that new DLC........

[Epiok Queen]

oh wow like i don't want to bad mouth this game because i love it so much but a "micro-transaction" yeah i'm calling it that for some item skins O.o no new spirits, no new quests is kind of a joke......

[Rhyono]

The DLC is all cosmetic, while simultaneously releasing free content with new spirits. Not being forced to buy the "micro-transaction" in order to enjoy the real content, but having the option of supporting them if you're really into decorations seems like the best compromise.

[Psyringe]

Inevitably, if developers release cosmetic DLC, someone will show up to complain that "the DLC doesn't add anything worthwhile".

Inevitably, if developers release DLC with meaningful additions to the game, someone will show up to complain about "the devs ripping content out of the game to sell it extra".

Inevitably, if developers don't release any DLC, someone will show up to complain about "the devs abandoning the game".

In the end, the devs are offering more stuff for more money, and everyone can decide for themselves whether they consider it worth buying. If cosmetic DLC doesn't interest you, then no one is forcing you to buy it.

Do you complain about every product that targets a different audience? I mean, for example, I have abolutely no interest in car accessories - but I would never get the idea to post public threads complaining about them being offered and sold. You're free to post any kind of complaint you want, of course, I just don't really understand the rationale behind it.

[erosas]

No one is forcing you to buy it and you don't need it to advance the game in any way. Just because you wanted content and they're releasing cosmetics doesn't make it a "micro-transaction".

[roach]

they just added 3 new spirits for free in the new update. would you rather them make you pay to play with new spirits (which would be an actual micro-transaction), or keep the paid content purely cosmetic? or would you rather them paywall the entire update, because thats what im getting from this post.

buy it or dont, but quit complaining about optional content that doesnt affect the gameplay. its there purely to support the devs for continuing to work on the game.

[Eruend]

Originally posted by erosas:

No one is forcing you to buy it and you don't need it to advance the game in any way. Just because you wanted content and they're releasing cosmetics doesn't make it a "micro-transaction".

I mean... I get what you mean and I'm not here to complain or anything, but in the strictest sense, that DLC is by very definition a micro-transaction. XD

[Whitemage87]

Originally posted by Eruend:

Originally posted by erosas:

No one is forcing you to buy it and you don't need it to advance the game in any way. Just because you wanted content and they're releasing cosmetics doesn't make it a "micro-transaction".

I mean... I get what you mean and I'm not here to complain or anything, but in the strictest sense, that DLC is by very definition a micro-transaction. XD

If we're going to nitpick about it, micro-transactions require one to "purchase virtual goods with micropayments within a game", the purchase is made through the steam store, not via a method within the game (such as an in-game shop), so it is not a micro-transaction.

[Whitemage87]

Originally posted by Epiok Queen:

oh wow like i don't want to bad mouth this game because i love it so much but a "micro-transaction" yeah i'm calling it that for some item skins O.o no new spirits, no new quests is kind of a joke......

But... the new spirits were added for free for everyone... how is that worse than having to pay for it as part of the DLC?

[Iwashi]

it's just cosmetics my guy.

[pp]

I agree with you OP. The developer is greedy af. We're hardly out the gate and this thing has two DLCs that cost half of the total game price.

He's very concerned about people stealing DLC and asked me to remove information from my modding guide that was too "hacky." I never suggested stealing DLC obviously because it's illegal and modders don't do that. Still, very important to make sure everyone doesn't know how to mod because they might figure out how to steal his precious DLC money.

https://i.imgur.com/ukfsHyl.png

[Reminant]

Originally posted by pp:

I agree with you OP. The developer is greedy af. We're hardly out the gate and this thing has two DLCs that cost half of the total game price.

He's very concerned about people stealing DLC and asked me to remove information from my modding guide that was too "hacky." I never suggested stealing DLC obviously because it's illegal and modders don't do that. Still, very important to make sure everyone doesn't know how to mod because they might figure out how to steal his precious DLC money. :undyne:

https://i.imgur.com/ukfsHyl.png

The image you posted of your discussion shows the developer being very chill about it. Calling them "greedy af" for wanting to protect a time investment from those that would rather unlock them via modding free is pretty crazy. This is a pretty blatant call out and doesn't reflect on anything you said via your messages. They created a game and are allowed to choose if the monetize something they spent time on. The ability to unlock something free is something that would be on someones mind even if they did want to give the dev more money for a wonderful product. Someone recently got in trouble for a guide to unlock twitch drops on cyberpunk 2077. Different matter but it cheapens the efforts of those who brought themselves to cyberpunk streams for several hours to win their prize.

Anyways, the tl;dr is that it's ridiculous that you are attacking the dev for trying to protect a investment they chose to monetize. They didn't even try to ask you to take it down. Just change it.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by pp:

I agree with you OP. The developer is greedy af. We're hardly out the gate and this thing has two DLCs that cost half of the total game price.

He's very concerned about people stealing DLC and asked me to remove information from my modding guide that was too "hacky." I never suggested stealing DLC obviously because it's illegal and modders don't do that. Still, very important to make sure everyone doesn't know how to mod because they might figure out how to steal his precious DLC money. :undyne:

https://i.imgur.com/ukfsHyl.png

Honestly, that sounds like a rather butthurt interpretation of what looks like a fairly reasonable and open-minded stance from the developer.

The stance that the dev took in this conversation, is actually more open-minded than Steam's own stance. In other forums, I've had posts getting deleted (by Steam moderators) in which I told people how to fix an issue with the game by editing an INI file. I was informed that that violated Steam's policies and that any discussion that involved modifying game files was not permitted. And that was on the forum of a game from the Civilization franchise, which has a long and rich tradition of modding.

Personally, I find it rather absurd to remove information that helps people troubleshoot technical issues, but this is Valve's place, so it's in their right to make the rules. I suppose it was one of these cases where Valve just doesn't want to concern itself with having to check which file edits are helpful and which ones might be problematic, so they just treated _all_ edits as problematic.

Whereas the dev in the conversation that you screenshotted was encouraging modding and hoped that you could get your guide back up, he just asked kindly if you could remove information that could be exploited to pirate the DLC content. And you seemed fine with that, you didn't even try to argue for keeping that information in the guide. But now you go behind their back and complain publicly about "greed"? That seems rather strange to me.

[pp]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Originally posted by pp:

I agree with you OP. The developer is greedy af. We're hardly out the gate and this thing has two DLCs that cost half of the total game price.

He's very concerned about people stealing DLC and asked me to remove information from my modding guide that was too "hacky." I never suggested stealing DLC obviously because it's illegal and modders don't do that. Still, very important to make sure everyone doesn't know how to mod because they might figure out how to steal his precious DLC money.

https://i.imgur.com/ukfsHyl.png

Honestly, that sounds like a rather butthurt interpretation of what looks like a fairly reasonable and open-minded stance from the developer.

The stance that the dev took in this conversation, is actually more open-minded than Steam's own stance. In other forums, I've had posts getting deleted (by Steam moderators) in which I told people how to fix an issue with the game by editing an INI file. I was informed that that violated Steam's policies and that any discussion that involved modifying game files was not permitted. And that was on the forum of a game from the Civilization franchise, which has a long and rich tradition of modding.

Personally, I find it rather absurd to remove information that helps people troubleshoot technical issues, but this is Valve's place, so it's in their right to make the rules. I suppose it was one of these cases where Valve just doesn't want to concern itself with having to check which file edits are helpful and which ones might be problematic, so they just treated _all_ edits as problematic.

Whereas the dev in the conversation that you screenshotted was encouraging modding and hoped that you could get your guide back up, he just asked kindly if you could remove information that could be exploited to pirate the DLC content. And you seemed fine with that, you didn't even try to argue for keeping that information in the guide. But now you go behind their back and complain publicly about "greed"? That seems rather strange to me.

Well, unfortunately for Valve and those developers, the law says I and anyone else who owns this game can modify the files as much as we desire as we all purchased it and own the license. If you want to protect your DLC, you should work harder to obfuscate it instead of doing it improperly. No one gave away his DLC anyway besides crackers which has nothing to do with modding anyway and they distribute files elsewhere/not on Nexus or Steam workshop.

Also, Valve is not going to touch your account over modifying a single-player game. I've posted modding guides on Steam before and they don't care about single-player games obviously. Were you editing something with online services? If so, should be obvious why you can't mess with a game that relies on that and why this game is different.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by pp:

Well, unfortunately for Valve and those developers, the law says I and anyone else who owns this game can modify the files as much as we desire as we all purchased it and own the license.

I'm sorry, but which law exactly are you referring to? Because different countries handle this in different ways, and at least in the US and EU, making modifications that circumvent any form of copyright protection would be considered illegal.

For the US, see 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems (it's part of the DMCA). For the EU, see Directive 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Both legislative texts contain so-called "anti-circumvention" provisions, and explicitly state that no one but the rights holder is allowed to affect digital protection measures (with exceptions for research, preservation, and compatibility, but not for private users). Owning a license to use the software explicitly does not give users a right to affect or even analyze its protection measures.

This has never been contested in court in the context of modding so far (as far as I'm aware), but if it ever came to an actual case, I don't see how the modder could win. (Very unfortunately so, I might add, as I have been very active in various modding communities myself and find these laws unnecessarily overbearing.)

So if the information that you shared contained an analysis of json files that _could_ be used to circumvent protection measures of DLC, then you may be on much thinner ice than you realize.

Originally posted by pp:

If you want to protect your DLC, you should work harder to obfuscate it instead of doing it improperly.

It doesn't matter if the protection is "weak" or the developer "should have worked harder on it" - neither US nor EU law cares about that. That's an argument on the same level as "the car wasn't locked and the key lay on the backseat, so it was okay for me to take it." You'd be laughed out of court with a line of argument like that.

Originally posted by pp:

Also, Valve is not going to touch your account over modifying a single-player game. I've posted modding guides on Steam before and they don't care about single-player games obviously. Were you editing something with online services? If so, should be obvious why you can't mess with a game that relies on that and why this game is different.

Valve has never stated that their policy against file modifications pertains to multiplayer games only. If they did, then I would appreciate a link.

What Valve wants (as far as I can tell), is to be free of any responsibility _if_ any publisher ever sees a problem with file modifications and actually goes to court. And they want to have this safety without having to spend time and money analyzing the content in question. Both stances are very consistent with Valve's handling of copyright and related issues over the years. Obviously, the easiest way of achieving such safety without much effort is to disallow the discussion of file modifications in their forum, which Valve has the right to - this is their place. I agree that they won't "touch accounts" for that, but they can (and in many cases have) remove any information they deem potentially problematic.

Also, to answer your question - no, the edit that I had suggested in the Civilization forum was not linked to any online features. It was a simple edit to an ini file to change a setting that wasn't available in the game's options menu, and it would have fixed the technical problem that the respective thread starter had reported. The post was removed with the explicit reasoning that discussion of file edits is not permitted on Steam. Distinctions like single- vs multiplayer games were not made, nor have I seen Valve making them in any other communication.

[pp]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Originally posted by pp:

Well, unfortunately for Valve and those developers, the law says I and anyone else who owns this game can modify the files as much as we desire as we all purchased it and own the license.

I'm sorry, but which law exactly are you referring to? Because different countries handle this in different ways, and at least in the US and EU, making modifications that circumvent any form of copyright protection would be considered illegal.

For the US, see 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems (it's part of the DMCA). For the EU, see Directive 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Both legislative texts contain so-called "anti-circumvention" provisions, and explicitly state that no one but the rights holder is allowed to affect digital protection measures (with exceptions for research, preservation, and compatibility, but not for private users). Owning a license to use the software explicitly does not give users a right to affect or even analyze its protection measures.

This has never been contested in court in the context of modding so far (as far as I'm aware), but if it ever came to an actual case, I don't see how the modder could win. (Very unfortunately so, I might add, as I have been very active in various modding communities myself and find these laws unnecessarily overbearing.)

So if the information that you shared contained an analysis of json files that _could_ be used to circumvent protection measures of DLC, then you may be on much thinner ice than you realize.

Originally posted by pp:

If you want to protect your DLC, you should work harder to obfuscate it instead of doing it improperly.

It doesn't matter if the protection is "weak" or the developer "should have worked harder on it" - neither US nor EU law cares about that. That's an argument on the same level as "the car wasn't locked and the key lay on the backseat, so it was okay for me to take it." You'd be laughed out of court with a line of argument like that.

Originally posted by pp:

Also, Valve is not going to touch your account over modifying a single-player game. I've posted modding guides on Steam before and they don't care about single-player games obviously. Were you editing something with online services? If so, should be obvious why you can't mess with a game that relies on that and why this game is different.

Valve has never stated that their policy against file modifications pertains to multiplayer games only. If they did, then I would appreciate a link.

What Valve wants (as far as I can tell), is to be free of any responsibility _if_ any publisher ever sees a problem with file modifications and actually goes to court. And they want to have this safety without having to spend time and money analyzing the content in question. Both stances are very consistent with Valve's handling of copyright and related issues over the years. Obviously, the easiest way of achieving such safety without much effort is to disallow the discussion of file modifications in their forum, which Valve has the right to - this is their place. I agree that they won't "touch accounts" for that, but they can (and in many cases have) remove any information they deem potentially problematic.

Also, to answer your question - no, the edit that I had suggested in the Civilization forum was not linked to any online features. It was a simple edit to an ini file to change a setting that wasn't available in the game's options menu, and it would have fixed the technical problem that the respective thread starter had reported. The post was removed with the explicit reasoning that discussion of file edits is not permitted on Steam. Distinctions like single- vs multiplayer games were not made, nor have I seen Valve making them in any other communication.

They allow you to post guides on modding though. I'm not sure what you mean. I've actually posted mods directly to Valve's forums before that were bug fixes that were approved by developers and it was fine. I think maybe you were just having your posts deleted by developers and not Valve. I've also seen people maintain unofficial language mods on Steam forums before just in a thread for many multiple months and Valve had no interest in deleting it (nor did developers.) I know Valve employees saw it before because they would scroll past it while deleting other rule-breaking threads that were unrelated.

It's not any sort of Valve rule - their only rule is basically just that you don't advertise outside mods on other websites here and advise people to go there essentially. Just posting your own mod though may be fine if the developers are fine with it - and posting how to mod your own files is also fine, again, if the developers are fine with it. They mostly moderate their own forums here.