Valve Claims to Have Made DRM "Obsolete"

[broketechjunkie]

[citation][nom]hurbt[/nom]Were you drunk when you wrote this? I know what you're trying to say, but comon. My 8 year old can write with better grammar than that.[/citation]
He made two mistakes...

Also "comon" is not a word.

 

[Guest]

@wiyosaya

While what you say may make sense, to me it is ridiculous.
1st What difference is there between a sports bar showing games on huge screens and an internet cafe hosting games. You think the sports bar is paying royalties for the games? Heck no, and the NFL specifically accepts it because it's pretty much the base of that bars operations. The NFL actually LIMITS viewing to screens no more than 55" and the amount of people watching the game at one time (even in your own home). So if your tv is by the window and people are watching it outside, you're infringing copyright and are liable to be fined if caught.
2nd rental shops buy the movie at ~$100 per copy (at least when I was there) that is why they get p*ssed when someone loses/damages their movies. No royalties (honestly how many times can you rent out a dvd before it gets scratched to heck, and they have to replace it).
Just my two cents.

 

[Guest]

Did I miss the part of the article that explains how this is uncrackable? People have been cracking copy protection and cryptography schemes for ages, I doubt this prevents that(although the claim was probably to attract business more than anything).

 

[mindless728]

steam works for me, i like, though, i will not be happy when their servers shutdown and i can't play there games.

 

[matchboxmatt]

[citation][nom]hurbt[/nom]Were you drunk when you wrote this? I know what you're trying to say, but comon. My 8 year old can write with better grammar than that.[/citation]
Your grammar isn't any better than his.

 

[megabuster]

PC, PS3 Xbox360 Wii PSP you name the console I can show you a cracked game for it. There will always be a way of hacking and pirating software. I would compare it to illegal drug indstry; as long as there is a market for it the problem will NEVER go away.

 

[tommysch]

Your grammar isn't any better than his.

Its a f_cking 1 page article, reading it once before publishing isnt too much to ask? Is it?

 

[city_zen]

[citation][nom]alvnsn[/nom]Sure, only I can decrypt my copy but at some point, it's still run as machine code on my CPU. Someone will reverse engineer this.[/citation]

+1

 

[crystalized]

it would be nice if from time to time you guys talked about steam's competition which is impulse.

 

[crystalized]

sorry, i just realized that you did indeed post an article about stardock's impulse.

 

[fudgeboy]

[citation][nom]compulsionnra[/nom]Assuming valve doesn't go under, steam is pretty much the only way to make sure your games are not pirated. I like the steam concept, the only problem is that occasionally steam fails to install or has terrible install problems.[/citation]

sorry buddy - i've seen plenty of pirated steam games and it happens just as quickly as games with and without DRM.
however i do agree that steam is a good system - it sure beats the hell out of having to pay $120 just for a game! - geez Australia sucks...

However

 

[fudgeboy]

forget the second "However".... typo... just trying to fit in with the toms crowd

 

[lucius]

Hey

ok, just visited the Steam website to see what the prices are for games. Now i know in the US those prices are probably quite reasonable. But in South Africa THATS INSANE!!..$49.99 for a game I'll probably finish in a week. Not to mention the download data i'll have to pay for (in SA we're capped)..And no one will buy my second hand game. So, the only way for me is to get pirate games...sad, but true...

i know it's not the developers fault that our currency is so poor, but what am a guy to do. I want to play games as well...

 

[coolkev99]

I really like Steam. I love how I can go over to a friend who lives in another state, logon to Steam, and download MY game to his computer to play while I am there. Nice to have access to my games whereever I am, no matter what PC I use. Not to mention automatic updates to all games, stats tracking, etc.

 

[LuxZg]

[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]i've bought games on both d2d and steam [/citation]

Thanks, now that was a good solid comparision. I'll think about it a bit... but thanks.

Also, thanks to crystalized for mentioning impulsedriven.com
I've just read about their GOO as well.. I like this part "One common concern of gamers is if the company they purchased a game from exits the market, their game library may disappear too. Games that use Goo would be able to be validated anywhere."

Also, prices are not in $$$ or €€€, but in local currence, which is really nice touch. and prices seem low.

One thing that's bad is - lack of good games as much as i can see Pretty old games are there, like Warhammer Dark Crusade and nothing newer, UT 2004 and so on...

 

[wiyosaya]

@ansdfr

Sports bars are paying much larger subscription fees for cable/satellite than we pay for our cable/satellite subscriptions. You can find this out for yourself by talking to your local cable company, DirecTV, or DishNetwork; just tell them you are thinking of opening a sport bar and want to use their service in the bar, and ask them how much it costs.

Cable/satellite companies "license" their content from content providers just like Valve licenses their content from game providers. Trust me, though it may not be overtly visible to the average bar patron, sports bars pay royalties to show that content in their bar.

 

[solymnar]

Steam's real anti piracy comes from both its non invasive ease of puchase and use and from its value of add-ons and updates (not unlike xbox live).

AKA it reduces the desire to pirate. If the end user doesn't have a desire to pirate... it no longer matters if the game CAN be pirated or not.

I'm a pretty big fan of steam's model and goals. Its not perfect but in general I feel it takes things the right direction.

 

[MoonMe2]

I've purchased "Deus Ex" and "The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay" from D2D. Both of which had limited installations. (crap).
Does Steam have limited installs too?

 

[Guest]

you guys really need to get better copy editors, if you have them at all. i can't read a single tom's article without running into multiple blatant typos or grammatical errors.

 

[Guest]

Wow, more crappy writing. I'm so surprised.

 

[stradric]

[citation][nom]keczapifrytki[/nom]Valve is terrible. At least for people who are trying to open up Cyber Cafes. They don't let you just buy a copy of a game and let people play it on your computers, they require that you pay monthly fees on that game (per computer).
...[/citation]

This is how software licensing works. If you think valve is bad, you should take a look at Microsoft licensing.

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]MoonMe2[/nom]I've purchased "Deus Ex" and "The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay" from D2D. Both of which had limited installations. (crap).Does Steam have limited installs too?[/citation]
Nope. Completely unlimited.

I can even install a game on multiple systems. And I reformat often. So I've installed Team Fortress 2 about 50 times since the orange box came out.

 

[MoonMe2]

Thanks for the input Tindytim. Good to know. But what about non-Valve games, (from other publishers/developers) available on Steam? Are they also unlimited? This is awsome. Thanks again.

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]MoonMe2[/nom]Thanks for the input Tindytim. Good to know. But what about non-Valve games, (from other publishers/developers) available on Steam? Are they also unlimited? This is awsome. Thanks again.[/citation]
Yup. If you bought UT3 from Steam (I did), you can install it on multiple machines, and multiple times. Just like any game made by Valve.