Support NeoGAF

[Dina]

Steamworks stops day zero piracy. Thats the biggest thing that publishers worry about.

Moot point. Masterservers have stopped pirates playing online since the Quake 3 days. Singleplayer games are still easily hackable and nothing Steam will do prevents that. The Steam protection has also been hacked for a very long time.

 

[Fugu]

Moot point. Masterservers have stopped pirates playing online since the Quake 3 days. Singleplayer games are still easily hackable and nothing Steam will do prevents that. The Steam protection has also been hacked for a very long time.

This is absolutely, positively the most important knock against DRM. It is not necessary and it's hardly accomplishing anything that can be accomplished without it and by less restrictive means.

 

[brain_stew]

Moot point.
.

Complete BS. Steamworks wouldn't be anywhere near as popular with publishers as it is today if day zero piracy wasn't a big deal, which it clearly is. Anything that prevents lost sales has value to publishers and Steamworks has demonstrated time and again it can do that while not pissing off genuine consumers.

 

[arstal]

Why does Valve need market power to reject a game being on Steam? They reject games if they disagree with the proposed pricing, like 30$ for an indie game. It is their service so they can reject any game they want, just like impulse rejecting Steamworks games.

Also, Impulse and others should sell Steamworks games if they sell GFWL games. It's exactly the same concept for both and they look like complete hypocrites. And anyways, if their service was good enough they woulodn't have to worry about Steamworks games convincing people to jump ship.

The problem is Valve can tell people what they can charge for a game, or change the design of games. (In Din's Curse game, they rejected the game due to Soldak wanting to charge $25.)

Stardock has said Steamworks games would be sold- if the Steam sales client wasn't part of the deal. That's their objection- the free advertising to their competition. They also said they would be willling to listen if Steam wanted to sell Sins, GalCivII and Elemental.

GFWL doesn't include advertising for a rival store in the package. SFIV didn't have that.

 

[brain_stew]

This is absolutely, positively the most important knock against DRM. It is not necessary and it's hardly accomplishing anything that can be accomplished without it and by less restrictive means.

It accomplishes a complete elimination of day zero and casual piracy. Fact. Publishers care about clawing back every last lost sale possible and Steamworks helps them achieve that while not driving a significant number of genuine customers away. It has a net positive effect on sales and that's all a publisher needs to see in order to support it over a DRM free approach. It most definitely accomplishes "something" and its here to stay no matter what arguments you present to the contrary. The debate has already ended.

 

[brain_stew]

The problem is Valve can tell people what they can charge for a game, or change the design of games. (In Din's Curse game, they rejected the game due to Soldak wanting to charge $25.)

Stardock has said Steamworks games would be sold- if the Steam sales client wasn't part of the deal. That's their objection- the free advertising to their competition. They also said they would be willling to listen if Steam wanted to sell Sins, GalCivII and Elemental.

GFWL doesn't include advertising for a rival store in the package. SFIV didn't have that.

Just like every single other DD platform on the market.

Failing to get approval to the Steam store doesn't prevent developers from using Steamworks either, there's numerous Steamworks games that have been released that aren't sold through Steam.

GFWL has the service name plastered all over it, requires customers to create an account that can be used on their store and has an integrated marketplace. Its the same shit, different stink. No way can you support GFWL and not support Steamworks, they offer the exact same service.

Why is it such a big deal that your customers no have access to a different store anyway? You think there's many people using Gamers Gate and Impulse that haven't heard of Steam? :lol

Are there offerings so terrible that the slightest glimpse at an alternative will drive them away? The likes of Impulse should have nothing to fear if they're confident in the quality of their product and service, if customers are happy with what they've delivered, they're not suddenly going to jump ship because they try out Steam one time and if they do then its their problem not Valve's. The market has no place for sub-par services and if the service offered by a competitor is so inferior that the slightest glimpse at Steam sends them packing, then its on them to improve their service to the standards of their competitors.

 

[Fugu]

It accomplishes a complete elimination of day zero and casual piracy. Fact. Publishers care about clawing back every last lost sale possible and Steamworks helps them achieve that while not driving a significant number of genuine customers away. It has a net positive effect on sales and that's all a publisher needs to see in order to support it over a DRM free approach. It most definitely accomplishes "something" and its here to stay no matter what arguments you present to the contrary. The debate has already ended.

Source please.

Spoiler

No pun intended.

EDIT: "You're wrong because nobody cares what you think" is possibly the least convincing argument you can present.

 

[Stallion Free]

Are there offerings so terrible that the slightest glimpse at an alternative will drive them away? The likes of Impulse should have nothing to fear if they're confident in the quality of their product and service, if customers are happy with what they've delivered, they're not suddenly going to jump ship because they try out Steam one time and if they do then its their problem not Valve's. The market has no place for sub-par services and if the service offered by a competitor is so inferior that the slightest glimpse at Steam sends them packing, then its on them to improve their service to the standards of their competitors.

That's exactly what I said. I don't think Impulse does have any confidence though.

 

[brain_stew]

Source please.

Spoiler

No pun intended.

EDIT: "You're wrong because nobody cares what you think" is possibly the least convincing argument you can present.

You don't need hard numbers to figure this one out. Day zero piracy has always been a big issue, as has casual piracy (swapping/copying discs with friends, a big problem in developing markets) and Steamworks complete shuts all of that out. Just check how ridiculously popular a torrent of a popular PC game can get if it hits before release date, the numbers speak for themselves. You can judge a DRM scheme's effectiveness by its adoption rate and currently nothing else comes remotely close to the sort of adoption rate Steamworks is seeing. Publishers wouldn't be jumping on board en-masse if it wasn't having a net positive effect.

Some discussion on how crucial eliminating day zero piracy is here:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=185565


Though again, it doesn't matter what we think as consumers, the decision has already been made at publishers. DRM has been a stable of the PC platform since the beginning of time, and there's very, very few example of high profile games being released in recent times that are trully DRM free. There's been a few (not many, mind you) with a simple disc check and CD key but that's still DRM any which way you look at it. Steamworks is just another form that is provably more effective.

 

[brain_stew]

That's exactly what I said. I don't think Impulse does have any confidence though.

Then what are they contributing to the market? Competition is only useful to the consumer if it betters the services and products offered, if Impulse is so terrible (and I'm not saying it is, mind) that the slightest glimpse at Steam will send their customer base running for the hills, then its not adding anything productive to the market, and its death is inevitable. If they offer a service which is better or comparable to Steam then their customers won't be going anywhere. Its on them to provide that level of service, there's no place in the market for sub-par platforms. Microsoft have learnt that the hard way.

 

[Ledsen]

Source please.

Spoiler

No pun intended.

EDIT: "You're wrong because nobody cares what you think" is possibly the least convincing argument you can present.

It's impossible to source that kind of statement since it would require looking at two different timelines, one where the game was released with DRM and one where it was released without. However, it stands to reason that if a game has DRM and isn't cracked before launch, at least some percentage of the prople who would've pirated it will buy it instead. That much is pretty much certain. How big that percentage is is where the discussion gets interesting.

 

[06nbarnhill]

lol Battle.net > Steam at least for me

Oh and blizz>valve

/flameshield

 

[brain_stew]

It's impossible to source that kind of statement since it would require looking at two different timelines, one where the game was released with DRM and one where it was released without. However, it stands to reason that if a game has DRM and isn't cracked before launch, at least some percentage of the prople who would've pirated it will buy it instead. That much is pretty much certain. How big that percentage is is where the discussion gets interesting.

Actually, I really don't think it does. Steamworks is a free service that is very easy and cheap to implement, it doesn't require relinquishing a ~3-10% portion of your revenue in order to license and implement it like some other DRM schemes. All it has to do is convert a few dozen people and it has paid back its cost already. That's it, it doesn't have to be bullet proof it just has to convert a few customers and its already proven effective and worthwile. That's why here's over 200 Steamworks titles and rising, its demonstrated its value to publishers time and again.

Heck, GFWL was a horrible service with a crappy DRM scheme originally and yet even that managed to garner widespread support initially, purely because it was the only game in town. Publishers were desperate for a service like that so they jumped on board with the first ship in town, despite how terrible it was. Steamworks takes the GFWL concept and does it right, no wonder publishers are adopting it en masse.

 

[Fugu]

You don't need hard numbers to figure this one out. Day zero piracy has always been a big issue, as has casual piracy (swapping/copying discs with friends, a big problem in developing markets) and Steamworks complete shuts all of that out. Just check how ridiculously popular a torrent of a popular PC game can get if it hits before release date, the numbers speak for themselves. You can judge a DRM scheme's effectiveness by its adoption rate and currently nothing else comes remotely close to the sort of adoption rate Steamworks is seeing. Publishers wouldn't be jumping on board en-masse if it wasn't having a net positive effect.

I need hard numbers to substantiate that the following statements are statements of fact:

- It accomplishes a complete elimination of day zero and casual piracy

This is particularly interesting because you must be referring to games that are steamworks only and I assume you also have a definition for "casual piracy".

- It has a net positive effect on sales

This is hilariously unprovable. Even if you are correct, you would have to be guessing almost totally blindly considering how unavailable sales figures are.

You included the word "fact" in your post which is a big deal because your post contained nothing that you can verifibly say are facts. Should you wish to mount an argument based on facts, you had better first get some sources. In the meantime, you should know that it's absolutely impossible for you to determine whether or not Steam has had a positive effect on sales (the inverse of piracy is definitely not sales). You may be able to determine that it has reduced piracy during a certain period of time of release, but you are and will always be unable to determine what effect that has had on sales.

Heck, GFWL was a horrible service with a crappy DRM scheme originally and yet even that managed to garner widespread support initially, purely because it was the only game in town. Publishers were desperate for a service like that so they jumped on board with the first ship in town, despite how terrible it was. Steamworks takes the GFWL concept and does it right, no wonder publishers are adopting it en masse.

And at the end of the day, it's still DRM. Publishers have not demonstrated why it is necessary; the extent of their argument is based on an extreme (but not entirely basless) distrust of their own customers. I don't accept that their argument is valid and if they choose to release their products with DRM anyway, so be it. That does not at all make their position the correct one.

For the record, I think CD keys combined with master servers provide entirely effective DRM that does not intrude at all on my gaming experience.

 

[RocketDarkness]

- It has a net positive effect on sales

This is hilariously unprovable. Even if you are correct, you would have to be guessing almost totally blindly considering how unavailable sales figures are.

The simple fact that there are tons of people (such as myself, on occasion) who will buy a Steamworks game simply because it seems interesting and offers that feature should be sufficient. For example, I'll almost assuredly pick up Civ V at some point due to it having Steamworks integration and it seems fairly interesting, whereas without that feature, I'd have probably passed it over.

 

[Fugu]

The simple fact that there are tons of people (such as myself, on occasion) who will buy a Steamworks game simply because it seems interesting and offers that feature should be sufficient. For example, I'll almost assuredly pick up Civ V at some point due to it having Steamworks integration and it seems fairly interesting, whereas without that feature, I'd have probably passed it over.

But it's not a fact that a game released with no non-Steamworks option will sell better than a game released with one. I understand that there are people who buy games because they are Steamworks enabled (I dispute that this number is very large because I think Civ 5 being an incredible game has exponentially more to do with its sales than it being released on Steam) but I dispute that there is a significant amount of players who don't buy games because they are also not Steamworks enabled, partially because such a number would be impossible to produce.

EDIT: If this is about day 0 piracy (and I'm not saying it is), why can't a non-Steam version have an abridged release date (say, a week later)?

 

[brain_stew]

I

And at the end of the day, it's still DRM. Publishers have not demonstrated why it is necessary;.

Your problem is in assuming that publishers actually need to demonstrate to anyone that including DRM is worthwile. They don't. They don't even need hard numbers, they just need to feel adding some form of DRM has a net positive effect on their sales. Its their product and they're free to protect it in anyway which way they want and invariably that means some form of DRM, as it has since the beginning of the software industry. Not remember those sliding discs included with computer games in the 80s? They were DRM, just a very crude and ineffective method. There's been no demonstrable move towards totally DRM free software outside of classic titles and its utterly naive to expect there will be one.

We can all stroke our beards and have delusions of a fully open source world but we'd have to step out of reality in order to do that. Commercial software will always protects itself against piracy, always has, always will.


If want to see whether Steam prevents day zero piracy then go ahead and check any Torrent site a week before a big Steamworks title launch. There won't be a workable crack, there never is. Valve have a pretty damn impecable record in preventing day zero piracy, it works as advertised and stops PC games appearing on Torrent sites a month before release like they used to or like Xbox 360 games continue to.

"Casual piracy" simply means simple swapping of discs and burning copies among friends and acquaintances, and it remains a big problem in developing markets. You don't need me to tell you that Steam completely eliminates this, only a proper hacking group ever crack Steamworks titles, joe average can't simply use a copy of NERO and split the cost of his retail purchase with his friends.

 

[brain_stew]

For the record, I think CD keys combined with master servers provide entirely effective DRM that does not intrude at all on my gaming experience.

:lol

Does it fuck, it may have at one point but that time is long gone. Clearly you've never played COD4 or World at War. There's a very bloody good reason that series moved towards Steamworks and that's because the piracy rate (of their multiplayer portion which was already "protected" by CD keys) had more pirates playing than legitimate consumers. The situation was completely ridiculous and in no way sustainable.

Bad Company 2 may not have included Steamworks, but they moved far away from the server model of old. Games that rely purely on CD keys and give consumers the ability to setup their own server are a dying breed these days, I honestly can't think of any significant release that has followed this model in a long time. They're all using either stricter DRM, protected servers or both, the previous model was not sustainable and that's why it died out.

 

[Fugu]

Your problem is in assuming that publishers actually need to demonstrate to anyone that including DRM is worthwile. They don't. They don't even need hard numbers, they just need to feel adding some form of DRM has a net postive effect on their sales

I don't believe that at all. I know that publishers do so without demonstrating to their consumers why. That's irrelevant to me and it hasn't stopped me from (very overtly) believing that intrusive DRM like this is bad for them and bad for the industry.

If want to see whether Steam prevents day zero piracy then go ahead and check any Torrent site a week before a big Steamworks title launch. There won't be a workable crack, there never is.

Okay, see my above post. Also, how can you substantiate that reduced piracy results in reduced sales?

"Casual piracy" simply means simple swapping of discs and burning copies among friends and acquaintances, and it remains a big problem in developing markets. You don't need me to tell you that Steam completely eliminates this, only a proper hacking group ever crack Steamworks titles, joe average can't simply use a copy of NERO and split the cost of his retail purchase with his friends.

And once they do, the chain of casual piracy begins again. It's just delaying the inevitable.

:lol

Does it fuck, it may have at one point but that time is long gone. Clearly you've never played COD4 or World at War. There's a very bloody good reason that series moved towards Steamworks and that's because the piracy rate (of their multiplayer portion which was already "protected" by CD keys) had more pirates playing than legitimate consumers. The situation was completely ridiculous and in no way sustainable.

Bad Company 2 may not have included Steamworks, but they moved far away from the server model of old.

I play Call of Duty 4 extensively and what I see is a lot of players on the key-authorizing servers. Yeah, some people pirated the game, but they're confined to a severely diminished community because most servers do use the CD key checks (I know because I see it happen on almost every server I play on).

Blizzard games all pre-WoW use only a CD key check when going online and the vast majority of the players of all of them are on there legit because it's very difficult to circumvent a CD-key check when it's forcibly instituted.

Baldur's Gate 2 sold fantastically well (and continues to do so) with absolutely not a speck of DRM except for a CD check. What has fundamentally changed about the industry to make this not possible, keeping mind that Baldur's Gate is selling on GOG as we speak?

 

[Dina]

Complete BS. Steamworks wouldn't be anywhere near as popular with publishers as it is today if day zero piracy wasn't a big deal, which it clearly is. Anything that prevents lost sales has value to publishers and Steamworks has demonstrated time and again it can do that while not pissing off genuine consumers.

It's not zero piracy. Singleplayer games are still pirated, multiplayer games still aren't because of masterservers. Steam did nothing to resolve this, piracy is as rampant as it ever was. Only the most draconic DRM, like UbiSoft's, actually have hackers set back for a while. Steam's saving graces for the developer are many, but good piracy protection is not one of them.

Also, what is casual piracy? Copy-pasting cracked .exes still work for most games.

 

[1-D_FTW]

And once they do, the chain of casual piracy begins again. It's just delaying the inevitable.

No it's not. I question whether you've ever had a non-techie friend. A huge swath of people don't use torrents. They just buy games. But if a buddy buys a game and it has no copy protection and can be installed on multiple computers, most people don't see it as a very big moral issue to "share." Whether it's games or music. The barrier is zero. You don't need technical knowledge. You just need to borrow the disk for a couple minutes. You don't even have to acknowledge it's piracy. You can sanitize it by saying you want to split costs. Or share. Or whatever. There is a huge distinction between casual piracy and torrenting.

 

[Fugu]

No it's not. I question whether you've ever had a friend. A huge swath of people don't use torrents. They just buy games. But if a buddy buys a game and it has no copy protection and can be installed on multiple computers, most people don't see it as a very big moral issue to "share." Whether it's games or music. The barrier is zero. You don't need technical knowledge. You just need to borrow the disk for a couple minutes. You don't even have to acknowledge it's piracy. You can sanitize it by saying you want to split costs. Or share. Or whatever. There is a huge distinction between casual piracy and torrenting.

I don't know a single PC gamer that isn't also well-versed in torrenting.

Also :lol at the edit.

 

[Dina]

No it's not. I question whether you've ever had a friend. A huge swath of people don't use torrents. They just buy games. But if a buddy buys a game and it has no copy protection and can be installed on multiple computers, most people don't see it as a very big moral issue to "share." Whether it's games or music. The barrier is zero. You don't need technical knowledge. You just need to borrow the disk for a couple minutes. You don't even have to acknowledge it's piracy. You can sanitize it by saying you want to split costs. Or share. Or whatever. There is a huge distinction between casual piracy and torrenting.

NDS Piracy was a big thing and hurting Nintendo massively. Only thing you needed to do here was unrar the roms, convert them to your specific SD-card and copy them to your SD-card. Most pirated games these days are not different, burn or load an image and copy the cracked .exe files. Mothers can unrar and copy pirated roms to their harddrive, yet PC games are hardly any harder.

 

[RocketDarkness]

It's not zero piracy. Singleplayer games are still pirated, multiplayer games still aren't because of masterservers. Steam did nothing to resolve this, piracy is as rampant as it ever was. Only the most draconic DRM, like UbiSoft's, actually have hackers set back for a while. Steam's saving graces for the developer are many, but good piracy protection is not one of them.

Also, what is casual piracy? Copy-pasting cracked .exes still work for most games.

Day-zero, not zero. No piracy before Steam puts the files up on the server for download/releases the unlock keys for preloaded content.

Casual piracy, as brain_stew mentioned above, is simply friends trading/burning disks, with no downloading involved.

 

[faceless007]

It has a net positive effect on sales

In order for you to know this for certain, you would have to show that a given game sold more using Steamworks than it would have if it didn't, controlling for price and release date. It might be possible that a game sold many more copies during a $5 weekend sale on Steam, but that doesn't prove that all other things being equal Steam has a positive effect.

 

[brain_stew]

I don't believe that at all. I know that publishers do so without demonstrating to their consumers why. That's irrelevant to me and it hasn't stopped me from (very overtly) believing that intrusive DRM like this is bad for them and bad for the industry.

Okay, see my above post. Also, how can you substantiate that reduced piracy results in reduced sales?

"Casual piracy" simply means simple swapping of discs and burning copies among friends and acquaintances, and it remains a big problem in developing markets. You don't need me to tell you that Steam completely eliminates this, only a proper hacking group ever crack Steamworks titles, joe average can't simply use a copy of NERO and split the cost of his retail purchase with his friends.

And once they do, the chain of casual piracy begins again. It's just delaying the inevitable.[/QUOTE]

Anything that delays piracy has the potential to increase sales. One less pirate is one more potential customer, that is a fact. There doesn't have to be a 1:1 relationship and there never is, you just need to be able to convince 1 in 1000 of those prevented from pirating when they want to pony up for the retail release and your job is done.

Steamworks creates a bigger target market for publishers, that is indisputable. By the simple laws of averages and economics, the same product will sell an increasing

You've already accepted that DRM is inevitable and necessary (hence conceding that CD keys and master servers for multiplayer games are a necessary evil), so why the big crusade against Steamworks. If you already accept that there is value in some form of DRM (which you have) then why can't you realise that a more effective means of DRM has its uses?

Seriously dude, step out of the clouds and face reality. Steamworks would not be getting the support it does if it did not have a positive effect on sales. For the people that are privvy to the information that you desire, the argument has already been won.

Do you really think these publishers would prefer Valve having a tighter grip over a market they compete in (all big publishers have their own DD store, fyi) if they didn't believe doing so would positively affect the sales of their games? GFWL support has dropped by the wayside because the DRM was ineffective and it didn't increase the value of your product. Steamworks can only survive so long as publishers believe that it can positively effect the sales of their games. So long as support for the platform increases, then its safe to say it is doing just that.

Look, in a perfect world we'd all like our games to be DRM free, but sadly we don't live in a perfect world. So long as piracy is a major issue on the platform (so basically, as long as the platform exists) then there'll be demand for DRM.

 

[brain_stew]

It's not zero piracy. .

I never claimed it was. It completely eliminates day zero piracy. That is a fact. Steamworks makes piracy of PC software more difficult. That is a fact. Steamowrks gives publishers access to a bigger target market. That is a fact.

Products of equal value tend to sell more units when they have access to a larger target market. You can never prove it in any individual case because you ahve no control but this is something that has been monitor for centuries and its also very basic common sense.

If I have a market stall and I'm selling oranges, at least 9 times out of 10, I'm going to sell more oranges if more customers come to the market that day. It doesn't happen every day but over time, the correlation will be incredibly positive. Now, if on one of those days, someone goes around all the towns in my village the day prior and hands out free oranges of comparable quality to the ones I sell to everyone in town, then invariably ther'll be fewer people turning upto the market the next day and as we've already shown, fewer people at the market, means fewer oranges sold.

Steam and all DRM work on the exact same principle. Now, if some DRM solution adversely affect the product, and if I sell bruised oranges, I'm probably going to have less customers. Now if I pack in a few free cherries with my orange (steamworks features like achievements, cloud saves, backups, leaderboards, multiplayer etc.) which I received for free, then I'm probably going to sell more oranges, as most people like to receive a free cherry together with their purchase. So, if I can prevent people from going around giving away free oranges the day prior and I can offer my customers a free cherry with their orange, I can be pretty damn confident that I'm going to sell more oranges. It won't happen every day (i.e. every Steamworks release) but in most cases it will, and that increased chance of generating more revenue is reason enough for me to take up this option.

 

[faceless007]

You can judge a DRM scheme's effectiveness by its adoption rate and currently nothing else comes remotely close to the sort of adoption rate Steamworks is seeing.

What the hell are you smoking?
Only about 70 games use Steamworks. You want to compare that to the number of games that have used some form of Safedisc, or Securom, or a simple disc check? And LOL at the idea that Securom (which was adopted by many, many publishers) was ever effective at anything.

 

[Fugu]

Anything that delays piracy has the potential to increase sales. One less pirate is one more potential customer, that is a fact. There doesn't have to be a 1:1 relationship and there never is, you just need to be able to convince 1 in 1000 of those prevented from pirating when they want to pony up for the retail release and your job is done.

That is as much a fact as one more pirate being one more potential customer, because of out of the people that pirate, it is enormously likely that at least one person will be persuaded to buy the game based on a pirated copy.

Steamworks creates a bigger target market for publishers, that is indisputable. By the simple laws of averages and economics, the same product will sell an increasing

How's that work? "PC owner" is a larger audience than "Has Steam Installed".

You've already accepted that DRM is inevitable and necessary (hence conceding that CD keys and master servers for multiplayer games are a necessary evil), so why the big crusade against Steamworks. If you already accept that there is value in some form of DRM (which you have) then why can't you realise that a more effective means of DRM has its uses?

CD keys are entirely non-intrusive if you have bought the game; you put them in once and then the game does the rest of the work. You don't have to install a client and your ownership over the game is fundamentally not revocable. I am only in favour of CD key checks used to protect the online portion of the game and I feel that way because I am very wary of giving the company that sold me a game the right to instantly and totally revoke my right to use it. CD-key checks protect the multiplayer portion of the game; the lack of one in the single-player (or just non-internet) protects my right to own the game. Steam offers me no concession on this issue and to me, that is entirely unreasonable. I also don't want an application on my computer but we've gone over this a million times.

Seriously dude, step out of the clouds and face reality. Steamworks would not be getting the support it does if it did not have a positive effect on sales. For the people that are privvy to the information that you desire, the argument has already been won.

I have a hard time accepting the infalliability of the PC games publishing industry based solely on the thousands of colossal mistakes they've made before. I am not going to take their word for it, for that reason and because of the stark conflict of interest.

Do you really think these publishers would prefer Valve having a tighter grip over a market they compete in (all big publishers have their own DD store, fyi) if they didn't believe doing so would positively affect the sales of their games? GFWL support has dropped by the wayside because the DRM was ineffective and it didn't increase the value of your product. Steamworks can only survive so long as publishers believe that it can positively effect the sales of their games. So long as support for the platform increases, then its safe to say it is doing just that.

If everyone releases their product Steam-only it also stands to reason that the platform will grow simply because it will become a necessity to have it to play PC games. This doesn't mean that Steam is encouraging growth.

Look, in a perfect world we'd all like our games to be DRM free, but sadly we don't live in a perfect world. So long as piracy is a major issue on the platform (so basically, as long as the platform exists) then there'll be demand for DRM.

And that DRM should be as reasonable as possible.

 

[RocketDarkness]

That is as much a fact as one more pirate being one more potential customer, because of out of the people that pirate, it is enormously likely that at least one person will be persuaded to buy the game based on a pirated copy.

I think it stands to reason that there is some subset of pirates who would buy the game if they were unable to get it for free. That's a perfectly reasonable assumption to make.

How's that work? "PC owner" is a larger audience than "Has Steam Installed".

Steam provides a large, already-in-existence community where simple front-page advertisements and Steam sales help spread awareness of new games. That's a hell of a lot of efficiency compared to a normal advertising campaign to try and reach the PC owner audience in general[/b[

CD keys are entirely non-intrusive if you have bought the game; you put them in once and then the game does the rest of the work. You don't have to install a client and your ownership over the game is fundamentally not revocable. I am only in favour of CD key checks used to protect the online portion of the game and I feel that way because I am very wary of giving the company that sold me a game the right to instantly and totally revoke my right to use it. CD-key checks protect the multiplayer portion of the game; the lack of one in the single-player (or just non-internet) protects my right to own the game. Steam offers me no concession on this issue and to me, that is entirely unreasonable. I also don't want an application on my computer but we've gone over this a million times.

Except when they don't work because a keygen already gave your key to some pirate.


If everyone releases their product Steam-only it also stands to reason that the platform will grow simply because it will become a necessity to have it to play PC games. This doesn't mean that Steam is encouraging growth.

Except it is, because Steam has been experiencing huge growth and the PC game market is perking up.

And that DRM should be as reasonable as possible.

One-time internet confirmation is unreasonable. Got it.

.

 

[faceless007]

Seriously dude, step out of the clouds and face reality. Steamworks would not be getting the support it does if it did not have a positive effect on sales. For the people that are privvy to the information that you desire, the argument has already been won.

If this logic were sound, no publisher would have ever adopted a form of DRM proven to be ineffective. Like every form of DRM before Steam.

I'm convinced that the fact that publishers keep insisting on DRM has everything to do with wanting to feel warm and fuzzy about some form of protection, regardless of effectiveness, than to do with any unproven "potential" sales. Oh wait, you agree with me:

Your problem is in assuming that publishers actually need to demonstrate to anyone that including DRM is worthwile. They don't. They don't even need hard numbers, they just need to feel adding some form of DRM has a net positive effect on their sales.

So is it because there are hard numbers proving Steam increases sales (however that can be measured) or not?

 

[echoshifting]

It just kinda makes me sad that there is so much hate out there for Steam among the "core." I mean obviously it's not the majority, just the loudest voices as usual but...still. Steam completely renewed my interest in PC gaming which I vastly prefer to consoles. There is a great GAF community built in to every PC game I buy. I can even see who's been playing it first.

It's cool to avoid Steam if that's your preference, but to assert that it's a bad service is kinda mind-boggling. Just like Speculawyer, I have purchased games twice just to have them on Steam (this includes a game I already had on Impulse). I am gaming more than I have in a long, long while and that's thanks to Steam. I hope there isn't anybody out there who decides not even to try it based solely on this thread. =/ Especially those who like indie titles; I've found so many hidden gems via Steam.

Anyway. I know it's a little late in the thread to hit the reply button without participating in the heated discussion it's evolved into. I guess I've become a Steam fanboy. Dammit. How did that happen?

 

[Fox318]

 

[RocketDarkness]

It just kinda makes me sad that there is so much hate out there for Steam among the "core." I mean obviously it's not the majority, just the loudest voices as usual but...still. Steam completely renewed my interest in PC gaming which I vastly prefer to consoles. There is a great GAF community built in to every PC game I buy. I can even see who's been playing it first.

It's cool to avoid Steam if that's your preference, but to assert that it's a bad service is kinda mind-boggling. Just like Speculawyer, I have purchased games twice just to have them on Steam (this includes a game I already had on Impulse). I am gaming more than I have in a long, long while and that's thanks to Steam. I hope there isn't anybody out there who decides not even to try it based solely on this thread. =/ Especially those who like indie titles; I've found so many hidden gems via Steam.

Anyway. I know it's a little late in the thread to hit the reply button without participating in the heated discussion it's evolved into. I guess I've become a Steam fanboy. Dammit. How did that happen?

1. Valve's own amazing games and support of said games.
2. All the awesome Steam community features.
3. Steam sales.
4. Convenience

 

[brain_stew]

What the hell are you smoking?
Only about 70 games use Steamworks. You want to compare that to the number of games that have used some form of Safedisc, or Securom, or a simple disc check? And LOL at the idea that Securom (which was adopted by many, many publishers) was ever effective at anything.

The number is actually over 200 hundred according to Valve themselves and we can't view this over a 10 year period. Steamworks is a very new service and has only been upto scratch within the last year or two and it also takes some amount of time for developers to implement. Despite it being a very low cost expense, if time isn't budgeted to its inclusion then its going to be very difficult to implement late on in a project's life. Ideally, projects should be started with including Steamworks support in mind, but projects take years to develop and that's why Steamworks adoption appeared to be slow at first, especially once you couple it with a lack of market experiments (i.e. no third party publisher wants to make that first leap).

So, we need to look at its adoption within the last 6 months, the amount of announced Steamworks projects and its rate of growth, and by all those measures, Steamworks is coping better than any other DRM scheme. Going from a couple dozen titles one year, to over 200 the next, is an incredible rate of growth and judging by recent publisher announcements, it shows no signs of slowing. Big publishers like Square Enix simply won't release a title on the PC unless it has Steamworks support and cornerstone PC franchises like COD, Football Manage, Total War, Deus Ex and Civ all support Steamworks now and going forward. No one can argue that Steamworks isn't proving immensely popular and that its star is anything but on the rise.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/4502/ < Valve's statement about the 200 Steamworks titles.

 

[brain_stew]

How's that work? "PC owner" is a larger audience than "Has Steam Installede.

Less people with access to a free copy at any one time, means that there's more people for you to sell a game to. This isn't some kind of warped logic.

 

[echoshifting]

1. Valve's own amazing games and support of said games.
2. All the awesome Steam community features.
3. Steam sales.
4. Convenience

I know...I'm just not the type to defend it from a bunch of gaffers who wouldn't care if they gave out gold bars with every purchase. That's fanboy behavior...I blame YOU Gabe!

 

[brain_stew]

CD keys are entirely non-intrusive if you have bought the game; you put them in once and then the game does the rest of the work. You don't have to install a client and your ownership over the game is fundamentally not revocable. I am only in favour of CD key checks used to protect the online portion of the game and I feel that way because I am very wary of giving the company that sold me a game the right to instantly and totally revoke my right to use it. CD-key checks protect the multiplayer portion of the game; the lack of one in the single-player (or just non-internet) protects my right to own the game. Steam offers me no concession on this issue and to me, that is entirely unreasonable. I also don't want an application on my computer but we've gone over this a million times.

Considering how crucial the multiplayer portion of so many games is these days (and large scale single player PC exclusive projects are very rare these days) then you've already been giving up that freedom for over a decade or more. Why should only multiplayer products be able to protect their content? What allows you to make that call? Why are single player games the only titles that have to be DRM free?

What you're suggesting is only ever going to lead to a decrease in the amount of compelling single player content available on the platform, the shift has already happened, but at least something like Steamworks seeks to prevent it.

You've conced that its impossible to release a multiplayer game without some form of DRM, so please, tell me why the same can't apply to single player games? Because if it can't, publishers aren't going to continue to release single player titles.

 

[Fugu]

.

And there is also some subset of people who pirated the game that will buy it as a direct result. Without numbers, it's rational to equally consider both.

Keygens generate so many numbers that the odds of this happening are so ridiculously tiny.

Again, unverified statements about how Steam specifically saved PC gaming.

One-time online activation? You must keep Steam installed to play your game and for some games you need to be online all the time.

 

[brain_stew]

And that DRM should be as reasonable as possible.

Indeed, which is why DRM schemes like Steamworks that give the end user a whole host of useful and worthwile tangible extras are to be supported. Securom only negatively effects the end user's experience, as do disc checks and CD keys, Steamworks actually delivers a lot of good along with the bad and that's why its one of the most reasonable DRM schemes on the market.

 

[Curufinwe]

I don't know a single PC gamer that isn't also well-versed in torrenting.

Your personal anecdote is entirely unpersuasive.

 

[Rubezh]

It just kinda makes me sad that there is so much hate out there for Steam among the "core." I mean obviously it's not the majority, just the loudest voices as usual but...still. Steam completely renewed my interest in PC gaming which I vastly prefer to consoles. There is a great GAF community built in to every PC game I buy. I can even see who's been playing it first.

It's cool to avoid Steam if that's your preference, but to assert that it's a bad service is kinda mind-boggling. Just like Speculawyer, I have purchased games twice just to have them on Steam (this includes a game I already had on Impulse). I am gaming more than I have in a long, long while and that's thanks to Steam. I hope there isn't anybody out there who decides not even to try it based solely on this thread. =/ Especially those who like indie titles; I've found so many hidden gems via Steam.

Anyway. I know it's a little late in the thread to hit the reply button without participating in the heated discussion it's evolved into. I guess I've become a Steam fanboy. Dammit. How did that happen?

My guess is that resentment exists from some PC gamers who've never had a history of playing Valve games such as HL, CS, or TF. To them, Steam represents a hostile takeover.

 

[brain_stew]

I'm convinced that the fact that publishers keep insisting on DRM has everything to do with wanting to feel warm and fuzzy about some form of protection, regardless of effectiveness, than to do with any unproven "potential" sales. Oh wait, you agree with me:

What does it matter what the reasoning is in anycase? If the DRM argument is settled among publishers, then its settled and there's very little we can do about it other than support the more reasonable DRM schemes (like Steamworks!) instead of the unreasonable ones like UBI's new scheme. Publishers have every right to protect heir games for absolutely any reason at all, they don't have to prove shit, its their IP and they can do with it as they please. They don't need to justify the usage of DRM software to anyone but themselves.

 

[brain_stew]

So is it because there are hard numbers proving Steam increases sales (however that can be measured) or not?

I believe its because adding Steamworks support has proven to offer a net positive in sales against other DRM schemes not necessarily a DRM free approach. Publishers have made their mind up about DRM a long time and offering a game DRM free is simply not an option that is up for debate anymore, for better or worse.

 

[echoshifting]

My guess is that resentment exists from some PC gamers who've never had a history of playing Valve games such as HL, CS, or TF. To them, Steam represents a hostile takeover.

This is actually pretty astute. I'm sure you're right, at least to some degree. It is a little scary how quickly it's establishing itself as the one good option for dd. I've used Impulse, gamersgate and Greenhouse, and I will never return to any of those services (except Stardock games, of course). They don't even come close. It's a fair point, quite frankly.

 

[Fugu]

Considering how crucial the multiplayer portion of so many games is these days (and large scale single player PC exclusive projects are very rare these days) then you've already been giving up that freedom for over a decade or more. Why should only multiplayer products be able to protect their content? What allows you to make that call? Why are single player games the only titles that have to be DRM free?

What you're suggesting is only ever going to lead to a decrease in the amount of compelling single player content available on the platform, the shift has already happened, but at least something like Steamworks seeks to prevent it.

You've conced that its impossible to release a multiplayer game without some form of DRM, so please, tell me why the same can't apply to single player games? Because if it can't, publishers aren't going to continue to release single player titles.

But there are perfectly successful single-player games entirely devoid of DRM being released all the time so this can't possibly be the cause for their demise.

How can you possibly substantiate that more single-player games have been released as a result of Steam?

I attempted to clarify but didn't. CD key checks are appropriate for master servers and online services like battle.net only because the company is responsible for maintaining them. At that point your right to own the game is matched by their right to maintain integrity on their servers.

Your personal anecdote is entirely unpersuasive.

As was the personal anecdote that it was a response to.

Indeed, which is why DRM schemes like Steamworks that give the end user a whole host of useful and worthwile tangible extras are to be supported. Securom only negatively effects the end user's experience, as do disc checks and CD keys, Steamworks actually delivers a lot of good along with the bad and that's why its one of the most reasonable DRM schemes on the market.

And when those useful and worthwhile extras aren't useful or worthwhile what you're left with is a rather draconian scheme by which you never actually own your software.

 

[brain_stew]

A

One-time online activation? You must keep Steam installed to play your game and for some games you need to be online all the time.

No you don't. To play the online multiplayer portion of a game you need to be online, yes, but then to play the online muliplayer portion of a any game on any system, you need to be online.

Quit spreading FUD. Steam is a service that require a one time activation in order to get unlimited access to your games offline. It does not require you to renew that verification and it certainly does not require a constant internet connection.

 

[Fugu]

No you don't. To play the online multiplayer portion of a game you need to be online, yes, but then to play the online muliplayer portion of a any game on any system, you need to be online.

Quit spreading FUD. Steam is a service that require a one time activation in order to get unlimited access to your games offline. It does not require you to renew that verification and it certainly does not require a constant internet connection.

Modern Warfare 2.

You must, in fact, keep Steam installed to keep playing your Steam games unless they're not Steamworks (Or somewhere in between like Mount and Blade). None of what I said in my post was non-factual.

 

[brain_stew]

But there are perfectly successful single-player games entirely devoid of DRM being released all the time so this can't possibly be the cause for their demise.

In the last couple years? From big publishers? Like what exactly? Oh, and before you try, no Stardock's games are most assuredly not DRM free, having access to the broken copy of the game on your disc is pretty much worthless, you need to tie a key to an account to get access to utterly crucial patches. That's not DRM free.

 

[Fugu]

In the last couple years? From big publishers? Like what exactly? Oh, and before you try, no Stardock's games are most assuredly not DRM free, having access to the broken copy of the game on your disc is pretty much worthless, you need to tie a key to an account to get access to utterly crucial patches. That's not DRM free.

I didn't know a game had to be released by a big publisher to be successful.

EDIT: You know what, how many single-player only games are released by big publishers? Mirror's Edge? Assassin's Creed? Assassin's Creed 2? Dragon Age? Oh gee four.