Cyanotetyphas wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 03:42:
Steam DRM is inconvenient (better not have to restart your computer if your internet ever goes down), that's for sure.

They actually did finally fix that. It took them almost two fucking years, but it's fixed.

On the flip side, I haven't paid over $10 for a game on my Steam library since HL2.

Exactly. I'll start championing MS as a defender of the gamer when you can buy TVBox games for 10 bucks within 3 months of them coming out. (hahahahahahaha.)

If the Xbox decides to become like Steam, well, I already have Steam.

It will never happen. Never, ever ever.

Creston

avianflu wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 10:05:
Actually, all 3 new consoles are going to die slow deaths in the consumer marketplace. I say that with sadness because I like an occasional console game.

Well sure, consoles always die out. In what time frame? Six months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years? Pick a number!

Actually, all 3 new consoles are going to die slow deaths in the consumer marketplace. I say that with sadness because I like an occasional console game.

But yea, MS really stepped into it at E3 with the 360 comment. Egads.

Indeed. I'm voting with my dollars... and staying with my trusty gaming PC!

Redmask wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 07:21:

Cyanotetyphas wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 03:42:
Steam DRM is inconvenient (better not have to restart your computer if your internet ever goes down), that's for sure.

On the flip side, I haven't paid over $10 for a game on my Steam library since HL2.

If the Xbox decides to become like Steam, well, I already have Steam.

There's a simpler truth that separates the two that people forget: Steam is free, the Xbox is $500.

There's an even simpler truth than that:

Not every game for the PC requires Steam. In fact, there are new games you can buy from GoG that do not have the Steam requirement. There is still a choice as to whether or not you wish to participate in DRM.

Even if you want a game that has such DRM, you still have the very easy and readily available option of bypassing that DRM. There are several groups on the internet that make such bypasses available.

With the Xbox One, there is no choice. You are forced in to a DRM scheme no matter what you purchase for use on it and you have no easy, readily available way of bypassing it.

Cyanotetyphas wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 03:42:
Steam DRM is inconvenient (better not have to restart your computer if your internet ever goes down), that's for sure.

On the flip side, I haven't paid over $10 for a game on my Steam library since HL2.

If the Xbox decides to become like Steam, well, I already have Steam.

There's a simpler truth that separates the two that people forget: Steam is free, the Xbox is $500.

NegaDeath wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:19:

Rattlehead wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:06:
PCs aren't consoles. Also Steam games are digital, not physical media. Deruka DERR

Also neglects that retail stores ignoring boxed PC games is what caused Steam to take off in the first place. Steam was the answer to a problem, consoles don't have that problem.

Walmart and the publishers had killed the used PC game market by that time as well.

Walmart pushed for the smaller boxes meaning less room for good manuals, artwork, trinkets, and all the little extras we fondly remember from the golden days of PC gaming.

Publishers were using DRM that may or may not work with your optical media drive. I had to have 2 different drives to cope with this. They linked your cdkey to an account (destroying used game sales/trades), but you still needed to have the CD in your system. With games needing 1 to 3 to 5 to 6 cds to install, discs got lost and were easily scratched and would not be replaced. Then publishers got really cheap with their packaging.

There was no value in owning a boxed copy of a PC game, and terms with the publishers were extremely anti-consumer. We got to deal with all the negatives of the licensing model, compounded with all the negatives of the purchase being a physical "packaged good." I know we are all die hard PC gamers on this site, but PC gaming was dead. Steam came along which looked a lot like UPlay at the time, and a lot of people left PC gaming.

The only place a gamer could be welcomed as a customer and not as a vile thief was the consoles. Though consoles are responsible for the dumbing down of some of our most cherished franchises and gaming experiences, they have kept gaming alive during the last generation if not two. Don't forget it was publisher greed that had nearly destroyed PC gaming.

Hearing twice now that Microsoft's official response to XBOne's criticisms has been to buy a 360, I am reminded of the same arrogance and greed that nearly destroyed PC gaming. I seem to remember Microsoft touting this wonderful feature of the 360 that was going to take expansion packs from the PC world and bring it to console players. I believe they called it DLC. Hasn't that been great for gaming? With the original XBOX they attempted to turn RealLife into a MMORPG by requiring a monthly fee for Live and extending that further on the 360 by having us grind for achievements to increase our gamer score (yes, I know I am reaching there, but its a good analogy). Their biggest blunder is trying to monetize/kill used/traded games. Used games is why most gamers have consoles in the first place

Back to Steam. As much as we all thought it was evil incarnate, look at what Valve did. They took a situation where it was already all negative, and gave us some positives. We don't need a cd in the tray to play a game. We can redownload anytime we wish. We get community integration. Even though its a full on licensing model, we still get sales. Lots and lots of sales. They've worked to support other platforms like Mac OSX and Linux. We lose some too, we sill have DRM that has online requirements, and we are reliant on a single vendor.

But the biggest benefit, is it put the first nail into the coffin of greedy publishers. If we aren't buying physical media, what good is a publisher? I think that pushed them to focus on consoles even more. But they still had the studios in their grip, because they had the money. They decided what games were made and for what platform, and at what quality. They decided who in the industry would eat, and who would starve. But now the gamers and the studios making the games can circumvent that control with Kickstarter. As long as Kickstarter funded games live up to their promise in both feeding the developers, and giving gamers what they want, PC gaming hasn't looked better in a long time.

The path Microsoft is on is the path of destruction, the scope of which is capable of destroying an entire industry with their history of buying studios to deprive the competition. There is no value in buying xbone games, or really in owning the console itself. Even Microsoft is telling us the 8 year old 360 is the better console out of its own mouth. I believe XBox Bro is listening.

Rattlehead wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:06:

netnerd85 wrote on Jun 13, 2013, 23:45:
I like how all the people bitching about not being able to share games on Xbox One have Steam installed, Deruka DERR!

PCs aren't consoles. Also Steam games are digital, not physical media. Deruka DERR

Boxes don't matter my dear, Steamworks is a virus infecting most games these days

You can't say Boo MS for DRM if you support the most restrictive DRM on the most open platform. Doesn't make sense.

Steam DRM is inconvenient (better not have to restart your computer if your internet ever goes down), that's for sure.

On the flip side, I haven't paid over $10 for a game on my Steam library since HL2.

If the Xbox decides to become like Steam, well, I already have Steam.

I have quite a few boxed games that integrated into steam therefore cannot be resold. Personally i dont care as i have never resold a game (dating back to speccy days) cant recall giving one to a mate either. That being said, i live in the eu and it will be interesting to see how the digital media court cases go on.

Beamer wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 01:03:
Eh.
By that logic, if Walmart and Best Buy suddenly started carrying every PC game in boxes people would stop using Steam.

No I actually agree with you, PC gamers switched to digital distribution permanently and for good reason. I'm simply saying that comparing Xbox DRM to Steam DRM doesn't work well because the background situation is too different. We had good reasons to switch to a platform that used DRM, console gamers don't.

But once you put making money above the user, you start down a slippery slope.

Hell, most big publishers started down that slope years ago. A few have already hit bottom.

NegaDeath wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:19:
Steam was the answer to a problem, consoles don't have that problem.

A problem that consoles don't have currently. Though give it a few years as publishers push for their own online distribution platform for consoles and see what happens.

NegaDeath wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:19:

Rattlehead wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:06:
PCs aren't consoles. Also Steam games are digital, not physical media. Deruka DERR

Also neglects that retail stores ignoring boxed PC games is what caused Steam to take off in the first place. Steam was the answer to a problem, consoles don't have that problem.

Eh.
By that logic, if Walmart and Best Buy suddenly started carrying every PC game in boxes people would stop using Steam.

While that may have helped Steam start, it certainly isn't a factor today. People use Steam for its features and pricing, not because no store nearby has the game they want.

If consoles can mimic that, it'd be awesome. But yeah, no one trusts them on the latter, even if some may on the former.

Rattlehead wrote on Jun 14, 2013, 00:06:
PCs aren't consoles. Also Steam games are digital, not physical media. Deruka DERR

Also neglects that retail stores ignoring boxed PC games is what caused Steam to take off in the first place. Steam was the answer to a problem, consoles don't have that problem.

netnerd85 wrote on Jun 13, 2013, 23:45:
I like how all the people bitching about not being able to share games on Xbox One have Steam installed, Deruka DERR!

PCs aren't consoles. Also Steam games are digital, not physical media. Deruka DERR

I've never traded in a game before. Seems weird to me even though I don't consider myself a collector even. If I had any intention to buy a console (I don't) I'd be more mad that I couldn't play the games offline. Fine make me activate them, but after that they need to be able to play offline indefinitely.

I like how all the people bitching about not being able to share games on Xbox One have Steam installed, Deruka DERR!

Vote with your dollars.

Hopefully MS changes its tune when Sony outsells it. If MS bails from the console industry completely, it cedes it to Sony, which then will have no motivation to improve. Just like MS didn't improve IE until FF came along, or just like Intel doesn't improve much when AMD doesn't challenge it.