Round 4 of Would you use Steam for Rebirth thread

[EmperorJon]

All I hear again and again is, "We like Steam, we want Steam to be the one and only digital distribution platform, Egosoft/ Deep Silver has chosen to use Steam, Steam is the unchallenged superior distribution platform, you are a minority, deal with it and shut up."

And you see, all I see is:

"We like Steam, we don't see issues with Steam as a distribution platform."

Against:

"We hate steam, it's the worst thing in the world! Why are you constantly suppressing my rights, Steam lovers! WHY, WHY!? I HATE IT I HATE IT. This, and THIS, and THIS is the problem? What do you mean WORKAROUND? That's not GOOD enough! It's Egosoft's choice to release on their chosen platform AS LONG AS IT'S NOT STEAM."

[angrytigerp]

All I hear again and again is, "We like Steam, we want Steam to be the one and only digital distribution platform, Egosoft/ Deep Silver has chosen to use Steam, Steam is the unchallenged superior distribution platform, you are a minority, deal with it and shut up."

That's funny, this is what's called putting words into someone's mouth.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 94#3841994

It's an innovative new service, and if EA's own Origin service is any indicator, it's a trend that is here to stay. I won't say that I hope media distribution doesn't occur, as much as you wish we did to make "steamers" look selfish most of us want to see all distribution methods covered... [snip] I'm not saying Steam itself is THE next iteration, but rather the concept of digital distribution in general (and Steam isn't the only player on the block, much as you think otherwise -- there's the aforementioned Origin, and Green Man Gaming, and Good Old Games, and Gamestop's Impulse, and Gamefly, and...)

Man, it's weird how I mention all these other services and specifically state that I don't see Steam as THE embodiment of digital distribution, it's almost like I never said what you claimed I do. Also, as an interesting aside, I explicitly state (before it became convenient for this 'debate', mind you) that I by no means oppose media distribution.

Feel free to link a post where I do, though. I have gone through the effort of finding evidence to refute your claim, if you want to rebut that is your decision.... or you can continue the baseless paraphrasing and word-putting-in-mouth (whatever the verb is for that).

Now, you're free to criticize me on what I said, but don't get pissy if I want you to find where I said it. Because half the things you accuse me of saying, I don't think I ever did.

[Slashman]

It seems like its now acceptable to go: 'Well I can't argue my claims based on any facts, so I'll argue them based on Righteous Rage and smokescreens.'

[Sahvion]

Makes me laugh at (no one in particular) the people who say "I'd never use steam for rebirth. I hate it! Rage, rage, etc".

Guarantee half of them will get steam if they have no other choice.

They will

[quase]

@Tiger
You are the one constantly taking my comments personally while I remain quite impersonal to the general public and almost always directly quote or put my words towards those that are intended to receive them if necessary.
If you, Tiger, are not in the camp of people, feel free not to be addressed by my posts. I certainly did not want to accuse you of anything you have not said, simple as that.
I have not even quoted you in my last post, still you seem to be offended. I was talking about the general climate in this thread and I thought you were doing the same before because I certainly never said anything along the line of "Steam is bad because of all these bad things, you are an idiot if you use it and there's no justification for doing so". That you now try to disassemble my post word by word only shows that you did not understand the purpose of this line. Instead of "We like Steam, we want Steam to be the one and only digital distribution platform, Egosoft/ Deep Silver has chosen to use Steam, Steam is the unchallenged superior distribution platform, you are a minority, deal with it and shut up." I could as well have written. "We like Steam ... blah blah blah ... Steam good!". Still this was not directed at you if you feel like you were not one of the people praising Steam.
What I find really sad though Tiger, is that you and others actually do not see any problem with the way the digital distribution is done in many cases like Steam or Origin. It is one thing to say, I do not care that they cut the customer rights because the game is more important to me. Fine your right to do so, but you should not wonder if others blame you for the spreading of these platforms which they see a problem in.

*You should note that English is not my native language and maybe I should have made this clear earlier, but I try my best to avoid some kind of "casual" English. If this may come over a constructed, technical, picky or arrogant, I am sorry, but it is all in the hope of best understanding what I write. I also cannot help to build complicated, pyramiding sentences that you and even myself while writing them, have to read two or three times to get the real meaning of it.


@Emperor
Please just calm down, will you? I won't argue with you on this level.

@Slashman
Are you talking to me? What smokescreens are you referring to? I think I made my claims clear pretty often in this thread and supported them with facts.

[EmperorJon]

@Emperor
Please just calm down, will you? I won't argue with you on this level.

Maybe you took my comments in a different way to I comprehend, but I don't see myself as needing to "calm down" and being on a particular "level", nor trying to instigate an argument.

[Jumee]

given that both Nuclear-Slug and Quase have said that Steam is not the one who decides whether or not you need to have it turned on to play - the whole steam is evil (because you need to have it on to play) argument is kinda funny

[angrytigerp]

What I find really sad though Tiger, is that you and others actually do not see any problem with the way the digital distribution is done in many cases like Steam or Origin.

And this is exactly to what I am referring. This allegation that digital distribution is objectively "bad", whereas the alternatives (presumably media distribution) is objectively "good". It isn't your place to make that judgment. Both have advantages, both have disadvantages. You seem unable to grasp that you are doing exactly what you profess not to do. Your whole post can be all about "well, I understand if people want to use Steam", and that is where it should end. Instead, you have to give this dig at the ethics of Steam and other digital distribution users. You're right, I am singling out phrases and lines from your posts, because you can ruin an otherwise intriguing criticism with these ad hominem digs and speculation about "what if Steam goes down?"

Essentially, grow up and stop attempting to cast one distribution method as the villain and one as the hero. Just because media is the way we've always done it doesn't mean that it is better. That sort of sentiment stifles innovation. Steam's success was the gateway to GOG, a digital distribution service which has no DRM and which you, earlier in this very thread, were praising, linking to its ads, etc. Without Steam, I would posit, GOG likely wouldn't have emerged. Instead, if you are right, Steam will be proven the villain you make it out to be, devs will dump it in favor of services like GOG, and everyone goes home happy.

"If" being the operator. You have already come to the conclusion that everyone using Steam will one day lose all their games (the whole "rental" bit), a purely speculative line of thought, and use that as your primary argument against Steam. That is what I take offense to. Well, I could say that I don't think anyone should use DVDs anymore, because I think that one day developers are going to live up to what they put in their EULAs and tell everyone to destroy their copies of their software. It's far-fetched, you will say this isn't fair to media distribution, etc. -- try to realize that attacking Steam on ethical grounds is as absurd a notion to Steam users as devs telling you to destroy your disks is to you. Both are very real possibilities, given the contracts to which you agree. And if your only argument is that Steam can actively enforce the contract, then you're completely missing the point. So are you saying you wouldn't have played any of the games you did in the past 15, 20 years if you actually had to read and agree to all terms in the contract? Any at all?

[DnBrn47]

The only thing I don't like about them is they take a chunk of the pie from game developers, but nothing can be done about that. Not buying from steam, impulse, origin or otherwise only cheats me out of the game completely when I can't find it at the local store and the developer isn't shipping it directly.

Steam actually takes LESS overall from the developer as the developer can release independently of a publishing house. So when you by from Steam you're potentially ensuring the developer gets more profit than if they had to take the publisher->retailer route.

Right, but my point was they take a piece at all. Though as the rest of my post indicates, I advocate digital distribution. Without it there are so many games I wouldn't have played or known about and frankly, I go where the deals are. If the game is cheaper on impulse, that's where I get it. I couldn't care less what platform it is. I use steam and others as a convenient way to get games I can't get a box for or if I'm just feeling lazy and want the game right now.

I actually think this whole argument is silly. People were up in arms about the Origin EULA saying that they can use your information bla bla bla, but with investigation their privacy policy prevents them from doing the things that these people were afraid of, let alone the fact that the EULA didn't really say that they could do all these things in the first place.

People over analyze and inflate what these companies are doing when all they are REALLY trying to do at the end of the day is run a business and make money. If they are actually doing anything wrong I guarantee someone will find out and sue the pants off of these companies in a class action lawsuit.

Just play the games guys, after all, that's why we are all really here. We love X, we enjoy playing games and frankly I'm going to play it regardless of where Egosoft decides to put it up for sale and I'd gamble on most people that play X doing the same thing. If they for some reason boycott X because of steam, well, that's their loss, their problem, they are are only cheating themselves out of what I'm sure will be a good gaming experience.

Devs want you to play their game, if there is REALLY something wrong with the way they distribute their game, FACTS not your opinion, then they won't distribute it that way, WITHOUT your input, end of story.

[Alan Phipps]

OK that is quite enough! Some of you - you know who - have stopped debating Steam and Rebirth and are just reflex bickering. If you don't like something being said then say you disagree with the post content by all means but do not attack the poster. If you cannot post without getting personal then don't post here until you can.

Any more bickering and there will be a severe split and lock going back quite a bit.

[quase]

Ah yes now we come to the point Tiger. You seem to think Steam is digital distribution and their is only Steams way to do it. If you are against Steam, you are against digital distribution and therefore can only be a supporter of hard copies. Right conclusion so far?
The main reason I still tend to prefer hard copies nowadays is because they are to my surprise usually a good bit cheaper than digital wares on release and it would be stupid to pay more for less with a digital copy. As I also would never spend full price money on an account bound game, and GOG.com does not have so many new titles, I am limited to hard copies in most cases. In the future GOG.com will have more newer titles though. Stay tuned for more news next week.

I thought you would have noticed from one of my various posts in this thread that I have no problem with digital distribution as such. The question why is Steam bad, although the question should be why is account binding bad? The answer is not simple, but simply a question of principle. I think I made a good summary of the legal situation between EULA and national laws on the other page.
Instead of not playing games the last 20 years, I just ignored the EULA as the wishful gibberish from the publishers they really are. I could have changed the contract and send them my version to sign, but I doubt that they would have agreed. Just because they can now enforce their EULA does not make them automatically right. Why can you not see this? Do you really think you can write anything in an Terms of Use/ Enduser License Agreement? What if they write in it, by clicking OK you are giving all your belongings to EA? Would of course be enforceable because it is written in the EULA and you agreed? No it would not be legally binding of course. Instead they write in the sense of, by clicking OK you own nothing that we cannot take away from you again. You think this is right then and legally binding? Well I doubt it and there has been no judicial incidence that shows otherwise. The problem is and stays they can enforce it and I can not do anything against it, except deny the EULA. By the way, did you know that your only right on Steam is to cancel an account? You cannot even unbind a single game, you can only cancel a whole account, without refund of course.

If you can not see the difference between the way digital distribution is done with GOG.com or Desura in comparison to Steam or Origin then I can not help you either. If you only look at your convenience, well you might not notice it or even say Steam and Origin are far better. If you look at your dependency on the distributor, you will have to see the difference in favour for the other platforms.

[Laden Swallow]

What if they write along the lines that it is for personal use only and not commercial use, but you don't read it and use it for commercial use anyway...

A turning point for the enforcement of shrinkwrap licenses, however, came in the case of ProCD, Inc., v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), in which the Seventh Circuit upheld the enforcement of such licenses. In ProCD, the license at issue restricted the software to noncommercial uses. In agreeing that shrinkwrap licenses are enforceable, so long as they do not otherwise violate generally accepted principles of contract law, the court cited the evolving nature of the software market and the role of shrinkwrap licenses in preserving the viability of the mass market software industry. See id. at 1455. The Court rejected the licensee's argument that the contractual restriction on how the software may be used was preempted by the federal Copyright Act. According to the Court, the contract claim was distinctly different from a copyright claim because the contract claim required proof of an extra element beyond that necessary for the copyright claim. That extra element was the mutual assent of the parties, necessary in any contract to make it enforceable. See id. at 1454-55.

The rationale underlying ProCD has also been extended to the electronic variation of the shrinkwrap -- the clickwrap. See DeJohn v. TV Corp. Int’l., 245 F.Supp.2d 913 (C.D. Ill. 2003) (holding that clickwrap agreement was enforceable and not an adhesion contract because user expressly indicated that he read, understood, and agreed to terms when he clicked box on Web site); see also Barnett v. Network Solutions, Inc., 38 S.W.3d 200, 203-04 (Ct of App. Tx 2001) ("by the very nature of the electronic format of the contract, [the plaintiff] had to scroll through that portion of the contract containing the forum selection clause before he accepted its terms…and that parties to a contract are not excused from the consequences resulting from failure to read the contract").

I.e. it is probably best to assume that a licence agreement is enforceable unless it would cause you to do something illegal (which is different from amoral unfortunately).

[pjknibbs]

Right, but my point was they take a piece at all. Though as the rest of my post indicates, I advocate digital distribution.

Yet you apparently don't believe the people running the digital distribution channels should be allowed to make money the same way that a bricks and mortar store does? That's the only thing I can assume from your objection to Steam "taking a piece"...

[the old one]

Hi Slashman,In quite a few of your posts you state that people are makeing false statements about what steam gets up to,takeing informasion and a lot of other stuff which according to you is false and inaccurate.So for arguments sake lets put the shoe on the other foot,where is your evidence to say they dont what people are saying,the old one

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Hi Slashman,In quite a few of your posts you state that people are makeing false statements about what steam gets up to,takeing informasion and a lot of other stuff which according to you is false and inaccurate.So for arguments sake lets put the shoe on the other foot,where is your evidence to say they dont what people are saying,the old one

Burden of proof is on YOU to show that they are, not the other way around.

[Vicke]

By the way, did you know that your only right on Steam is to cancel an account? You cannot even unbind a single game, you can only cancel a whole account, without refund of course.

I don't have any problem with that. I don't see any reason to unbind a game, nor get a refund.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Right, but my point was they take a piece at all.

Why is that a problem? Steam has to make money to pay for its business costs and network infrastructure somehow.

Look at it in this extremely simplified way. If a developer wants to put out a game then they go with a publisher who puts the game out to retail. Retail wants to sell at say £30 so they buy off the publisher at say £20. The publisher wants to make a profit too so they buy the game off the developer for £10. Everyone takes their piece of the pie.

Sure, the developer could bypass the need for a publisher and sell direct to the retailer, but to do that would mean they would need to fund their own development, fund the pressing of the DVD's and fund the production of the packaging in order to then sell to the retailer for £20. That's a hugely expensive proposition and very few developers have the capital to pull that off.

Taken to the extreme a developer could maintain all the profits from a game if they owned their own DVD pressing fab, owned their own package printing works and owned their own retail outlets... but you can see how impractical that would be.

Steam allows a developer to publish their own work, avoid the costs incurred from packaging, maintain their products availability for sale long past the initial release date when a normal retailer would have delisted it in favour of the next big thing, allows them to set their own prices for their product as well as offer a whole host of other features that are beneficial to a developer.

Sure, Steam charges a fee for this service, but even if they're only charging £10 like a retailer would the developer is still saving a whole load of money down the chain and if Steam were to be the super evil greedy empire that some like to paint it as and demanded more than a normal retailer would, say £15 per sale, then the developer would STILL be better off at the end of it.

[David Howland]

I will second that the old one!
This defence of Steam, saying Steam are innocent, 'they do not operate like that', is getting very common and as you say is even more spurious than than what they are objecting to. I had the same retort on a recent page from EmperorJon on my conjecture that Steam might possess ES shares, as I pointed out in reply he had no more idea than I whether someone in Steam holds shares or a share of ES! Do users of this defence actually think that a large powerful DRM company like Steam gets to be so big by purely their core business of taking ?% off struggling small developers. Everyone knows that the first thing a successful growing company DOES once it has spare cash, is invest in other companies nearly always starting with smaller companies in related areas of their business. This not only makes their whole business sector stronger but gives them a stronger, leading negotiating position.
No, where a large, growing internet company is concerned, no one can safely state it does not, do anything, it is usually only a matter of time before they attempt, everything. Just look at Facebook and Google, for years everyone thought they were in the business of communicating information responsibly. Both in the last year have caused howls of protest by turning round to their clients and declaring 'all your personal information in our system is OUR property and we claim the right to do with it as we wish!
If there is one thing history teaches, is power + money = corruption!

Nuclear-Slug this is a thread of debate so unless you are to tyrannically destroy free debate and haul us all off to court, no burden of proof is required either way! You are NO JUDGE controlling a court of law and therefore have no authority to state where a BURDEN OF PROOF should lay!

[the old one]

Hi nuklear slug,you are quite right the burdon of proof is on the no steamers but it also requires proof by the yes steamers to put forward hard facts to say they are right other wise both sides are just spouting hot air dont you agree,the old one

[DnBrn47]

To Nuke and pjknibbs:

I know none of this is realistic in our world. I'm well aware of how development, retail, publishers and all that works.

It's a personal problem, realistically it's fine that they take a piece because they are running a business, that's the way our world works. Goods and services, share the load, etc. I just WISH they didn't have to take a piece, not that I believe they don't deserve it. I think if all devs could distribute both digital and hard copies of their own games themselves it would be ideal. Cut the middle man, but we don't live in a world without the middle man. Devs can't simply fund themselves enough to cut them out, most businesses can't.

Though now we're talking about business models and distributors instead of 'Steam: Good or Bad.'

Sorry if I came off as unrealistic and stupid.

As I stated, I'll buy it from Steam, Impulse, Origin, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Joe Drug Dealer from down the street, or anyone else that gets a piece of the money pie. At the end of the day I just want the game, all the other personal preferences are secondary to playing the damn game.

Are we good?