Old Steam Poll posts split and 'archived'

[Gavrushka]

I get the possibly mistaken impression that Egosoft are surprised by the level of negativity for Steam, and rather than taking note and crunching numbers have opted to reject the poll as meaningless, or reject people's dislike of Steam as unfounded. The first would be dangerous, the second arrogant.

The poll, however leading the options are, does show a significant proportion of people do not wish to be involved with a steam related game. - The only option Egosoft really has to consider is whether it is in their financial interests to allow a version that can be used without any reliance on Steam. - I don't think preaching to the community as to why they should like Steam, or why Steam is good for Egosoft is going to help.

I am sure X:R is going to be a success, and they don't need to worry about the seemingly significant proportion of X supporters who could well say farewell as a result of the company's actions. After all, Egosoft is just another business here to make money, isn't it?

[Le Baron]

I get the possibly mistaken impression that Egosoft are surprised by the level of negativity for Steam,

and the same (better worded (neutral)) poll in the german forum is even more negativ!

- 46% so far claim to not buy XR, if Steam is forced to install, even if it's only for acitivation.
- 27% claim Steam necessity as annoying, but will buy the game anyway
- 18% don't care anyway
- 8% like Steam enforecement

232 participants.

[thetack]

i am more than willing to pay extra for a non steam game even double the price is ok by me and as for the DLCs again i will willingly pay double for them dirrect from ego without touching steam

just one clarification though do you infer that after a year you will be releasing a non steam patch or that that will only come out if steam fail ?

thank you Bernd very few developers have the b***s or desire to talk to there fans and for that if nothing else you have my thanks and respect.

[the old one]

an interesting post a page or two ago about paying a bit extra for a none steam version.i think it is a good idea, if egosoft sold a boxed version of rebirth without steam from there shop with say a 5 pound premium i think it would make every one happy,and this thread would die a quick death,the old one ps it might be a good idea for some one to run a poll on this.

[Le Baron]

i am more than willing to pay extra for a non steam game even double the price is ok by me and as for the DLCs again i will willingly pay double for them dirrect from ego without touching steam

So do I and so would do others as well from german forums.

@The person who collects for Bernd and send him an email:

Bernd said, that only have to go online with Steam to activate the game. But then they want to publish the updates via steam if I understood correctly? How does this work together?

[navetta]

that sounds like a good idea as long as i dont have to pay for any more updates/DLC

[RicoOcho]

If it wasnt for the BOXED version of the Gold edition, i would have not had a clue on what the X Series was about...if it wasnt for these here forums and the fact that i can download patches and Xtra Content i would not have been an active member of these forums and a supporter for the x series....i never used steam and do plan to use it in anyway...

[strude]

... but why does Steam games cost the same like the boxed versions or often are more expensive?!

That's easy. Politics. Firstly, the publisher sets the price, not Steam/Valve. Secondly, if Steam was to start selling games at less than the games stores, the games stores would be at a disadvantage, and Steam would start gaining the monopoly that everyone is so paranoid about. Stores can sometimes sell the boxed version cheaper though, because as said, the publishers sets the price on Steam, where the store has bought the stock, so they can sell it cheaper if they like. Thirdly, the price on Steam is generally the accepted price that people pay for games in that region.

The poll, however leading the options are, does show a significant proportion of people do not wish to be involved with a steam related game.

The polls shows a significant proportion of those that participated do not wish to be involved with a steam related game. That's the difference. 130 out of 250 people doesn't anywhere near represent the number of people looking with interest at Rebirth, and with such a small sample group, you would be hard pressed to say you can extrapolate those percentages over the current player base.

...as long as i dont have to pay for any more updates/DLC

I expect patches will still come free, but I think free additional content is a bit much to ask. Egosoft has been more than generous with additional content in previous titles, often bundling extra missions with patches. I see no reason why they shouldn't get paid for that content. Asking for it free is just greedy.

[Asmodae]

Steam is a touchy subject for me. I've been against it and systems like it because they change the relationship with the publisher from purchaser to renter (licensee). It's a long standing trend in games and is getting worse.

I gave it a try, and steam support just treated me like an imbecile, so I still don't think the trade off is worth while even at massively reduced prices. Post purchase I have no recourse except to stop using the service entirely. This bad user relationship will ultimately have repercussions. Valve doesn't get any more of my money. I've bought multiple x-games in the past, but Steam is a no go.

The common response is that I'm a moron and should get with the times. The other common thing I'm told by steam fans is that only an idiot 'buys' steam games at full price. Only when games go on sale at 75% off or more does these reduced consumer rights imposed by steam even approach being tolerable.

Consider that since the standard procedure for many (most?) steam users is to ONLY license games at steeply discounted rates the profit distribution changes. Instead of getting a nice smooth profit curve from full price through to the long-tail, what happens is the fans will license the game at full price (the ones willing to use steam anyway), then nothing until the game is reduced in value to impulse purchase (or bundled in a pack), at which point it might never even get played.

From my perspective, Egosoft is trading existing loyal customers for POTENTIAL new customers. I'm apparently not the only casualty of that decision. That seems like a big change in philosophy for a business that used to rely on their customer loyalty and long tail sales supported by active modding communities.

[Gavrushka]

The poll, however leading the options are, does show a significant proportion of people do not wish to be involved with a steam related game.

The polls shows a significant proportion of those that participated do not wish to be involved with a steam related game. That's the difference. 130 out of 250 people doesn't anywhere near represent the number of people looking with interest at Rebirth, and with such a small sample group, you would be hard pressed to say you can extrapolate those percentages over the current player base.

If the sample is representative, then the level of error is +/- 6% (statistics, pure and simple)*

IF it is not representative, then it is meaningless.


I would be HAPPY to pay extra for a version of the game that did not require Steam.


*Note the sample is taken from thpse enthusiastic enough about X to join this website - I'll draw no conclusions from that.

[PTR]

No steam for me, the main reasons are that my gaming rig is not connected to internet (only playing single player games, I have internet via a wifi connection on my laptop, not good enough for downloading games via Steam) and that I want to choose what is on the PC, since I do a lot of work on the rig and do not want any unknown software, connecting automatically to the internet, on it. (Call me paranoia). And -no matter how much I like the X series- I don’t want to connect the PC to the internet just to activate my physical copy bought in the shop via steam, even once. Why should I? I've bought the f4&@!ng physical thing!

I get that Steam has some advantages, for the clients and for the developers. My problem is choice. I want to choose to take advantage or not of the ‘advantages’, to make up my own mind about things, to determine whether the advantages ARE good for me, the paying costumer. I don’t want anybody saying ‘You have to use Steam, it’s better’ because ‘better’ is different for everybody. It might be better for some, but for others it’s the worst idea ever.

I played the X games and enjoyed them, because of the choices you get. YOU can decide whatever you want to do. Wherever you want to go. Which ship to fly. Whoever you want to kill or trade with. It seems that with X:R Egosoft started to limit that choice, both in and outside the game. That sounds a bit dramatic, and I hope I’m wrong, but looking at the polls and forums, a lot of people are worried about this sort of things, and I hope Egosoft will take all those worries into consideration without saying ‘this is better for us so suck it up’, which is of course their right but will leave a lot of disappointed customers.

[Burneyx]

I am trying to find the arguments that people have against Steam, but (short of reading the whole thread), these are those that I found:

-Bernd

Ok, Bernd, im trying to help you out.......

I dont like Steam because its a slap in the face of german/european CUSTOMER RIGHTS and therefore a slap in the face of your CUSTOMERS!

greetings

burneyx

[aXeL_UK]

I used Steam a few times, with consistent problems and the last straw was half life genre where steam was regularly breaking the installations, losing my checkpoints, steam servers frequently rejecting logins and, worse, causing errors on other non steam games (Never did figure out how). In the end I couldn't uninstall it so it was a system rebuild.

I'm not going through that again. I'm certainly planning to play Rebirth but if ES steam it, they won't be getting my money.

[MatzeRei]

I hate Steam. So I never will use it again and Rebirth will stay in Store.

[apricotslice]

The polls shows a significant proportion of those that participated do not wish to be involved with a steam related game.

What surprises me is that the 40% is holding, as the poll continues and people find it.

The lowest I've seen it is 38%.

I find that significant.

I honestly expected there to be only a handful of people who felt the way I do, and instead its multiple hundreds, and holding steady around 40% of people who answer the poll.

And as someone pointed out, getting a poll here to get more than a couple of dozen responses is amazing just in itself. That it could hold firm around 40% in the negative, is amazingly amazing.

That says something in my book.

[Cycrow]

Steam is a touchy subject for me. I've been against it and systems like it because they change the relationship with the publisher from purchaser to renter (licensee). It's a long standing trend in games and is getting worse.

thats actually not technically true.
software and games have always been a licence rather than an ownership.
the EULA's state this, even for boxed versions of games, and have done since before digital distribution was about.

afterall, you not paying the full price it cost to make whats on the disc, only a share of it

[aXeL_UK]

Steam is a touchy subject for me. I've been against it and systems like it because they change the relationship with the publisher from purchaser to renter (licensee). It's a long standing trend in games and is getting worse.

thats actually not technically true.
software and games have always been a licence rather than an ownership.
the EULA's state this, even for boxed versions of games, and have done since before digital distribution was about.

afterall, you not paying the full price it cost to make whats on the disc, only a share of it

Cycrow, you seem to be quite keen on steam? You're mod matey, which means you're supposed to be impartial. Instead, you appear to be plugging steam and dismissing the people posting on the forums as a drop in the ocean. Might one respectfully highlight that us 'tiny minority' are the sole reason you even get to be a moderator.

Let's hear from you what the negative aspects of steam are then? (My apologies if you've posted this, I appear to have missed it).

[Scoob]

Sure EULA's pretty much always stated that you're renting the games you "buy". However I think the point is that now, via steam, they can EASILY take you ability to play away - with a DVD copy that couldn't really happen - well, not with an offline, singleplayer game like the X series at least.

The level of control Steam seems to impose is potentially worrying - IF something were to go wrong. I.e. "our servers are having a bad day, so YOU cannot play your game". If you usually run in off-line mode such disruptions may not effect you. But if you NEED to be online (genuine update or whatever) I mean, I ran into "server busy" and "cannot connect to server" issues just downloading a 250mb demo! Once the game demo was installed I was able to play without issue though. However I've no experience with updating myself yet.

I would hope that XR would certainly NOT be subject to VACs - it's an anti-cheat tool for multiplayer after all. However does "cheating" also cover "cheating to get Achievements"? ANY script or mod could be considered such...potentially...thought I'd hope achievements would be automatically disabled legitimately if a player chose to go "modified".

Bernd states that Steam would really just need to be online for authentication and updates. This is fine, to a degree. However can the developer produce an update in such a way that it will not be forced on a player in the steam way? Generally keeping your game up to date is a good thing, usually I'd prefer to use the latest update in ANY game. However, the X games have often been a little different due to modding.

When you've put 50 hours into your "XR: XRM edition" or whatever and the most recent update will invalidate your saved games, you're not going to be happy. Ok, you may well have stayed in offline mode (or tried to) but what if Steam decided to make you go on line, saw the patch, and said "you ain't playing until you patch this!". I'd like to understand how much control the developers have over patches, and whether they can be deemed optional in steam...

Thing is, I freely admit I don't know much about steam, but from what others are saying I can see potential issues down the line when many of us a playing modified. While 100% vanilla I don't see much of an issue, other than the slightly unreliable and flakey performance of the Steam service *

I will buy XR on Steam, of course I will, luckily my connection is good enough that large downloads don't worry me. However I would prefer to have a DVD version that was 100% steam-free, but I suspect that won't happen. Can't say I blame ES for wanting to go a single route, but I do have my concerns.

Cheers,

Scoob.

* Note: This is MY experience so far, documented in this thread, as a normal user with a fairly standard build, trying out steam for the first time in a while...

[X2-Eliah]

Scoob, you are right, generally (about the server busy/not there stuff), but there's two things - one, it's not limited to Steam at all. Any protection system does it - tages, securom, origin, etc. etc. And other, steam as a business platform as well as protection solution actually has a higher pressure against folding/disappearing than, say, a server in ubisoft's subsidiary that handles, e.g. Driver:SF.

[Cycrow]

Steam is a touchy subject for me. I've been against it and systems like it because they change the relationship with the publisher from purchaser to renter (licensee). It's a long standing trend in games and is getting worse.

thats actually not technically true.
software and games have always been a licence rather than an ownership.
the EULA's state this, even for boxed versions of games, and have done since before digital distribution was about.

afterall, you not paying the full price it cost to make whats on the disc, only a share of it

Cycrow, you seem to be quite keen on steam? You're mod matey, which means you're supposed to be impartial. Instead, you appear to be plugging steam and dismissing the people posting on the forums as a drop in the ocean. Might one respectfully highlight that us 'tiny minority' are the sole reason you even get to be a moderator.

Let's hear from you what the negative aspects of steam are then? (My apologies if you've posted this, I appear to have missed it).

i have posted my thoughts on steam alot, like any system, it isn't perfect but i personally have had very few problems with it and i use steam all the time. Cant even remember the last game i played that wasn't via steam.

i did have a problem with offline mode when i once lost my connection, but this was fixed by simply being patient and waiting. The client tryed to connect, tried to update, etc. But eventually, it did work and put it offline mode and didn't prevent me from playing most of my games (i couldn't player TF2 but thats not really surprising)

i've seen other having this problem, but they usually just keep restarting steam to get it working instead of just eaiting.

i also think it'll be nice if steam could download patches and updates in the background instead of preventing them while playing games.

i also had a problem where my account was locked and i couldn't buy any new games due to problems with payment (was a simple mistake at the bank).
This didn't prevent me from playing any games thou, only stopped me buying new ones, and the problem was fixed pretty quickly.

and one final problem i've had, which has also been mentioned by others, is unable to download/activate a game due to the servers being too busy.

This is not actually that common, and has only happened to me once, when i pre-ordered The Witcher 2. As there was no open to preload the game before release when it was released, everyone was trying to download it at the same time, giving lots of people problems. These were usually fixed by waiting a few hours or trying to switch servers for a better one.

its also possible to happen during the big sales when lots of people are buying and downloading alot of games, but i've not really had much trouble