Steam and DRM

[omgitsbees]

I like Steam and all, but some of what Dandy posted is correct. For instance, if I download something from gog.com and I have the installer there is absolutely nothing they can do to take it away. Whereas Steam if I get banned or if Steam goes out of business one day there goes my games and there's nothing I can do about it.

Personally I think the risk vs the benefits Steam provides (deals, auto-patching, ect) far outweigh my concerns so I use it, but these are valid concerns none-the-less.

Anyways the game has multiple distribution channels, so everyone get's to be happy

The thing I take issue with Dandy's posts, is that he is posting garbage about Steam that just simply isn't true, and he has yet to provide any sources that backs up even a single one of his claims.

For your concern, Valve has said that if they were to shut down Steam, or go out of business even, they have servers in place that can run well after Steam is gone, that will allow people to download their games.

And you really can't get banned from Steam unless you are committing fraud, which is going to get you sent to jail anyways.

[Alaric]

Yea, to get banned one would need to do something extraordinarily evil and stupid.

[Renevent]

There are no servers that will be running when steam is gone...however unlikely if Steam goes out of business or whatever that's it. In order to install a game on Steam you have to authenticate with Steam in the first place anyways. Getting banned is also probably pretty hard to do, but you guys are missing the point...that's not even a concern with some other DD sites. I have my gog.com installers and if gog.com goes bankrupt or any other number of things it will have absolutely zero effect on my ability to install and play any of those games. It would require nothing from gog.com, and they could disappear tomorrow and I would be unaffected. The same is absolutely not true for Steam, and that is a fact.

Anyways I am almost 100% positive Valve never made that guarantee anyways (regarding keeping servers up). What I *think* you are referring to is a long time ago Valve said (and I have never actually seen this quote) they would release some kind of patch that would revert Steam to offline mode. Two problems with this though...first...this is nowhere in any of Steam's service agreements/ToS/EULA/ect so they have absolutely zero legal obligation to do so. In fact, legally according to Steam's ToS they actually say the opposite.

http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

C. NO GUARANTEES.

VALVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S).

Secondly, even if they did, that would only work on the games you currently have downloaded and loaded into Steam in the first place...once Valve is gone there would be zero way to download your games. Even if you had some backed up, there's no garuntee this magic patch (if they even release it) would be able to authenticate your games properly.

Everything is based on their good will, and there's absolutely nothing legally binding them to do so. If a company goes bankrupt, I'm not sure how much good will is to be expected of any company.

Like I said, I like Steam and I personally feel the risk is extremely low, and if it my games were going to go kaput 10 years from now I really wouldn't that heart broken (life goes on). The fact remains Steam does use heavy DRM, requires online authentication, and your games are indefinitely tied to an account you don't control. Some people find this unacceptable, and it's not an unreasonable position to have.

If you, like me, decide the risk is worth it...great! No need to ridicule and discount the folks that don't, however.

[Dandy]

Since giving Steam the boot I have never looked back. I like to able to install, patch, mod and un-install my games as I please, and not to have some program working in the background doing things for me.
Those games that are Steam exclusive are not usually my type of thing anyway, but, as omgitsbees mentioned, if LOG was steam exclusive, now that would be a real test of willpower on my part.

I shudder to think what the game industry would be like if Steam was the only game outlet.

[Grock]

Just wanted to say thanks for the GOG.com version, happily pre-ordered. Looking forward to playing this bit of shiny nostalgia.

[Stevedog]

I just wanted to thank everyone at Almost Human for being very human and offering this game in both Steam and Standalone versions.

I'm an old school PC gamer who doesn't use Steam and I sometimes feel that other game companies don't really want my kind as a customer. But from everything I have seen so far I will be making LoG my first New Release purchase since 2008.

[Point08]

I'm an old school PC gamer who doesn't use Steam and I sometimes feel that other game companies don't really want my kind as a customer.

That is correct. They don't. They will take your money if you offer it, but they're not going to change their model to suit a relatively small minority of players.