I hope it's Steam and not GFWL. The thing I hate about GFWL is that in order to buy DLCs, you must buy these stupid "Microsoft Points," and they are only available in amounts that are either more or less than what you need for the DLC. Obviously, one would end up paying more for their product that what it's worth. Why hasn't this sort of thing been made illegal yet? How can that even be considered fair trade?

Personally I hope any DLC aren't only on Steam (retail, other digi-distro)

Ummmmm, since when did i need to be online to play on steam, and why do you want to spend $20 per card to get a $10 dlc.... :shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead:

Just gonna say it.
1. There are games that you can activate on Steam but don't have to. You can choose to get the unlimited redownloads and autopatching but you don't NEED to actually activate them. Not all Steam games, but some.
2. Don't have to be online with Steam either, past activation.
3. True, GFWL also has some games that do cross platform playing, besides just talking (Shadowrun for example). However, I would much rather just use my debit card for DLC than MS Points. But that's just me personally.

To clarify. I mean maybe the OP meant which download distributer you wanted not which DRM.
DRMs are a thing of the past as they all can be cracked.
Bethesda best bet is to just release without any DRM.
I also find that DRMs make pirated copies more tempting.
So I'm thinking Steam. GFWL has microsofts stamp on it. The only thing I like from Microsoft is Windows and MS Office.
I found GFWL to be horribly intrusive and just plain horrible.

I agree . I've always wanted to be able to just go to the store and buy them, rather than having to risk my credit card number online, or be forced to buy Visa gift cards to make all my purchases. It's just that if forced to choose between Steam or GFWL's point system, I think anyone would choose Steam's system any day, at least as far as DLC's are concerned. The only problem with Steam is that once you register your game with them, your game DVD becomes a coaster, and if your Steam account gets stolen/closed, you lose all your games. It's a rather nasty choice: overpaying for DLCs or putting all your eggs in one basket in terms of game registration.

Having DLC as retail would create a black hole that would consume the entire universe.
What I mean is that DLC stands for DownLoadable Content.
But if you are concerned F3 dlc was released as a retail Content Pack.
I beleive the same can be expected here.

It's a shame you'd even have to. Anyone that's actually paying attention to the market or industry can see that plain as day. DRMs like Steam make for a fail-safe way around the Right of First Sale.

yeah, very "fail-safe"
I don't know if you were being ironic, but in case you were not: You can just sell your Steam Account to go around that fail-safe system.^^

GFWL might look like a nice option that isn't intrusive at all. That is, as long as you keep it permantently turned off/in offline mode.

As soon as you go in online mode once, for example if you want to buy DLC you are forced to do it, it because a total pain. For those of us that actually like the online connectivity part of their games, even single player games, GFWL is the worse thing ever invented by Microsoft since Microsoft Bob.

You may not need to be online, but the fact that steam has to run is just as big an issue.

And why pay $20 for a $10 DLC? Because, when was the last the there was only one $10 DLC?

GFWL for me was only ever turned on to download the DLCs for Fallout 3, and that was via the stand-alone program. After that the DLCs were moved to my game folder and I removed the stand-alone program and continued running FOSE.

GFWL just sat back and chilled.


Steam on the otherhand is taking my CPU time. I dont like it when I cant dictate what does and does not get CPU time.

Except steam *also* sits back and entirely idles during a game. If you want to dictate exactly what gets CPU time, then a realtime OS with a complex scheduler isn't for you! You don't get a say in *any* of it. The overhead of a realtime virus scanner is orders of magnitude greater than the nothings that steam does while playing games, the RAM usage of the sound cache dwarfs the in-memory footprint of the steam client while ingame. Arguing resource usage like that on a modern machine hurts your own argument, there are legitimate ideological reasons to dislike steam, but resource usage is not one of them and allows anybody to simply brush off every other argument as one coming from a pedant.

My concern with Steam is not resources, it's more about modding.
OBSE didn't work with the Steam-version at first, and most likely, the script extender for Skyrim (if any) won't either. There's also some very nice mods that simply doesn't work with Steam, though there are workarounds for that as well.
But the thing is, I don't want to be forced to using workarounds just to get my modded game to work!

It's time for you to write your own OS and BIOS. And redo yourself the ROMs in all the peripherals that include them while you are at it.

Heaven forbid I want to run an efficient machine.

And over 100MB of memory usage with 1-2% of CPU time is not "idling". Steam is very active when running a game, online or off.

I said in-memory, as the steam client never does anything that can be paged out very effectively - and 1-2% constant utilisation is certainly nothing I've noticed while its idling - how did you measure that?
Even so, 1-2% of a modern CPU would not make any significant impact to the largely GPU bound games of today.

I've never seen the Steam client eat up THAT much memory in the first place, not to mention CPU XD

Steam memory footprint is at 80% caused by the webbrowser included, and you know what? You can close it. Just close the Steam client window and you'll free a lot of RAM used down to a very reasonable 10-20 MB or so. As for CPU usage, I have a hard time seeing it go above 0%.

I'd rather not have either. Live is just annoying with its popups (like when you get an achievement) and steam uses hardware. Steam is only good for valve games and Live isn't good anything.

Bethesda should just use disc check for drm (although that is anoying too) like they did in oblivion.

Woops, seems i might have started a distributor-war. Not my intention. All in all though, I'll support any decision that gives us the choice. If people can chose between Steam and GFWL based on personal preference, it's a win-win scenario.

I own two Steam games, and I rarely ever play them due to the large hassle that goes into such simple tasks as starting them as well as the painful amount of time it takes for Steam to load up and log in.

Steam is a major turn off for me and if Skyrim requires it then I will not be playing.

Yeah, me too, I just want a game on a disk: no [censored] like in F:NV

off topic:
just as an FYI, the transmission of your credit card number (or any information for that matter) over the internet is very safe nowadays, not only because of the encryption, but the sheer volume of data that streams through the net. Actually, the #1 source of stolen credit card numbers/identities is outsourcing, that is, the companies that retailers (and not necessarily online) hire to process transactions. More and more companies, private and gov't, are outsourcing "customer care" to places like India, the Philippines, the Caribbean, etc and these foreign outsource companies aren't exactly "secure": in the US, we have an idea of how good a background check is and the reach of the FBI, but we know nothing about how good background checks are in foreign nations (or if they conduct them at all). And it is everywhere here in the US... even the Post Office has call centers in India now.

On topic:
when I bought F03, I had no idea it had GWFL, or what GFWL was. I played maybe 2 play-throughs before I realized what the LIVE option in the FO3 menu was. Frankly, I like that. I liked it even better when I realized I could easily remove it from my system and keep on playing my game. Unlike Steam, which is a pain to remo ... oops, can't talk about that

All in all, I don't mind online registration... what I mind, is being forcibly tied to a 3rd party which controls the where, when, and how I play my game.

Actually, more than that, most banks now only guarantee the security of your card number if you do it online. Over the phone? Nope. In person? Nope. Online? Yeah.

I didn't mind GFWL because I didn't use it. It was optional.

You would have loved it when your tried to activate it because it was needed to get the DLC then you'd be wondering why the game erased all your saves without any warning. Which it didn't because your offline profile and online profile cannot access the other one saves. But when you go offline you cannot use the DLC anymore! So fun.

GFLW worked for FO3 only when you ignored it completelly by always playing in offline mode. In online mode it was a royal pain. People asking for it should instead ask for no online component at all please.