You are not buying games on Steam, you are only renting them. DRM is evil

[Sonikku]

Being a legit gamer these days is like being the sap having his Youtube videos interrupted mid way by minute and a half ads for not using adblock.

I just don't need all these shenanigans, but thanks to those subjecting themselves to all the bull, keeping the system viable.

 

[blackened23]

"DRM is evil"

I had a good laugh at that.

No, I don't condone developers doing this sort of thing. It is definitely anti consumer, yet in this case I wouldn't fault Steam. Anyway - "DRM is evil". What a hilariously over the top, ridiculous statement. EVIL.

 

[mindcycle]

Dont blame Steam here, blame Square Enix.

Or better yet - blame yourselves for purchasing a single player game with always online DRM. If you sheeple continue to buy such things, dont be surprised when this continues to happen. The only always online DRM game I have ever bought is StarCraft 2, and I swore that would be the last. I have stuck to that promise and dont regret it for a second.

Yeah exactly. The lesson here is don't buy games that require you to always be online. Only by not buying them will we send a message to the publisher that we don't support that BS. Ubisoft changed their always online policy real quick after they realized it was hurting them more that solving whatever piracy nonsense they used to justify its use. Money talks, and that's about all that does with these guys.

As far as Steam, I only buy ("rent") games from them if it's at a significant discount. No way i'd ever pay retail for a Steam game unless I also had a fully working backup copy available. Game rental should not cost the same as a retail copy, period, and that's one of my main issues with Steam. Although I still like Steam for all the decent sale prices they offer.

 

[Sonikku]

"DRM is evil"

I had a good laugh at that.

No, I don't condone developers doing this sort of thing. It is definitely anti consumer, yet in this case I wouldn't fault Steam. Anyway - "DRM is evil". What a hilariously over the top, ridiculous statement. EVIL.

It is kind of evil. I remember when I bought Bioshock back in the day and it installed drm onto my machine. Like an insidious force taking over my computer telling me what I can and can't do or run, sometimes blocking me from using my very own legitimate applications and programs and it cannot be removed or stopped. (short of a reinstall of Windows) It is the invention of misinformed suits that think they are able to stop piracy by souring the experience of their biggest supporters, inadvertently pushing games such as myself into the very clutches they would hope to avoid.

 

[BoberFett]

"DRM is evil"

I had a good laugh at that.

No, I don't condone developers doing this sort of thing. It is definitely anti consumer, yet in this case I wouldn't fault Steam. Anyway - "DRM is evil". What a hilariously over the top, ridiculous statement. EVIL.

Actually in the larger scheme of things, DRM could be considered evil. Right now when all we're losing is a few crappy games that nobody plays, you're right. No big deal.

But imagine 100 years from now. How would things work if DRM had existed 100 years ago, and all the classic B&W films were locked up behind some ancient DRM scheme. The actual owner of the IP has long since been lost, nobody knows who actually owns it anymore after numerous mergers and acquisitions. The physical original has been lost, tossed in a box when the new owner took over. The DRM technology itself stopped working 75 years ago because the company that ran it went defunct. The code for the DRM was lost, and due to laws against reverse engineering of DRM, nobody bothered to do anything about it.

That's a real thing, we've already seen it. Films lost because the only copy was in a dusty box in some movie studio basement. If a music/movie/game studio goes out of business, and the originals are lost, with the only copies being those in distribution littered with DRM, what then?

I would say that intentionally using technology that is specifically designed lock up vast swaths of our culture, with the very real possibility of losing it entirely, is in fact evil.

 

[Anteaus]

Actually in the larger scheme of things, DRM could be considered evil. Right now when all we're losing is a few crappy games that nobody plays, you're right. No big deal.

But imagine 100 years from now. How would things work if DRM had existed 100 years ago, and all the classic B&W films were locked up behind some ancient DRM scheme. The actual owner of the IP has long since been lost, nobody knows who actually owns it anymore after numerous mergers and acquisitions. The physical original has been lost, tossed in a box when the new owner took over. The DRM technology itself stopped working 75 years ago because the company that ran it went defunct. The code for the DRM was lost, and due to laws against reverse engineering of DRM, nobody bothered to do anything about it.

That's a real thing, we've already seen it. Films lost because the only copy was in a dusty box in some movie studio basement. If a music/movie/game studio goes out of business, and the originals are lost, with the only copies being those in distribution littered with DRM, what then?

I would say that intentionally using technology that is specifically designed lock up vast swaths of our culture, with the very real possibility of losing it entirely, is in fact evil.

I guess it depends on whether you think some things are worth saving. Technological innovation has done more to create defunct software than any DRM as of yet. Emulator's allow us to peer into the past, but they can't reproduce the here and now.

I'm not about to offer an opinion as to whether something is art or not, but I will say that if something is lost because of actions done by the owner, then that is the way it is. You might see the actions you describe as evil, but any attempt to intercept and enforce values contrary to the owners is also evil, no matter how well intentioned. Moral relativism is key here. They are no more right or wrong for wanting to destroy it than you are for saving it.

I agree with your intent. I just disagree with you calling software companies actions evil just because they are trying to make a dollar in a fashion in which you disagree. As I said in a earlier post, we need new laws that deal specifically with this. The DMCA was too narrowly defined as written and can't properly address these issues.

 

[ImpulsE69]

...if only the bible had draconian DRM, I'd have me a harem.

P.S. I think "not buying" does not good anymore. Companies just say "oh everyone pirated it" blah blah.

If you want to make a change, you bitch, loudly. Plain and simple. If you just stand back and don't say anything, you get walked on. It's the same way all those crazy laws/bills get passed to "protect us from ourselves". Bored housewives with nothing better to do but stick their noses where they don't need to be because they are too dumb to police their own children.

Sometimes pitching a fit is a good thing. Are there probably better causes out there? Sure, but you won't have nearly the influence trying to oust your president as you will bringing down a game company for stupidity ;P (well..and less NSA raids too).

 

[runzwithsizorz]

, but I'm glad I bought 90% of my "PC golden era" games on CD / DVD / GOG

Me too...Now I don't think I want anymore Steam games. I did download Skyrim from them, but that may be the end for me.

 

[sandorski]

Steam doesn't Own these Games, they just Distribute. If the Publisher wants a Game removed, Steam can't refuse unless it wants Legal action taken or lose trust with their Suppliers(Publishers).

 

[dud]

The best way to respond to this action is with your wallet. Hit the developers that pull this hard, at their bottom line. Don't buy games from Square Enix, period.

That'll teach them ...

 

[Dankk]

The best way to respond to this action is with your wallet. Hit the developers that pull this hard, at their bottom line. Don't buy games from Square Enix, period.

That'll teach them ...

Screw that. Square Enix publishes some awesome PC games.

 

[dud]

Screw that. Square Enix publishes some awesome PC games.

Then you are encouraging this developer (and others) to continue this behavior and if this happens to you, you deserve it.

 

[GWestphal]

Do you think that Blizzard will release a World of Warcraft 'local' server patch when they finally decommission WoW? It would be kinda neat to be able to LAN it up like the good old days on a private server.

 

[futurefields]

Piracy is still far too rampant. Srsly way too many kids pirate games.

 

[mindcycle]

Screw that. Square Enix publishes some awesome PC games.

Then you are encouraging this developer (and others) to continue this behavior and if this happens to you, you deserve it.

I agree with dud one this one. If you continue to buy games from publishers using draconian DRM, you ARE supporting DRM and just invested in your own issues if it comes down to that. Only money talks with these guys.

Also, someone above said we just have to be vocal about it. I agree, but only to an extent though.. We can be as vocal as we want and try to get people behind us hating DRM, but ultimately it falls back to sales numbers. If people bitch and complain but still buy the game, nothing changes. If they are vocal "and" don't buy the game, or don't buy the next game using the same DRM, then you might see change. But just being vocal about something doesn't do squat if we keep buying the stuff.

 

[Juddog]

I'm sick of every single godamn company nowadays requiring some online registration to play the game, even after I already have steam running. Picked up Sins of a Solar Empire during the steam sale, as an example, and it requires yet another online registration. So frigging annoying - just give me the godamn game I paid money for and let me play.

 

[Juddog]

Piracy is still far too rampant. Srsly way too many kids pirate games.

With the ever increasing amount of DRM in games it's almost encouraging people to pirate.

 

[goobernoodles]

I find it ironic that the day I read this thread is the day both Origin and Steam are both going up-and-down. I don't know if Origin is just being Origin while Steam is getting bandwidth assraped by their sale traffic, but it's pretty weird that both platforms are basically down right now.

Everyone on Steam is getting booted every few minutes.

Is this some sort of coordinated DDOS attack on both platforms?

Moral of the story: Fuck DRM.

Edit: https://twitter.com/DerpTrolling yes it is...

 

[Juddog]

I spent about $50 on this steam sale and literally every single game I bought requires some kind of separate-from-steam login; I cannot believe this. I am really saddened to see the state of games today.

 

[BrightCandle]

The only thing that turned Ubisoft around was a combination of the vocal group who shouted at them with every game and the loss of sales that it caused.

I got to the point with a game review/trailoer where I saw the publisher name and stopped reading and watching. I wasn't interested in hearing about the game anymore at that point because I knew it would come with some crazy ass DRM scheme, even if it didn't I really didn't want to go read through a tonne of different reviews to work out what it was. It took a while but a lot of customers got really unhappy with Ubisoft and in the end it hurt their bottom line and reputation. It will take years to repair that damage to their PC market cap and to their brand.

While that anti consumer movement from Ubisoft was halted there are still other companies (like EA and Blizzard) that are pushing this from a different angle. They are determined to get always online DRM into every game and in EAs case use it to disable your game once the latest version is out. Being vocal about how wrong this is, how it hurts legitimate customers and taking simple action against it is the only way that you can potentially turn it around. Governmemts will only intervene and class digital goods as products if its vocal complained about, if petitions are raised and signed and a general movement of discontent occurs. Its only once everyone knows there is a problem that it can be fixed, it is the way a functioning democracy does things.

So the idea that we should accept the status quo of content licencing I don't think is the right answer. The law is stacked against the customer, while in most countries there are clear laws against this sort of behaviour licencing as used for these items works around it. But a game/movie/music file is just a good bought like any other, it needs to be fit for purpose have a decent lifetime expectation and comply with the general principles of bought goods. I don't really see much of an argument the other way actually, it seems self evident that buying a DVD in a store and buying it digitally should result in the same rights.

 

[BSim500]

The only thing that turned Ubisoft around was a combination of the vocal group who shouted at them with every game and the loss of sales that it caused.

Being vocal about how wrong this is, how it hurts legitimate customers and taking simple action against it is the only way that you can potentially turn it around.

^ Agree 100%. For many, the issue isn't specifically about "Order of War", it's about the potentially significantly shorter lifespan of digitally distributed games in the future for purely artificial reasons, the general trend / direction things are heading in of aggressively shoehorning gamers into a tightly-controlled overly-centralised narrow distribution channel, a revocation policy that's a lot more open-ended than is healthy, and the dangers of literally losing games in the long run on a timescale out of all proportion to other entertainment media due to blind reliance of one single distribution company being around forever...

Steam may not be "guilty" of having to follow Square Enix's demands, but the message sent here is essentially "Any game you buy through Steam is disposable with a potential open-ended "killswitch" attached. If it still works 4 years later, that's a 'rental privilege' from your developer Serf to you peasants, not a perfectly normal consumer right to use what you've paid for like 10 years ago or in every other form of alternative entertainment". Thank God for GOG.com, CD's, DVD's & Blu-Ray's because I sure as hell wouldn't accept all my other entertainment purchases (books, music, films, etc) being funnelled through one single company which required my 'permission' to use for decades to come...

The game in question here was an "already broken" MMO sure, but another publisher might well decide to delete another game via Steam for entirely different reasons (eg, involuntary political censorship, IP changes after developer bankruptcy, etc). With Steam now taking the first step in retroactively wiping games from collections in practise, everything ultimately relies on the "goodness of developers hearts" to support games authentications beyond 3 years (OOWC was only released in 2010), which as we all know attitudes vary radically from "games written by gamers for gamers" for some, to "you are filthy peasants underneath our shareholders feet" for certain others...

It's been fascinating reading other threads here over the past few days, like this one and this one where a surprising number of people are still playing 5-20 year old games which work just fine on modern hardware with or without minor tweaks. In contrast, OOWC was barely 3.5 years old before it was wiped. Something to think about for the long run if developers start getting into the trend of dictating that games "should" start having arbitrary finite lifespans of only a few years due to the cost of maintaining DRM, etc...

 

[EDUSAN]

has anyone continued reading?

it says in the update that steam changed the name of the game, removin the MP part and leaving the SP part in the people's library.

nevertheless... you know why steam has games SO cheap? well its because you are renting them for "undefined" time

 

[frozentundra123456]

With the ever increasing amount of DRM in games it's almost encouraging people to pirate.

That is like saying being poor encourages you to rob banks. I dont honestly have an answer, because the ultimate solution is better government regulation, but unfortunately, the big publishers have a lot of money to throw around and influence the rules in their favor.

I guess my answer, is that gaming is not life and death. Personally I just live with the DRM, and dont expect to play my games 5 or 10 years down the road. If current drm is not acceptable, just dont buy the game. Piracy only perpetuates the vicious circle, because it encourages even more draconian attempts at effective drm.

 

[Fire&Blood]

has anyone continued reading?

it says in the update that steam changed the name of the game, removin the MP part and leaving the SP part in the people's library.

nevertheless... you know why steam has games SO cheap? well its because you are renting them for "undefined" time

I read the article before the update and later I found out about the update via forum posts here. Article author didn't do his homework properly. Initially readers were misled to think that Steam was deleting local files and that the game was no longer playable.

That is like saying being poor encourages you to rob banks. I dont honestly have an answer, because the ultimate solution is better government regulation, but unfortunately, the big publishers have a lot of money to throw around and influence the rules in their favor.

I guess my answer, is that gaming is not life and death. Personally I just live with the DRM, and dont expect to play my games 5 or 10 years down the road. If current drm is not acceptable, just dont buy the game. Piracy only perpetuates the vicious circle, because it encourages even more draconian attempts at effective drm.

I agree about piracy but I do expect to have the option to play my games after they are pulled from retail shelves. Obviously MMO's and multiplayer content are the exception and I am ok with that, I don't expect devs/publishers to keep the servers running forever but I fully expect to be able to launch a single player mode. As a matter of fact I recently bought a game nearly a decade old, RTL Ski jumping 2005, the franchise is dead, so is the dev house, it would suck if there was an artificial barrier preventing me from playing.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I read the article before the update and later I found out about the update via forum posts here. Article author didn't do his homework properly. Initially readers were misled to think that Steam was deleting local files and that the game was no longer playable.



I agree about piracy but I do expect to have the option to play my games after they are pulled from retail shelves. Obviously MMO's and multiplayer content are the exception and I am ok with that, I don't expect devs/publishers to keep the servers running forever but I fully expect to be able to launch a single player mode. As a matter of fact I recently bought a game nearly a decade old, RTL Ski jumping 2005, the franchise is dead, so is the dev house, it would suck if there was an artificial barrier preventing me from playing.

I do agree about single player. The only games that I would consider boycotting because of DRM are those that dont have offline single player mode. Especially come to mind are Blizzard games, because in addition to having always online requirement, they seem to lock my account randomly and accuse me of trying to "sell" it, when I have absolutely no idea why they would think this. Somehow it seems like when I dont play for a few months, the account ends up locked.