in terms of the concept of game "ownership". Any move away from the current lock-in model would defeat the entire purpose of the Steam client and would presumably make it non-viable from a business perspective for new games.

 

Does Steam even have the capability to tag a game bought on the platform - presuming the company controlling it desires to - as independent of the client? i.e. for that particular release, Steam would just act as a download manager for a bunch of files.

 

Personally I'm the type who logs into Steam only for necessary updates, and logs back out as soon as the job's done.

 

 

 

This is parallel to the concerns I still have about other limitations, deliberate or otherwise, about the client. No direct control over installation locations, the flaky way it patches (redownloading massive files, ignoring the never-update flag, inability to roll back), incompatibility with expansions bought via alternative channels (I think this is particularly insidious). But I'm veering off-topic so I'll shut up.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Humanoid

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, the entire purpose of the steam client is to make sure that 'everyone' has valve's store installed on their computer ready, convenient and willing to sell stuff- that's been the basis of valve's business strategy since 2003. While it's certainly possible to make a game without the client linked habitual monitoring it is still needed for patching and dlc handling since valve changed its contract terms to exclude external patching and dlc handling (see Origin and Paradox Connect*). It's antithetical to a GOG like strategy no matter how warm and fluffy a fluff propaganda booklet makes them out to be. It's not that steam isn't important to indies, it certainly is as it has the largest market by far and there are all too many "No steam no sale" induhviduals out there to be ignored but it is important in the same way its direct equivalents are on the other non software consoles and walled garden marketplaces- captive audience, marketing, ease of selling.

 

Most of the kickstarters I've seen list a Steam copy and a DRM free one in their benefits anyway. Best of both worlds, let's fanboys fan and h8rs h8 without there really being a big issue.

 

*Anyone with the GG version of CK2 can see what the paradox based dlc handler would have looked like- its ingame store still refers to 'ducats' (Paradox's own virtual currency) in some places instead of 'blue coins'.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Zoraptor

[entrerix]

if steam never had holiday sales i would be in the steam-hate camp

 

but i can't hate something that lets me buy games for 90% off.

 

before steam there was no convenient way to buy insanely cheap games. so long as steam keeps doing what it does, then i love it, becuase it makes gaming a really cheap, convenient, and fun hobby.

[Tigranes]

but i can't hate something that lets me buy games for 90% off.

 

And that is the story of how Steam made itself immune to everything.

[Humodour]

but i can't hate something that lets me buy games for 90% off.

 

And that is the story of how Steam made itself immune to everything.

 

Is it a bad thing, though? I don't think so. It makes me buy games I wouldn't have otherwise bought, at a price so cheap that it doesn't matter if it is **** or if there's a risk of Steam going bankrupt and me losing all these games I thought I 'owned' (honestly if that happened I'd just hop on Pirate Bay).

 

Steam is largely immune to criticism because it makes all parties at least mostly happy and keeps them that way.

[Humanoid]

If it leaves people unable to cast a critical eye on the very real warts, of course. There are some people who go out and proclaim they won't even consider using another digital distribution service - not just currently worse ones like Origin, but all - and that's not a good way to go forward in terms of competition and innovation.

 

 

I see it as not being a million miles away from how Google is perceived. It's currently the best at what it does as its primary function, but there's also some creepy, questionable stuff going on behind that.

[Tigranes]

Is Steam 'bad' for delivering the services it does, in return for the restrictions it imposes and the way it impacts trends in the industry? Well, that's debatable, and I myself am undecided, though I dislike Steam.

 

Is the fact that Steam having the clout & resources to deliver such 'cheap deals' effectively excuses them from responding to gamers' concerns and wants bad? Yes, of course it's bad. Steam has done a lot of stuff that would piss a lot of people off (and currently has pissed some people off) but gets to do so because people will, quite understandably, partake of the deals they offer. I held out for a long time, but there are so many Steam-only titles now that it's even more difficult. I still buy games from Gamersgate, etc. whenever I can, but it's a bygone battle by this point.

[pmp10]

but i can't hate something that lets me buy games for 90% off.

 

And that is the story of how Steam made itself immune to everything.

 

Is it a bad thing, though? I don't think so. It makes me buy games I wouldn't have otherwise bought, at a price so cheap that it doesn't matter if it is **** or if there's a risk of Steam going bankrupt and me losing all these games I thought I 'owned' (honestly if that happened I'd just hop on Pirate Bay).

You could argue that it is a problem as many games sold in bundles (and at sub-5$ price range) never get seriously played.

This turns the entire industry on it's head - straight from entertainment to collectibles.

The end result is that we reward good sale timing far more than any actual quality.

 

And I don't buy it that Steam/Valve is somehow beyond criticism.

Maybe I just have very poor luck with them but all the problems I ran into are in no way recompensed by the occasional sales.

[Humodour]

Steam has done a lot of stuff that would piss a lot of people off

 

What? Besides requiring you to be online to use it?

 

Not that I believe there's nothing wrong with that - there is, and it's why I feel very 'meh' about Diablo 3 - but is a barely-tolerable form of DRM the only wrong thing Steam has done? Because it has done that since inception and only gotten better since, so if your gripe with Steam is only that, then it'd be good to establish that.

 

I can't remember who on these boards that I am quoting, but I've kept this quote for a while because I found it hilarious:

 

I love Steam, but I hear it's evil and a monopoly that will devour all digital distribution and send brick-and-mortar businesses out of business.

 

But those brick-and-mortar establishments have been mean to me for years. The last time I went into a video game store, they told me I couldn't pre-order a PC game. They'd get a shipment in (they didn't say how many) and I'd have to come in and hope I got a copy.

 

And Steam lets me back-up my games if I want a hard copy. And after I authorize my game I can play off-line. They have lots of sales, and their friends grouping lets me set up games of L4D2.

 

 

This is worse than when I found out Google was evil.

 

Evil should be like Microsoft: Annoying, buggy, inconvenient, and behind the curve!

 

 

 

[Oner]

Steam has done a lot of stuff that would piss a lot of people off

 

What? Besides requiring you to be online to use it?

Banning you from Steam and access to your games cause of a system error and refusing to care.

[Nepenthe]

Geographical pricing? Anticompetitive behaviour? Unbreakable monopoly due to lock-in? "Oh, I'll buy it on Steam even if it costs $ 5 more so I don't have to install another client" etc.

[Humanoid]

One is having poor fallbacks if that always-online model fails - one being having to go online to get into offline mode, and further, not having a contingency should the connection fail in other ways.

 

The other things that do bother me I've already outlined - non-existent version management (it recently for me decided on its own to redownload the entire 6GB of King's Bounty Crossworlds for a tiny update, and for those people who were silly enough to buy The Witcher 2 on it, it did something similar on the release of the first patch) and again, the forced incompatibility with other distribution systems when it comes to expansion packs. That's a win-win for them, if you buy the base game on Steam, you're locked in to their price for all future content. If you buy it elsewhere, you have to rebuy it on Steam should you want to move over to their system.

 

And yeah, that's before the complicity in the regional pricing scam - I can just barely let that slide because the options for them legally are to comply with the publisher's demands or not sell a particular product at all, but that in itself is perpetuating that ongoing scam. Yes, they chose the latter path because business is business, but it's definitely something that has a tangible negative impact on the average joe. And for whatever reason they feel like they should police that policy in the manner they are now - actively seeking out people using VPNs to bypass the anti-competitive behaviour, and locking out entire accounts for it.

 

Somewhat tangentially, I would like to compare this approach with the one adopted by independent film distributor Eureka (and their Masters of Cinema arthouse brand) who are similarly bound by contracts to enforce DVD/Blu-ray region restrictions. While this is of no impact to me personally since I use a HTPC which ignores region coding, I'm heartened to see them having convinced a few film studios to change their minds, and for the ones who persist, the splash message when you attempt to play the disc on a "wrong" region player explains their position and urges people to get in touch with the out-of-touch studios to voice their concerns. On the other hand, Criterion who roughly filfil the same market segment in the US market blindly region-lock every single one of their releases whether required by their contract or not. Suffice to say I always buy from the former if the same title is available from both.

 

 

At any rate, my preferred channel for new games remains the direct import model from the UK for reasons of both cost and principle, but I can see how some people may not be as patient as I am when it comes to new releases.

[Gorth]

Geographical pricing?

What's the current legislation on price fixing? I know I found a way to circumvent EA"s price fixing on ME3 (it lists one price on Origin until you log in and then adds almost 100% when you are down under), but you don't always have the option. The movie industry has been doing it for decades with their "region encoding" (sounds nicer than price fixing),

[Orchomene]

And non controllable update...

[Nepenthe]

Geographical pricing?

What's the current legislation on price fixing? I know I found a way to circumvent EA"s price fixing on ME3 (it lists one price on Origin until you log in and then adds almost 100% when you are down under), but you don't always have the option. The movie industry has been doing it for decades with their "region encoding" (sounds nicer than price fixing),

Let's not confound what is legal to what is being on the side of the angels.

[Tigranes]

Krezack you're conflating exactly the two arguments I was separating earlier. I'm not so interested in fighting over whether Steam is good or bad, since we've gone over that a lot of times. My concern is that Steam uses its low price points, exclusive deals with publishers and its carefully cultivated street cred to push a lot of 'features' that many gamers aren't keen on. Is it just capitalism at work? Sure. So what? Shouldn't make this a non-concern.

[entrerix]

tigranes is totally correct, if steam charged high prices for everything and never had sales i would own maybe 3-4 games on it, tops.

 

but because they offer games for awesomely low prices i ignore all the "features" i don't like about it *because it's worth it*

 

would i pay a premium for a better system? maybe, probably not though, i like my cheap games, it lets me try out more stuff that i would never have played otherwise. The moment steam starts being more of a hassle than the prices are worth though, i will stop using it. I don't use it out of love, but out of a desire to be miserly - which it facilitates quite well.

 

edit: oh, and sometimes I'm a "no steam, no buy" customer, because i want to spend $5 on the game, and i know for sure if it gets on steam, then sometime in the next 2 years, the game will be $5. If i actually want to pay full price for a game, then it doesn't really matter whether its on steam or not, so long as: if it has drm, the drm is not MORE restrictive than steam.

Edited April 25, 2012 by entrerix