Due to threads about Steam/DRM in Bethesda games being scattered in many game sections across the forum which makes it very difficult to moderate and the number of problems in each one, we have decided to have one thread for the discussion for everyone to discuss various forms of DRM/Steam in one place.

At the present we have no information about what DRM future games being published by Bethesda will have. There has been no formal announcement about it so this thread is merely for expressing your thoughts on various possibilities and expressing your thoughts about Steam and/or other DRM options which may be used.

The following rules will apply to this thread as well as all forum rules already in place.

1. No flaming, attacking or demeaning one another for their opinion about Steam/DRM (pro or con)
2. Any encouragement of piracy will result in a warning and temporary suspension of your account. Admission of piracy will result in a ban. This includes circumventing DRM of any kind.
3. Repeated posts by the same member to say the same thing can be considered spam and result in a warning against your account.

Rage has been confirmed to use Steamworks.

Skyrim has been confirmed to use Steamworks.

Dishonored has been confirmed to use Steamworks.


Steam installation link: http://store.steampowered.com/about/

One of the frequent complaints about Steam is that it can't be played offline. We are providing a link for instructions to do so. If it will not work for you, please contact Steam to assist with the issue.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGCB-2555

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1224956-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion/page__view__findpost__p__18502385

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1712878

https://support.steampowered.com/register.php

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=17



Please note the following forum rule prior to posting:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/724862-forum-rules-and-general-information/

For the purpose of this forum, EULAs are legally binding. Discussion of breaking it, avoiding it or cracking the game will result in a warning or ban of your account.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1258551-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1286613-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1331715-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-26/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1359009-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-27/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1382539-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-28/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1416613-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-29/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1453951-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-30/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1476435-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-31/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1477500-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-32/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1486711-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-33/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1487865-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-34/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1494398-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-35/

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1502731-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-36/

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1503944-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-37/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1506641-unofficial-steamgogdrm-etc-discussion-38/

Thread #39

"Rail Game Fans." They have made 2 computer games from 2 railroad boardgames I enjoy playing: Rail Empires and Rail Baron. I originally bought their download copies for $29 each. Not a bad price. However, this guy is so scared of pirating, that he allows only 3 installations per game.

Well, I have reinstalled Windows 7 (same machine) 3 times, deleting my games. He now wants me to pay him MORE money to play the games I paid for already.

I will give him all the blame, as I did not process the difference between "license" and "game." So, just like Steam, I bought licenses, not games. I have been corresponding with him and let me tell you, customer service is NOT his strong suit. In our correspondence, he suggested I get his "service plan" that comes to $999/year. I was floored, to say the least. You get a bunch of other services for that cash, but nothing worth $999/year. Otherwise, I can just keep buying his games @ $29 each for 3 installations each. I just can not justify that as 100% of my other games (excluding MMOs) I have ever bought I can install anytime I want at no additional cost.

So I have written these 2 games off as a "learning experience." Sorry for the rant. This is the first time I have encountered this kind of gouging from a small developer.

No different to what bigger publishers and developers were going years ago. I remember the crap that popped up with limited installations with games like Crysis Warhead and Spore.

This is why, for all it's flaws, Steam is often simply the better service to use a lot of the time. It may be horribly flawed, have virtually no quality control and Valve will do everything in their power to avoid giving you refunds if they can avoid it, but ultimately, it's a simple, mostly effective service. And that's why its popular.

We already have a thread about Steam and DRM. You don't need make a whole new thread to keep waving the Steam svcks banner. You're obsessed with hatting Steam. You've actively gone out of your way to push how much you hate Steam, which goes beyond simply not liking a product and dips right into obsession.

This happened once before with a topic of mine. This NOT about Steam and this DRM does not really "fit" with that particular topic.

i think it all comes down to how much one likes a game. there are a few games that i would want to keep around for awhile.

Not to mention things like SecuROM, which is known to have screwed up OS installations (and I'm pretty sure it could be used to apply installation limits, too). Even when affecting only an extremely small percentage of users, that sort of side effect being possible made it very, very bad software.

I hate to break it to you, but all you ever do is buy a license to a game. It doesn't matter how many times you can install it; you're only ever buying the license to use a game, and the developer can remove the license from you at any time. You're also comparing a video game developer/producer to a video game distributor; they are totally different.

Cant say ive ever heard that before, its worth remebering and looking out for in the future, but id say that unless the product is amazing the most their going to get is a primary sale , because its just a slight rip off, if i knew i could only install something 3 times, i wouldnt purchase it no matter what.

This is why I don't like itunes. I got 2 activations left.

...can't you "deauthorize" an old computer when you get rid of it, to get activations back? Or are you talking about all current devices (computer, phone, ipad, etc)?

disclaimer - I've only had one device authorized on iTunes, ever. Although I'm replacing my Mac soon, so we'll see how that goes....

Apparently, I've finally found a gamer that's never had to deal with GFWL, Origin or Uplay.

And yet you put the 'Steam' in the title. You could have just named the thread 'Rail Game Fans offer horrible customer support' or whatever, but no. You had to bait and mislead all the Steam fans for more thread views and then claim it had nothing to do with Steam.

Just for this computer.

Another one? seriously? give it a break.

this seems like less of a complaint about that new platform and more of an excuse to bash steam.

then why did you put "Steam" right in the title?

were you just trying to instill an argument?

Exactly. I never could understand this hatred that people have for a service or product. I know someone in RL that thinks of Apple like they were the Nazis. If you don't like something just don't buy it.

Origin pisses me off. It keeps randomly deleting my mass effect and dragon age.

But that's because they are Nazis.

Origin was fun at launch. So much crap over the privacy issues (plus it generally wasn't very good) and even to this day I won't have it just 'lying around' installed on my system. When I bought ME3 I constantly ran Origin in Sandboxie because I considered it to be little better than Spyware.

Also the trouble over the Dead Space 3 co-op system after that games launch. Steam certainly hasnt been a beacon of light, but Origin really failed on the basics at times.

Huh. With all the gripes I hear about other services, I really have to wonder why people hate Steam so much.

On topic...should have read the ol' EULA a bit more thoroughly. Yup, no good practice on the service the games were purchased through. But if you don't read the fine print, well, you get what you have coming to you.

Now you're just being ridiculous.

My disk tray is done in so i needed to use origin to get The Sims Medieval on my PC from the disk, after screwing around a bit, i found a way to run Origin games without the Platfom Running, rather nifty if you want to conserve CPU/RAM.

Still need the platform installed though because the game still checks for it.

Agreed, but with the crap these companies pull, it is becoming almost necessary to actually read the things to make sure. I don't like it, but that seems to be what it is coming to.

While I can understand that it's a bit silly to expect someone to read the EULA, they have no right to complain about something that is explicitly stated in the EULA/box/website etc. if they don't read it. I don't care if it's a long-ass, boring document; by not reading it, you should expect that at some point, you're going to find something about game "ownership" that you dislike but can do nothing about.

Looks like there is a group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation's who are trying to pass a law so people can circumvent old abandoned video games that have a online component to it that got abandoned by the video game publishing companies and video game development companies.

The trouble with online DRM in videogames is that if and when a publisher stops supporting it for one reason or another, owners of the game in question are hosed. The game phones home, can't connect to an authentication server, and everything comes to a sudden, unhappy halt. Unofficial cracks can circumvent said DRM, but they're illegal, and more to the point, not always immediately at hand from reputable sources.

This is where the Electronic Frontier Foundation's petition comes into play. It seeks to establish legal DMCA exemptions for, among other things, "videogames that are no longer supported by the developer, and that require communication with a server." The exemption would apply not just to games with online checks, but also to those that use "matchmaking servers" for multiplayer, such as Civilization V or Mario Kart Wii. However, persistent worlds "in which the game's audiovisual content is primarily stored on the developer's server and not in the client," which would mean MMOs, are not included in the suggested exemption.

The EFF noted that 53 percent of game sales in 2013 were digital and said that while platforms like Steam offer many advantages to consumers, they also "introduce additional failure points" by making another layer of remote servers necessary to a game's functionality.

"As games deactivate and servers shut down, the ability to modify authentication controls and start new servers is vital to preserving player communities. Communities can disperse quickly once gameplay becomes impossible," the petition states. "Removing the barriers of the anti-circumvention provision will allow players to continue to explore and play games they already own, and help preservationists remove authentication mechanisms in order to format shift games so that future gamers may enjoy and learn from them."

The exemption requests are being filed as "part of the elaborate, every-three-year process to right the wrongs put in place by the Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," the EFF said in a statement. It described the process as "burdensome and confusing, with high hurdles to success," but also noted that it's the only avenue of redress currently available. The EFF's DMCA Gaming Exemption Petition is available in full here.

Here are the links to the web sites with pdf files and all.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-fights-common-sense-again-dmca-rulemaking

https://www.eff.org/files/2014/11/03/eff_dmca_gaming_exemption_dkt_2014-07.pdf