Do you own/fly CloD?

[Forged]

Originally Posted by Whacker

Look, I think you've got some misconceptions yourself there mate.



This is basically what I said above. You have two choices, patched to current level, or not patched. If you reinstall at a later date, that choice is irrelevant anyway as the game will come patched. With IL-2 1946, I have complete and total control over this. I control what patch level the game is installed at, and up to which levels I choose to patch it. Not all patches are good or stable, so there are quite a few of us who realize this and choose to wait before updating. Steam effectively removes this control from us.

Bingo. Logging in is what I was referring to. You have to uniquely identify yourself to whomever to prove it's you, so that you can then be granted permission to play what you own. I bought the game, I own it. How and when I choose to install it or use it is up to ME, and I will not subject myself to someone else's scrutiny whenever this is the case. Publishers and devs have every right to be compensated for their hard work. Conversely, we have the right to enjoy what we paid for in the privacy of our own homes without someone spying over our shoulders.

Ubisoft and DCS in my mind represent the two worst publishers/dev houses when it comes to treating their customers like criminals. DCS's limited activations is bad enough, I absolutely refuse to be limited on how much or often I can install what I OWN, much less after I've used them up either 1. be out of luck or 2. have to call up and beg for more, at which point they'll basically force you to register (I never register games, ever. Registration is another way of forcing unique identifiers and preventing my right to sell what I own to someone else later). Lastly, any arguments to the effect of "well x number of activations should be fine for you" is just adding further insult.

Ubisoft's must-be-online-always-so-big-brother-can-watch is the ultimate transgression. Not online? Game won't work.

Awesome, you must be super lucky. Over the dozens of PC's I've owned over the last 16 years of my life, I've had no less than 20 hard drives crash and die on me.

Fair enough mate, but I think YOU still have a number of misconceptions about this wonderful service you love so much, see my comments above.

Some people are perfectly fine surrendering all their rights and privacy for the sake of entertainment. I am not one of these people, and I can recognize the forest for the trees.

This was going to be my last question. You dropped enough buzzwords above that it started to sound a lot like marketspeak and a sales pitch for Steam. Meh, doesn't matter I guess.

Edit - A potential question would be "Well then what would you prefer?" Good Ol' Games. Quality, cheap software. No DRM. Always available for download. Downloads can be backed up to physical media to be installed later with no restrictions. Epic win.

I agree with most of your points. Some of the points you had in the post i originally replied to made it seem like you may have tried steam when it first came out and hated it (I hated it at that point as well). I remember you literally could not turn off automatic updates and it was an extreme resource hog and such. I gave it a chance years later and liked it. Now you can at least turn off auto-updates, but you're right - you can't pick and choose what version to update the game to. But anyways...

I would absolutely prefer games with no DRM and I believe it's wrong on many levels to limit us to a certain number of activations! I also prefer to own a physical cd for my games, but I hate having to put the CD into the cd tray .

The way I look at it is that, as far as DRM goes, there's going to have be a little give and take... a little compromise. The reason is that game developers/publishers are not going to stop using DRM because pirating has cost them a ton of money. This is sad - and hurting legitimate players. Now games are coming out that require an internet connection to play at all, and no longer allow lan play (Starcraft II for instance) or even single player (diablo III - internet connection absolutely required to play. Bah!).

Out of the available options (at least those we have now), I see steam (and a few other similar services) as a decent compromise - if the publisher hasn't added other DRM such as activation limits to the game. If it's tied to your account, that should be enough to ensure they are getting their money, and you have your game - able to use it as often as you want and activate as often as you want. And despite having to login, at least you can play offline. The problem is that some publishers are adding more DRM on top of steam, which is bogus ;(.

I think the simple fact is that the DRM isn't going away. So we're either stuck with older games or the occasional DRM-free game, or going with the best, most user friendly and reasonable DRM out there.

As a side note - through this conversation I did some research and found out that DCS: A-10c Warthog uses a separate DRM service, even if sold on Steam. Apparently steam's DRM can't be used on 64 bit applications (like A-10c warthog). This game allows you to activate 10 times, after which you get a new activation every 30 days. If I knew this - I'd probably not have bought it. At least you don't have to contact the company for a new activation - but it's still too restrictive in my opinion.

-Forged