I personally have no issue with Steam, in fact I prefer it these days but I do sympathize with those who prefer a hard copy. (With all content on said hard copy.) Not everyone has the best internet plans. (Speed/Caps.)

But digital is the new way and I suspect finding disks of any game in the not too distant future will be hard to come by. Though, there could be a gamers revolution, or something.

As far as I am concerned, I give Pete Hines a lot of credibility. I have read a lot of what he has written, seen a lot of interviews - and there is not a single instance where I thought he lied or misled.

I really can't say that about the head of the marketing department for any other entertainment company.

Two words: "Identity Theft".

I'm looking forward to the day when all you folks that think all these "cloud" and "digital" and "social media" accounts are the bees knees come to the realization that EVERYTHING about you and your life, finances, medical history and relations is publicly available and that trusting these "corporations" was a fools errand.

Despite what they say, don't let "Steam" pull the wool over your eyes that they don't sell any information you provide them for the use of their services is being sold to innumerable other organizations.

It's kind of like "Apple Pay". Yeah, right, I'm going to trust my cell-phone carrier and manufacturer to make sure that my financial information is always 100% secure when anyone with a modicum of hacking knowledge can intercept that signal in a heartbeat.

I know it's paranoid, but, you just wait!

I agree with you 100%.

I hate Steam. Steam is the main reason I switched to a console.

But then they (they meaning everyone not just one particular company) started screwing us on consoles because they would release broken products that you had to update with a day 1 patch or you couldn't play the game. The whole point of a console was to be able to just pop the disc in and not have to worry about all this update garbage.

Day 1 patches is how it started going with PC games as well before Steam. My earliest recollection of this was Frogger for PC years ago. It was flat out broken and even though you bought the box version you had to go online, create an account, register, etc. etc.. and then you could download the working version which was basically the entire install disc if I remember correctly.

A friend of mine got it for me for Christmas and I was on dial-up at the time and I ended up throwing it out. I opened it so I couldn't return it to the store, I registered it so I couldn't sell it, I didn't have a good enough connection to download the huge update, so there went $35 bucks down the drain.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I ever go back to a PC I'll go buy a box version of a game from Wal-Mart and download the game that I paid for from a hack site before I get involved with Steam ever again.

It's not paranoia, it's the truth. It's already happening.

I only go to several web sites. Not in to the girly sites or hack sites at all. Just Yahoo and Google to read news, a couple of audio recording forums, and here. Oh, Amazon and eBay.

Somehow, the password for both of my email accounts and my Amazon account keep getting stolen so I set my email accounts to force me to change them every 72 days. Odd number, but that's how Hotmail has it set. Somehow I keep getting trojan virus's and I have no idea how. All of these sites are supposedly secure.

Now ... imagine adding Steam in the mix. Adding in all the seedy sites from the underbelly of the net. Windows 10. Then have everything linked to your cell phone and be forced to agree to let them view the contents of your phone. It's all one big spy network and it's out of control.

My wife has had her CC number stolen 3 times since we moved to the KC area. We only ever go to big box stores and the grocery store. We eat out maybe three times a year. Anniversary, birthday, and new years.

It's all out of control.

I love Steam. It's why I quit pirating everything, It became easier than going through whatever I had to, to get my boosted game going. A lot of people can say the same thing.

I don't understand the hate really. I have all my games except ESO on Steam. Over 60 great games and only a few are on my machine now. The ones I'm playing. I have them shared across 4 different people who can play any game on my list, as long as I'm not playing. When I played ESO all the time some people played a lot of my games. Now I'm playing F4 through Steam they are out of luck when I'm on.

I can blow up my machine, hell burn my house down, and bring up a new machine, boom all my games are there. Well I'll have to download them again but I can't lose my games.

Until, of course, someone hacks Steam, steals all your information and delete's your games or Steam goes out of business or the apocalypse happens or someone hacks you account and starts pissin' folks off on the Steam forums under your name and gets you banned from using Steam (and that includes all you saved games), etc...

Don't get me wrong. Digital is great, but there is no way I'm depending on somebody else for my stuff. That, to me is a fools errand. I've worked in hi-tech long enough to know that here for 20 years, gone tomorrow.

The uptake of Blu-ray on PC isn't 'slow', it is nonexistent. Don't expect to see that happening, unless you special order one with a new PC. CD/DVD's in general are going the way of the dodo bird, and by the end of this decade, I doubt games will even be sold on them anymore. A LOT of new computers are being sold completely without any kind of disk reader on them, and that trend will only continue to increase rapidly.

After taking almost an entire day to download GTA V on release day from Rockstar Social, no amount of downloading will ever phase me again.

Personally I couldn't care less if the disc had a 50 bytr icon on it. It's a very minor inconvenience in highly inconvenient world.

I recommend you do a full virus scan on your PC. You may potentially have a virus, trojan or worm that has infected your PC. You can also download a program called MalwareBytes to scan for malware that virus scanners have missed.

https://www.malwarebytes.org/lp/sem/?sfc=sem-gs_b_us_en&gclid=CIvU5IfvlcoCFQseHwodltELVw

It could be possible that even doing those two things there could be something that has not been detected. If you get hacked after doing regular scans and changing your passwords on a regular basis, then I recommend you do a complete re-install of Windows which would get rid of any viruses on your C: drive.

I am old time there. You can't delete your games and Gabe has said if they fold all our games will be given to us. Not likely soon. As for the Apocalypse, I expect to be too busy to play games at that point.

What happens if you house burns down? All your physical stuff is gone.

If it was meant to prevent piracy, then downloading 1 GB would have been enough. This was purely a cost-saving measure for Bethesda. Instead of printing a bunch of DVDs or print a Blu-ray, they decided that 1 DVD was enough. I remember having to install games with 6 or more CDs back in the day and going back to that time would not hurt anyone. Using a Blu-ray would just force players to buy a Blu-ray player if they don't already have one. It would be about time that the video game companies start using Blu-ray discs to release their games.

At least it wasn't as bad as MGSV where the DVD only had the Steam Installer on it. Why even put a DVD in the box when we have to download the entire game? Just put a piece of paper in the box telling players how to install the game.

Recently there was a snafu at Steam... Christmas Day to be exact. It occurred during maintenance ("configuration change") and lasted for a few hours before Valve shutdown Steam. Basically what happened was when you logged into your Steam account you have actually logged into a random account that belonged to someone else and you can see some personal information. The problem was said to be due to data caching issues.

Some information that could be seen includes, but not limited to:

- Last 4 digits of phone number

- Full Name

- Billing Address

- Email associated with PayPal account

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-huge-steam-screwup-leaked-users-account-info-and-valve-isnt-talking

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/3y7maa/something_is_really_wrong_with_steam_be_careful/

Something like this does qualify as breaking the FTC's rules about protecting private personal information within the US. But not sure it is enough for the FTC to issue a fine to Valve. Of course other countries like the UK have their own laws protecting private personal information so there is it possible that Valve may need to deal with international fines and their ramifications.

As I said, I ALWAYS buy both a digital copy and a physical copy. My digital copy is on a 3TB satellite drive that I can easily remove.

BTW: Don't believe Gabe (whoever that is). A company will say anything. If they fold, everything you have will be gone too.

And if my house burns down and all my physical stuff is gone? Oh well, I'll re-buy it.

I do not trust the cloud and do not trust outside providers for much of anything. Sorry to be old school, but I have been hacked 4 times and had my identity stolen twice in the last 10 years and I work in IT Security!

Regardless of your taking the chance of you life being fully exposed, ALWAYS retain copies yourself. Do not trust anyone with your personal information. You will be sorry.

We have only seen the beginning of this era, as can be evidenced by the 300 odd hack jobs to steal personal information in Q4 of 2015, the hack of SONY, the Hacks of MS, the hacks of all major banking and financial institutions, the hacks of health care and insurance providers and even the hacks of governmental agencies. We live in a wild new world.

I prefer to err on the side of caution and paranoia.

If I didn't NEED the I'Net, I would be off the grid in a heartbeat, but porm is just so plentiful!

Gabe Newell -

Co-founder and managing director of Valve.

If Valve goes bankrupt they will likely deactivate the DRM requirements to play games that are installed on PCs. As for games purchased from Steam... In a perfect world Valve will allow their customers to download the installer package for all the games they have purchased and they will not have any embedded DRM. Thus, customers can install the game on their PCs anytime they wish.

However... the Devil is in the detail. Even a perfect world legal contracts do exists... and where there are legal contracts there are always lawyers lurking about....

Oh! That Gabe! Thank you.

I agree with you. Never trust a lawyer (but don't let my boss hear me say that - he's a lawyer!).

I trust Gabe, I doubt he is a lawyer though. He founded Valve and Steam and comes from and supports free software. Not the 'open sores' crap people use to steal free software but the original GNU style free software. As I come from there as well, I only play games in windose, I am happy to have Gabe holding the ball.

Identity thefts have always existed even before the digital age, with dumpster-diving, phone scams, and other low-tech ways to steal personal info. Every time you apply for a job, bank account, etc., you give out your personal info. If you want to worry, worry about your social security # being stolen instead. That's an outdated and unsafe identification system that is unfit for 21st century, and it *is* linked to your life, finance, history, everything. My points is you CAN'T worry about identify thefts the way you do, otherwise you won't be able to do anything. Just make sure there are safeguards against identity thefts (and Steam does have them), and you get informed about what they do and actually use them.

Yeah, and I'm sure the "safeguards" are foolproof, eh?

Protect yourself. Don't depend on others. Period.

And, yes, you are most certainly correct about SS #'s. I am shocked by how many people just give them out! Idiots.

Then don't apply for a job, bank account, buy a car, see a doctor, rent an apartment, etc etc etc., all of which require your personal info. If you buy liquor or firearms, or check into a building with security, you need to show your ID, which you won't do obviously. I mean, really. The world would face an even bigger danger than all the identify thefts in the world if everyone thought like you do, because then nobody would be able to do anything. The world would essentially be shut down, which is exactly what criminals and terrorists want to happen.

As we move into a truly ubiquitous computing world, with smart technology and everyware, "the cloud" now will be the least of your worries.

There is a huge difference between all of your examples and arbitrarily putting your information online for anyone to access. In all of the instances that you note. None of those examples have a business practice of selling your information for profit either.

Go ahead and give away your information. Post on Facebook or wherever when you're going out of town or even out for the evening. Be sure to post your cell # your home #, your home address, credit card number and your photo out there too. i want to be sure to know when the most appropriate time to rob you is.

I suppose you're one of those people who has your gps tracker always enabled on your phone as well (so, of course you can check-in and let your friends know where you are).

Good luck to you.

All I'm saying is be cautious. Give out as little as possible and do not EVER give personal information that is not legally required to give (i.e. your SS # for employment of the bank - basically for tax purposes).

To many times people live their lives as an open book and when they get burned, they want to blame anybody but themselves.

Don't put yourself in the position and you minimize your chances of getting burned.

In other words: TRUST NO ONE! Particularly companies that "promise" that your information is kept confidential. BS. Did you ever wonder why you get weird sales texts or emails or calls? It's because your cell phone carrier sold your information to somebody else, or Steam/Valve did or eBay did or Microsoft did or whomever.

As I said. Good luck to y'all. Live your lives like and open book and, by all means, trust others to protect your personal information as you would. You wouldn't want to take responsibility for your own safety and security. You are keeping your information in somebody else's house. It belongs in yours and only yours.

I am looking forward with glee to the escalation of rip-offs that are coming. Enjoy it. I may get a slight sunburn, but self-immolation will be on you.

BTW: What is your point about ID? That is not even part of the equation. ID is a necessity in this world and has been for a very long time. No ID has that much person information on it and you are never required, by law, to provide a copy of it to anyone who asks. You are only required to show it.

Agree.

Then the gaming industry has to start pushing the hardware industry again. Release their games only on Blu-ray, force PC manufacturers to have all gaming PC's come with a Blu-ray drive. Force the price of the drives down so we can upgrade at a reasonable cost. ￡50 for a basic Blu-ray drive on Amazon for something I would probably hardly ever use, I think not. I'll keep that money and put it towards my GPU/HDD or CPU/motherboard/RAM upgrade, which ever I'm doing this year.

Hell, why not think outside the box, like the gaming industry used to. Release games on flash drives. You can even get disposable cardboard flash drives these days.

There seem to be 2 completely different issues being complained about here.

1. The game requiring Steam to run on PC (fully disclosed by Beth before release and I think it is listed as a requirement on the box).
2. Most of the game still needing to be downloaded (over 20GB) if you purchased a physical disk PC copy. (Not disclosed nor mentioned on the box).

The only reasonable solution for # 2 was to ship the game on 3-4 DVDs rather than 1 DVD with the large download. The download was already being hosted for digital only players (no additional costs). While it sounds good to say it was an anti-piracy move, it was also in their economic best interest to not go the 3-4 DVD route.

The only difference would be he'd blame Someone closer to home for the loss of his games...