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Hey, a petition about the one real reservation I have about this game! I definitely vote for a non-Steam version, even though I have bought the release version from GamersGate. If I could swap it would be even better, but I would be happy just getting a second version that wasn't all bound up with the c#*p around online control...
If that was the case, then you might as well throw all of your software in the trash.
Ever read Apple's? Microsoft's? Others? Don't get me started.
Signed.
Guys stop going off topic. This thread's been warned at least once by my count.
Guys stop going off topic. This thread's been warned at least once by my count.
I'm just refuting most of the comments as they come out.
Going off-line is easy. Turning off updates is easy. Turning off the account protection (e-mail verification) is also easy. Many other things are easy. People just need to right-click. It's all there. They have help and forums too.
Some people in many threads have said requiring Steam only encourages piracy, as people feel "forced" to use the hacked/cracked version. That's not true. Don't confuse "fair use" with "piracy." I.e., if people really only want to use the hacked/cracked version so they don't have to deal with Steam, then would pay for it at Steam, Gamers Gate, Impulse, etc..., get their legal CD key, and then use the hacked/cracked version without Steam. But since the great majority of people don't do that, it's not even remotely "fair use," but actual, real, direct "piracy." The same can be said about movies, music, etc... Pay for it, even if you somehow get a DRM-free version and claim "fair use" for doing so. If you don't pay for it, you have no "fair use" argument whatsoever.
I actually think this thread should be closed, because the overwhelming majority of justifications are inaccurate excuses. If you don't want a Steam version, fine, sign the thread. But don't make up excuses that aren't true.
No to steam.
It's not so easy to turn off steam. You make an incidental indisputable point about piracy. People aren't truly forced to use a hacked version, though, of course, you fail to address the fact that people feel they are forced to take measures to avoid steam in order to play the game they paid for. You do not acknowledge the feeling. Your description of using a hacked version while paying online appears elegant, however, people are still using a hacked version under somewhat socially mitigating circumstances, which are still probably not legal. Thematically, your solution seems to declare it's okay to break the piracy laws as long as it preserves steam's customer base.
There are indisputable points about privacy and exploitation, too. I don't want steam to know how many hours I play a game just because I download it there. I know they make money beyond what I paid for the game, off data like that. I don't care about that so much. I simply don't want them to have it. I don't want steam to set up arbitrary definitions of "achievements" in a game and then require data collection on those "achievements", then present this arbitrary junk to me as if it is a gift when steam gets what's valuable. It's dishonest. It is perfectly reasonable to validate a game's registration when downloading and installing it or when updating files and patches. It is unreasonable to require a connection to steam each time the game is used. And steam is not easy to turn off. If steam wanted it to be easy steam would have made it easy. The easy way is for steam not to require it in the first place. If you try to exit through the steam icon, steam requires you to exit the game. If you task out the process, at some point the game fails in an obvious interaction failure to find the steam connection. Turning off the steam cloud doesn't eliminate the requirement to log on to steam, and I notice they have several places you must go to turn off the steam cloud, so it's quite possible for somebody to think it is turned off when it isn't. I still don't know if it is or isn't turned off. Maybe there's some backwater tab I missed. If you wanted to kill this thread, you could have provided the procedures necessary to successfully play the game offline, instead you simply say it's easy. It's easy for you to say, I see that. Just because the game is offline does not mean steam is not gathering the same offline data they could gather when online all the time, and get it on the next game start. Nope, steam is foully intrusive.
The fact there exists a "no to steam" thread is proof that there is a serious problem. People don't have to have valid reasons not to like it, they only know they don't like it even if they can't or don't articulate those reasons. You require accurate reasons rather than what you describe as inaccurate excuses. Uh-uh. What bothers people about steam simply bothers them, even if they cannot express it or don't know why. I know why. People know steam is grabbing a lot more than they're entitled to, whether it's their time, their attention, or their data, even if people can't describe everything that steam is grabbing. Steam is intimidating, frankly. Steam wants people to get used to intimidation and intrusion in exchange for simply downloading a game from steam. Steam wants people to watch their butts, worry about steam, think about steam's requirements, acknowledge steam's power to terminate the game people paid for and simply downloaded, see the steam icon, watch silly steam process play out in popups, absorb steam advertisements, and, on top of that, steam wants people to feel good about steam while exercising the power to annoy and intimidate. The bureaucratic thematics of this trend are well known. Thematically, at this point, steam isn't very far removed from punishing people who say they don't like steam.
I say "no", and I vote no, to steam. I'm going to check this particular game out a while, and I don't care about the developer's problems pushing it out. But never another steam game, or a game validating through steam, after I'm done with this one. I made a mistake. I knew about steam, but figured things must have changed since the last I heard. Steam does not have an appropriate social sensibility towards users, who number in the many thousands, and therefore steam cannot be trusted over things that are unknown when the obvious things not to do are thrown in our faces. Nobody has any idea what data steam gathers. Steam doesn't provide any meaningful service to people who are not involved in multiplayer games. All steam does for most of us is to provide a place from which to download a digital game. Steam is not worth that drive space. Gamer's gate does things rather well. I use Gamer's Gate because I don't have to think about Gamer's Gate all the time. Now that I have to think about steam all the time, Gamer's Gate is likely to suffer providing steam games to the exact scale GG becomes increasingly associated with steam. Steam takes more than they have a right to. That's what bothers people about steam, and hypertechnical requirements that complaints be accurate before being acceptable are simply distractions from the fact people don't like steam. Instead, why don't you describe what steam can do to get people to like them? I suppose it would begin with, you know, not requiring people to log on to steam all the time, and end up with, you know, just give me the damned game and validate it.
@ BS, so I say stop going OT and you respond with a paragraph summing up your feelings. Well great. Maybe asking you to spam a topic more would have caused the desired result :/ This thread isn't to discuss the pros and cons of Steam, and whether such pros/cons are in fact valid. It's for people who don't want a steam version to make that clear, simply by stating it in a post.
You are now banned from this thread, The first post clearly says only 1 post per member, by replying to others you are not only violating that but inducing others to do so.
Hey, I have no problem with people who do find ways for "fair use" of a product they paid for. I'm just saying that people who pirate and don't that use the excuse of the copyright holder, distributor, etc... as their excuse for not paying are not the same.
I never said that. I said that if you aren't paying for it, you very much are a pirate. That's what I was saying, for those that "justify" their non-payment.
Yes, there are laws in the US, Germany and many other nations that make using a pirated copy illegal, at least if you redistribute it. But I wasn't going into that depth.
I don't know about others, but when I play off-line, it does not track the number of hours I played. Furthermore, you do have control over privacy settings, your friends, etc... who can view that information. Otherwise, it becomes anonymous.
Metrics, anonymous metrics, are valuable. E.g., I've long argued that Valve already has enough metrics on games that are available on Linux, along with the number of systems dual-booting Linux or running Steam under WINE, to make a Linux port.
Overall, no, marketing is only a small segment. But yes, on-line, anonymous metrics are always going to be valuable.
People like yourself scream about such things, instead of going after the people who do wrongfully use your information. Instead of being the "screaming all the time" person, I take each entity and evaluate what they do.
How does this differ from console gaming? The metrics are being collected. Heck, you seen what Windows Live! does?
I didn't like Steam at first. But then I started seeing what others are doing. Valve actually realizes, unlike many others, what they will do if they alienate users. People are complaining about Valve more than Apple. That shocks me. People complain about something, while praising another entity that does far worse when it comes to DRM, privacy and other things.
But Apple's cool, right?
I call this the "CO2 syndrome." People get so focused on one issue, and ignore many others, they miss the ones that are far worse.
This is completely and utterly false. These continually false statements in this thread are the problem, not that people don't want a Steam version.
I've run Steam off-line for months. I travel, and play about 50% of the time on aircraft. So I will go many weeks without going back into on-line mode, always staying off-line. My hours off-line do not get recorded.
They do. I'm sorry you don't know how to use Steam. But that's not Valve's fault.
Valve is the only one doing DRM right IMHO. So many other organizations are not.
Signed.
As a consumer I value choice, although it is ironic that I need to purchase and register the game here before I can request an DRM free version!
As a consumer I value choice, although it is ironic that I need to purchase and register the game here before I can request an DRM free version!
You do not need to have registered the game to post in this section only the Tech, Bug, FAQ ...
As you can see above many people posting in this very thread do not have the game registered here.
If you do not have ANY games registered you do need to wait 5 days before posting as an anti spam bot measure though, maybe that is what you bumped up against.
yeah no steam plz..
i am using my computer mostly away from internet so it sucks to have a single player game to start from internet.. i bought the game from gamersgate for this reason but it sent to me to steam...
For me steam is the stupidest platform to get the games..
i am using my computer mostly away from internet so it sucks to have a single player game to start from internet.. i bought the game from gamersgate for this reason but it sent to me to steam...
For me steam is the stupidest platform to get the games..
Signed. I canceled my pre-order when I learned it needs steam (seriously, what should I buy a Steam key on Impulse for?^^).
But I'm still generally willing to buy it.
And apparently registering only SOTS I doesn't help with the waiting period.
But I'm still generally willing to buy it.
And apparently registering only SOTS I doesn't help with the waiting period.