Fallout: New Vegas To Use Steam DRM

dook43 said:
This sucks, because Fallout 3 was GFWL. That's not to say that Steam games (Dirt 2, Batman AA) cannot also be GFWL, but it appears that F: NV will not.

I'd like to keep all of my achievements, plz.
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GTA 4 is also a GFWL and it is on Steam, WL works perfect with it honestly
 
Just to be sure though, when they say you enter the CD-Key from the box into steam to download it to anywhere, they are inferring that's a one time deal, right? Or do you need the CD-Key every time you want to remotely install it? It's not like I carry the thing around with me :p .
 
You can have a GFWL handle and all that in a steam game. I have two that do it. Red faction guerrilla and GTAIV. GTAIV even has a third thing you have sign into.
 
spincut said:
Just to be sure though, when they say you enter the CD-Key from the box into steam to download it to anywhere, they are inferring that's a one time deal, right? Or do you need the CD-Key every time you want to remotely install it? It's not like I carry the thing around with me :p .
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1. You create Steam account
2. You add CD key
From now on that CD key is forever tied to that Steam account so to reinstall game on another PC all you need to do is to login to that Steam account, go to Library tab / Games, right click on game and select Install.

 
I am actually quite amazed at how well steam has evloved, at first I hated it and now its pretty awesome.
 
Steam is a perfect example of how DRM should work. Big fan and they almost always have deals, demo's, combos, and what ever else customers may want.

Evolve or die and Steam is the future in my opinion.
 
I was there for the beginning before there was any such thing as the steam store. Hell, steam friends didn't work for years and yet Valve continued to support their products throughout all of it. Even now with DD finally being accepted by the PC gaming industry as a whole steam still provides the best and most reliable service. I can also set my settings to not open up the news Ads or the steam store at all. It just goes straight to my task bar and I can right-click and go straight to my recent 5 or so games without even seeing the word "Steam". Though with deals like batman GOTY for 19.99 and Supreme commander 2 for 10.99 you can bet I check that page everyday without fail. I think Gabe and the rest of the bunch are solid guys who are gamers first and money men second. They also go out of their way to help Indie developers and hell they support MAC and if you don't get into the pearly gates with that I don't know what else you can do.

Slightly off-topic but I was one of the biggest opponents of L4D2 being a retail game, but after watching a lengthy interview with Gabe where he explained that he just got so tired of being the industries slowpoke when it came to releasing AAA titles that when they had enough of product to consider releasing a sequel he thought "Fine, give them what they want." and I respect him thinking of the community. I gave L4D2 a go recently and while its not a significant departure from L4D it does indeed represent a sequel.

Valve is truly the only publisher I have any faith in anymore. No, there is no free lunch but you can still choose who you buy it from.
 
i for one, welcome our new steam overlords

finally, a great move regarding DRM
 
As much as I dislike the idea of DRM (I'm only renting games and not buying them) I understand the necessity, and prefer the Steam method to many alternatives.

I have one gripe with Steam. It is that I cannot register my old half-life games (and half life expansions) to my steam account because someone else (probably through a hacked CDkey or something... unless one of my friends did something unscrupulous... hmmm) already did with and there's no simple/easy/straightforward way to rectify the situation (as of the last time I cared to try). I have the physical disk and cases with the keys printed on them. I can install them and play them but not through Steam. It seems kinda wrong to shut down Steam to play Half-life... which I don't do anyway anymore.

It's been a long long time since I cared about that - just damaged my initial impressions of the Steam platform.
 
Rebel44 said:
1. You create Steam account
2. You add CD key
From now on that CD key is forever tied to that Steam account so to reinstall game on another PC all you need to do is to login to that Steam account, go to Library tab / Games, right click on game and select Install.

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That's how steam has always worked. :confused: I don't get the hooplah. I'm always switching between computers here with my one steam account.
 
Im ok with this



Memitim said:
Awesome. I wish all games had Steamworks integration. Steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming since consoles started getting exclusive access to most games. Now if someone could just come up with magical APIs that would provide every possible feature across multiple platforms while making development extremely cheap and easy. ;)
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You mean like XNA Studio? oh wait lol:p
 
MV75 said:
That's how steam has always worked. :confused: I don't get the hooplah. I'm always switching between computers here with my one steam account.
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They are just trying to sell people on their DRM as being a good thing. Developers and publishers are taking notice of this anti-DRM backlash and noticing that it is costing sales. However, with few exceptions, they aren't willing to give DRM up. So they work on using DRM that gamers are more ok with. Part of that is selling gamers on the DRM they use.

"Hey look, this DRM is so cool it isn't really DRM! You can install it anywhere, download it from the net, whatever you like!"

While there are a lot of people who use Steam, there are even more who don't. They want to market this as something to be happy about, a feature, not a setback.

Just marketing fluff.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Well if you object to Steam style DRM so much that you wont buy games with it I assume either you object to most games on the market, or is it simply a convenient excuse to justify my paying for the game and downloading it? lol!
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A game that's tied to Steam is a game I can't buy used or trade off later. I'll buy it when it's 20 bucks someday.
 
This is one of those win-win situations for me. I love owning the physical disks (box art, faster installs than downloading, that sort of thing). But I love Steam's DRM and easy game access. to me, this is the best of both worlds. Someting like this can push me over the edge to get a game I was on the fence about. I really hope other companies take note and follow a similar approach.

@Dook43: My copy of Fallout 3 is from Steam. No store in my little one-horse town had a copy the day I had the cash and time to play it. Not sure about the GFWL part, but it runs on Steam beautifully.
 
If you have to move where the money is often enough being able to convert a box full of disks into entries in my steam games list is pretty sweet. All I have to do is have a net connect with decent bandwith and no caps and I'm go to go.

They did say that before they pull the pug they would set something up so that you could get your games in the future should the service ever die. That was years ago and at this point I'm guessing even if value dies off they could run a complete auth server for 20 bucks a month spilt between the 20 or 30,000 people on steam...
 
Finally, a step in the right direction for DRM. It's not perfect, but someone finally gets it. :)
 
I don't mind Steam DRM at all.

However you can install the game on as many systems as you want (with no restrictions!), and you do not have to be online to play the game after your initial activation.
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This is how all DRM should be.

A single player game that needs to be online all the time is just retarded
 
GregP24 said:
DRM is the most evil of all evils.
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Even... MOIDAH?
pigwalk said:
A game that's tied to Steam is a game I can't buy used or trade off later. I'll buy it when it's 20 bucks someday.
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Steam has sales all the time. I haven't purchase a game at retail price since I installed it two years ago. And older games seem to be priced cheaper than (used price minus trade-in value) at a store.
 
srangara said:
Steam has sales all the time. I haven't purchase a game at retail price since I installed it two years ago. And older games seem to be priced cheaper than (used price minus trade-in value) at a store.
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I won't argue that at all! I love me some Steam, but I use it more for the budget and sales games than anything. The only game I ever paid full 49.99 on Steam was..... Umm, I don't think I ever have actually.
 
For the sake of the environment, if the DVD media is not necessary, why not just do away with them all together and make it purely a downloadable game?
 
magoo said:
This sounds right.....and I like the implementation.

But.........for a single player game, why do you even have to get the internet involved?
Sure I understand it, but for us who buy a legitimate copy, what the hell. (yes, I know, age old argument).
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Steam has offline mode
 
Don't hop on the bandwagon too quickly.

STEAM is functional, and the compromise does seem fair in terms of playability and ease of use. I don't want to come across playing "Devil's advocate" just for the sake of playing "Devil's advocate"...


...but....


By using STEAM as the sole arbitrator, we're opening ourselves up to a huge security risk (full knowledge of the games we purchase, how much time we spend gaming, online habits, gaming interests, etc, etc.), not to mention, the ability of the company to steal from us if they feel in any way that we are "setting a bad example" or going against their "rules".

For instance, I already know of several people who have had their STEAM accounts disabled. Any games associated with those accounts are NO longer accessible, and if they want access, they will be forced to register under a different account and re-purchase everything.

Now, fair enough, you can argue that they may have "cheated" or been involved in other questionable activities, ultimately deserving the outcome. However, it's one thing to be banned from playing a particular game online, and another thing altogether to be locked out from the account that provides you with access to all of the content you are legally entitled to utilize.

Point number two... ...what happens if your STEAM account gets hacked? Or, more likely, manipulated in some way? How you ask? Well, if someone were to ever discover your password, it could be used without your knowing to activate content on multiple computers. STEAM's system would eventually realize that someone is abusing their account, by using it to pirate, and would lock it down. Now, you can hope that STEAM would eventually unlock it after you prove that it had been a security issue and that you are not the one responsible... ....but, seriously, who wants to go through all of that? And, that's assuming STEAM would even consider your plea. Basically, putting all your eggs in one basket, is not the be-all and end-all solution.



In the end, if the question is simply "Is this better than most other DRM solutions?", then the answer is an obvious yes, especially in terms of functionality, ease of use, compatibility, etc (e.g. no more worrying whether your DVD-RW drive will read the freakin' DRM protected disk, and so on). On the other hand, is this the best solution? Absolutely not. It's a good start, but it definitely has some potentially deadly faults.
 
DarthVain said:
I agree that Steam is a great way to do this and they are going to right way with this. I will also go on to say it is too bad something like this can't be adopted for say music and video. You keep your library in a digital format, and you can download it whenever and however many times you want to however many computers/devices you have.

The one cravat is that you are basically auctioning off your rights in favor of convenience. While its all good and all while Steam is around and playing nice, but what happens in the unlikely event that Steam goes out of business, or is say bought out by another group that changes things radically (Here's Lookin' at you UbiSoft and Activision). Now what are you left with? Nothing, as you gave your rights away (and your money).

Anyway not saying anything like that will happen, only that it is always a possibility if however small and to not discount your rights. Every time you buy something (or not) you are voting or legitimizing someones position.

Anyway I like steam, I am just leery of the future "what ifs". We have seen in the past servers shut down, or DRM turned off making the money you spent and the media you bought useless.
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This will ONLY be a problem with online games.
You DO know that Steam has a "backup game content", where you can backup the entire game install onto DVD's so you don't even have to download it again, right? (Funny how most people miss this). The only thing is that if you ever reformatted, you would have to download and upload steam, and then copy the game content back (make sure your saves and configuration data are backed up too). Then steam would update the cache and you're good to go. I already backed up my Dragon Age.

Now if steam ever "went out of business", all they would have to do is post an "offline install" where you could install Steam and the games completely offline. But of course you would need to have them backed up if the service ever went down.

Valve is smart enough that they would make sure the games are playable and reinstallable offline, if the service ever went down.
 
I don't see how everyone can be okay with this. I play single player games once and never touch them again. Requiring steam makes it impossible to resell the game. The only reason they are requiring steam is to increase sales. The benefit of being able to download it and install it anywhere does absolutely nothing for me.

Maybe it is time for me to get an Xbox 360, because stuff like this will only continue to kill the PC as a gaming platform.
 
Crucible1001 said:
stuff like this will only continue to kill the PC as a gaming platform.
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Steam is killing PC gaming? Wah? Last time I checked, they were in the business of selling PC games, and were doing extremely well at it.

- Steam removes the need for CD's (or at the very least, removes the need for no-CD cracks).
- Steam removes the need to manually update games.
- Steam is far less draconian than the forms of DRM that Ubisoft and EA Games are pushing.
- Steam is selling vast quantities of PC games every day.
- Steam has become a large marketplace for indie game developers to sell their games on.

Crucible1001 said:
I don't see how everyone can be okay with this. I play single player games once and never touch them again. Requiring steam makes it impossible to resell the game.
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You just seem pissed because you can't sell your games after the fact. I'm not sure if you realize this, but reselling used games hurts developers worse than piracy. When you resell a game, that's a legitimate and quantifiable lost sale. If you really hate PC gaming, reselling all your games after you've played them is a good way to show it.

Ironically enough, your wish to resell games is actually a bad thing for the PC gaming industry. It's actually a good thing that Steam prevents it, so lets add one more bullet point.

- Steam prevents you from reselling games (legitimately protects developers from lost sales)
 
Unknown-One said:
Steam is killing PC gaming? Wah? Last time I checked, they were in the business of selling PC games, and were doing extremely well at it.

- Steam removes the need for CD's (or at the very least, removes the need for no-CD cracks).
- Steam removes the need to manually update games.
- Steam is far less draconian than the forms of DRM that Ubisoft and EA Games are pushing.
- Steam is selling vast quantities of PC games every day.
- Steam has become a large marketplace for indie game developers to sell their games on.



You just seem pissed because you can't sell your games after the fact. I'm not sure if you realize this, but reselling used games hurts developers worse than piracy. When you resell a game, that's a legitimate and quantifiable lost sale. If you really hate PC gaming, reselling all your games after you've played them is a good way to show it.

Ironically enough, your wish to resell games is actually a bad thing for the PC gaming industry. It's actually a good thing that Steam prevents it, so lets add one more bullet point.

- Steam prevents you from reselling games (legitimately protects developers from lost sales)
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Forgot one

- Steam Weekend Deals

nouf said. That alone negates any arguments against steam and I didn't even bring out the midweek madness or holiday sales.
 
I pretty much buy all of my PC games through Steam now. I find it very convenient and easy to use. More game companies need to start following this example.
 
Unknown-One said:
You just seem pissed because you can't sell your games after the fact. I'm not sure if you realize this, but reselling used games hurts developers worse than piracy. When you resell a game, that's a legitimate and quantifiable lost sale. If you really hate PC gaming, reselling all your games after you've played them is a good way to show it.

Ironically enough, your wish to resell games is actually a bad thing for the PC gaming industry. It's actually a good thing that Steam prevents it, so lets add one more bullet point.

- Steam prevents you from reselling games (legitimately protects developers from lost sales)
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People have done it with console games, movies, books, and audio CDs for years. Very large industry built around it, and it hasn't "killed" them. In fact, in the US it's a privilege and exception explicitly detailed to the Copyright Act, referred to as the First Sale Doctrine, and there is Caselaw by SCOTUS recognizing it, look it up.

This is all an action by Obsidian in an attempt to eliminate our right to exercise the First Sale Doctrine, and many of you are rolling over and playing right into their hands. It's quite appalling the freedoms you guys are willing to piss away.
 
pigwalk said:
A game that's tied to Steam is a game I can't buy used or trade off later. I'll buy it when it's 20 bucks someday.
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And you know what...that is fine; the publisher still gets the money. Isn't that the point of getting the money into the hands, even if small, to the person who actually did the work so they can do more work?

I don't think I have ever bought a game full price from steam. However, I have bought a ton of games in the $5-$10 range and one $20 game. This directly tells steam and thus the publishers how much I am willing to pay for a certain type of game. Now...I just need dragon age and the expansion to drop the $30 as a pack and i'll waste more of my life in the basement. :D
 
Menelmarar said:
People have done it with console games, movies, books, and audio CDs for years. Very large industry built around it, and it hasn't "killed" them.
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Not sure what you're on about. I never said reselling was in danger of killing the industry, not even close. What I did saw was that it harmed the industry by siphoning off sales that the developers actually profit from.

Menelmarar said:
in the US it's a privilege and exception explicitly detailed to the Copyright Act, referred to as the First Sale Doctrine, and there is Caselaw by SCOTUS recognizing it, look it up.
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Just because you're allowed to do something doesn't mean it's a good thing, and doesn't change the points I made. Reselling a game harms the industry in a concrete and quantifiable way.

One copy sold gets passed around two, three, four times. That happens with 10,000 copies of a game, and you lose 20,000 to 40,000 sales. It's in the developers best interest to discourage such practices, and assuming the money made from legitimate sales goes towards better products, it's in the consumer's best interest not to resell.
 
Soulstice said:
By using STEAM as the sole arbitrator, we're opening ourselves up to a huge security risk (full knowledge of the games we purchase, how much time we spend gaming, online habits, gaming interests, etc, etc.),
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This is covered in the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
not to mention, the ability of the company to steal from us if they feel in any way that we are "setting a bad example" or going against their "rules".
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This makes no sense. "Setting a bad example?"
For instance, I already know of several people who have had their STEAM accounts disabled. Any games associated with those accounts are NO longer accessible, and if they want access, they will be forced to register under a different account and re-purchase everything.
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Covered by the SSA.
Now, fair enough, you can argue that they may have "cheated" or been involved in other questionable activities, ultimately deserving the outcome. However, it's one thing to be banned from playing a particular game online, and another thing altogether to be locked out from the account that provides you with access to all of the content you are legally entitled to utilize.
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Cheating won't, and has never, gotten an entire account disabled. Accounts are disabled for pirating, account sharing, or trying to extract others' login info by pretending to be Valve staff (or any other means).
Point number two... ...what happens if your STEAM account gets hacked?
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Accounts don't get hacked.
Well, if someone were to ever discover your password, it could be used without your knowing to activate content on multiple computers. STEAM's system would eventually realize that someone is abusing their account, by using it to pirate, and would lock it down. Now, you can hope that STEAM would eventually unlock it after you prove that it had been a security issue and that you are not the one responsible... ....but, seriously, who wants to go through all of that? And, that's assuming STEAM would even consider your plea. Basically, putting all your eggs in one basket, is not the be-all and end-all solution.
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Stolen accounts have always been returned to their owner. All the owner has to do is contact support and prove ownership.
It's a good start, but it definitely has some potentially deadly faults.
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I've been using Steam since 2004 and no "deadly fault" has ever come my way.
 
necrosis said:
This is so much better than the total clusterfuck that was GfWL on FO3 especially with the DLC content.

I do not think one single DLC for FO3 installed with zero issues for anyone. The biggest moronic thing was requiring the game to be installed on C: drive. :mad:
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With the GOTY edition, I had the game installed to D: drive. The DLC did not appear until I selected the .ESM files within the launcher, however.
 
I'm fine with this. As soon as I see someone offering a $10 off pre-order coupon of some type, I'm signing up.

Fallout 3 has been a great game (though I wish it ran fully stable on Win7 x64). Can't wait for New Vegas.
 
Elios said:
i havent bought a used PC game... ever or sold a PC game
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You should try it some day, it's cheaper :p.

These days, it seems to me that DRM is less about stopping Pirates, and more about killing the used market. Hey don't get me wrong, Steam rocks and I have it running right now, but I do have some issues with it.
 
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