I've already fully paid off my pre-order for the PC version, so I'm getting the game no matter what. While I would prefer a disc only version, I won't be annoyed over a Steam required disc version, I really want Skyrim.

I will not resort to the PS3 version, just based on Bethesda's history of PS3 versions. (I don't have an Xbox 360)

Exclusive maybe not, for steam most likely, requiring steam again most likely.
I think we are a while off from steam being used solely, if the current trends of high streets taking losses it may change sooner.
However you still have other online retailers, and large companies with stores of their own.
Since ones like amazon already are attempting to branch out into other online markets.
At some point steam may have larger more agressive rivals.

So not likely exclussive imo.

When you say Steam exclusive, it sounds misleading. New releases available through Steam may be available retail as well, not just Steam exclusive. Unless you are referring to the DRM requirement.


Granted it doesn't always work, but at least they're trying. What do you suggest as a "better" way to protect software that is potentially more secure? <-- serious question btw.

Microsoft does online activation with Windows and it doesn't use Steam. I don't mind the online activation, I DO mind having software on my computer installed and running that I don't want or that isn't needed to make the game work.

I think Dragon Age 2 is the best anolog here guys. You could buy it on Steam and use Steam, or buy it in the store and not use Steam.

I dont care if I have to wear a dress while I am playing the game, I am still going to love it. Sometimes games get bad DRM's, like AC, but they are still good games and that should allow you to overlook it

I'll skip most of the debate for this entire thread because Steam topics are always heated, but I would like to address the very fist post only.

First, OP, there is some confusion between "requiring steam" and being "steam exclusive." Steam exclusive means you can only buy and install the game via steam online. Requiring Steam means you can get the disk at a store, but you still need steam to install and activate your game.

Some people will not buy steam exclusive games because of a fear of not having a physical disk. This can lead to some confusion in your poll.

Now then, if the game simply requires steam then I will buy it and play it. Steam doesn't crash or use any noticeable resources on my system and I have never had any problems with steam limiting access to my games. I like steam becaues I'm lazy and it makes things easy. Simple as that.

So yes, I will buy the game no matter what. I may, in fact, be one of the few that would even buy this game if it were truly steam exclusive (no disk).

MS installs extra verification software for that purpose, although not noticable. And that still isn't secure. Do you suggest Bethesda create it's own online activation?

I am sure they have been stated before somewhere and I just missed them, but what are the reasons people don't want to use steam?

This simple little thing would actually just solve everyone's dilemma... unless of course a version not requiring Steam had something worse in its place.

Yes. Every company should have their own online verification. If they are going to use 3rd party software like Steam they might as well just create their own, include it in the actual game itself if you have to. I don't see why you would need extra software to verify the legitimacy of a game anyway. All you should have to do is go online and verify a code that is secretly hidden in the game code. No software would be needed.

Oh heck, I caved. I don't want to fight with anyone but this is such a funny quote that I couldn't help but point it out.

This is a very good point. I chuckled because it is so obvious that I couldn't help but wonder why I haven't seen it come up before now. True, games don't need steam to use online activation. However, steam does provide a standardized, centralized platform for online activation. That and it also provides a whole host of other services and platforms for other development plans. Steam is more beneficial to developers as a tool than it is to any end user. The reason a lot of developers use the steam agent for online activation is that it is cheaper to incorporate the steam functions than it would be to code in their own (and quite probably more reliable given that steam already has the servers and infrastructure for it). Then you can add the whole list of other benefits they get on top of it, and it's a very attractive option to developers.

They lose customers that don't like steam, but they also gain or keep plenty that do like it or don't mind it. It must be worth it or Steam wouldn't be such a popular choice.

To quote myself:

There are a few. No control over one's own purchased game data seems to be high on the list. Can't control when you're able to play the game (i.e. if for some reason you don't have an internet connection, you can't play the game you paid $60 for.) Or, if something is wrong with your Steam account, you can be screwed and unable to play your game. Also, you have no control over where or how you install a game on your own PC. I find it painful that if you have to uninstall Steam for any reason, ALL of your installed Steam games go with it. Plus, piss-poor compatibility with user-made content. For example, when Oblivion came out on Steam, at first none of the mods that used OBSE would work. Morrowind GOTY also has serious problems with mods when installed from Steam.

Minor complaints are that Steam is slow; it takes my Steam a full 30 seconds to boot. That's longer than my Windows boot, and I have >10M internet. It just slows down playing games and adds an unnecessary layer of complexity. Also, Steam piggy-backs off Internet Explorer; if there's something wrong with your IE, it can affect Steam as well.

Um 2011 without internet?

Pc gaming in 2011 without internet?

what?

It would be nice if game companies would just put the insane DRM on for a few months, long enough to get the early sales, and irritate the zero-day pirates - and then quietly go back to simple disk checks or cd-keys.

It's the best of both worlds. They get the huge day one sales figures, pirates have to work their rear-ends off, and the patient eventually get to skip dealing with all of that crap.

Exact opposite. You can back-up and share game data with your friends with Steam. This is considered piracy outside of Steam.


It is an online service. And there is an offline mode.


You are obliged to manage your account just like you have to pay attention to your discs health. There is a back-up feature. Protip: You can move steamworks games to anywhere you like after installation.


Well, I heard OBSE works now after a collaboration between Steam and OBSE devs. How's that for support? Morrowind works 100% too after an easy tweak.


It can boot faster, I give you that. I didn't notice any slow down because of Steam overlay which can be disabled. One last thing, Steam received a major update a while back, it no longer uses IE.

:)

Happy gaming.

No it's not bad. Look, Steam provides some features that Bethesda wants in their game.

Feature one : handles automatic updates. Sure Bethesda could do their own but let met tell you this : nearly EVERY custom made automatic update by game developers is worse than Steam and far more unreliable. Bethesda makes single player games, not automatic update services including server maintainance and all that. You don't want automatic updates? Well Bethesda wants people to have them, Bethesda wants people that don't know much about computers to have them and to keep their games up to date. XBox Live and PSN also do that for Bethesda on console version.

Feature two : XBox Live and PSN does stuff for single player games. Steam allows Bethesda to do the same for single player. Friend list, chatting with friends, seeing your friends playing Skyrim, achievements to brag about etc... You don't like that? Bethesda seems to like that feature though and Steam handles that for them in a way that works.

Feature four : DLC handling. DLC sales, downloading, validating you have the rights for the DLC and didn't just copy/paste the data files from a friend if Bethesda wants to go that far etc... Bethesda will want to sell us DLC and Steam is a store that will handle that.

Feature three : online activation to prevent broken street dates. This one is the main reason some games that don't even use Steamworks at all might require you to install Steam. Basically, game data files on CD/DVD you buy are encrypted and Steam will only give away the decryption key at release date. This prevents the heavy game launch piracy that happens when street date is broken very early or others like stealing a copy of the gold master CD/DVD etc... Deal with it, nearly every copy protected game included similar online activation thing in a much more intrusive way often.



You could easily replace Steam with other online stores systems that include community handling like I don't know, Impulse I guess and others because they deliver features Bethesda wants and doesn't have to code themselves. This actually improves the game quality because Bethesda specialty is to makes games (buggy games at that ) and Steam/Impulse/other have been doing their part for a long time, refining the processes, improving quality, adding new features, fixing bugs. For the features done by Steam that Bethesda could try to do themselves, there's little doubt Bethesda saved months and months of developer time using a ready made solution and we as consumers will save having to deal with the buggy solution Bethesda would have produced (hey, Steam/Impluse and co were really buggy when they got out for the first time too )




And for the people that say "if it uses Steam, I'll not buy it!" Let me remind you how a popular game boycott ended up : http://www.gamalive.com/actus/3755-boycott-call-duty-modern-warfare.htm (yeah it's in French but it doesn't matter, just check the screen provided)

Why the hell are so many pro-steam users so hell bent on forcing steam upon everyone else? Whats with the agression? Seriously! If someone wants to be able to play their game without steam, why must you all hammer on about how "steam is wonderful and your concerns are not valid so you fail!"

I have used steam in the past, and occasionaly still do. But I still have a very strong dislike of it. Recently my copy of Black Ops has stopped working, and crashes everytime I try to run it, Steam support was useless and I have still not been able to solve the problem yet. Also, saying that you can put it in offline mode is rubbish. Sure, you can put it in offline mode; I tried that but it won't stay in offline mode forever. At some point Steam always forces it'self back online saying it wants to update.

Also, remeber not everyone has decent internet speeds yet. There are lots of people in Australia who still cannot get ADSL. Untill 3 years ago I was one of them, and I basicaly could not play HL2 for a year or so because it would not run untill it had updated.


Putting all my personal grievences aside; Steams viability and stability is irrelevent when it comes down to personal choice. The computer in front of you is your own (well, unless your using someone elses =P )and you have a right to decide what you do and don't want running on your computer. If people want to play games without steam hogging resources and stuffing them around they have the RIGHT of free will and the RIGHT to say they don't want steam.

Those of you who love steam and want to have it's babies; good for you. Enjoy your steaminess but stop trying to convert everyone. Digital distribution is a great things yes, but it is not the be all and end all of the gaming industry. There are those of us who like to have a physical copy in our hands (complete with all the expected goodies) who like to play our single player games without an internet based program intruding on our quite time.

Don't be a Steam-Nazi and try to force us to comply, let people make up their own mind.


At the end of the day, I honestly hope Beth release both a Steam and non-steam version like they have with oblivion and morrowind before it. Let the steam groupies have their fun. but don't punish the stand-alones.

Oh OP... I like that you're trying to help out the devs, but really, UGH. Why must everyone resuscitate this sordid mess every other week? This is the thread which never dies and never fails to split the community iinto flamewars.



That's how I feel, though many people see it practically as crucifiction :wacko: I'd say it's saved PC gaming somewhat from developers' love affairs with consoles. But meh... people genuinely hate the small factors they dislike more than they appreciate the great aspects of it (e.g. bought Mafia 2 for 5 pounds today), and I respect that opinion.

Absolutely. When I finish off the balance on my current gift cards, I will probably be done buying physical copies. Between the shipping problems and delays, I will probably only buy games on Steam after that. Online DRM is going to be the future of gaming. It seems like it might be the successful way to deter piracy. That is a GOOD thing for PC gaming. Too many developers now shy away from creating games for the PC because of the losses to piracy.

Well I gave my reason why I'd like it if it's a Steamworks game. Main one is that I'd like to buy any boxed copy of the game I can find (usually the cheapest possible ) and have it add the game to one of my online store accounts. I'm not hellbent on Steam itself, any other online store allowing to download games and keep them updated will do.

If Skyrim is a Steamworks game which is very likely, then I'll be able to do that

Discs sitting in a closet don't just break themselves. As you've read from other users in this thread, some people have had severe issues with their Steam accounts.



The offline mode paradoxically requires online functionality to set up properly. If my university decides that one day they want to block Steam, then what happens?



Because allocating an additional 50gb of storage to backup an already-installed game library is highly efficient.



You mean I can move my Oblivion GOTY to C:/Oblivion or C:/Games/Oblivion and it'll work perfectly afterward? And if I don't want unnecessary clutter in My Documents, I can move my saves to the game's main directory? Thanks for the tip!



That's just it. There shouldn't have to be tweaks to get things to run on Steam, if the retail version runs just fine. Steam Morrowind didn't come with a warning that said "Please be aware that Steam Morrowind will break your mods. Follow these steps to get the game working."

The bottom line is, a single-player game should not require Steam to be installed and played. It's counter-intuitive.

Steam doesn't put your saves in "My Documents". Any save handling done by Steam puts them inside the steam folder itself. If you got saves in My Documents you don't like, it's because the game dev did it themselves and not Steam. Also it's the location to put save files recommended by Microsoft mostly.

Your nitpicking about install location is just that : nitpicking. Mods work with Steam fine and for proof : the very very first Steam game was Half Life 2 which is ripe with mods of all sort, after Half Life 1 was full of mods and a huge part of the success of the game, there was no way Valve didn't build Steam to allow mods to work in all games.

The reason OBSE needed help running with Steam was because the hackish nature of OBSE had some conflicts with the way Steam launches a game. If Oblivion had been a Steamworks game from the start, you'd not have to adapt OBSE to a different Oblivion version even since all Oblivions would be the same. In fact, there's an online store that sells Oblivion and their version doesn't work and will never work with OBSE. If Skyrim is a Steamworks game, you can be 100% certain that no matter WHERE you buy the game, you'll be able to get SkyrimSE to work with it since there's only one version of the game.

No kidding! I bought [access to] Vampire:Bloodlines from them and the game failed to run. Steam support sent a reply that actually (and straight faced) suggested that I cripple my PC's RAM indefinitely to be able to play the game. :bonk:
Valve has this client app forced on all customers, that could trivially check your system specs and at the very least offer you a notice that the current PC would have problems running the game.

Reason #2 :banghead:

Reason #3 is the encrypted files on the disc; I wouldn't mind that so much if you were allowed to make an unencrypted copy of the installer ~and files, after the street date has passed.

Reason #4 is that I don't like running 'nanny-ware'; nor software that downloads commercial ads, nor storing code for social networking features that I won't ever use. If Valve put out a 'Steam-Lite' version that stripped all but basic authentication (preferably even stripped out the store!), I'd switch in a heartbeat.

If Steam is required to play, I'll use it, but only because I really, really want to play Skyrim. It would be enough of a negative that I wouldn't buy a title I wanted less.