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RIP
Quoted for truth.
It's why I didn't even bother to buy watch dogs on steam but on uplay. I've got other TM's on steam so I want this one there too, I always close all the rest except steam if I'm not playing but even though, the only problem I notice nowadays is when steam is updating a game or decoding a preload.
This "DRM" factor isn't even intrusive anymore. I get that it's annoying that you have to make an account on yet another platform. I was annoyed by
The advantage of these digital platforms is that it's doing nothing fishy to your pc hardware like some cd copyright.
Modders should be getting the opportunity to earn money. A great example of that is black mesa. If you see a mod like payday's hoxhud: which is constantly maintained and updated, can you say with a straight face that it doesn't deserve money ? That guy doesn't ask money from it, he'll probably get noticed and some of his stuff will be incorporated in the game as a result.
BTW do you realize that modders are often the game developers of tomorrow ? Do you think a modder will want to do software stuff for free for his entire life ? No, people who mod either remain hobbyists and they'll have other income and have a passion for modding. But the game industry can't survive with that alone. There's also professionals who need to make the games for those hobbyists to mod.
I always think it's one dimensional if you expect something to be for free and then act disgruntled if there's a hint that they are going to make money.
So yes I will even clap if a modder has gained such a reputation that he can use modding as a spring board to his professional career. Listen to lots of the guys that are asked "where did your career in the gaming industry start" ? They won't say they were caring for horses in the farm of their father one day and suddenly an EA staffer comes by and say "hey we hear you're so good with horses, can you come work for us and make software" ?
Don't go call people "weak minded" because they don't follow your views on the gaming industry, dogmatic christians do that also and always have the prorogative of viewing their side as one truth. But there's many truths. It's also not all negative.
You can label a site or program that requires an account and online validation as DRM, and put that as an excuse to demonize it. That's easy, Just like saying DLC is inherently bad. But they've never been so streamined. So that's a positive.
Have you missed the part where I said it's kind of annoying ? But today, having an account on these platforms isn't worse than having a facebook, twitter, reddit or 4chan. You make it once and you're done. It's true that you need to manage all these accounts but it's not such a hassle and it certainly doesn't pose danger.
What's wrong with DRM platform if it works well and doesn't conflict with other platforms ?
I try to see the positive side of things which is not "weak minded". But is it mainstream today to polarize everyone on one side of the other ? If you like some dlc and do a critical analysis of why some hate is unjustified due to an economic reality, that suddenly doesn't make you a peasant.
You assume a trackmania account is also DRM, but it's mainly used to link all your maniaplanet activities to you. It would be cool if Nadeo could adopt ubisoft accounts, like EA does with their games. But trackmania has long been a game published by Focus and there it developed it's unique trait. The whole manialink system is so nested in the game that it would take considerable time to change, and they'd rather spend that money and time into developing further games for maniaplanet. Like there's still a questmania on their plate.
TMT will come out on consoles. I dont have information at this point if console users are going to be able to use their PSN account for trackmania. Someone would have to come here and explain.
But can a game company protect their own software from not being flooded with accounts using services they're not entitled to ? Trackmania has had accounts since the beginning, in 2003.
I'm a white knight of software industry in general, where people work day in day out to deliver great games :P Gaming is a business that costs money, and companies try to protect their investments. They're not sitting idly by when people's DRM wll grind their system to a halt. They must make it work to be profitable.
If these things would really conflict, players will complein don't worry. It was the same with starforce, that had a crazy amount of problems and this type of DRM wasn't tolerated any longer so most game companies stopped using it.
If it's going to harm their sales they'll have to find a new way.
Maybe I'm used to dongles and copy protection form working with software from the music industry and this is not such a principal problem of me. After all the game that you play is never yours, you're only licensed to play by paying for it.
Do I think it could all be more streamlined yeah, but I just personally don't have such a problem with it. After all is said and done, all these platforms make for a great locker for your games :) You're gonna need much more people complaining about what is fundamentally wrong with it. Which isn't so much the drm aspect because that actually works great. It's just a hassle.
Perhaps we can agree that sometimes conflicting overlays cause problems for streaming on steam but
I can start battle.net (blizzard's platform) and stream heroes of hte storm on steam. The same with origin and dead space 3. But it doesn't work with watch dogs. With far cry : blood dragon (a game i have on steam but uses uplay), it also works.
Those little inconveniences are about the only "real" problems caused by each of those platform's overlay features.
I kinda wish that would be solved in dx12, but it's not that I can say it causes much drama for me.
Problem is that almost nobody wants them. They exist only because gamers are hipocrytes. They hate DLC, every time they say that they won't buy next CoD or bugged Assasin Creed etc. But every time we can hear that these games has been sold in many milions of copies. They use Uplay, Origin only because they must to play some game. It doesn't metter that they hate DRM, thousand od DLC, that the game is bugged they will still pay and play that. That's why I hate whole gaming industry. Is getting worse and worse. Gamers complain about that but they still helping to make it even worse.....
If almost nobody would buy games with DRM then most of the developers would not use them in game. For normall player is much easier to use torrent without annoying DRM or GOG version.
The best way to show you how "needed" are DRM then go see SimCity. on the premiere almost nobody could play comfortly for several weeks. Not to mention that they disabled, blocked and reduced many options that were unlocked later by mods. Pirates could play this without any problem just after premiere.
That same problem after premiere had some Assasin Creed.
Whole Game for WIndows Live wasn't live too long. After it was abandomed many games had disabled ability to play multi-player :(
DRM is not definitely for gamer. Wise guy will use pirate or GOG version of game. Less problem and he don't need install another stupid platform for one or two games
I don't think Steam is actually DRM. It's platform with a lot of great features. It's up to developer if he want use steam's DRM features or not - even Half-Life 2 is drm-free game.
GoG is using DRM-Free as marketing word. There analog for Steam is Galaxy (and can be used as loose 'DRM' too - some games will be unable to use online multiplayer if there is no Galaxy installed).
Uplay is layer of software that is absolutely unneded for any steam user as steam is superior in every way - this is where we have game library, friends and customized community pages. Thus people don't want Uplay on top of it - it brings nothing but inconvenience.
Half life 2 will start steam if you didn't start it before. Taking that at face value: That sounds like DRM behaviour right ? Even dreamfall chapters (which is a drm free game) will just start steam if you launch the exe and steam ain't started yet. This should however not be a problem because on its own, steam isn't intrusive in any way. You got way more intrusive dongle based software out there, Elicenser, or Ilok, and even in the music industry, big companies are now starting to use their own "license platforms" where all your licenses are centralized and managed with an online activation scheme that is streamlined and sleek.
With recent games you rarely don't hear about these harsh types of DRM anymore that lets you activate the games for 5 times and then you have to call customer support.
It's exactly BECAUSE of the very platforms (uplay, origin) that this practices will be 100% gone soon and they are no longer including these forms of DRM because with a platform like Uplay they can do their online (account based) licansing themself without the need to verify that you are you.
There are some problems with people misreading into this whole DRM thing as "only bad" just becaue there were a few caveats. I'm not dismissing the problems, but these problems aren't so legion anymore. And pirates are going to pirate, it's no excuse to start dismissing companies wanting to track their users' account and legitimacy. Because it offers more benefit than just "anti piracy". You pay for your game and they offer you services beyond just DRM. Why should they offer this to pirates anyway ? I find this whole "DRM victim blaming" a bit of a weird issue. Yes there have been problems but I don't feel you should make any excuse to not buy a game. Let the pirates be pirates. DRM or no DRM, they'll play games for free because of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reasons anyway, because they think they're entitled to it.
I don't mind the criteque that creating an account on all these platforms is a bit of a hassle, but to blame companies of making intrusive drm with their platforms, that's a bit oldfacioned. They work together well. I'm living proof of that.
Besides, people should also try to view positive examples as valid and not only negative. Creating a negative idea today seems to be more popular than saying hey it's all great for me. But ultimately I'd rather be fair and see advantages rather than be downright negative. This is why I can tell you I'm not a hypocrite about that. I told many times that I found it a hassle, but nowadays these platforms offer more advantages than restrictions.
The issue is, that people who are long term steam users have the perception of steam as the "one and only". I have that too for a part. Cause I won't use my uplay and origin account for making friends. In fact, but I'm not in the business of adding much friends anyway. In fact the only reason I added friends on steam was because I was kind of deeply involved with the left 4 dead community, that's where all my friends come from.
Try to imagine imagine today, that there'll be people who are only playing EA games and they see origin as their basic platform and make friends on that. Their games run well and they build their friendslist on that platform. Then they discover steam :).
I mean, I was there when steam was a year old and made an account (11+ years of service). I was glad that I could buy all my games on steam, steam was the one and only. But now, I adapt. I don't see the other platforms as threatening in anyway. Why should you, they cause little to no problem whatsoever.
About the whole DLC and microtransaction stuff I want to say this. Game companies are blamed for no reason, and other companies (because of a few things gone wrong in the past) are being demonized. You can blame EA of starting microtransactions but guess who is earning lots of their money from hats, cosmetics and other microtransactions ? You can blame companies baiting people to do digital pre orders, but guess who invented it ? (you're going to be so surprised). SOME DLC is bad, but not all of it. You have to see this per case, and not project it on the entire industry as "bad".
So these companies that somehow did a bad thing in the past are being blamed but the ones that is reaping massive fruit from so called "unwanted" activities that a vocal minority is raging on. It all ties into the perception of who we tolerate stuff from and who we don't, but it's usually based on mythical thinking. Too much people take the rage of a few as truth and project it on the entire industry which isn't really fair too, you could say that's hypocrite as well.
Most of users like steam because of the all features that it have. Not to mention that most of the people have friends not on origin/uplay but on steam. If they buy some Ubisoft game on steam they don't wanna be forced to open two platform to play some game. They only want steam. If they would want use uplay/origin they would buy game there not on steam. This is simple and logical. If someon buy game on steam that mean he don't want other platform and what that mean he don't want use two platform to play some game. It's nice when we have a choice. But is f***** bad when you choose steam but they still force you to use their platform too. That's why there is so many haters about this. They don't have a choice. There are people who prefer no drm (even if this is non invasive platform for games). That people use pirates or gog BUT they have a choice. If they must decided between steam+second platform that they don't want or only second platform they don't want then is high propability that they will pirate this game.
There will be always people who will pirate even if GTA 5 would cost 0,01euro. But there still exist group of people who are pirates only because game have high price. Just go see whole humble bundle action.
I have a friend that were 100% pirates. After shown up of this whole bundle action some of them bought several bundles even if they never bought any original game only because it was cheap.
Some people pirate games just to check if they are worth to buy it because they are not rich. They don't want buy something that they won't like it.
Other pirate because is just not worth to buy it or developer treat people as a sack of money. They release game full of holes, bugs DLC or forcing to use not wanted thing like for exaple platform or annoying DRM.
That's why don't imply that every pirate is a thief even if most of them pirate games only because they can.
BTW. You are forcing me to write very long comments even if my english have long way to be good
So: Yeah, I'm ofcourse not talking about these pirates who do it because they aren't able to play games due to DRM or prices, and I know both frustrations. I've been a bit like the inverse type. I sometimes would buy a game and then install a no cd patch. But I always bought the game. If the software didn't work, I installed a no cd patch.
But how much can you say that this needed nowadays ? especially in recent games.
The price is also an issue but publishers do a great job by lowering prices in what they call tier 2 european countries. Russia, Romania etc...
But then you get these exploit sites where everyone can buy keys that are intended for those countries and everyone is like .. draining the meaning. By that I mean, that these games won't arrive at the people who they are meant for. Buying games cheap is OK if they're offered cheap on steam and if you have notices, nowhere in the economy is there more sales than in gaming nowadays. We're in a good place for our hobby.
Indie games are cheap almost by nature. I sometimes feel a bit sorry for people like Red Thread Games that they can't ask more for dreamfall chapters, which is a gargantuan project to manage for a team of 10 people. What they pulled off is amazing. But if you see the price of that game, it seems like it's a second hand bargain bin offer. Which sometimes I feel a littlebit ashamed of.
People who are going to always buy from g2a should realize they are stealing from markets that the games are intended for. The profit of these markets (because they DO make profit) DOESN't go to a game developer but in the pockets of those market switchers. Which I find morally injust. But players don't seem to care about this.
I'm curious to see if lots of the people who complain about dlc and games in general have a SLI system with 2 expensive viceocards.
There's lots of hypocricy in the gaming world yeah but it goes both ways.
I'm happy to spend $50 on a game that I find entertaining. I'm also happy that "poor people" in these countries can buy the game at a price that is for them. Then when you see sites like g2a pop up, I'm saying "this is why we can't have nice things"
And we wonder why companies want to keep track of who's playing their games. Surely they don't want to see their investments go down a wormhole. If they have a platform that offers their game, it's the best of both worlds. They give you a centralized accounts to have all your licenses on, and they know its you. So they don't need to create "stupid intrusive DRM" anymore, because you log in to your account and they know you own this or that game.
Also, they can use delemetry from that. Who plays the games, how long, and do you like it. It's an information agreggate. All those benefits to me are still more positive than negative. But that's my personal oppinion thought. Everyone can think what they want but unless a big majority is "fine" with a practice (that evolved in a positive way over the years), then companies aren't going to change.
There's always arguments to the contrary, but I can't find any for myself because I simply don't think that way. To me it's very simple. If it works, don't blame it that it works. Unless it works against you :P
All things considered, you shouldn't need Steam to play the game at all, and you would just be able to play it solely via uPlay if you wish. In this case, Steam is simply acting as the 'store' selling the game.
I'll be trying to get a physical copy of the game, so that I know that whenever the uPlay service is inevitably discontinued (Just like any other service), I will still be able to install the game and play it.
Even a school dropout with a passion of gaming can tell you that. So it's a bit more nuanced than that.
You're obviously not in for multiple accounts on all these platforms. That's fine, I'm also not even trying to convince, but I try to put other views to the table than "this is 100% bad".
Fundamentalist views don't get you anywhere and I've not heard a real reason from you other than "DRM". Which I just try to soften up a bit, situationally. One DRM isn't the other.
If the insulting comes, One of the things I'm always curious about with people who are so rooted in their oppinions, is what they are NOT saying to the public :P