This would generally be my guess too, Varus. I would assume that the game code would go back to the developers, and it would be up to Bethesda to decide how to proceed regarding making the non-Steam dependent game available to legitimate purchasers of the (now-defunct) Steam version. However, this does place the buyer in a potentially tough spot and makes them dependent upon the goodwill of Bethesda and probably Steam as well. Bethesda could conceivably decide not to make a non-Steam version of the game code available for free. This seems very likely if they don't see a profit in doing so. Or, they could simply sell the new non-Steam version, forcing the former Steam buyers purchase the game a second time. This seems more likely, given that Bethesda does operate on a for-profit model. One could argue that Steam would not be to blame if Bethesda went this route. Well, maybe, maybe not. The issue that most concerns me as a potential customer is whether or not I get shafted in the end and lose access to the game that I purchased. There are too many variables involved that may result in an unpleasnt answer for consumers.

P.S. Best wishes with your law studies. Your post was very well stated, though I am still not sold on Steam.

I love steam steam for mp games tho I'll prob buy tes on DVD cuz I want epic edition lol

(1). I understand TES is a single player game. But do you complain that you have to go onto the internet to get the latest patches for games?? If you use mods do you complain you have to go on the internet to download them, and download Wrye Bash or OBMM or OBSE?? Do you complain you have to go on the internet to download the latest drivers for your graphics cards, even if you only plan on playing single player offline game?? Probably not.

(2). Fair enough, but there are so many sales on Steam that, for me personally, outweighs the fact I can't resell my games.

(3) Yes, it works exactly the same. The only difference is that you don't load Oblivion with the OBSE.dll, you use the normal one and OBSE runs along side it. OBSE is exactly the same, and Steam just changed the .exe slightly to allow it to work.

(4). That's a legitimate concern, I concede. But a lot of other things may be ruined by the parent company going out of business. Hell if your bank our insurance company goes bust you're pretty screwed (which isn't really altogether that unlikely in this though economic time), but I'm sure you still bank and get insurance. I'm sure you get my point .




You can install the game from the disc. You don't have to download it from Steam.

Well keep in mind that the steam dependent version comes bundled with the Steam software already, so I don't think Bethesda would actually have to do anything to make it available. It would just be like any other stand alone game, but with steam included. Steam would just be defunct, but still required to run the game.

The only hitch would be your first activation because the steam servers would never validate anything. But that's easy to deal with, Bethesda would get the rights to whatever URL steam is checking to validate the game copy. So they would just set it up to validate everything, or take over the management of the validation process.

Either way, very little work would be required to make it all functional. They wouldn't have to re bundle the game I don't think.

Just ideas.

The original topic was asking if Steam would be required. Which is redundant since the question has been opened up on a few other occasions. This information is not yet knows, so everything in here should just be speculation.

Why on earth does it keep chaning into a, "I don't like steam" thread? Especially people crying out, "I'm not going to buy it if it uses Steam." Just deal with it your own personal way instead of making this into another thread that we've seen probably a dozen times already.

You quoted mine 4 minutes after I posted. There is no way you read through 200 or so posts in that time. And that post of yours is highly subjective to your own experiences with Steam, not everyone elses.

I did not read through that thread, you're right. There is the fact that I've seen this argument a thousand different times for a dozen different games. At this point I've heard just about everything there is to hear. Of course there is the possibility that something new is in that thread you posted, but I doubt it. I don't care that much anyway. So on that point, you win, I didn't read the thread.

But as for my experience being highly subjective, I dispute that. My experience with Steam is objective, because my version of Steam is the same as yours. If it is working for me then it can work the same way for anyone else. The problems that people are having with steam are often USER ERROR, which manifests because people are as lazy as I am and don't read the instructions.

However, after spending a few hours browsing steam forums and FAQ's, everybody should have an experience as smooth as mine. So no, my experience is not unique or special or irrelevant. It is perfectly on point.

As civil as you are right?

Well I don't mean to be rude, but you're starting to sound like the other 5%. The righteous [censored]s.


OT: I use steam daily, but I too would hate for it to be dependent on one [censored] service.

Cut out the personal attacks. Either discus this topic civilly or loose the topic and your posting privileges for a while.

Thanks guys.

I can't believe these threads are still around...


... are people really so naive as to believe there is a chance in hell that Skyrim is going to be released without DRM? Do they really believe that there's some MAGICAL alternative out there that is going to just SPRING UP, and suddenly alleviate all their worries? Steam -is- that alternative. It's what is keeping you all from being subjected to programs which ILLEGALLY modified your system. It's what is keeping your computer games from becoming console games. It's what is keeping the entire game industry alive, in a world where people have gotten their own sense of entitlement so inflated that they think they should get to play all their games for FREE, and just rip them off the internet.

Steam makes that -much- harder to do... and it does so without PUNISHING the user. Instead, it's all built into a system meant to make the user GLAD they have such protection, because alongside being harder to pirate, it is also infinitely harder to HACK a steam-powered game. So nobody is going to STEAL your copy. Not easily, anyways.

The wheel goes round and round, and people come here with their high moral horses. Well, you can sit up there and be an 'activist' without a cause, or you can help make the PC gaming community better by providing your input in a way that does more than single you out as a pretentious blowhard who is 'too good' for what the rest of us have to use. You don't like it? Use it, and find ways to make it better. Companies are spending millions trying to find DRM software that doesn't interfere with legal users using their programs.

We all like to scream about how they don't care... but if -I- were running a business and didn't care about you, I sure as hell wouldn't be throwing millions of dollars around to make you happy.


It's this simple:

There's no game, now or in the future, which isn't going to ASSUME you're a thief. It's just not going to happen. Video Game Developers are investing BILLIONS of dollars into their products, and lose almost a third of that to blatant piracy. Given the odds of a game FAILING to sell well, add in the cost of advertising, and you have a business that could very easily sink without some kind of protection against theft.

If you don't like that, go find a new hobby... because all the complaining in the world isn't going to make that go away.

You may be worth the money spent to research ways to make you happier... but there's no customer in the world worth the loss of multi-billion dollar investments into a game company that tanks because the internet robbed them blind.

Sorry.

End of story.

[edit]

PS: This is the last Steam-related topic I intend to reply to. Hopefully, they'll all die off and we can talk about some other terrifyingly frightening conspiracy. Like alien Daedra from Masser mutilating livestock in Skyrim!

Huh? How is not "If it is working for me" anything but subjective? The thread link I provided attacks pretty much every one of your arguments in #57. My own personal attack would be against "Steam doesn't use any appreciable amount of system resources" because that's the problem I was having (at the time, I don't even care if it's fixed now - once you've had a product that didn't work, you don't get back to it later).

Sometimes you manage to do it yourself, like your fifth point with "Does that increase failures? Yes. The effects are different on different systems. For me, steam has only crashed twice...". This is supposed to be more objective than 100+ people explaining their problems (which are very varied btw, but granted, not all relates to TES at all)?

Not be related to TES implementation, but nonetheless: At Arma2 whenever our squad is suffering problems, you can bet it is related in some way to Steam. I warned them not to get the Steam release, as I knew it would have issues that (not yet) can be related to a TES game, but my warning was ignored by some. And I'm supposed to be the computer literate, so I'm the one spending hours to solve (often Steam related) problems, and hours of actual gaming is wasted because of it.


Okay, you're right. I just always get the need to blow some Steam whenever I see the word Steam, and I always get a sensation of an upcoming heart attack when I see it Sorry, point taken, and will withdraw from this thread.

I should also specify that it isn't the original question of the thread that I have a problem with. I'm sure there are PLENTY of folks wondering whether or not that this has been confirmed yet. It's just that I see the topic, and I know immediately that when I open it up to reply, the only thing that it's going to house is one question, one answer, and a bajillion ignorant comments about how terrible and awful Steam is.

I've seen enough of people's asses to make a collage of President George Herbert-Walker Bush's face in technicolor.

In the meanwhile, I've seen the hard data... and very little of the complaints against the program are legitimate.


Still, I don't really care one way or the other. If it uses anything EXCEPT for Steam, though... I guarantee you I won't be buying it for the PC. There's nothing else out there in the mass-market that does what Steam does without screwing around with my system in ways I can't control.


So yeah. It hasn't been confirmed.

I'll pop in now and again to see if, between all the drivel, anyone manages to confirm this one way or the other.

-Cheers!

Honestly dont care as I'm purchasing the game a few times anyway..

I don't need "Idiot Software", a take on the "Idiots Lights" in automobiles, to update my software. I am more than capable to download and install a patch myself so that part of Steam is useless and not needed. The way it protects against piracy doesn't work, so that part of steam is useless. I will NEVER buy digital software, so that part of Steam is useless. Since I will NEVER buy digital software all the sales and specials they have are useless and makes that part of Steam useless as well. So the bottom line is, there is nothing in Steam that is useful to me and there is no reason as to why Steam needs to be used.

I'll leave it at that and just say that using Steam will influence my decision of buying it for the PC and I'm hoping enough people will vote with their wallet and let Bethesda know that it will affect their sales for the PC. This is the only way to get Steam out of the game.

I just can't comprehend the hate against Steam. I've been using it for Fallout3 and have NOT had a single issue! It takes up 16 MB's of Ram to sit Idle on my computer without the GUI open. And for most games which are still 32 bit and cant use more than 2 GB's of Ram why does it matter? Most modern computers have 4 GB's of RAM minimum! You don't need internet to play the games either, there is a thing called offline mode. It is not intrusive AT ALL! It gives one little popup when you start your game but goes away after a few seconds. If you want to see intrusive go look at GfWL.

I've never used Steam as im sure you can guess, but i was under the impression that offline mode only works if you can get to activate it in the first place.

Yup, its just one time though. Just stick the key code in and you'll be good to go After that just kill the GUI and start playing

That is true, yes. But he just stated that you don't need to be online to play the game, meaning the actual act and not the preparation through install procedures.


Speaking of install procedures, I'm finally jumping from XP to Windows 7 next week, and my dozens of Steam games will be so incredibly easier to transfer - I'll just start Steam through the same executable I did under XP, and it will take care of registering the games and doing a background re-install. All the others will have to be installed again by hand, which will take lots more time.
Yes, sometimes it's nice if a program takes some responsibility from you. ^_^

Really? I thought one of the posts on the first or second page mentioned that it needed internet access to activate the first time? I've got nothing against key codes (although it is a real PITA when you loose the box and have a new comp to play on.)

Oh, ninja'd

Yes you need internet for the activation, but never again.

That's also a great thing Steam is ahead with: The game is not tied to your machine when activated, but to your account. Have a summer home in the Normandy, living in London and regularly taking your laptop on travels? Just get Steam on all those machines and you can play the games tied to it wherever you currently are. And then there's this snazzy Steamcloud system - 1GB of space for saves you want to upload and access from anywhere.

Yes, it's DRM, but DRM never has been so comfortable. No vanishing movies, not copyable music or recognising your computer as a new machine because of one changed part here. ^_^

I suppose I should apologize for my comment on the first or second page regarding the OP. I will simply say that if I need to deal with a DRM, this is the one I would want to deal with.

I'm wondering why Bethesda still haven't let us know what is happening one way or the other, these threads are a regular occurance so it clearly shows this is an issue that is important regarding peoples decisions to buy or not.

C'mon Beth let us know.

After seeing some of the more rational arguments put by both sides I thought I'd give Steam a chance. Five hours and a still unco-operative Steam later I've got to admit, I'm not seeing any of the listed advantages to Steam, just a lot of hassle and a reason to not buy products tied into the service. Wanting to at least see if there were problems with other methods of DRM I tried out titles with Tages, Securom, Rockstar Social Club, GFWL and they all worked fine.

Thank goodness I'd never bought Stalker through Steam.

All we have heard from the dev's is that it will be just like NV, on steam. We havent heard it comfirmed really, and that was like 3 months ago. But it looks like it will be.

I asked Bethblog, hopefully we will get an answer.