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[Thad]

I'm bad at debate. Is that what you want to hear? I'm not going to bother. Keep doing what you're doing and not buying games that you don't support the methods of. Fight the power, Thad.

Ah, the old "I'm too cool to actually back my shit up with facts or logic.  Loser." closer.  I never get tired of THAT one.

Maybe next time you could try being so cool that you skip the sniping and cut straight to the running away.  That'd show me.

Errrrr maybe, but then it turned out it actually uses SecuROM even for the Steam version, and then goes as far as to hide Steam's usual disclaimer about fact, so yeah fuck AA goddam sideways.  That's not really the point here though.

Even compared to GFWL, Steamworks is a pretty palatable choice.  GFWL likes to do a lot of cute shit like install things on your computer, interrupt your game, force you to log in to save, etcetera.  Steamworks asks you to authenticate exactly once and uses software you probably already have anyway, so it's functionally a non-issue.

All useful information.  Thanks!

I understand the right of first sale argument but I really don't feel it's too applicable to a PC game.  Honestly without some sort of DRM in place the chances that you're buying a copied game are about 100%.

You mean in terms of digital copies?  Probably, though I don't really think DRM makes a difference there.  If Valve wanted to allow people to transfer licenses, and then, following the transfer, just not allow them to re-download the installer or access online features of the game, I'd call that a good-enough solution.

If Steam were to open up Pandora's Box and allow license transfers, it would actually PROMOTE legal game resaling on a platform where it was once considered basically illegal by default.  That's not worth basing your purchase decision on right now but it's food for thought.

Sure (though I don't really see them doing it retroactively on already-purchased games -- that'd really piss off the publishers).  And again, I consider resale to be a positive feature and a consumer right but I don't consider it make-or-break to the extent that TA does.

But I DO maintain that it's fucking stupid to restrict it on a retail copy, and removes every iota of value that a physical product has over a digital download.  Unless you really like printed manuals, I guess.

So yeah, $35 for an Amazon download doesn't sound too damn bad, but $50 for a box copy sounds like a pretty big ripoff.

[Brentai]

I suppose it's fair to say that it would be nice to still be able to play your physical copy after the apocalypse wipes out every Valve employee with access to the unlock patch from the face of Earth, sure.

In practice though yeah the only real selling points are the packaging itself and the fact that you don't have to do a digital download (which would take me approximately half an hour, but I am a douchebag).  It sounds like your real issue is the fact that the big box retailers are charging WAY more than the inherent manufacture/distribution/storage overhead, which may or may not be true but is certainly not a very attractive product choice.  That's why most AAA titles come in LOOK AT ALL THIS PHYSICAL BONUS SHIT editions now, which most retailers won't stock anyway because the boxes are too damned big, lol.  Let's just skip to the bit where we declare disc-based media to be as dead as tape and move on.

[Ziiro]

I actually want that DXHR art book but I don't want to have to buy another copy.

[Thad]

In practice though yeah the only real selling points are the packaging itself and the fact that you don't have to do a digital download (which would take me approximately half an hour, but I am a douchebag).

Still quite a bit less than the time it would take to get it shipped from Amazon.

And still probably have to patch the fucker.

It sounds like your real issue is the fact that the big box retailers are charging WAY more than the inherent manufacture/distribution/storage overhead, which may or may not be true but is certainly not a very attractive product choice.

Well no, the retailers are charging what Valve is charging; it's just that Amazon has a pretty significant discount going right now.

It's more that, in this case, the physical copy actually REMOVES the inherent value that a physical copy has over a digital one.

That's why most AAA titles come in LOOK AT ALL THIS PHYSICAL BONUS SHIT editions now, which most retailers won't stock anyway because the boxes are too damned big, lol.

Well, and what brick-and-mortar retailers are there anymore, anyway?  GameStop is about the last dedicated game store in most markets (and I really miss local mom-and-pop game stores, dammit).  Other than that, your choices are just general retailers like Wal-Mart and Target or tech stores like Best Buy.  And I'm close to a Fry's, but most people aren't and anyway I still kinda hate Fry's, I just hate it less than most of the alternatives.

Anyway.  Presumably your Wal-Marts and Targets don't stock the Ridiculous Giant Special Editions of PC games, and I would guess GameStop only keeps one or two copies on the shelves.  Electronics stores like Best Buy and Fry's might carry the Special Editions, and you can certainly get them at Amazon.

Let's just skip to the bit where we declare disc-based media to be as dead as tape and move on.

We're certainly getting there.  Especially on PC, though of course the disc as a single-use medium for copying the game to your hard drive has been standard since the late 1980's.

Physical goods have an inherent value over digital ones, but the publishers are deliberately REMOVING that value, so it's hard to see them lasting much longer.  Then again, vinyl's coming back; there's always going to be a core group of people who prefer to own things.

Consoles are, of course, much more wedded to physical media for the time being.  I assume it's partly a misguided antipiracy strategy, partly general incompetence at digital distribution, and partly the fact that sticking a 2TB hard drive in every console adds up to a significant expense -- but mostly that the console market just suffers from more inertia than the PC market.

iOS, of course, is all over digital game distribution, but it helps when your games aren't DVD-sized.  We'll see what happens with the Vita; the problem with the PSPGo was, by all accounts, not so much the lack of physical media as the lack of support for users' already-purchased games (and generally poor design of the device).  Sony might be able to pull it off with a fresh launch.

[Rico]

...is the "intentional" that you intentionally confused me with TA, or that you intentionally derailed a thread that begins with me explicitly stating it's not for arguing about the merits of DRM?

There appears to be a weird split here, but I was directly responding to someone else asking why Steamworks would be a problem for you, which I suppose is contributory derailment, but that's awfully picky even for you. The intentionally line was referring to slash, since a bunch of your and Bal's arguments around each other in similar circumstances, are, well...

[Thad]

There appears to be a weird split here, but I was directly responding to someone else asking why Steamworks would be a problem for you, which I suppose is contributory derailment, but that's awfully picky even for you.

Nothing weird about the split; the post you were responding to is still right above yours.  So, okay, fair, Brent started it, but he was at least asking for clarification and offering information (and has in fact been very helpful in clarifying some things for me).  Your pair of posts appeared to be specifically calculated to stoke a DRM argument, which was explicitly what that thread was set up to avoid.

And, as repeatedly noted, for all my various interactions with Bal on the subject of DRM, I don't oppose Steam on principle; that would be TA.

The intentionally line was referring to slash, since a bunch of your and Bal's arguments around each other in similar circumstances, are, well...

That series of words does not resemble any coherent set of English semantics I am familiar with, and I get the sneaking suspicion I'm better off that way.

[Brentai]

Bingo.

[Thad]

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

[Bal]

Small point, RE: Cloud services. While, yes, the idea of playing on another computer is kind of ridiculous to me too, what isn't ridiculous is the idea that I might have my steam drive die, which is also my OS drive. If that happens, then even all the saves in My Documents are toast. If it's in the cloud, not as much. Again, just a small service in an ever growing number of services that has rendered Steam my platform of choice. A game is actually MORE attractive to me if it's Steamworks because that means I'm probably getting the cloud, it will be in my library with everything else, it'll have the update support, and if it's a multiplayer game, of which I play a ton, it will have the Steam Community features which will at the very least let me join on friends, if not form matchmaking parties and shit.

[Thad]

Small point, RE: Cloud services. While, yes, the idea of playing on another computer is kind of ridiculous to me too,

The idea's not ridiculous at all; it makes perfect sense for people who frequently switch between different machines.  I've currently got Unison set up to mirror my various saves so that if, say, my girlfriend wants the TV, I can go back to my room and keep playing, or if I go on a trip I can pick up on my laptop.

However, for a new PC release, I would be playing that exclusively on my desktop PC, because that's the only real gaming machine I've got.

what isn't ridiculous is the idea that I might have my steam drive die, which is also my OS drive. If that happens, then even all the saves in My Documents are toast.

Well, yes, I know what backups are.  I'm not even disputing the utility of these various features.  I just think a retail box that sends you to Steam is a dumb idea.

A game is actually MORE attractive to me if it's Steamworks because that means I'm probably getting the cloud, it will be in my library with everything else, it'll have the update support, and if it's a multiplayer game, of which I play a ton, it will have the Steam Community features which will at the very least let me join on friends, if not form matchmaking parties and shit.

So where's the incentive to buy it in a box?  I happen to know from every single conversation we've ever had about online authentication that you have an awesome Internet connection that never goes down.

[A²]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1712878

A compiled list of games released and to be released that use Steamworks, including special cases like Witcher 2 which only uses Steamworks on the STEAM version. In such cases, those games are marked as such.

[TA]

So where's the incentive to buy it in a box?  I happen to know from every single conversation we've ever had about online authentication that you have an awesome Internet connection that never goes down.

And has access to special Steam servers that nobody else does, so he never gets locked out of playing single-player offline games just because there was a major release that day.

[Thad]

To be fair, that's less a Steam issue than an individual publisher issue; Valve's been doing one-time authentication for years now.  Publishers like Ubi who require always-on connections tend to require them with or without Steam.

[Bal]

When I said "to me too" I was referring to my personal habits. Could have made that more clear. Obviously the ability to play more or less seamlessly on multiple machines is a desirable feature for many.

As for the desirability of a retail box... I don't care. I haven't bought a PC game in a box in years. However, if I saw a PC game in a box, and it had a steamworks logo on it, I would be more enticed by it, not less, because of what Steam offers (all the features we've gone over ad nauseum).

Steam has an offline mode that works perfectly well for most games. Where it doesn't work, it is the fault of the publisher and not Steam. I guess I just don't consider gaming, or even PC use, an offline experience anymore. If I lose my internet connection I don't sit here and try to play something single player, I just leave my computer until the internet comes back. That's not to say I approve of Ubisoft's insane bullshit, because that genuinely detracts from the experience, whereas Steam more often than not adds to it.

[TA]

To be fair, that's less a Steam issue than an individual publisher issue; Valve's been doing one-time authentication for years now.  Publishers like Ubi who require always-on connections tend to require them with or without Steam.

I dunno what came out a couple weeks ago, but the servers were so slammed that it was impossible to launch Fallout: New Vegas, or to establish enough connection to switch to Offline mode - you know you have to connect first to use that, right Bal?

[Bal]

Do you have to be connected at the time, or just have to have been connected when you last launched the client? Regardless, the more important thing to me is that, unlike Ubisoft's crap, if you lose your connection while already playing, nothing happens, except of course that you cannot save to the cloud.

[TA]

You have to be connected at the time, to restart it in Offline Mode.  When that even works - I just now tried to switch to Offline Mode and it wouldn't do it at all.

[A²]

I've never had that issue - I can boot into offline mode from booting the whole computer up if I don't have internet, on both my desktop and laptop.

[Defenestration]

Yeah, seconding that. I've been able to boot up steam and play games fine after booting up my PC when the internet was down. IIRC, the dialog box gives options like "Retry" or "Start in Offline Mode"

Also, I cannot recall a time that I was ever locked out from playing a game because the servers were too busy, even during crazy sales. Locked out from starting to download a fresh install, sure. I don't even think it's possible to be too laggy to play a game you have fully downloaded, installed, and updated.

[patito]

So where's the incentive to buy it in a box?  I happen to know from every single conversation we've ever had about online authentication that you have an awesome Internet connection that never goes down.

And has access to special Steam servers that nobody else does, so he never gets locked out of playing single-player offline games just because there was a major release that day.

You have to be connected at the time, to restart it in Offline Mode.  When that even works - I just now tried to switch to Offline Mode and it wouldn't do it at all.

You know how I avoid that, I keep steam in offline mode for days at a time if I plan to play something sporadically for a few days. I 've been play DX:HR in offline mode for the past week and I've been switching online to play TF2. And this is not the first game I play offline, I did that with New Vegas too and I avoided the autosave on the cloud issues because I never really played it online.

It's very, very easy to play steam games offline, for the most part they only require you to launch them once online and you'll probably do that when you're finished installing it.

So yeah. steam's offline mode is perfectly functional, it wasn't so much before but now you can keep it offline after rebooting your computer as people have already pointed out. It served me well when I was out of internet for like 2 weeks straight.