Did anyone at Valve comment about the Tron: Evolution issue?

[Waifu4Life]

I don't own this game personally, but I do own a handful of games with DRM in them besides Steam itself. If Steam's policy is for users to be able to redownload and install any games they've purchased in the past regardless if they're delisted, this situation should make them aware that this will not always make it possible.

New policies should be put in places in regards of any publishers wishing to use 3rd party DRM in their games to prevent this from happening again. Something like after 1 year, get rid of the DRM or grab a higher % cut from publishers wishing to use DRM in order to refund customers if a scenario like Tron: Evolution presents itself again.

[Komrade]

If this is added many developers will simply leave Steam. DRM games have been around for a very long time, it won't change.

[Satoru]

This isn't new

1) Securom was already deprecated in windows 10 meaning you couldnt run it on windows 10 anyway because microsoft removed the underlying kernel support

2) this functionally is little different than an MMO simply 'dying' because the servers go offline. the game was removed from the store in April.

Steam isn't going to mak ea 'statement' for every game that goes offline for whatever reason the publisher decides to. You're free to go scream at disney about it.

[Kargor]

Valve doesn't care about what's in the store.

Also, what COULD they even do? Kick the game out? Oh... wait, the game is already out of the store. Kick the publisher out? That might work, but it won't make the game work again...

[Zekiran]

Publishers and developers are responsible for their products working after bits get removed from them.

If they didn't fix the issue before, they're certainly not going to now.

[Waifu4Life]

Satoru の投稿を引用：

This isn't new

1) Securom was already deprecated in windows 10 meaning you couldnt run it on windows 10 anyway because microsoft removed the underlying kernel support

2) this functionally is little different than an MMO simply 'dying' because the servers go offline. the game was removed from the store in April.

Steam isn't going to mak ea 'statement' for every game that goes offline for whatever reason the publisher decides to. You're free to go scream at disney about it.

MMOs are obviously the exception to the rule because it was never meant to be played offline in the first place. Tron: Evolution is not a MMO, so besides plain anti-consumerism on Disney's part, there's no reason why people aren't able to play this game now. As for as I know, this is the first time a non-MMO from Steam is no longer playable, hopefully, this will raise awareness.

This is exactly why I if a game I own on Steam is released on a DRM-Free platform like GOG, I'll double dip and buy it there.

christmaS の投稿を引用：

If this is added many developers will simply leave Steam. ...

Considering how large the PC market has gotten in the past few years, I doubt it. Ex-consoles players like myself pretty much woke-up one day and realized that there was no longer any point into "owning" half-finished games on discs and went the PC Master Race way for cheaper prices and more control.

Kargor の投稿を引用：

Valve doesn't care about what's in the store.

Also, what COULD they even do? Kick the game out? Oh... wait, the game is already out of the store. Kick the publisher out? That might work, but it won't make the game work again...

Zekiran の投稿を引用：

Publishers and developers are responsible for their products working after bits get removed from them.

If they didn't fix the issue before, they're certainly not going to now.

You both missed the point of the topic. It's clearly too late for Tron: Evolution, but the goal is to prevent this again by telling publishers to remove extra DRM after a while.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

This is not the first game that either didn't renew the music license or didn't have one to begin with.

Blame Disney. They have the money to fix this. I'm sure the Avengers money alone could cover it.

[Zekiran]

the_importer の投稿を引用：

You both missed the point of the topic. It's clearly too late for Tron: Evolution, but the goal is to prevent this again by telling publishers to remove extra DRM after a while.

Then tell the publishers.

Because this is still not a Steam problem.

[Gambit-3k]

the_importer の投稿を引用：

You both missed the point of the topic. It's clearly too late for Tron: Evolution, but the goal is to prevent this again by telling publishers to remove extra DRM after a while.

No, it's not too late. Disney have said they are looking into patching the issue. Hopefully they live up to their word. Sadly they probably wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't for the backlash.

This isn't the first time a game has broken after release and sometimes it has nothing to do with DRM. Batman: Arkham Asylum was migrated to the Steam API after it stopped working with games for window live. Arma 2 stopped working because gamespy was shut down, and again it was migrated to the Steam API. Developers need to patch out SecuRom. Sometimes companies just use the crack developed by others to fix their games (especially on GOG). I have a game Xpand Rally where users were having trouble using the provided keys, customers had to sort out the issue themselves by editing the registry with a developer provided universal key or something. You have to look in the games discussions to find this out.

The bottom line is, even if Steam didn't allow explicit 3rd party DRM, issues like this could still occur when services used by the game shut down. I wish these intrusive DRM solutions weren't allowed, but even then, cases of games breaking would still occur. If Steam never existed, this would be an even bigger issue since Steam at least helped implement a standard that most publishers adopted. People might not remember what it was like before Steam, but every game had it's own crackpot method for authorizing a game on PC (some good, some bad).

edit: I don't want to seem unsympathetic to what the OP is saying. I would love if all games on Steam only used it's services in the same way console platforms operate (with exception to EA for some reason). I have more thoughts on this issue regarding end of life support for games, I feel it is a genuine issue, I just don't know if Valve can solve it alone at this point. At least games on Steam can be fixed the same way games sold outside of it can (if solutions exist), plus the discussion boards give a place to make finding these solutions easier.

[Zekiran]

Yeah at least Steam is an option for the now-defunct ones, a few I know of from the gamespy era were given over here.

[SeansShow]

Gambit-3 の投稿を引用：

the_importer の投稿を引用：

You both missed the point of the topic. It's clearly too late for Tron: Evolution, but the goal is to prevent this again by telling publishers to remove extra DRM after a while.

No, it's not too late. Disney have said they are looking into patching the issue. Hopefully they live up to their word. Sadly they probably wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't for the backlash.

This, what gambit says. Some people just want to make drama for drama's sake and skip over a publisher's own response saying the issue will be fixed. It's massive ignorance to not even research it, not even look at a developers own response and cut straight to pulling information out of your own backside. They wouldnt have done anything without a backlash because they wouldn't have known anything about it.

Can only speak for myself but I've had umpteen games on Steam by bigger companies, LA Noire and RF Armageddon as recent examples broken by OS updates, its taken them a good month or so generally to push fixes. At least give them a chance to deal with it before commencing the boycott Disney threads and I will never buy a Disney game again and we don't own our games threads histrionics.