The only reason I use Steam because I had to.
There is only one function I really like about it and that's ingame chat. Which I don't want in Skyrim because of the whole immersion thing.
So I will buy it no matter what, but I would really prefer a non-steam version.

You don't need to encrypt it, you could go to your friends house right now and copy their entire steam library to your computer and be able to play any game you've bought on your account.

"What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" "What if?"

Wow, aren't you the enlightened one? If people (majority even) like their service, then let them. I don't care. But don't *force* it upon me.



Precisely my standpoint as well.



Yeah ok, I guess zero day piracy is bad. But it doesn't take them long to break online activation systems as well. Not sure I'd want to pay double for no activation, but I'm willing to wait an additional week (broken by now anyway) to get the disc one in a store, if that is helpful on piracy. And "copy original to thy neighbor" is a thing of the past.

Being a Steamophile, I hope it'll be steam-exclusive so that I can buy a retail collector's edition to get the physical goodies and yet still be on steam.

However I suppose that'd be unfair to people who want nothing to do with steam (to each their own I guess :shrug: ) and if possible a non-steam retail or digital version should be implemented to keep everyone happy

See, that requires an appropriate friend with a good internet connection, Steam account with the same game as you and a huge USB drive.

My way would allow anyone to activate and update their games with a lot less effort and requirements.

Does anyone here actually think Skyrim will be STEAM exclusive? I don't think any AAA game has ever been STEAM exclusive. No publisher would do that, they'd be missing out on so much more revenue on the consoles.

Agreeing with a lot of people here of whom there are too many to quote.
Away with Steamocracy.

*Going to store and enjoying the physical contact with people I know from my municipality*
"Hello, how are you? Coming to collect your copy of Skyrim? I played this morning and *this person's conlusion followed by a bit of chit-chat*"
*Going home, putting disc in drive and having a cup of coffee while going through the installation process, reading the manual for the first time and enjoying LE content*
*Playing without ever worrying what if my internet failed once again or I'm away for extended times*
*Going to store to pick up expansions and possibly meet equally anxious people*

These events above happened while I went and picked up about every game before. Now what's wrong with that?
And if there must be some digital stuff involved, don't make it exclusive to one of them.

It has already been stated that it will be released on pc, XBox and PS3. I suspect that the pc release will require Steam though.

I would buy it through Good Old Games even though it would take days to DL and eat up my bandwidth allowance, damn satellite, because that site sells only games with NO DRM. I bought a bunch of games off that site and burnt my own back-up copies so I do not have to download them ever again. That site rarely has new games available on it though....

"Steam exclusive" is wrong terminology actually. People are worried about it using Steamworks Digital Rights Management, which requires the Steam program to be installed on your computer and for you to access the internet to activate the game initially and to download patches for it.


"Good Old Games" rarely has "new games" you say? Shocking from a site that is all about selling classic games that no longer need DRM applied to them.

Say what you will about Steamworks, it's a million times better than GFWL or any other DRM crap.

My love for TES can be countered by my hate for Steam, and I think TES is the best game series in the world.
I will never, ever, at any point in my life play a game if it requires me to as much as activate Steam.
Yes I am raging irrationally but the point is I really really dislike Steam.

Yeah, right, but you still need to start it at least once in online-mode to put it in offline mode. Your argument is invalid.

Most pc games require a one time internet activation and that is all that steam requires as well so I have absolutely no problem with it.

About the only thing that will stop me from buying Skyrim (Any TES title.) is my death before it's release.

Steam is fine by me.

Can I just ask, what is steaming? Only availible for download? :brokencomputer:

No, as previously stated, being tied to Steamworks means that the game comes on DVD in an encrypted form, and you have to create an account on Valve's Steam program and then use the internet to activate/decrypt the game. Also, patches are only published through Steam's program and can't be downloaded and applied as a separate program.

Basically, it requires you to install a small program, have access to the internet (with decent speed) when first installing the game (and for any re-installation later) and to run that program whenever you run the game. You'll also likely want to run it occasionally to check for game patches.

When Steam works right for you, it's really not much of an imposition, but if you have problems with the program, or problems with being forced to install the program, then the issue can be significant.

I certainly wouldn't mind if the game was released like Oblivion, with just a simple disc check. But most games these days have some form of DRM, FO3 and FNV both required online activation so I doubt they'll release Skyrim without a similar DRM scheme.

And trust me, whatever your beef with Steamworks may be, it is the only DRM that isn't intrusive or draconian. You can download and install the game as many times as you like and on as many computers as you want. The EXE isn't encrypted like the ones from D2D so you can mod it like any other games.

Not necessarily true. I've booted up my computer dozens of times without internet access, and every time, Steam says "we cannot connect to the internet, would you like to try again, or start in offline mode?"

Wheras I will buy the game whether or not it requires Steam, I would prefer if it didn't. Even though I do like Steam features, I would want it for the people who don't have it.

That said, if I were Bethesda, I would sell a "Steam Collector's Edition", which ships the player a copy of the Collector's Edition, but ALSO gives him a CD-Key so that he can activate it on Steam, preload it, and play the moment it launches.

Pretty much this. I hate online activation.

Plus, is Day Zero piracy really that big an issue that the game companies feel they need to go through all this trouble to ensure that they only have Day One piracy?



Fallout 3 never required online activation, it actually tricked me into thinking GFWL was a great little program. I installed Fallout 3, it installed GFWL, I uninstalled GFWL and just played the game. It wasn't untill later when I bought a game that fully utilized GFWL that I started to hate it.

Don't care, I'll buy it on steam anyway

No. I want a ''Game For Windows Live'' version.

DRM also provides them with certain legal protections and prevents them from being sued by their own shareholders for failing to actively protect the product. I really don't consider DRM to be optional for anything but the smallest publishers.

I'd rather see it as a non-steam game. Steam isn't that bad but for a single player game is just meh. Besides, it gets in the way of certain modding apps like script extenders; although it's true Valve have been kind enough to allow us to hook it up when starting the game via steam (and we should be grateful for that) I'd rather not have the existence of such apps dependent on Valve's wishes.