Listen man I absolutely give you my word that it will be on Steam, retail version or digital.

Steam is the 100% best choice for PC gaming developers these days, get used to having Steam around for a long, long, LONG time.

It's not in your face nor is it intrusive, it's incredibly useful, they have sales CONSTANTLY which have absolutely amazing value, it auto patches all of your games for you to save you the trouble, it protects better against piracy better than any other form of DRM and you don't have to be a part of a online platform or community to play the game.. you just have to verify it once when it's installed and then you can just launch Steam in offline mode and play the game like that, never connecting to Steam again, which means you never get the update news, get to see the amazing sales etc.


Steam is here to stay people and it is the reason PC gaming is not dead. If steam was not around we would all be playing on consoles because developers would have given up on the PC long ago. It is amazing, it is great, there is no good reason for you not to like it.

What would you prefer instead of Steam? The horrible mess which is Games for windows LIVE, ten times more intrusive than Steam and slows down your system? Securom? They are all absolutely HORRIBLE alternatives, Steam is by FAR the best choice. If you are asking them to release Skyrim without any DRM or anti piracy protection at all then that is just ridiculous.

Steam+Skyrim=Great. Please stop complaining.

Just go in offline mode or disable steam community in game. Then it wouldn't be in your face all the time.

As I have said before, if it requires Steam I will continue to play and mod Oblivion and Morrowind. Though I doubt they will, as it would drop the sales of the game. On a recent Poll, 41% said they will not buy the game if It needs steam and around 30% will hope it doesn't.

I won't get Skyrim if it requires Steam. My biggest concerns are (1) making a single-player game dependent upon online connectivity, which I think is unnecessary, (2) Steam's killing of the resale value of the disk version, (3) whether mods would work as smoothly with Steam as they would with a game that does not require Steam, and (4) Steam's ongoing control over your gaming experience long after purchase. This is aside from what happens to your access to your gaming account in the event of Steam's collapse, merger, change of policy, etc., which is not spelled out in the Steam EULA (http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/).

I am happy for all of the people who like Steam, and I think that the game should be available through Steam as an option. However, I don't think that the games should be solely available through Steam, especially the retail-disk version.

Yea, but you know most of those poeple just said that and will buy it no matter what (just like the people who claimed they would boycott New Vegas, but guess what they all bought it). But in any case I buy everything on Steam becasue of convenience so I will buy the Steam version no matter what other options there are.

That's your losses then. You can still mod Skyrim even if it is Steam dependant. And I read one of the Steam devs posted that they have a system in place to deactivate all of the security for the steam games should they go insolvent. So you're safe there.

To address your points specifically;

(1). You only need to connect once to regester it. After that you can run it in offline mode or simply turn off your internet.
(2). Why would you want to resell Skyrim? Fair enough for other games, but I still have Morrowind and Oblivion, and regularly play them, because of mods. I have no need to sell my disc. I bought Oblivion on a Steam sale recently, because I lost my disc.
(3). Mods work exactly the same. The Steam team even went out of their way to make OBSE work with Steam. What more can you ask for??
(4). I wouldn't worry about Steam collapsing anytime soon. But if they do, then they have stated they will remove all Steam dependency. Can you really see them going out of business/being bought out any time soon?

I love steam. Steam has never caused any problems for me and it makes keeping all my games updated and organized very simple. I also like the fact that I can just delete some game files, click "validate" and steam will basically re-install the whole thing. Nice and fresh start, especially for heavily modded games like Oblivion. Oh and yes, heavily modded games like Oblivion work just fine with Steam.

Anyway, I know a lot of people HATE steam. I disagree.
Most of the coherent arguments against steam are just arguing the principle of the thing, and since I don't have any problems with the principle of it, then we have no quarrel.

Most arguments go like this:

• Steam is 3d party software that I don't need.
  
  • That's true, except that every game you've ever played uses lots of 3d party resources - so that's a moot point. Not only that, but Steam SDK powers a great deal of othe functions of Steam games and makes development and support much easier for studios like gamesas. So while you don't "need" it, game developers prefer it.
  
  
• Steam is invasive
  
  • It really isn't. The only thing that it does that is invasive and annoying is advertise for itself when you launch it up. You can disable the popups. You can also change the default page for your startup, so that can all go away. Steam doesn't use any appreciable amount of system resources, so there's actually nothing invasive about it once you get it set up and running. Mine doesn't even run at startup.
  
  
• Steam violates my privacy
  
  • Usage statistics are anonymous. Not only that but the world is a big enough economy that if Steam were running some huge scam to gather data on your personal life, they would have been reported by now. Many people that use steam are excellent software engineers (and plenty of hackers). If Steam was being naughty, they would notice before you did. Fermi paradox. Since it hasn't been reported yet, it probably isn't happening. Steam is not a conspiracy.
  
  
• Steam makes doing ____ much more difficult.
  
  • I dont' really see this one, but I guess it's just preference. Steam puts all my games on one list without cluttering up my desktop and I like that. I can also update any game instantly, and I can reinstall them with no problem. Granted, I have an insane download rate and a fast computer, so all the little things that steam does don't take more than an hour or so for me. I can see that others might have issues with these features. Still, I think this is more a problem with the User than with Steam, because the system probably needs an upgrade if it can't handle Steam functions.
  
  
• Steam is unstable/crashes and support for it blows.
  
  • Granted, Steam IS another piece of software. Any time you do that you add one more layer of complexity to incredibly complex systems. Does that increase failures? Yes. The effects are different on different systems. For me, steam has only crashed twice and both times were years ago when Empire TW had just been released. I haven't had problems since. Steam support is annoying because there is no phone number, but it does work.

Ditto. I`ll be happy enough with Xbox version and no mods i`m sure.

Some Two Worlds 2 steam versions have been crashing according to reports on the TW2 Forums recently.

I don't see why people have a vendetta against Steam, i don't play any PC games without it.

Exactly. I've gone so far as to re-purchase games like Rome Total War, Morrowind, and 1701 with Steam. I have the disks for those games somewhere, but I really just enjoy having them all on Steam.

Some people are just unable to get with the times, I imagine they are the same sort of people who complain about fast travel and regenerating health in fps games.

A lot of people have a grudge because they attempted to warez steam games, got caught, and had their account blocked. Now they are bitter, lol.

I really hope this game is on stream. It will make it so much better

Interesting Steam related survey/poll results from another game developer:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=115256
I suggest reading the posts as well, rather than indiscriminately looking at the result. Even if some issues don't apply here, the trend in general is pretty clear to me.

This same exact debate surfaces on the forum boards for every major game company. To Steam or not to Steam.
The polls are always the same, massive opposition to the whole idea of using Steam.

But the question I'm left with is always the same, WHY? Nobody seems to be able to put forth a good explanation why Steam is a bad idea. I'm guessing it has to do with software pirates.

(1). Yes, I understand how Steam's offline mode works. I use it with Dawn of War 2 (the only Steam game that I own). My point is that Steam DOES require internet connectivity, which seems unnecessarily for a purely single-player game like Skyrim.
(2). I just like having the option of reselling my games, so that I can apply the proceeds to my next game purchase. Granted, TES games are generally keepers, but most games are not, and I like being able to sell them on eBay. Steam does not allow that, or for you to even give away a game to a friend or relative.
(3). I didn't buy the Steam version of Oblivion, so I don't know how it worked with OBSE. However, does the OBSE work as smoothly with Steam as it does with a disk version without Steam?
(4). I agree that Valve/Steam is probably in good financial shape for now. However, we just don't know what is likely to happen over the next 5-10 years. Companies get bought out, merged, plagued with corruption, etc. all the time. Hopefully, this will not happen to Steam, but who really knows. Anyhow, I wouldn't gamble on any rumored statement that Valve would "remove all Steam dependency" in the event that something happened to Steam. This is not stated in the Steam EULA, and I imagine that some developers would really have a problem with Valve just removing the Steam DRM altogether and making their games DRM free. In fact, their agreements probably don't allow for this, and instead transfer the game code back to the developer as opposed to making it available without the Steam DRM.

To be clear, the closest that the Steam EULA gets to telling us what will happen in the event of its demise is the following:

2.A. You understand that neither this Agreement nor the terms associated with a particular Subscription entitles you to future updates, new versions or other enhancements of the Software associated with a particular Subscription although Valve may choose to provide such updates, etc. in its sole discretion.

5. You acknowledge that Valve is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Subscriptions(s) and/or Account, but it may choose to do so.

9.C. 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).

If anything, the language of Steam's EULA is designed to make sure that you don't have any way of gaining access to your games if for some reasons Valve goes out of business or just decides to change its policies. In any event, it says nothing about unlocking or removing Steam dependency if something happens to the company. That's the single thing that bothers me most about Steam.

To be perfectly honest, you should just stop even thinking that you will be able to play Skrim in the first place if Steam's memory usage is an issue for you. If you cannot afford to have an application using 25MB of memory in the background in this and age then you will not be able to play Skrim - simple as that to be honest.

Let's see 263 out of 75,449 members have voted, that's 0.35% percentage of the forum... yep those results are totally useful, highly unlikely that the thread mostly attracted people who already had illogical grudges against it.

Because there is no good reason why Steam is bad. People just like things to complain about. Steam is free, easy, and convenient and for a free software it has a lot of helpful features.

I have had a bad experience with the Steam process.

I bought FONV, enjoyed FO3, and thought FONV would be fun.

So, after purchasing my new game, I promptly took it home, and was anticipating my joy at being able to play my new game very soon.

I began the installation. Then the trouble started. I could not just play my game. I had to sign on to something called "Steam. or Steamworks, or whatever.

So, instead of entering the character creation process, I began the sign on to "Steam" process.

After sign up, I hoped I would get to play my game soon. No way.

I was informed that I had to do a 5-hour download. I had no idea why, because, I had the brand new disk in my dvd drive.

I realized that I was not going to get to play my new game soon.

However, after the download started, we experienced some sort of computer/network problem. I could NOT restart the download. I suspect some type of Steam security thing, but I am not sure.

I tried again, as I still wanted to try to play my game. The security thing would not allow this.

I took my disk out, put it back into its box, and returned it to the store. I am thankful that the people at the return desk knew me.

They asked if I wanted a new copy, or a refund. After the trouble I had just experienced, I decided I did not want to do it again, and my money was refunded.

I never did get to play FONV, and right or wrong, I somehow blame Steam, as I never had this trouble, with, Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, or FO3.

So, if you like Steam, that is okay, Personally, I would rather do without it.

It will not be a game breaker, however, I do want Skyrim. If I must use Steam, I will, but I will dread it. My personal experience with it, was NOT troubel free.

This is a good point. However, this sort of thing happens all the time. I happen to be in law school and I just took a class in corporations and corporate entities. Sure I'm no expert, but at least I have some ideas.

The basic idea is that in the event of a "steam failure" all the contracts that steam has will still be in effect, even though one party is technically missing. That's the cool thing about corporations is that, since they are paper concepts anyway, they can act so long as somebody decides to act for them.

If Steam is bought by another company or merges with another company, then the new company will still be bound by all the agreements that the old Steam was bound by. In that event, your games will still work.

If Steam goes Bankrupt, then the assets (including contract rights, which are assets) will be distributed to the creditors and to anyone that has a secured claim. It would be highly irrational of the game developers NOT to have a security interest in their own games in the event that steam goes out of business, so the likely thing is that control would just revert back to them (Bethesda in this case). That doesn't mean that your game won't work! All it means is that steam client won't be dynamic anymore. It will still run, and it will still run your games, it just won't offer any features like downloads or updates or DRM.

Meh, DRM is like airport security. It's annoying, problematic, and people who really want to get around it will get around it anyway.

Doesn't matter though. I gotta fly, so I have to go through security. If you want to play Skyrim, you're probably going to have to go through Steam.

You posted 4 minutes after me. I asked to read the posts as well, as the poll also clearly asks "why". And by this post and your reply, there are also some. Or check the endless Steam threads before this one. The answer is there. Whatever is posted, you don't have any intentions of reading up on why. Sorry, not much more I can do for those choosing to ignore the postings.


Not too many votes, I agree. But what I assume happens was that the forum software was updated allowing users to hide all sticky posts. Probably many of those 75000 people are not active anymore, and those that are don't get to see the poll because of the forum upgrade. Bad timing issue more than anything But to you too, read the posts, rather coming to "illogical grudges" without facts.

False.

You posted exactly 26 minutes after ME, where I addressed all the complaints that I had seen. Scroll up please. It may not have been obvious from the way I worded my question, but what I meant is something OTHER than the ones I had already brought up. Which there are none. (except the one brought up by http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/user/26943-the-hunger/ which is a good point)

Please see http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1171691-is-skyrim-going-to-be-dependant-on-steam/page__view__findpost__p__17282233

Thanks.

Get it on a consol and all your problems will be solved!!!! :biggrin: except the graphics part....