Stationeers DRM-free? GOG? LAN?

[Wolf]

Will Stationeers be available without DRM or will it only be available through Steam? I would like to see a GOG.com release in the future. Will offline / LAN play be possible without DRM?

This game looks AWESOME, can't wait to get to play it! Thank you for sticking to you vision and having the guts to build such a hardcore game for such a small audiance.

[Sunspots]

As I undestand, the game is tied into steamworks as of right now. It gives a lot of convenient APIs for matchmaking, server list, connections, steam friends, savegame sync, workshop, etc.
Finding other solutions for some of these things, or making the game less dependant on these parts would add some cost for the developers.

We'll have to see if it's worth it for the fraction of an already potentially small market.
I agree with the sentiment of DRM free, but I prefer my games through steam anyway.

[Rocket]

As sunspots noted: the game is heavily integrated into steamworks out of simplicity. It's much more work for us to support multiple systems.

We haven't actively looked into DRM, as we don't think it is very effective against piracy and ends up simply annoying your legitimate customers. We anticipate the game to be updated so often over the next two years that any cracking group maintaining active releases will struggle anyway.

Offline play should be fine, but the game will require steam simply because so much what we're doing (even in singleplayer) requires steam to function. A good example is the steam workshop integration.

[Dinoabunai]

And you can play any singleplayer game on Steam in offline mode, if you played it at least once in online mode.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by rocket2guns:

As sunspots noted: the game is heavily integrated into steamworks out of simplicity. It's much more work for us to support multiple systems.

Did not think about that. Also i didn't think about mod-distribution. Thanks for the response. To clarify:

My initial thought was, that it easier to get people to play the game with you, if the can try it first in a limited environment without paying about 20-30$ for a game they will probably never play alone. So kinda like a demo version, which I think is important for games that are really complex like Factorio and Stationeers. But this also opens a lot of possibilities for pirates, unfortunately. Anyways, mod-distribution is more important than everything else! :D

Greetings

Edit: Also it may be against the EULA :(

[Rocket]

In reality, a pirated copy forms an "unsupported" demo. If the game remains niche, it will be difficult for us to support a demo. My belief is that many people who use a game "illegally" (say, sharing a DRM free copy with a friend), who enjoy it end up buying it.

Our integration with steam is really more about ease of development than DRM. So hopefully these kinds of things are still possible. Currently nearly all our decisions are about making development easier.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by rocket2guns:

My belief is that many people who use a game "illegally" (say, sharing a DRM free copy with a friend), who enjoy it end up buying it.

Yeah, hopefully.

Originally posted by rocket2guns:

Our integration with steam is really more about ease of development than DRM. So hopefully these kinds of things are still possible. Currently nearly all our decisions are about making development easier.

I didn't assume you are publishing on Steam because of the DRM. There is clearly huge amount of reasons to publish on Steam. The game would have a hard time if it wouldn't be released on Steam.

Its just my personal preference to look for the games in smaller stores, only if they dont have it i'll get it on Steam. But if there are a good reasons (and you gave a few!) than im totally fine with a Steam-only release.

Btw: Is this the only forum for Stationeers? I cant find a dedicated website for it.

Thanks for your answers!

[Coe⁧⁧✔️[Quality Control]]

Originally posted by rocket2guns:

In reality, a pirated copy forms an "unsupported" demo. If the game remains niche, it will be difficult for us to support a demo. My belief is that many people who use a game "illegally" (say, sharing a DRM free copy with a friend), who enjoy it end up buying it.

Good job using illegally in quotes. Pirating is at most, a civil offense IF it is proven in court.. Unless you're going out of your way to mass export & sell the stuff.

[SolarFlare1234]

Originally posted by rocket2guns:

As sunspots noted: the game is heavily integrated into steamworks out of simplicity. It's much more work for us to support multiple systems.

We haven't actively looked into DRM, as we don't think it is very effective against piracy and ends up simply annoying your legitimate customers. We anticipate the game to be updated so often over the next two years that any cracking group maintaining active releases will struggle anyway.

Offline play should be fine, but the game will require steam simply because so much what we're doing (even in singleplayer) requires steam to function. A good example is the steam workshop integration.

I think this is the only group of people who have ever considered DRM to be a horrible option due to everything that happens with the internet and authentication. Plus the fact that it can be bypassed easily. Fifty points to you guys, and -50 for EA.

[Shower Curtain Apparition]

Originally posted by rocket2guns:

As sunspots noted: the game is heavily integrated into steamworks out of simplicity. It's much more work for us to support multiple systems.

We haven't actively looked into DRM, as we don't think it is very effective against piracy and ends up simply annoying your legitimate customers. We anticipate the game to be updated so often over the next two years that any cracking group maintaining active releases will struggle anyway.

Offline play should be fine, but the game will require steam simply because so much what we're doing (even in singleplayer) requires steam to function. A good example is the steam workshop integration.

go ahead and expect 2-4 copies purchased from me for my friends. But i still stand by what i mentione din another post, there needs to be plenty of roles for me to drop ss13. I doubt this game will ever replace ss13 but i'm just done with the limitations of ss13's engine. I paid way too much money on my pc and something are btter left a memory.

[Excitable Boy]

No friggen Denuvo!

[supernet2]

Thats upsetting. I was really hoping to see this game get some sorta DRM free build or at least steam as a delivery platform but still DRM free so that we can play on say a closed network. Doesn't help for my computer game room for me and the kids.

[Rocket]

The issue is that steam provides us a lot of features that we simply cannot afford to add ourselves. As I noted several years ago for this project it is really just a "marriage of necessity" at this point.

We would love to have the game run independent of steam, but it would complicate our deployment process much more. This would make our build process longer, etc...

It's something we are looking at working towards, but we would have to uncouple the existing game from its dependence on Steam.

If we manage to negotiate the product onto another platform (say, Xbox or Origin) then as a bonus we would be doing all the hard work of removing dependence on steam - and get a DRM free version of the game.

Incidentally, this actually causes me frustration when testing the deployed versions of our products as well - as I will often want to run two copies at once on the same steam account but different computers... So you're not the only one frustrated!

[supernet2]

What would be the estimated costs to get more manpower to help with such implementation? I'm open to helping out with campaigning regarding kickstarter to bolster funds to help get the hands on support just for that functionality.