[POLL] Would you use Steam for Rebirth?

[Ebany]

I've been a fan and supporter of this series since the start, I even bought the entire series another 6 times for steam accounts just to support the company.

I must have missed my chance to vote in this poll (or my security settings are blocking it) so I'll just say it. I despise Steam, they disgust me in more ways than I can forgive. Although I have over 800 games in my two accounts, most were purchased to support various companies in their endeavours to make a successful game, and I have not purchased any for more than a year.

I will NOT play/purchase any X:Series game (on Steam), though it pains me greatly, until such a time as it is released in a more user friendly way (e.g. GoG). After all if it can be done with games like Torchlight series or the Witcher series, it can be done with the X:Series.

I understand the desire for developers to deliver games through Steam, but I still hate them with a burning passion which wont be quenched.

I truly hope the launch of Rebirth is a huge success and only wish the best for the X:Series, while I won't be part of it, I'll be watching.

[dougeye]

Ebany you didn't actually spell out your reasons for not liking steam?

[BDK]

Pretty much every game these days requires steam drm - It's sad but true. Might as well start learning to live with it as it won't change.

Nope not really. GOG is getting bigger though not at a very fast pace, with even evil companies like EA and Ubisoft signing on. There are DRM-free games on things like Gamersgate and Desura. Some game companies offer both Steam and DRM-free versions like Larian and Paradox. And heck even on Steam itself there are DRM-free games, u use it to download the game afterwhich you can copy the game files out and play DRM-free.

Pretty much ≠ every single game released I use GOG all the time, but if I wanna play some of the new AAA games the legit way, I absolutely have to install steam and live with the bloat.

[TTD]

My current stance on X via Steam,is that if I like the game enough, I will purchase it.

But at the same time, I will wait for a non-Steam exe and use it as soon as it is released.

X is the only game series that makes me update and upgrade my PC.

If Egosoft got royalties from companies that sold hardware to people who upgrade to play X games, I am sure Egosoft would be making a vastly greater profit.

My last rig cost me about £300 a few years ago. Since then I have doubled my memory, bought a widescreen (HD) monitor,bought a new graphics card and an SSD HD, plus a new keyboard / mouse(wireless system.Most of this in the past nine months.

For R, I will need a new MB/CPU/memory set up.
This will cost me a minimum of about £300 and up to £500 depnding on which combo I have.

So if Steam is the only way,then yes I will use it ,even if I am not fond of the "rent -to-play" method.and the possibility of losing the "right to play" any of the Steam games.

If the only way to reach paradise is by going through a jungle,then I go through the jungle.

[Ebany]

Ebany you didn't actually spell out your reasons for not liking steam?

I have quite a few reasons but I didn't want to go into them here, people don't want to here about my problems

When Steam first came out as a delivery mechanism for their patches, I thought the idea was brilliant!
Later they became the shopfront for every cheap ad-ridden piece of crapware out there, I considered them little better them a virus and avoided them at all costs.
I joined properly (for downloading games) in about 2007, I like to support indie when-ever possible, and Steam was starting to make a name for themselves as "the friend of Idie".
I stuck it out, although I had no end of problems with playing "offline" and shocking customer service, but in the end they proved through their own actions that they simply couldn't be trusted. Like the Americans, they are now about making unsustainable profits and in a world where resources are finite, this can only be achieved by screwing their customers. Take the Germans as an example, they are happiest when their products are of a good quality and they make a steady income.
In the last year & 1/2, the only game I have through Steam is Shadowrun (Kickstarter), and with over 800 games, I like to think I was a good customer.

[Ebany]

Sorry, tierd, missed the point.

They over charged me by AU$4

They refused to refund my money. I spoke to them only once which ended in them saying "we do not offer refunds". I mean, they stole my money!

Edit: I should point out, whatever the reasons on a persons stance, EgoSoft is losing 26% sales according to this poll, + another 9% if you include the "activation only's".

That is a prodigious loss is sales figures! Considering a great many of the sales when they first joined Steam would have been avid fans like myself, does dumping all their eggs into Steam's basket really generate enough extra customers to offset a 30% loss in sales?

[TTD]

I obviously do not know the statistics.
Many purchasers do not register their games on Egosoft site until they need tech support.
Many just lurk in the background,watching us and learning from our mistakes.
But there have been many newcomers to the X series since it went on to steam.
Many have openly admitted that they did not know the series existed until they saw it on Steam.

It would be nice to see hard statistics,but I doubt if Egosoft would show them to us.

[Night Nord]

That is a prodigious loss is sales figures! Considering a great many of the sales when they first joined Steam would have been avid fans like myself, does dumping all their eggs into Steam's basket really generate enough extra customers to offset a 30% loss in sales?

You should note that said poll was taken
1) In the internet. So, people here are more often proclaim what they want to do/what they this is more appropriate now and not they will really do.
2) During the silence era of said forums, when most of people here were just raging around taking any opportunity to blame EgoSoft, including their distribution platform choice.

In other words - one shall take these results with a caution, no matter what cause he want to support.

Anyway, you should note that GoG is a DRM-free platform and I doubt that it will ever see any new game with an active publisher. Because most of time, publishers want to have DRM, any. And in the era of digital distribution that will mean Steam.

So I doubt that X:R will be published via GoG in any near future, but you may try to convince EgoSoft to use other distribution platforms that you like more - Desura is one of the possible choices.

[Ebany]

These results could well be bias, but to which side of the scales .... time will tell on that account. Maybe a new poll is in order? I would happily vote if a new one was started, and the longer a poll runs the more valuable the information. It allows sudden spikes in polling to be associated with the trends for that time.

Its been awhile but I thought Desura also required a base platform like Steam does? It's that type of requirement which I intend to avoid, I have an issue with these systems.

GoG sees many new games with very active publishers. There are many new games which appear on Steam and also appear on GoG, I'll give some examples;

-Divinity Series (including the one about to be released)
-Rise of the Triad
-Torchlight (from Runic)
*I loved Torchlight, I own personally 5 copies, but didn't buy T2 as it required Steam authentication.
-The Witcher Series by CD Projekt (who I believe made abundantly more sales from the DRM Free copies than those sold on Steam.sales
-Tropico Series (by Kalypso)
-ARMA Series (unless my memory fails me)

The fact is this; If my opinion was limited to such a small segment of the gaming community then why do companies doing DRM-Free sales achieve such good results.

Many people like Steam, but opinions are like the rain drops; there's always a million more ready to hurtle down.

[Geek]

, but didn't buy T2 as it required Steam authentication.

I will not require Steam if you buy it directy from Runic.

[TTD]

I do not think the Mods wants another Steam debate thread.
This one is now in it's 4th(?) running?
Soon to be archived,yet again.

But yes, I agree that it would be interesting to see how the votes have swung.
Maybe a different set of questions, reflecting current trends.
But would everyone who voted in this one re-vote in a new one?

[Ebany]

, but didn't buy T2 as it required Steam authentication.

I will not require Steam if you buy it directy from Runic.

When did they change that? I sent them an email about it just before release and got the reply it would require Steam, but I would have to register with Runic for the multi-player side. I think that was how it went, but its been along long long time. I prefer not to waste my time watching games I love in the vain hope they will change I like to keep moving forward.

[dougeye]

They will not loose 25% of sales, only 25% of sales from people that use the forum. and that actually use the Rebirth forum to be specific.

[Jumee]

-The Witcher Series by CD Projekt (who I believe made abundantly more sales from the DRM Free copies than those sold on Steam.sales

wrong, steam actually sold much more copies

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/11/gog-r ... -combined/

EDIT: CDprojekt actually own gog so yeah, no surprise its released there

[TTD]

They will not loose 25% of sales, only 25% of sales from people that use the forum. and that actually use the Rebirth forum to be specific.

Good point.

[Ebany]

-The Witcher Series by CD Projekt (who I believe made abundantly more sales from the DRM Free copies than those sold on Steam.sales

wrong, steam actually sold much more copies

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/11/gog-r ... -combined/

EDIT: CDprojekt actually own gog so yeah, no surprise its released there

True, GoG is owned by CD Projekt RED, but that's because of their core beliefs revolve around satisfying their customer base. But it was released everywhere, not just on GoG and Steam.

Those stats were within the first few weeks of its release its release, and digital distribution only which only made up 20% of the sales. Fact is that this was the one and only time I'm aware of where Steam released sales figures on the game, most of which would have been pre-orders because of all their TF2 give-a-ways. Since then I imagine their sales have slumped a great deal.

That said, those stats just re-enforce my point. Faced with Steam, most people chose to by from other distributors or bought a physical copy because it doesn't require Steam to activate. In fact, the physical copy had DRM protection, only the GoG copy came DRM-Free. That's why I bought a physical and a GoG copy. Figures show it, most of us tried to avoid Steam!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_2

*Since I will probably get spat on if I don't provide some sort of reference for you to read

[Ebany]

They will not loose 25% of sales, only 25% of sales from people that use the forum. and that actually use the Rebirth forum to be specific.

Good point.

People who use the forum are the fan base. Space Sim's tend to be a relatively closed community. We be the FreAks!

[EmperorJon]

That said, those stats just re-enforce my point. Faced with Steam, most people chose to by from other distributors or bought a physical copy because it doesn't require Steam to activate. In fact, the physical copy had DRM protection, only the GoG copy came DRM-Free. That's why I bought a physical and a GoG copy. Figures show it, most of us tried to avoid Steam!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_2

*Since I will probably get spat on if I don't provide some sort of reference for you to read

Er... what.

No, it shows that from people who'd buy a digital copy, 80% of them would buy from Steam.
It shows that about 4% of all sales would get the DRM free copy.
And it shows that physical sales are still big business.

I don't see how that's really relevant at all.

[giskard]

I would not buy a disk game anymore.

No more broken disks, no more OS changes stopping the disks from running, No more disk based copy protection problems...

I love steam, every game works, I buy once keep for ever, and often I buy the PC version and get the mac and linux version too. So I am not tied to windows anymore.

I would vote but there is no "I love steam" option.

[Ebany]

That said, those stats just re-enforce my point. Faced with Steam, most people chose to by from other distributors or bought a physical copy because it doesn't require Steam to activate. In fact, the physical copy had DRM protection, only the GoG copy came DRM-Free. That's why I bought a physical and a GoG copy. Figures show it, most of us tried to avoid Steam!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_2

*Since I will probably get spat on if I don't provide some sort of reference for you to read

Er... what.

No, it shows that from people who'd buy a digital copy, 80% of them would buy from Steam.
It shows that about 4% of all sales would get the DRM free copy.
And it shows that physical sales are still big business.

I don't see how that's really relevant at all.

People who "would" buy a digital copy only made up 20% of the sales in the first month. Forgive my maths, its very late for me, but that means Steam got 16% of total sales for the first month. That's good, that's fantastic!

Physical sales for this game were big business, when faced with purchasing from Steam.

That is relevant because this discussion directly relates to whether Rebirth will lose sales because people are forced to use Steam. Basically 84% of people chose (for whatever reason) not to purchase through Steam

Again, the relevance; If Rebirth uses Steam exclusively, will they lose sales? yes they will. Will they lose sales at a volume which negates the benifits of using Steam? We really don't know, but we can assume "no" since Egosoft are heading that direction.