I have over 100 steam games, mainly because I wait for them to go on sale.  Had I an alternative I would certainly jump on it.  I have the retail copy of DOWII and if I launch it from the desktop or CD it pops up steam and I have to log in.  Go figure.  There have also been times when I was unable to access the internet with a laptop, but when steam launches it says it needs to reconnect to the internet again, probably because I left it running and used another comp.  I do like steam, but it can very much be a pain. No sense in bashing people anyhow, I guess if you want to bash people jump on facebook and bash your friends if you have them

I'm surprised that the illusion of competition matters so much to some of you.  Seriously, *most* (if not all) competing business in NA is owned by Saudi or Chinese interests anyway (<joke>)....but what exactly is the big deal if it's actually true? 

It's like here in Canada we still have Future Shop right next to Best Buy (besides the differences in colour-scheme.....FS is all RED.....and BB is YELLOW....the inventory of the stores is IDENTICAL) eventhough everyone knows Best Buy owns the entire Future Shop franchise and has for a few years now.  Oh well.......for some people the illusion of competition is all that matters......lol

the Monk

I have no problem using Steam for

a) Valve games

gamers that don't use Steamworks

It's the Steamworks DRM/steam integration that I have issues with.  Somewhat similar to the Microsoft antitrust suit to me.  There should always be a non-Steam option for non-Valve games.

I belong in Cat 3 and a bit of Cat 2 as well. People don't realise that if Steam does become the monopoly that controls distribution then they're going to have to "Jailbreak" their steam client/games to get the full functionality they want (modding). Seriously is there anyone whom hasn't mod chipped or jailbroken some sort of hardware that they own so that they can get more functionality from the platform they paid for? I've already noticed the modding community going stale and moldy with steam game releases which is a sign they want you to pay that extra 2-3 dollars for a DLC rather than get it for free. $team is here to make you dig deep into your wallets and ever since the release of Empire Total War I have not purchased a steam game due to the fact that if I want new modded units I have to shell out extra money for them. I refuse to pay for something the community could have easily created themselves but were limited or restricted to doing so.

Well good luck Civ5 I'm sure you'll sell great but you won't be getting a dime from me. I might try a demo to see what its like but knowing the gameplay won't get more exciting than that due to the crippled modding capabilities I don't see any reason to spend my hard earned dollars on this title. Meanwhile I'll still be getting value from my impulse purchases with a constant stream of mods and patches being released both by the caring developers and the modding community.

So, Frogboy just say that if we can buy Civ V from Impulse, he will happy, but we can only buy it from Steam, so he doesn't happy

What does that have to do with anything? If I don't like the price of a TV at Future Shop, Best Buy isn't their only competition. I can go to Walmart, Leons, or a bunch of smaller stores (got one out here called Wacky Wheatley's).

Actual competition is pretty alive and well in the markets FS/BB are in. BB just kept the FS name because it's got stronger brand recognition then BB does and there was no reason to throw that away. Nobody wants a pretend competitor to Steam, people want a real one.

Honestly, I don't think the big publishers want an Open System.    Also, no offense to business-types, but large corporations tend to be a short-sighted, risk-averse lot.  This doesn't apply to Stardock, but does to the real "big boys".  If you got really big, you'd probably get more conservative in your business yourself.  Consumers often tend to be short-sighted also, which makes it hard to take a long-term view, which is something I respect about Stardock- I do see your long-term vision, and I like it.  This is one reason I've stuck by you guys.

The reason the big boys don't want an open platform is DLC.  On Impulse, DLC doesn't really work.  You can just download the DLC and play in Impulse.  Without draconian DRM, which kills Impulse sales from my experience, you can't do that.  Steam you can due to how Steamworks DRM and its chilling effect operates.  (Most gamers don't consider this piracy- as they consider DLC to be such a ripoff that this is deserved, and that selling the DLC itself is robbery.  Publishers think differently)

I think the big publishers are thinking if Steam gets too uppity, they can do it themselves, when that wouldn't be the case.

I do think (though Valve and yourself would likely sue over this)- that there is a market for a program that would combine Steam and Impulse functionalty where you could launch either game, and use both social networks.   Would be difficult to do due to how fundamentally different both are.

I honestly don't know what Impulse can do, other then try to force a price war on the developer end by taking lower cuts (which I know already happens, and why Impulse tends to be a better option for indy games).  The lack of Civ V on Impulse really does hurt though, and Elemental's launch to me is a blow for Impulse also.

Hey that's ok Chief, this just means you'll have more time to give us those mod tools and more time to work and Mod E:WoM....and give us mod tools

P.S. Did I mention give us those mod tools? hehe

What the hell are you smoking? How modable game XY is depend entirely on its developer. All Valve games are highly modable (you might have heard about "small unknown mods" like Counterstrike and Day of Defeat ). I have lots of games from Steam and many of my installed games are modded, including Steamworks games like E:TW. Civ5 will also be heavily moddable - in all cases I am able to get those mods without paying anything extra.

If you dont know WTF are you talking about, you should STFU.

Talk of monopoly is insane. Here is a brand new digital distribution service. http://www.beamdog.com/ Sure they don't have as many games as Steam or Impulse, but they probably will some day, competition is good.

I figured this thread was a great place to post this give it's title.

So the my friend who lives in Missouri calls me up today to tell me the store near by broke street date on Civ 5. But because it requires a steam activation he still can't play it. He's sitting there stuck with a copy of a game he's already paid for that he can't play because of some stupid DRM.

Now I know some of you may argue that he shouldn't even technically have a copy of the game yet because of release date but that's not the point. The point is that unless you have Internet connection you can't play the game. And I don't wanna hear any of the BS about people should have internet connection because I know a lot of people who don't have inet at home. I get the same kinda attutide from people when I tell them I don't have a cell phone. They look at me and say "Everyone has a cell phone these days why don't you?"

You don't need an inet connection to play games. In fact the inet is a bit over rating. If you don't do online shopping, Social Networking, visit forums(like this one), play multiplayer games online, watch shows online, and so on there isn't really much reason to pay the $40+ bucks a month for inet. Honestly if I didn't like playing multiplayer games with friends I won't have inet because I don't really use it for much else besides MP gaming and checking up on forums at times like this one.

With the increase in phone tech a lot of people simply check there email and social networking info on their phone. I know several people who dropped their inet connections at home becuase the economy is tough and they said they don't use it enough to justify having it. They use their phones to do all the browsing and email stuff they use to do before. And anything they can't they simply do at work.

Just besides the fact that they limit their audiance by assuming everyone has inet there is also the issue of what happens if the company is no longer around? Now I know there is little chance of Steam going under in the near or forseeably future but you never know. I remember the early days of the inet and gaming when there was a lot more developers around. Well as a lot of them got bought up their web sites went down and you could no longer find patches to those games so if you did a reinstall you were stuck with release date build. Place like file planet have since helped with that a little.

But the other issue is games that had no LAN support (Like SC2 now >P ) also required connecting to unique matching services like The Zone which is no longer around so you can no longer play those games MP. And just like Steam is backed by Value which is a pretty big name so to was The Zone which was backed by Microsoft. Though they dropped it and later revived it under a new name MS Live they still don't support older games. They discontinue supporting games after a curtain time so you can't go back and play the old ones.

I think part of the problem in the whole DRM debates is you have a lot of new comers to the party who don't know the history and haven't been burned in the past. People who just got into gaming in the last 5-8 years are so. Either because they are young and so weren't there to see some of the early days or simply because they didn't have access or interest in gaming until later, for example I knew a guy in college where growing up he didn't have any much experiance with games in part because he was more of a jock and they were considered "nerdy" but now he's a pretty big gamer with FPS, sports games, and some of the more action RPGs like Mass Effect. He's still not that tech savy and just wants things to "work" and seeing as he's new to games he also one of the types who likes the "glitter" so I have a hard time explaining to him why going back and playing low polygon count or sprite based games is FUN.

It's like a Movie or Book fan trying to explain to someone who's not into Movies or Books how they like going back and Watching an old Favorite Movie or reread an old classic book they haven't seen/read in years. Most people understand that a bit more then they do going back and playing a very old game. But unlike an old Movie or Book because of curtain types of DRM such as Online Activation or Constant Online Connection(Ubisoft) there is a very real chance that down the road you won't be able to go back and play them unless you can find a crack. And some of the DRM supports foolishly make the comment "Oh if they take down the servers they will release a patch that lets you play offline." to which I say "You don't know Jack! You really think a company that is taking down there servers to no longer support a game is gonna invest time and money into creating a patch so players can play offline?" The odds are that the company is taking it down for financial reasons and such a company is not likely to add an extra expensive to their books just to appease some lingering fans.

Sadly it seems like the majority of gamers are similar to the Jock turned gamer guy I knew in college in that they only care if their games work. They don't really know or understand the whole DRM issue and simply wave it off with comments like "Oh everyone should have Inet, or so what if you have to connect to their service to play since you gonna mostly being doing MP anyhow." They are completely missing the point and the longer term issues. They don't tend to go back and play old games and often simply exchange them in at places like gamestop after several months or a year. To them the thought of going back and playing a good game a decade or so later is unthinkable when there is "so much better new stuff out". So sadly it seems like those of us who protest against the DRM are in small minority. Only when companies like Ubisoft screw things up with there servers and it wouldn't let players play AC2 and Set7 for days do the general masses seem to sit up and take notice at how intrusive DRM can be.

It's probably worth mentioning that when the street date broke on Elemental, several people came to the forums to report that they couldn't play it and asked why.

Steam isn't the only company doing this sort of thing. Given how chronic the problem of stores breaking release dates is on PC games, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of it.

Breaking of release dates has caused HUGE problems for games in the past.  Look at the mess that its caused for Stardock in their last few games.  So complaining about a system that prevents people from breaking street dates is really just silly.  Coming up with systems to enforce street dates is a completely legitimate thing for companies to do.

You only need to connect to the internet once to activate the game, then you dont need it.  You have to come up with pretty strange scenarios to have people who can't ever connect to the internet yet are capable of playing modern games.  To put it bluntly, the money that companies save from discouraging at least some piracy with these activation systems has to vastly outstrip what they could be making from the tiny "wants to play modern games but can't connect to the internet even once" demographic.

If you choose not to have certain types of modern technology at your disposal, like the internet (or a cell phone), you are going to miss out on some things.  Deal with it - its your choice in 99.9% of situations.

As Brad himself has said, companies dont and shouldnt be trying to make every single customer happy.  They have to shoot for most people, and upsetting tiny demographics like people who never have internet access or perpetual trolls or whatever isnt really ever going to be a big concern to compnaies.

I love steam. I buy a new computer, sign into steam, there are all my games waiting for me.

I love impulse. I buy a new computer, sign into impulse, there are all my games waiting for me.

It's all good.

I'm sorry, but are you aware that STEAM offers a lot of FREE mods, like INSURGENCY, made by the community and that, for example, Fallout 3 DLCs didn't asked you to be connected to the internet 24/7 to work (as happened if you get them at Windows plataform)?

Actually, in the TOOLS section of STEAM you can find a lot of mod tools for a lot of games, if the company decides to release them. There is a small developer called TRIPWIRE, one of my favourite devs by far (Red Orchestra, KillingFloor), that is getting bigger exactly because of STEAM and they offer a lot, even free mods made by them to their own games, through STEAM.

So, you're blaming STEAM for the option that other publisherds and companies are making. The most sucessful mods in the history of gaming were created using Valve's engine, so I can't understand how do you say that Valve's STEAM is destroying the mod scene!