Cyan games on Steam

[ddb174]

I just wanted to let everyone know that they should probably *not* buy these games from Steam due to the DRM. Gog.com is fine, though Spelunx and CosmicOsmo are not there.

[D'nial]

Eh? What's this Steam DRM? I thought the Steam license was pretty lax on restrictions in regard to where a customer installs a game.

[ddb174]

It doesn't matter what the license says: they maintain strict control over when and where you can play it. Whenever you try to play it, it *asks* them online if you may play. In the future, things change. I strongly recommend not buying anything that's important to you from Steam.

[N. Sigismund]

Except if you're in offline mode. And paranoia is a bad justification for an argument.

All the same, buy the games off GOG anyway as they're better versions of the game (as they don't require Steam to be running, not that I mind Steam but it's nice) and no DRM, unlike Steam's limited DRM.

[ddb174]

Except if you're in offline mode. And paranoia is a bad justification for an argument.

That's just a convenience that future updates may remove. And it's not paranoia to suspect a corporation will not ensure that you can play something that they no longer make money on in the future. It is sheer foolishness to believe they will.

[Aloys]

Valve isn't as short-sighted as Ubisoft when it comes to DRM.

Also, could we move this to off-topic?

[N. Sigismund]

You are wrong because:

1) Valve has competitors. They are not a monopoly, which is typically when money-sod-the-customers comes into play. They compete with brick and mortar stores, online stores like Amazon and other download sites like GOG, Gamersgate et al.
2) Valve have a proven track record on not screwing people over. This is the cornerstone of Valve's buisness model.

I cannot see how logically you can say that "one day, Valve will reveal themselves to be Dr Evil" is a valid reason based on the actions of unrelated companies. Not only would restricting the usage of their licenses be idiotic - Valve's DRM provides the right amount of cover to neither be intrusive or ineffective.

The argument that Valve will one day be evil cannot be proved or even shown to be probable, given Valve's buisness model.
The argument based upon the "license to use not own" fact is irrelevent as it has no impact.

If you want to carry on this argument, you will have to prove that the legal difference between "owned" and "licensed" goods have a major negative impact on the user who buys games on Steam as opposed to GOG, without resorting to fearmongering.

[Paradox]

On a less political, and more relevant note: Uru CC on Steam has been reported to crash with fan Ages. The GOG version of Uru CC doesn't have this problem.

[Chacal]

I beg to differ.
Valve will shut down your whole Steam account if it suspects you of hacking on any on-line game. It doesn't matter if you are guilty or if your account was hacked in the first place.
This happened to me. Although I had not used my account in several years, it has been blocked and Valve will not explain why. I have paid for several games and they are now useless. I have the original CDs but I cannot use them.

My only hope would be to send them a scan of the serial number on the original HL2 CD jewel case, which I threw out last time I moved.

The concept of DRM, and needing an on-line account, is completely retarded.

You are wrong because:

2) Valve have a proven track record on not screwing people over. This is the cornerstone of Valve's buisness model.

I cannot see how logically you can say that "one day, Valve will reveal themselves to be Dr Evil" is a valid reason based on the actions of unrelated companies. Not only would restricting the usage of their licenses be idiotic - Valve's DRM provides the right amount of cover to neither be intrusive or ineffective.

The argument that Valve will one day be evil cannot be proved or even shown to be probable, given Valve's buisness model.
The argument based upon the "license to use not own" fact is irrelevent as it has no impact.

If you want to carry on this argument, you will have to prove that the legal difference between "owned" and "licensed" goods have a major negative impact on the user who buys games on Steam as opposed to GOG, without resorting to fearmongering.

[ddb174]

I think this is on-topic, as it affects whether people can use these games for fan Ages.

Here's what I said on mystonline.com:

Yes, Steam does have some positive things to it. Managing many of your games together in one place being one of them.

None of those things listed as positive have anything to do with the DRM. The first one is the most important (being able to redownload a game with your account after you have lost your harddrive or moved to another machine or whatever), and gog offers that too. But there's another big negative: the Steam DRM, like the DRM on IGN's downloadable version of Myst5, prevents you from converting or using with fan Ages. So some people will undoubtedly buy it, thinking it is as good as the CD version of Uru or realMyst, and find that it is not.

(I'm just going to ignore Sigismund's pretend-logic, as I think he's just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks.)

So, there are at least 3 reasons, both important and practical, why the Steam DRM is bad: a) as Chacal says, they can and do terminate accounts, and then you are without your games, b) it won't work with fan Ages nor be converted, and c) in the future, (even if Valve is never malicious, and that's a pretty big 'if'), Steam will likely either shut down entirely or simply stop supporting your WinXP/Win7, and the current operating system won't run your games. Some people don't care, but I would prefer it to be possible to play these games in 20 years (even if I have to use Qemu or such because of hardware changes).