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Steam or Retail Box?
- Thread starter deton8
- Start date
Steam is a form of DRM that people accept. Well DRM IS DRM. I don't want it. I'll borrow someone else quote from another forum concerning Spore but I think it sums it all up nicely including Steam. I'll point to the bold and underline when concerning steam.
"A decade ago when I bought a game--it was mine, all mine. I could play it, delete it, reinstall it--over and over without end. However, now the market has shifted so that I don't buy the game, I purchase the rights to enjoy limited play at the discretion of the company that owns the game. They can cut me off at will, they can determine an 'end point' to the playbility of their product."
SO retail box all the way. Plus I like the way they look on my shelves. It's a physical item I can see that shows I actually bought something. Digital distro just seems shallow to me.
If you want to save gas buy your games online from Amazon, gogamer, etc
"A decade ago when I bought a game--it was mine, all mine. I could play it, delete it, reinstall it--over and over without end. However, now the market has shifted so that I don't buy the game, I purchase the rights to enjoy limited play at the discretion of the company that owns the game. They can cut me off at will, they can determine an 'end point' to the playbility of their product."
SO retail box all the way. Plus I like the way they look on my shelves. It's a physical item I can see that shows I actually bought something. Digital distro just seems shallow to me.
If you want to save gas buy your games online from Amazon, gogamer, etc
I tend to believe that the argument about DRM restricting your rights is a little overplayed. A company can't turn off your rights to play a game at will; you have entered into a contract with them for the rights to play the game for an indefinite period. If they "redefine" the period of use, that would be a breach of contract. Also, while I understand the argument about a digital distribution system going out of business, I think its pretty hard to gaurantee anything in life. Eventually we will all stop using CD/DVD ROM drives and thats going to make your hard copies obsolete (remember 5.25in floppy drives?). And as most of those discs have their own DRM on them, transferring them "in-kind" to new media is going to be either A) impossible or B) a huge pain in the ass. IF Steam ever goes out of business, they will come up with a solution to meet their obligations as vendors of these products. That, or have lawsuits wipe out whatever remaining equity is left in the company.
I think DRM solutions like Steam are the best common ground for gamers and developers. Although I believe that piracy really only has a marginal effect on PC game revenues, developers can and will take the safe route and develop for consoles and ensure that their product won't "easily" pirated on day one (obviously console titles are still pirated, but it is MUCH easier to do so with PC games).
In the long run, I do believe that I "own" the game whether I purchase it on Steam vs. the retail box. I find Steam to be extremely efficient and only buy retail boxes when the former is option is unavailable.
Plus - no tax and no shipping on Steam!
I think DRM solutions like Steam are the best common ground for gamers and developers. Although I believe that piracy really only has a marginal effect on PC game revenues, developers can and will take the safe route and develop for consoles and ensure that their product won't "easily" pirated on day one (obviously console titles are still pirated, but it is MUCH easier to do so with PC games).
In the long run, I do believe that I "own" the game whether I purchase it on Steam vs. the retail box. I find Steam to be extremely efficient and only buy retail boxes when the former is option is unavailable.
Plus - no tax and no shipping on Steam!
$5 is 10% off retail, thats always good. And its always there in your account later, never have to worry about scratched disks or missing ones. And less wait time loading things that with a disk you would have to load from a cd.
silentcoercion
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2006
- Messages
- 362
Steam. If all games were digitally distributed via systems that good, I'd never buy a boxed game again (well, excepting collectors editions, but there are an extremely low number of franchises I like that much)
Collector's Edition (if it's one I want) > Steam > Regular Box
The way DRM's going with online activation etc, the so-called advantages of having a physical copy are becoming fewer and fewer.
As for criticisms about price and availability, while they're valid criticisms I don't see them as Valve's fault. I'm sure it's the publishers who dictate those things, and they're just trying to wring as much money out of every available source as possible.
The way DRM's going with online activation etc, the so-called advantages of having a physical copy are becoming fewer and fewer.
As for criticisms about price and availability, while they're valid criticisms I don't see them as Valve's fault. I'm sure it's the publishers who dictate those things, and they're just trying to wring as much money out of every available source as possible.
Oh? So how is the publisher's best interest to sell, e.g. The Witcher EE only in North America? We're not talking about some brand new game that was just released in the USA and isn't yet available in Europe. So how is that again the publisher's best interest?
Personally I think it's despicable what they're doing. So just because I live in Europe that makes me a second class person? OK to be discriminated? I won't even talk about the prices. They even go as far as making me pay VAT for their games, pah, what a joke. Thank goodness for all the international e-tailers. I can buy games half the price they charge me on Steam.
UnlimitedMP
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2004
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- 1,946
I prefer to buy Valve/Steam games retail and then they get tied to the steam account. It's having a hard-backup copy should I ever re-install again or the option of downloading a copy again.
Steam is a form of DRM that people accept. Well DRM IS DRM. I don't want it. I'll borrow someone else quote from another forum concerning Spore but I think it sums it all up nicely including Steam. I'll point to the bold and underline when concerning steam.
"A decade ago when I bought a game--it was mine, all mine. I could play it, delete it, reinstall it--over and over without end. However, now the market has shifted so that I don't buy the game, I purchase the rights to enjoy limited play at the discretion of the company that owns the game. They can cut me off at will, they can determine an 'end point' to the playbility of their product."
SO retail box all the way. Plus I like the way they look on my shelves. It's a physical item I can see that shows I actually bought something. Digital distro just seems shallow to me.
If you want to save gas buy your games online from Amazon, gogamer, etc
Um the games are still tied to your account right? So unless i missed something getting the retail box just stops you from having to download... I have to agree that they only big negative i have will steam is you can't re-sell your games. It really doesn't bother me since I don't sell games anyway but its nice to know its there.
grendel240sx
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2004
- Messages
- 497
Steam is great if you are in the states. When I was playing from Germany I couldn't buy some stuff like the Civilization pack/etc. Also getting Bioshock over steam sucked, they gave me the German language version, so I had to switch it to english... problem is none of the little sisters creepy voices worked, the whole "would you kindly" speach had no audio so I had to watch it over youtube.
Other than that I love steam, I like how I can reinstall windows and start downloading my games while I sleep. Then I wake up and COD4/TF2/etc is good to go
Other than that I love steam, I like how I can reinstall windows and start downloading my games while I sleep. Then I wake up and COD4/TF2/etc is good to go
Move to the States then if the game is that important to you...
That's a nice solution to everything . I don't give a rat's ass about them [those games] but what, aren't I entitled to be outraged about region discrimination? I'm sure you'd love it if it was the other way around. Personnaly I don't care, they're overpriced anyway but that's not the point.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1358010 tell him that.
. I don't give a rat's ass about them [those games] but what, aren't I entitled to be outraged about region discrimination? I'm sure you'd love it if it was the other way around. Personnaly I don't care, they're overpriced anyway but that's not the point.http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1358010 tell him that.
You haven't actually read the Steam Subscriber Agreement have you?
http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
In other words, they don't guarantee the steam download or authorization service will be around "forever". There's nothing stopping them for turning it off for tomorrow for a year or forever.
10A is hilarious. Have a dispute? You acknowledge your sole and exclusive remedy is to stop using Steam!
I'm not saying they are going to just disappear, but they aren't obligated to stick around or "unDRM" anything (doubt they legally can anyways)
Just be aware what you are signing up for, as long as you are okay with this (even though a lot of people contradict themselves about liking/hating"subscription/rental models") more power to you, and money to Steam.
Box beats steam everytime. Until the digital download is significantly cheaper than the retail copy, it will always be that way for me.
I can buy new for 39.99 with packaging versus 49.99 without which makes no sense to me. Why am I paying more for less?
I can buy new for 39.99 with packaging versus 49.99 without which makes no sense to me. Why am I paying more for less?
retardedchicken
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2003
- Messages
- 3,081
My thoughts exactly. The past couple STEAM games were cheaper for me due to no sales tax and gas money. I usually start the download before I go to class or work out or something and they are usually done by the time I return.
I believe Bioshock was given a DRM limit thinger when it was released (later removed). From what I've read Far Cry2 has one, but its very lenient (granting more installs after an uninstall etc...).
Actually, I have, and if you read the disclaimers on virtually ANYTHING you buy, you will realize that most products come with this kind of bullshit. It wouldn't hold up in court. If Steam shut off your service and restricted your access to your subscribed games for no good reason, you would have a legitimate legal claim, disclaimer or no.
Also, most of the jargon is just there for them to avoid any problems if the service is unavailable.
Yea, but in your original post, you stated "you have entered into a contract with them for the rights to play the game for an indefinite period." But you haven't. Nowhere it says that.
Now that will be a very very interesting court case, which could set precedence to many other future lawsuits against DRM authorization services becoming unavailabile. I guess it'll be a matter of time till some service goes down, and a class action lawsuit or something gets filed. I'm actually surprised it hasn't already.. Didn't a few music services go down, effecitvely locking tracks onto that single device forever?
Ok, I can accept that. I misrepresented my point.
Overall I think that from Valve's perspective this is really the only way they can offer the service without fear of being sued if their servers go down. And if the company failed, you can bet your bottom dollar that priority #1 is to get the software licenses out to people. As I said before also, any remaining equity in the company would be wiped out by a class-action suit of this scale.
Overall I think that from Valve's perspective this is really the only way they can offer the service without fear of being sued if their servers go down. And if the company failed, you can bet your bottom dollar that priority #1 is to get the software licenses out to people. As I said before also, any remaining equity in the company would be wiped out by a class-action suit of this scale.
Well, I dunno about my bottom dollar, but I will be betting on the availability on the games I've subscribed to. (yes, I too have subscribed to a few games on Steam
)ok now we're just arguing semantics. me likey steam.
actually there is an interesting part in the disclaimer that mentions that although Valve is not obligated to do so, in the event of termination from their end (ie Steam dies), they would make the software that you subscribe to available for permanent download.
I take from this that although they dont want to commit to anything (no one does), they understand that this is an issue and in all likelihood would make your subs available.
actually there is an interesting part in the disclaimer that mentions that although Valve is not obligated to do so, in the event of termination from their end (ie Steam dies), they would make the software that you subscribe to available for permanent download.
I take from this that although they dont want to commit to anything (no one does), they understand that this is an issue and in all likelihood would make your subs available.