Steam Removes Game From User Libraries

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We've heard from a reliable source that all six people affected are devastated by the news. ;)

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Valve’s online gaming distribution website Steam has removed what appears to be the very first game from user libraries. Many games have been removed from the Steam store, but have remained in user libraries. Individuals have had games removed for various reasons as well, but this appears to be the first game, in its entirety, removed from every user library.
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So, Steam is more of a game rental. As long as you don't pay anywhere near full price and can get a refund for pulled games I think the service is reasonable.
 
I'd love to hear Valve's response and see if this was their doing or Square's doing.
 
i can understand them pulling it from the store but removing it from the library is - to me- a no-no

the problem is, always online drm that came with the game- square shut off the server= you literally cannot play the game since it requires the server to be there to "check in"

which coincidentally was one of the main issues people had with the original xbone drm policy, what happens if the server is not "there" anymore.

we now know, no server=no game- even single player- anymore.
 
SGA76 said:
I'd love to hear Valve's response and see if this was their doing or Square's doing.
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it was square shutting off the server that means the game is 100% unplayable now.(even in single player mode)
 
SGA76 said:
I'd love to hear Valve's response and see if this was their doing or Square's doing.
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From the article it sounds like it was a little of both ... Square Enix shut down the game server (and since the game required always on DRM, no server meant the game was no longer functional) ... Steam apparently decided that rather than keeping a non-functional game in libraries they would remove it ... depending on when people purchased this, this would also give the users some ability to pursue a refund and probably reduce the service attempts from users trying to access a game that was now non-functional

I think this does highlight the risk of always on DRM more than digital distribution ... if the game had remained functional I suspect that Valve would have left it alone ... once it became non-functional it would only create problems for Valve to have it on their servers and in people's libraries so they took the lesser of two evils (I suspect) and removed it ;)
 
Stop linking forbes, I can't ever get past the stupid front ad page to the articles due to me not wanting them to track me. Anyway, a quick bing showed that it was some game that I'd never heard of, but anyways, what happened to the original valve guarantee that if the server ever went out, a patch would be made so you could still play games? Did that only apply to steam itself and not single games?
 
MV75 said:
Stop linking forbes, I can't ever get past the stupid front ad page to the articles due to me not wanting them to track me. Anyway, a quick bing showed that it was some game that I'd never heard of, but anyways, what happened to the original valve guarantee that if the server ever went out, a patch would be made so you could still play games? Did that only apply to steam itself and not single games?
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Yes, that guarantee applied (applies) to Steam creating a permanent offline mode for games that didn't have always on DRM ... Steam would never have the ability to disable always on DRM using servers external to Steam so those would be out of scope ... that said, the majority of games do not require that form of DRM
 
Easy solution for Valve.
Don't sell games on Steam with always online DRM and you won't get into a mess like this.
And you greedy ass companies making the games, if you're going to release it through Steam, make an offline mode for single player.
 
Sounds like a big non-issue to me. A game I never heard of was shut down because nobody was playing it and Valve just removed the decaying corpse from the library.
 
But it isn't like there is some vast conspiracy.

Valve leaves any game they possibly can alone.

Take The Ship for example. It's quite a major hassle to even make that game work with the master severs down. But it's still there in the library. And once in a while my gaming buds dust it off and figure out how to get it working again.

Sooner or later this issue is going to get really major as games designed only for windows xp start having major issues with late gen OSs. Unless Valve gets into the automatic transparent emulator business some of the games are just going to stop working.
 
I think its wrong to remove the game from librarys what if someone wanted to create there own server and modify the game to keep playing it? Much like how certain games are still online functional with the Sega Dreamcast....
 
This kind of thing is probably covered in the TOS that everyone blindly agrees to.
 
Hard to say. I can see the complaint, but also the common sense. If the game is "just plain unplayable" because of an always-on DRM with the publishing company it's hard to complain about the removal.
 
mi7chy said:
So, Steam is more of a game rental. As long as you don't pay anywhere near full price and can get a refund for pulled games I think the service is reasonable.
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This really has nothing to do with Steam. Square Enix shut down the DRM servers for this game which means that the game is literally unplayable. As even single player requires a checkin. If you bought a physical copy, then you currently would be holding a worthless piece of plastic as the game is completely unplayable (unless you go the route of breaking DRM which steam has no interest in being a part of and you wouldn't need the game from steam anyways).

If anything, steam did the right thing as the game is no longer functional and is a waste of space on any system.

Instead, this article should be putting more emphasis on the fact that a large company like Square Enix can shutoff DRM servers with no obligations to their playerbase to patch out the DRM in their product. Steam has made (non legally binding) promises to patch out their own DRM if they were ever to fold and has made no intentions known of not allowing a user to download a game that they own (as long as said game can be played legally).

In the past steam has pulled games from the store, but in all cases you were still able to download and play them and in some cases, they offered refunds, see the following as a recent example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/12/19/valve-pulls-the-war-z-off-steam-offers-refund/
 
Given the fact that many of us have ridiculous amounts of purchases on Steam now and wouldn't be able to easily detect something like this and the common knowledge of their shitty-ass customer service, I'm more curious as to whether or not they informed the owners of the removal of the game from their libraries or just made it disappear from each user's library list.
 
Advil said:
But it isn't like there is some vast conspiracy.

Valve leaves any game they possibly can alone.

Take The Ship for example. It's quite a major hassle to even make that game work with the master severs down. But it's still there in the library. And once in a while my gaming buds dust it off and figure out how to get it working again.

Sooner or later this issue is going to get really major as games designed only for windows xp start having major issues with late gen OSs. Unless Valve gets into the automatic transparent emulator business some of the games are just going to stop working.
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This is why I have Windows XP running as a guest OS in VMware.

Some games will not work properly in Windows 7 or 8. I still get graphical issues on a game such as Sim City 4 with hardware rendering and software rendering. Back in the Windows XP days, I didn't have such issues.

Even a game like Pangya won't work right under Windows 7 or 8. Computer throws fits like a missing Start button, Skype crashing, or Steam telling me it ran out of memory.

Windows XP? No such issue.

The more and more games that are abandoned by their developers or no longer updated to work properly on newer operating systems, these issues are going to be more common.

It's going to get even worse when always-on DRM games that require server log-ins and verifications, as well as game activation servers have the servers shutdown.

I miss having to just pop a CD in a disc drive and/or enter a CD key as my only form of copy protection. Now, we have to worry about these servers shutting down and cutting us off from these games permanently, especially when the next Windows comes out, legacy games are going to probably require emulation and/or virtualization to run again.
 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa.... too many pop ups, ads, and annoying things on the Forbes site. Stopped reading as I could not scroll through without something popping up and taking my attention away from the article. Like a 3 yo with ADHD and a Thomas the Tank engine play set.... Look! Look! Look!
 
ServerKing said:
I think its wrong to remove the game from librarys what if someone wanted to create there own server and modify the game to keep playing it? Much like how certain games are still online functional with the Sega Dreamcast....
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That the problem you can't
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
Given the fact that many of us have ridiculous amounts of purchases on Steam now and wouldn't be able to easily detect something like this and the common knowledge of their shitty-ass customer service, I'm more curious as to whether or not they informed the owners of the removal of the game from their libraries or just made it disappear from each user's library list.
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It's up to Square Enix to contact their customers, is it not?
 
So the reason the publisher didn't put out a patch removing the 'always online' aspect of the game before removing the only way to play it is....?

A big FU to consumers sounds like the only answer.
 
To be fair, with the servers shutdown, the game would have been impossible to play anyways. This isn’t simply because it’s an online-only game. In fact, Order of War: Challenge has 18 single-player missions as well. But due to always-online DRM, even the single-player portion of the game requires the servers to be up and running.
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Huh. Good thing there aren't any really big games reliant on that model, like Diablo 3 or SimCit-

Oh.
 
octoberasian said:
Yeah, that's up to SE to do that like how many F2P MMO companies are notifying their user base of impending server shutdowns.
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Yea, Gamestop isn't going to call you up 3 years after you bought a game there to tell you Square Enix is going to completely terminate all working copies. You "bought" the license from SE, not Valve.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Because Steam doesn't sell or support software that doesn't work, and your license was with SE.
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Do you have any idea about the point I'm trying to make about Steam removing games from user libraries without any notification that you purchased from Steam, or are you just trying to be a pointless idiot like you usually do when you argue with me? Fuck i swear you're annoying.
 
ServerKing said:
I think its wrong to remove the game from librarys what if someone wanted to create there own server and modify the game to keep playing it? Much like how certain games are still online functional with the Sega Dreamcast....
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I suspect that any modifications required keep the game playable would not be legal under the DMCA rules so it would not be possible for Steam to continue to host a game that couldn't be legally played ... anyone willing to break the DMCA to host illegal servers or illegally patch the game would also likely be willing to obtain the software through a torrent or other means

I think this is a special case and not indicative of a significant risk but it does highlight the potential risks of using always on DRM on titles from smaller publishers ... it is unlikely that EA or Blizzard or other larger companies would be willing to give a total FU to customers and shutdown their online DRM unless they went totally bankrupt (not likely) and even then they would likely release some sort of patch ... I think this is more of a special case
 
Sensationalist bullshit. There's a completely valid and logical reason why Valved chose to remove this from users libraries. Doesn't mean they are gonna go around all gung-ho in the future and start snapping shit from users libraries.

Article was crafted to stir up drama.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
Do you have any idea about the point I'm trying to make about Steam removing games from user libraries without any notification that you purchased from Steam, or are you just trying to be a pointless idiot like you usually do when you argue with me? Fuck i swear you're annoying.
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I doubt that the modifications made by users to remove the always on DRM from the game would be legal under the DMCA rules ... it would be very dangerous legally for Valve to host a game that couldn't be legally played ... anyone willing to break the DMCA rules to "patch" the game or host illegal servers would also be willing to obtain the software through a torrent (probably) ... I think this was a unique case created by SE's termination of an online DRM based game
 
Nice clickbait headline to get the usual kneejerk responses by people that won't even bother reading the article.

Meanwhile its Square Enix to blame here since they made the game impossible to play even the SP missions without server side which they shut down. I suppose Valve should have coded a server back end for the game too rather than continuing to field complaints for "the game not working" - yes its Valve that gets the complaints not Square Enix
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
Do you have any idea about the point I'm trying to make about Steam removing games from user libraries without any notification that you purchased from Steam, or are you just trying to be a pointless idiot like you usually do when you argue with me? Fuck i swear you're annoying.
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If you don't want to discuss with me, don't. I understand your point, and I agree that Steam shouldn't be removing games from libraries, but the issue is more between the customer and Square Enix.

Regardless of whether you bought it from Steam or a retail box, the game is bricked and SE did nothing to prepare their customers for that. They should have had a plan for Steam as well. Square Enix bricking copies of the game is going to cost Valve money in all of the customer support tickets, either removed from library or non-functioning.

If I were Valve, I'd replace the link to the game with a link to Square Enix customer support.
 
SGA76 said:
Easy solution for Valve.
Don't sell games on Steam with always online DRM and you won't get into a mess like this.
And you greedy ass companies making the games, if you're going to release it through Steam, make an offline mode for single player.
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No its called personal responsibility. Dont buy a game that has an always online requirement. Valve is just a middleman like GameStop or Target selling video games. Its not Valve's job to play policy maker just because a few kiddies thst are too short sighted to see why always-online exists and has benefits.

Again, vote with your wallet and dont buy always online games if you dont like it, Valve is not your mommy.
 
mi7chy said:
So, Steam is more of a game rental. As long as you don't pay anywhere near full price and can get a refund for pulled games I think the service is reasonable.
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SGA76 said:
I'd love to hear Valve's response and see if this was their doing or Square's doing.
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Read the article next time.

Square killed the servers and the game is now completely unplayable.

Nothing nefarious was done by Value. A discontinued, non-functioning product was removed from the store and users library due to the publisher killing server support.

Hosers need to chill.
 
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