STEAM and similar schemes

[gunnergoz]

I just posted my last on a forum for a game (ETW) that required STEAM to register and operate.

I had waited for this game for a long time - tried the demo, tried STEAM, and decided not to buy, despite my enthusiasm for the title and eagerness to purchase the product.

I really detest systems like this that require me to run something in the background. Worse still if they require me to log on to use software I already purchased.

I can see logging in to a company's servers once, to register the product, confirm the S/N and to then start the game and enter the S/N. But that's all that I expect to have to do.

I don't want to have to be online to play a game, or to have to do all sorts of stuff to transfer a game from one computer to the other.

Intrusion is intrusion. Purchase is purchase. Ownership is ownership. And enough is enough. I don't engage in criminal behavior and don't want to be treated as if I will do so or already have done so.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable but I welcome a discussion of this topic. I'd love to hear from anyone from BFC about their thoughts on this too.

[Moon]

We're with you. Which is why - when we were evaluating various solutions for us - we have skipped on Steam and similar schemes and are instead using eLicense which is only doing what it's supposed to do, and that is pretty much exactly what you described yourself: it connects to the licensing server once upon activation, confirms and registers your key, and that's it. If you don't want to move your key to a different PC later on (most people don't), then you do won't have to interact with eLicense ever again for that game.

Unfortunately, there are many intrusive DRM systems out there and they're giving the entire concept "DRM" as a whole a bad notion. We see this sometimes when frustrated customers email us about problems with eLicense, often not realizing that eLicense doesn't even do what they think it does.

[DBaron]

Steam isn't that bad. Not that it doesn't have its flaws, because it certainly does, but for the most part I find it to be useful. I have been using it on and off since its inception back in 2002-2003. It's far better than some of the other options developers use, for example the debacle that was spore. I think in the Jutland thread there were some complaints about activation as well.

I like it because it's easy way easier to keep track of games, and to purchase them. I currently have about 20 games that I have purchased through steam that are not installed at any one time. Most of these are valve games that are bundled together (i.e. Half life 2, + CS source, + endless other valve games), but I have several third party titles as well. When I feel like playing through Half life 2 again, I simply re download it, and when I am done, just uninstall it. I don't have to keep track of discs, and steam will bring it up to date for me, so I don't have to go running off to the internet to look for patches, and try to figure which is the most recent patch, or what order I need to patch the game, etc. Same for the silent hunter series. For comparison, I wanted to replay Diablo 2, but since I have lost my expansion disc case, I can't enter the CD number, and I don't feel like paying for a replacement key. This is not a problem when I use steam.

Transferring a game from one pc to the next is fairly easy, just install steam and redownload everything that you want. I've done this several times, with no problems. AFAIK there are no restrictions on how many times you install or uninstall. I think the downside is that you are tied to one machine.

My biggest complaint is customer service. I bought the silent hunter gold pack, and while SH III runs fine, and is easy to mod, SH IV with the expansion has never run right when I let steam download it the way it wants to. The steam forum for SH IV offers no official solutions, mostly frustrated users coming up with work arounds. Also Hearts of Iron 2, which is playable fine when you download it, you can't install the 1.3 beta patch from paradox. You need to hunt around to find a patch that will work with the steam version.

I am about to go pick up ETW tommarrow. It requiring steam to run doesn't bother me at all, since I am so used to using it.

[hagebono]

I don't ihave a problem with Steam if i know that's what's required to run the game. But what gets me is that I had bought a game and didn't even realize Steam was needed. Imagine my disappointment when I found out I couldn't even play the game most of the time since I'm usually away from an Internet connection.

[RSColonel_131st]

Intead of repeating what I wrote at another board, I'll just quote myself here. It's a discussion about RoF, the upcoming WW1 sim, over at simhq.com for those interested.

But: If it requires any kind of activation on a central server to play, or any kind of logon/online account, I will not buy ROF. For the same reason I haven't bought Black Shark either.

DRM-Activation Servers have been taken offline (for cost reasons) or simple failed in the past, even from big companies like Microsoft. When they wanted to deactivate their first version of their music store, the response to 1000s of customers with 1000s of DRM titles was that they would not be able to transfer their music ever again to a new system or new portable device. The Microsoft Solution? Burn CDs with all your songs and rip them to MP3 again.

I had a lot of problems with Steam and the new file system driver that came with the Red Orchestra release, often blocking me from playing when I had time and already arranged a meeting with friends. Very disappointing. Also the way Steam would force me to update to a newer version, even if it broke features that I already had liked, even if other people would also have prefered to keep playing the previous version on a few dedicated servers. These problems may largely be solved today, but the memory sticks. One of the reasons I didn't get FSX and still use FS9.

I thus refuse to pay 50+ bucks for any software that will require a constant or even one-time online check to activate itself. I want to be sure that 3 years down the road if I want to reinstall one of my games, it won't refuse because the DRM can't handle the new OS, or because the activation server has gone offline together with a failed software company.

There are still brand new games released with no security at all (not even a CD-Check, like Fallout 3 for example, or Arma with the official 1.14 patch) and I hope ROF will follow those examples of DRM-free games with considerable larger mass-market appeal and piracy risk. If they can't it will be a huge loss to me, but I suppose I can always use the 50 bucks for something else.

To users like Schultzy (hi from another Austrian, btw) who say they are "slowly getting used to this online verification malarky": To me that is part of the problem in the current DRM-market culture. FSX and Steam started the trend with a one-time activation, which caused quite a roar initially and then was grudgingly accepted. Now people are starting to accept the next severe restrictions, like limited install activations (Black Shark). If we keep "getting used to this" then the day is not far were companies will pull trough with their new and most favorite business model "Software as a Service" were you will suddenly find yourself charged per hour and learn that you are actually "renting your game" instead of actually owning it. The current generation of DRM is paving the way for such abominations of customer rights, and you guys would do well to reflect on that for a moment before buying the next DRM-restricted game.

Would be great to hear from the Development Team their take on these issues.

And later on:

Just to make myself clear: I'm not against copy protection. Disk Checks or even better a Dongle would be fine by me. The problem with Disk Checks I have is that I don't want to swap CDs five times a week and eventually break them, so I use No-CD patches for my legitimate bought games. But I don't mind that I need an original disk to install, and I don't mind that I can not "backup" (read: burn) the disk. I don't mind product keys either.

That is all copy protection. DRM for me is different - DRM is, as you all know "Rights Management", so basically I get a limited amount of "rights" to do with my paid-for software as I please. And that irks me, because ultimatly widespread DRM acceptance WILL result in companies allowing you less and less "rights", ideally (for them) coupling rights with micro-payments to earn them more cash. Already now, this DRM is killing the second-hand game market, which is one way how companies can restrict your legitimate customer rights via DRM. I think Valve charges you 10 bucks if you want to sell (transfer) a game in your steam account. Who's to say in the future they won't charge you 5 bucks, or two, for each reinstall-activation .Arguable the technology and manpower for them to keep the activation services running costs money, so who's to say they won't one day put this cost onto their customers?

When you - as in my case - have to daily deal with inept, incompetent, plain out rude and stupid service hotlines for brand name products - expensive enterprise virus scan software for example - then you also quickly learn that you are more or less at the mercy of the low-wage support staff there. Who can guarantee me that if I used up my 5 or 10 "activations" (as with Black Shark, Spore...) and I need more, that I won't get stuck at such a hotline-person or in some standard-text email reply? This is how companies treat legitimate business customers, they are certainly not above treating their "cheap" private customers that way.

Add the fact that in Austria, direct telephone support is often simple not available, so I can't just call StarForce or Eagle Dynamics if I can't reactivate Black Shark, for example.

All this are things that can and will go wrong with DRM. At the Battlefront boards a regular, tech-savy and thrustworthy member wrote about "Jutland" (the WW1 Naval Game) how he bought it and couldn't activate it/play it for over a week. That's a week of the company having your money already and you not able to play what you paid for.

In a world were technology gets increasingly complex and PC-Hardware permutations number in the millions, do we really need another layer of software that can go wrong and cause errors with our games?

So, I hope now I have reasonable shown that I'm not simple trying to "help the pirates" or want developers to lose money, but rather that my concerns about an increasingly DRMed world are quite real. I hope RoF will not use such a sheme.

Moon, as a developer, I'd really like to hear your take on these issues. Even eLicense basically means I risk losing the ability to reinstall the game anytime I want in the future. You guys are good for support times, no fuss, but most larger companies aren't.

I figure after Black Shark and RoF which I won't buy, one more game I won't buy and I can afford Steel Beasts Pro (150 bucks or so), which uses a dongle.

And just 'cuz it's a current posting from today and very relevant - a simHQ User about Empire:Total War

I bought the retail boxed version of ETW and can't install it because I can't get past Steam. Steam has got to be the biggest piece of junk that I've run into in years. I have a game that I've paid for and I'm not being allowed to install it. It's INSANE!

[Redwolf]

I never got the Steam bashing.

I have moved the Windoze installation that my Steam stuff is on between different hardware about as often as I get a new game. Never had any problems. Steam games come up and run.

I also never had problems with them being down.

[Moon]

DRM for me is different - DRM is, as you all know "Rights Management", so basically I get a limited amount of "rights" to do with my paid-for software as I please

See, that's the basic misconception many people have. You never own the software (even open-source software is usually copyrighted and there are restrictions on what you can and can't do). You ALWAYS (and this goes back many many years basically since the first piece of software was sold) only own a LICENSE to use the software. If you buy a CD with a game on it, you CANNOT do as you please, and never could. The fact that before DRM systems came up it was impossible for developers to control if people stick to the End User License Agreement (EULA) or not does not mean that you have been allowed to do it.

So to recap: what you "paid for" is a CD (which you do own), and the ability to use the program on it. You do not own the software as such. It's copyrighted just like a book or a movie and you can't do with it "as you please".

Our games for example have ALWAYS had the same End User License Agreement that you see today, from back in 2000 up to today. It hasn't changed in any significant way. What has changed is that eLicense allows us to exert some control over customers actually abiding by the rules we have set for the use of our software. (and the other thing that has changed is that eLicense is much harder to hack than any CD based "copy protection")

Moon, as a developer, I'd really like to hear your take on these issues.

There is no doubt that DRMs can go WAY TOO FAR. There are some horrendous systems out there which as a customer I would avoid like the pest (and do). This is why it has taken us two years of market research and evaluations before we found a system that works and is NOT as intrusive as many others.

Any system that requires you to go online each time you play, or even just more than once, is a no-no in my book. Any system that is restricting the amount of installations etc. is bad. With eLicense, you actively do something to activate the game - there is no hidden stuff going on - and you do it only once. You don't have to do anything else, not even when you install patches etc. Also, there is no limit as to how often you can uninstall/unlicense and reinstall/relicense. Your key is valid forever. You can also move a license from one PC to another whenever you want and you can have a game active on two PCs at the same time. That really is the only restriction we're enforcing.

As such, perhaps it's wrong to call eLicense a DRM. Given the bad association many people have with DRM as a concept (often based on bad prior experience, no doubt), it may be a good idea anyway. eLicense is more of an "online activation tool". It doesn't do anything else.

Even eLicense basically means I risk losing the ability to reinstall the game anytime I want in the future. You guys are good for support times, no fuss, but most larger companies aren't.

Not any more than the risk of losing or scratching or simply wearing out your CD. Or losing stuff you had on your harddrive in a catastrophic failure. Or forgetting or losing your serial code. Or buying a new PC which is incapable of running a game that is older than a few years.

In other words: the only risk of losing the ability to "reinstall any time in the future, forever, without restrictions" lies in e.g. forgetting to unlicense a previously activated copy of the game. If you do that too often and we run out of resets for you key, then yes, it may expire for good. The other "risks" are if you lose files that you downloaded and your download expired (in our store you can redownload for up to 365 days, which is way more than most other publishers can claim), and you didn't make a backup copy (or ordered the "download&mail" option) etc.

But these are "human mistakes", no different than what I described above. The risk that the licensing server won't be around to relicense your software if you want to move it to another PC (you don't need it for anything else) is much much much lower than these other "risks". eLicense for example is one of the oldest players in the market, believe it or not. I doubt that many here still have working PC software at home that is older than eLicense! :eek:

In a world were technology gets increasingly complex and PC-Hardware permutations number in the millions, do we really need another layer of software that can go wrong and cause errors with our games?

The answer is "we'd prefer not to need it". One important aspect that is often lost on the anti-DRM faction is that things usually look far worse on the publisher side! If you as the player are frustrated about a DRM, multiply this with hundreds or thousands of other customers! DRM support is a massive time sink.

It's THE PUBLISHER who has the most interest from anyone else in the world to remove "a layer of software that can go wrong"! We, as the publisher, are dealing with it daily, and it takes considerable time and effort. It costs money, too!

Truth is that publishers usually don't start using DRMs for fun. Battlefront has been releasing unprotected games up until mid-2006, the two last ones being IDDK's T-72 and Sonalysts' Dangerous Waters in 2005 IIRC. Both of them have been MASSIVELY pirated. That in itself isn't a huge problem because previous games have been pirated, too, and not every pirate would be a customer automatically: but two other developments have taken place at the same time - one, the amount and extent of the piracy has reached unprecedented levels due to the easy access to and spread of torrents; and two, and no doubt related to one, we also saw a sharp drop of sales.

Finding a way to enforce our EULA (which is what eLicense is about) became a vital issue to us. Vital as in: necessary for the company to survive. The gamers had ade it abundantly clear that without being forced they have no respect for it.

Since implementing eLicense we have customer support issues specific to it that we wouldn't have otherwise. eLicense related questions (forgotten key etc.) are in fact by far the biggest tech support item, even if they're usually the same and pretty much always user error. If we could get rid of it, that would free up considerably resources.

But - at the same time, since implementing it, the amount of piracy has dropped (to only those of our games that are also available in retail, and that is a conscious choice we make), and the amount of sales has increased again. There is no way we're ever going back because the community has proven to us not to be trusted.

BTW, I said that publishers "usually" don't do DRM for fun. There are some notable exceptions, with DRM systems implemented with the aim at maximizing profit. Those are the ones that usually are most restrictive and therefore fail, both technically and in generating profits.

There are still brand new games released with no security at all (not even a CD-Check, like Fallout 3 for example, or Arma with the official 1.14 patch) and I hope ROF will follow those examples of DRM-free games with considerable larger mass-market appeal and piracy risk. If they can't it will be a huge loss to me, but I suppose I can always use the 50 bucks for something else.

Well, it makes no sense to release games with cd checks nowadays. There are CD cloning tools that remove SecuRom, Starforce and what not with a click. That kind of hassle is best saved on anyone.

So, Fallout 3 and Arma are selling exceptionally well in the PC sector I take it now that they have no copy protecton?

In summary: I can understand why customers may not like DRMs, especially because there are so many "black sheep" out there that are using either simply bad and buggy systems or that are trying to milk extra money out of it, and especially considering that until a few years ago there were no effective tools in existance for EULA control and it was a "free to do as you please" market out there. At the same time, at least to us, the market has proven beyond doubt that it doesn't work without and cannot be trusted, and that a tool like eLicense is necessary for our survival.

As a customer, my advice would be: you should take your right to "vote with your wallet" seriously, but responsibly! If you don't like a DRM, don't buy the game. If you can't find out details about it, don't buy the game. If you don't like the restrictions, don't buy the game. But at the same time, don't condemn DRM outright just because it's been messed up in the past by some of those black sheep. There ARE systems out there which, like eLicense, just do what they need to and nothing else. Get yourself informed, and make an informed decision, rather than throwing the worst concepts you may have heard about into one big basket.

[Thomm]

Do DRM systems already manage to beat the "copying is theft" intros on legally purchased movie DVDs in terms of annoyance?

Best regards,

Thomm

[RSColonel_131st]

Moon, it's a bit unfair of me discussing this with you since your eLicense system (and helpdesk system) are a fair cut above anything else in the industry. So don't feel like I'm personally targeting you in my reply, I'm talking more about the state of Steam and other DRM in general. That said, some responses to some of your points:

Not any more than the risk of losing or scratching or simply wearing out your CD. Or losing stuff you had on your harddrive in a catastrophic failure. Or forgetting or losing your serial code. Or buying a new PC which is incapable of running a game that is older than a few years.

My CDs are in their cases as I'm only running games with No-CD cracks (legal bought games, of course). They won't wear out or break, the keys if needed are inside those same cases. The patches and No-CD cracks are on a second disk inside the same case. I make an image backup of my hard disk every month. I come from a professional IT Environment, so a lot of the "common" user errors you cite just do not apply to me. I can also fairly certain hack or mod any game on a new OS to run, especially with compatibility support in Windows which is pretty good.

For me, the biggest risk of losing my ability to play a game are in fact the things I can not control myself - like the activation servers from the publisher.

But for me, many industry DRM shemes are a lot worser.

Like you said, DRM is a huge time & money sink for a publisher. Who guarantees me that Valve or whatever the others are, will not charge us in the future to reactivate our games on new hardware? They already have your CC details if you bought over Steam, so it's a simple change in their legal TOS and suddenly transfering your Steam game to another system might in fact cost extra money. With DRM (any kind of activation-based copy protection, to be precise) they could do that.

Next bad example is EA. A while ago I remember reading a forum discussion that basically said their game logon accounts are tied to the message board accounts. If you get banned from their message boards (and that can be decided by fairly untrained, low-level qualified moderators with some personal chip on their shoulder) you lose the ability to play ANY games from your EA account.

Get this? DRM allows companies for artificial made up, cost reasons or other bull**** to REVOKE your license after you paid full price.

I know that I never legally "owned" a game I bought. But at the same time I could be nearly 99% sure that when I want to play my 50$ game, I will be able to do so provided my hardware matches the requirements. Nowadays, any number of reasons - some of them entirely out of my control - could kick me out of my legally bought games, which is in fact against customer laws in my country, but I could not possibly be expected to sue EA or anyone else.

The ultimate bottom line is the reliability of support you can get from "your" DRM company. That's why I wouldn't worry twice about Battlefront's system (I still prefered to pay 10 bucks for CMSF Paradox version thought, it was cheaper). But the bigger the company (Valve, EA, StarForce) the more likely it is you will find yourself caught in bad customer support if something happens. And the more likely it is that somewhere down the road, they will use DRM to restrict our customer rights way beyond what normally would be our rights by law. Like the example of reselling games.

[Wilhammer]

"My CDs are in their cases as I'm only running games with No-CD cracks (legal bought games, of course)"

I use mounted ISO on Virtual CDs. Every game gets imaged and backed up.

The next thing to do is find those NO CD cracks, but they can change frequently as patches get released.

CDs age, get scratched, lost. It is a Temporary Medium. Disk Images with backups last an awful long time.

-------------

I so want to buy Jutland, but this DRM schema is worrisome - I too have had a hate/hate relationship with Steam.

As to the question of DRM defeating DVDs/Music, etc - well, those torrent sites are popping at the seams with DRM defeated content.

Jutland's method would be broken by now, but given the HIGHLY focused nature of the Product's customer base, that may never happen as the Demand for the product compared to a DVD is minuscule.

[Moon]

RSColonel, I can in fact agree with or at least relate to most of your points. Like I said, some of these DRMs out there are insane, perhaps even borderline illegal.

Which is why this one:

Get this? DRM allows companies for artificial made up, cost reasons or other bull**** to REVOKE your license after you paid full price.

...is not even possible in eLicense. eLicense does not allow us any "entry" to your PC to do anything. Anything eLicense does needs to be done actively by you (licensing, unlicensing) and the licensing server is responsive in nature only. This means that a game that is activated on your PC remains activated for as long as you keep that PC running or until you unlicense the game yourself.

But that's a side remark only to clarify things. Like I said, with DRMs people tend to often mix and match things.

[Redwolf]

My gaming machine has 7 CD/DVD drives, BTW. The joys of trying to return PBEM moves and the like in the evening where you only spend limited time in one particular game.

I can't say that I like CD-based copy protection too much.

[Moon]

By the way:

My CDs are in their cases as I'm only running games with No-CD cracks (legal bought games, of course). They won't wear out or break, the keys if needed are inside those same cases. The patches and No-CD cracks are on a second disk inside the same case. I make an image backup of my hard disk every month. I come from a professional IT Environment, so a lot of the "common" user errors you cite just do not apply to me. I can also fairly certain hack or mod any game on a new OS to run, especially with compatibility support in Windows which is pretty good.

...my point still applies. If you are that careful in not losing your license key and backing up your downloads and not forgetting to unlicense, then you have nothing to fear in losing the ability to run or reinstall your game with eLicense. The remaining "risk" of the licensing server not being available, Battlefront being out of business or what not is not bigger than the risk of a plane landing on your house and destroying all those carefully made backups

[RSColonel_131st]

Well, I would disagree on the last point (even though I really trust you guys).

Microsoft them self decided to shut down the licensing servers for their first music store version. You would think such things are indeed rarer than a plane hitting my house, but they aren't. I've recently been looking at a lot of FS2004 addons, and some of the makers just flat out have vanished, their activation/key-generation/registration with them. You can still find the trial downloads but no way to unlock them anymore, which I guess for legitimate customers already owning their addons is a real problem.

As for your inability to "revoke" an eLicense - I understand once it's activated, it's activated, but can't you still in theory prevent someone from reactivating after a reinstall? Not that you would, just hypothetical.

In my hierarchy, no activation (FS9, Dangerous Waters) is better than one-time activation (eLicense) is better than regular activation (Steam). I can see myself maaaaybe buying games with a 1-time activation from people I trust, I'll never buy regular reactivation requirements.

BTW, I would have liked to add that for me, it's not primary a concern for money wasted. I can deal with losing 50 bucks on a game every three years. For me, it's just that if I really like a game, I feel damn lost when it becomes unavailable. It's an emotional thing, not as much an investment problem. With Red Orchestra, I really loved every minute of it - and when sometimes I had organized a game with my friends of one of our favorite servers, and I couldn't logon to steam THAT VERY EVENING, it really stank, even though I lost no money and could play the game next day again.

[Sergei]

Next bad example is EA. A while ago I remember reading a forum discussion that basically said their game logon accounts are tied to the message board accounts. If you get banned from their message boards (and that can be decided by fairly untrained, low-level qualified moderators with some personal chip on their shoulder) you lose the ability to play ANY games from your EA account.

Get this? DRM allows companies for artificial made up, cost reasons or other bull**** to REVOKE your license after you paid full price.

Your description is too vague and anecdotal to be sure, but I would guess that your "EAxample" has to do with online games with one centralized multiplayer server or lobby, which on the other hand is not related to DRM in the sense that is discussed here.

And unless it's a MMO type game, it's quite likely that you would still be able to play it in single player mode or connecting directly.

Okay, after googling around for a bit it turns out that EA denies the rumour.

[RSColonel_131st]

Sergei, the original topic was this here:

http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=449687&tstart=0&start=0

Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned.

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly reccommend people play nice and act mature.

All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.

Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =)

They denied this later on here:

http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=457006

That said, the previous statement I made recently (that's being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad.

Now the question to me remains - did he really just misunderstand, or was EA calling this back for damage control after a lot of users threatened action? Also take note that "Elearen" from EA later writes below the refutation that: tbh I would rather that forum behaviour did affect online availability. It would tie in with the TOS quite nicely.

An objective truth is that EA *could* do this in theory. Technically it's all possible with DRM. Legally it would be questionable, but so are most EULAs these days, yet they are never challenged because no one has the war money to go vs. EA. Morally at least one person in that second thread working for EA would be in favor of connecting forum accounts with paid-for game accounts.

And that's bad enough for me, honestly.

[Moon]

Microsoft them self decided to shut down the licensing servers for their first music store version. You would think such things are indeed rarer than a plane hitting my house, but they aren't. I've recently been looking at a lot of FS2004 addons, and some of the makers just flat out have vanished, their activation/key-generation/registration with them. You can still find the trial downloads but no way to unlock them anymore, which I guess for legitimate customers already owning their addons is a real problem.

I guess so. We, however, have made it public that in the case that Battlefront would "vanish" we would release "unlocked" versions of our software to the community that does not require re-licensing. There would be no point for us to not do it should the company really "vanish". So while I can see the reason for being concerned, there is no connection between what happens at Microsoft or EA or elsewhere and what happens here at Battlefront.

By the way, there is no guarantee that a game will continue working, forever, with or without DRM. And there never has been. The "risk" that you cannot reinstall your game in a few years because of a new OS or because of new hardware is far far far bigger than the risk of losing your game due to eLicense or Battlefront "vanishing".

As for your inability to "revoke" an eLicense - I understand once it's activated, it's activated, but can't you still in theory prevent someone from reactivating after a reinstall? Not that you would, just hypothetical.

Yes, of course. That's the whole point of using eLicense - we enforce a limit of up to two concurrent activations for each license key. Once that limit is reached, you cannot activate an installed copy on a third PC until you unlicense a previously activated copy of the game.

But we cannot "revoke" an existing activation which is what I thought you said EA did. You have to do it yourself ("it" being "unlicense" a copy of the game).

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

I never got the Steam bashing.

I have moved the Windoze installation that my Steam stuff is on between different hardware about as often as I get a new game. Never had any problems. Steam games come up and run.

I also never had problems with them being down.

good for you. just bought empire (hardcopy!), installed it, wanted to play and i get: game unavailable, servers currently overloaded, try again later. doh.

[Redwolf]

;1126867']good for you. just bought empire (hardcopy!)' date=' installed it, wanted to play and i get: game unavailable, servers currently overloaded, try again later. doh.[/quote']

Well, I generally don't jump on games the moment they come out. Apparently I never coincided with a major release either, it seems.

Anyway, the point I was going to make is that Steam is not one of those asine schemes that bind you to your hardware and you have to do random labrat jobs when you change CPU, graphics card or brand of coffee filters.

I don't doubt there have been server overloads, but from a concept standpoint Steam seems to be quite "liberal" in it's copy protection policies..

[gautrek]

I don't get the steam bashing either.I wasn't a big fan when it first came out.All this game updating bollocks and the like seemed like spying to me.

But after seeing x box live and how good that is i now understand more what steam is trying to do.

I like the games being kept up to date.I like the friends side of it and knowing who is online.I like seeing what game they are playing and being able to invite people into a game(Left 4 dead).It saves trying to find which server they are on.

Its not perfect but its getting better and better.in fact i can see most games going this way as its becoming a way of life for me online.the instant contact side of it is brilliant.the fact you can set up and join like minded groups.

In fact i don't even think about the fact that steam fires up when i launch a game.its just the way it is.

[DBaron]

... Worse still if they require me to log on to use software I already purchased.

I can see logging in to a company's servers once, to register the product, confirm the S/N and to then start the game and enter the S/N. But that's all that I expect to have to do.

I don't want to have to be online to play a game, or to have to do all sorts of stuff to transfer a game from one computer to the other.

You can play the game offline, steam still needs to be running though.

[RSColonel_131st]

By the way, there is no guarantee that a game will continue working, forever, with or without DRM. And there never has been. The "risk" that you cannot reinstall your game in a few years because of a new OS or because of new hardware is far far far bigger than the risk of losing your game due to eLicense or Battlefront "vanishing".

It's far easier to keep a legacy machine or a dual boot OS for legacy games than do re.invent an activation server for DRM-protected games. Like I said, I'm not talking about Battlefront here since you guys are cool in my book.

Yes, of course. That's the whole point of using eLicense - we enforce a limit of up to two concurrent activations for each license key. Once that limit is reached, you cannot activate an installed copy on a third PC until you unlicense a previously activated copy of the game.

What I meant is if you could in theory not allow an user to do a "proper" reinstall (first deactivating and then reactivating) the game in another hardware. Like, if you place the customer on an eLicense "black list" which disables him from deactivating or reactivating his two concurrent licenses.

Not that you would ever do, but most DRM that the game interacts with can do this. The question is just how often the game needs to talk with the DRM servers.

Cross-posted from the other discussion:

Let me give you a hypotethical example of DRM rooted in technical and coporate philosophical reality:

1) Lets say EA releases a game with realtime-downloaded Advertisements in game, like Splintercell or Battlefield 2015 or whatever it was called.

2) EA puts into the EULA that you as user have no right to remove these ads or tamper with the relevant game files.

3) The DRM recognizes if you disable the display of these ads and disables your game. You then have to call up EA Hotline who will politely explain to you that you violated the EULA and will have to pay 10$ "handling fee" to get your game running again - with Ads.

Sounds implausible? Please realize that at least one EA employee, in the thread Dart refers initially, says he would actually prefer to see people banned from online games for their forum conduct at EA's message board. This would already be technically possible too.

Legally this would be very gray, almost black thing to do - but so are many EULAs today, and no one has the money or time to sue EA or UBIsoft over it.

Now, I agree that disk-free DRM for the purpose of copy-protection is the most convenient solution available. But the more DRM-protected games (activated games) enter the market, the more people are willing to adapt to further restrictions that do not just relate to copy protection.

A year or two ago, the idea that you only have a limited number of reinstalls to a product like EA's Spore would have been unthinkable. Today, after Steam, FSX and "Direct to Drive" products have "conditioned" us to "live with product activation", it's actually happening.

Two years down the road or three, do not be surprised when companies charge you a monthly fee to keep your game activated. You will pay more and be able to do less with the games you "own", because that's how the industry wants it to be - more income for less risk.

I realize that RoF and it's developers (and Battlefront, too) are not EA, but it's just another nail in the coffin of truly "owning a game" (in legal terms, being able to exercise your license to play this game anytime, anywhere), and there aren't many more nails left until the coffin-lid will be air-tight shut around what we once knew as our "customer rights".

[gunnergoz]

Moon, et al, thanks for a very interesting and informative discussion. I'm not sure I could have had this sort of discussion (certainly one including a major developer personage like Moon is - ) on any other developer's forums. That's why this place is and will be my forum home for as long as it is here for me.

Perhaps my pique over Steam is overblown (no pun intended) and perhaps I need to re-think it. Now I've some opinions to refer back to that matter to me. Thanks, guys!

[RMC]

I like steam. I didn't when it came out in late summer 2002 IIRC. I was heavily into Day of Defeat at the time. In my group we continued to play on the WON servers until those went away and we had to use Steam to go online.

I see most the discussion has been about DRM and control, but I've always thought of Steam in terms of content delivery which I think is the original intent. Valve has become a publisher of sorts, but they built Steam as a developer so that they could get their games to market and earn more money from each sale than by using a publisher to get a physical package in a store. It's similar to the Battlefront philosophy.

[Marshal Amherst]

thanks for a very interesting and informative discussion.

Indeed, much appreciated.