I notice that quite a few of us are Steam users, so why not make a JA+ Steam Group? Making it official is of course not my prerogative, but we could start by adding each other to our Friends List. Anyone who wants to add me, my account name is nikolaos_engineer

nice idea, my account name is frank callebaut 

We MUST use Steam to enjoy Skyrim and FONV and a lot of us hate the hijacking and intrusion.  What value does Steam bring, and why is it not optional?   It was positioned as an ideal activation solution, but it has totally taken over our personal computers and games.  Read the Nexus fourms and Bethesda forums....this is NOT popular.

So, no, I am not interested in joining a Steam group.  Just the oppostie.  I would advocate Steam's removal from gaming altogether.  Figure out an activation method ( in this day and age, it should be easy) then let us play/mod the games that we have purchased for outlandish prices as we see fit.

Although Steam's technologies have not posed any problems for me, Steam will still not allow me to control my purchased game as I see fit.  So Steam is hijakcing my freedom....which, by the way, won't happen again.

Or perhaps this is a battle against PC gamers?  If so, that is idiotic, as PC gamers, modders, ideation gurus, have actually affected all DLCs and the direction of gaming.  

So, in short, forget it.  Any PC gamer interested in advancing game development from the grassroots should be totally against supporting Steam.

Just take your time and read this thread.  I mean it.  Real every post.

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/497829-skyrim-and-steam/

I have heard that Steam PR people are beginning to seed forums with positive, supportive statements about the Steam participation in your private games.  I'm not saying Mr. Innocent is one of them, but please know that this is a business model that high-powered and money-motivated companies like Steam and Bethesda and others are very interested in exploiting.  

My view:  If it is sold on DVD, the people own total control and are required to activate/validate and that is all.  If the game is sold as a download that belongs to a franchised police-type site, then the requirements should be made clear, as well as the benefits.

Right  now, we purchase the Skyrim DVD and it means nothing. We don't need the DVD at all, because Steam owns our experience from the beginning, which the vast majority of consumers do not know.

Anyway, this solution will not last. I think that soon games will be published to the cloud. Multiple gatekeepers will allow you access to the games with varying benefits, but a few will ulimately survive.  All will ofer free access to patches and mods after a modest fee.  The DVD will die, but freedom of choice and control will still prevail.  You can then connect to Nexus to get any mod you desire.

Steam is the enemy of gaming progress.

I agree with Halycon. I found out just this week, as I had to use Steam to get Mafia II, it is the only way to see it, that Steam monitors your compuuter and your use of games, your specs and other information and you will not find any notice of this in the Steam doccuments. For that and many other reasons that Halycon so well shares, I am totally opposed to Steam style digital control of game content. There are plenty of non invasive ways to have reasonable DRM on disks, all of the Tomb Raider Games have been protected in this way for years and there are zero complaints about them. Many thousands of other games have successfully been marketed and sold without Big Daddy Steam or other such draconian invasions of our personal rights. One of the main problems is that games on steam that have problems are very very hard to fix, or mod past those problems. Steam content is held in proprietary formats that arre impossible to anaylize and work with to improve play and to solve problems that the developer usualy is not interested in once initial sales projections are reached. They are gone on down the road and support is a thing of the past. The very same Mafia II is a good example the forums are full of players having crashes and freezes and not only is the developers not helping, there is no interest shown in helping by Steam or the distribution process. Skyrim has been a big problem on Steam, and the release has been greatly affected by bugs that were partly caused by the distribution system, and the lack of tools to fix things. So i will regretfuly decline to join and join Halycon in warning any about Steam, be very careful about what you expect and what will happen, and be sure you learn how to play offline, tho they make it quite obscure, and be sure you find out about patches, and keep copies of your game files apart from the Steam folder as once Steam updates your fully operational install may become a bug horror. Again, Mafia II is a fine example DLC that was released turned fully working installs to buggy slide shows. Be warned, and be wise.

Originally Posted By Mr Innocent.

I notice that quite a few of us are Steam users, so why not make a JA+ Steam Group? Making it official is of course not my prerogative, but we could start by adding each other to our Friends List. Anyone who wants to add me, my account name is nikolaos_engineer

.

I like it! My account name is andromuss.

My Steam name is Stiler, would be glad to join. 

I don't wanna get into the whole "steam vs" debate, I'll just say there's a lot of misinfoormation in here (what steam does, what it monitors, how you can opt out of it and how it collects things via surveys). It's simpel to use, if you know what to do you can use it offline. It's a HELL of a lot better imo then using old outdated Cd-based methods where you lose your ccd key/cd and you're screwed out of your game. Never have to lug around c d cases, can d/l your games on any computer form anywhere int eh world all tied to your account (Which you can eaisly get black i f you lose your info/it gets hacked, etc).steam games are moddable, from Skyrim to others an dit works fine. You can turn off updates (if you don't want it to overwrite the .exe, etc) among many other choices that some people don't know about/ignore.

I'd be far more concerned about EA's Origin then STeam. IT actually monitors what FILEs you have on your HD. There's not even an easy way to opt out o fthis like with Valve, you simply just can't use it if you don't ant it to have that information.

Halcyon, I've heard it all a thousand times when it comes to arguments both for and against Steam.

Just as you have pointed out a thread in the nexus against it, and it is one of the more polite ones (you should see the rage against the machine on the RpgCodex forums), I could point to a few thousand user posts in popular gaming sites (RockPapeShotgun, Kotaku) going "no Steam=no purchase", and even worse "no Steam achievements=no  purchase". And frankly, I have to laugh at the conspiracy theory that those are from people with a vested interest in Steam, for two reasons.

First, I know such people in real life. Most of them didn't know gaming existed before Steam, and my own advice to them that there is gaming outside of Steam falls on deaf ears

Second, Steam doesn't need such tactics any more. It has more than 60% of the global digital distribution market secured, despite more benign alternatives being available (purchasing directly from the developer, GoG). And its new competitor, EA's Origin platform, is an Orwelian nightmare. Now that I'll never use, unless EA drastically changes the terms of service, even if it means I'll have to never play Mass Effect 3. In short, I could easily believe Valve employing "steam drones" on forums and social media when it was starting out and vying to get established (I'm not sure it is even illegal, though IMHO certainly unethical), but these days, I simply don't believe it has to. Way too many fanboys willing to fight the good fight for them, without asking for a paycheck or even a free game activation code.

My personal view of it, as far as consumer rights are concerned, Steam is a compromise. You want dirt cheap prices during sales, getting two dozen games for $50? You are into the whole social integration thing, with a single platform with forums, game and common interest groups, achievements and servers for multiplayer games? Steam cloud suits you, as you switch gaming sessions across two or more computers (I fall in that category, and trust me, saves/progress being stored in the cloud has made my gaming life a lot easier)?. You use Steam, occasionally grumbling about its flaws.

You are completely unwilling to make that compromise, no matter what? You feel that a game using Steamworks (which is not the same at all as simply being available on Steam) is an inherently flawed product, an affront to consumer and human rights? You are free to make 100.000 posts about it, but there is only one real way to make a difference. Go the opposite way than the "no Steam=no purchase" crowd, and boycott games using Steamworks, or even Steam. And be loud about it.

I can only roll my eyes at people going "Steam is teh ev1l!!!!!1, I hate it with the rage of a thousand suns, and I'll never stop saying/posting/bloging so about it", and in the next sentence, "Of course I bought the latest Call of Duty/Total War/Elder Scrolls/Deus EX/popular franchise title with total Steamworks intergration, I mean, I have to play it, so what can I do? Pirate it? That's wrong. I'll buy it, but I'll be damned if I join in on their forums and groups! That'll show them!".

As for people not knowing, all I can say is, too bad, and they should learn to better research what they spend their hard-earned money on. You make it sound as if a game using Steamworks is some well-kept secret that a costumer can only find about until after he installs it, when in truth PR and marketing departments are trying hard to depict Steamworks intergration as a positive thing, and will shout about it from the rooftops once such a deal is made. Skyrim, Shogun 2 and Deus Ex being Steamworks games was announced months before their release.

Steam being the enemy of gaming progress, you'll have to explain to me in greater detail, because I can't even understand how anyone could think that. Indie games, the frontrunner of gaming innovation right now, have gained a great deal of exposure/sales ever since Steam started selling them, as simply being available on Steam (and on the front store page for a couple of weeks after release) offers market awareness that indie developers would otherwise need a PR campaign costing 50x their developing budget to achieve. Unless you believe that whatever actually makes a profit will eventually turn in commercialized crap, therefore anything that makes any form of entertainment/art/product successful is against its progress ?

CrisGer, ever since the release of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, every single game in the series (well, except perhaps Redguard, but that was a spin-off) was so full of bugs on release, it put most rainforests to shame. So you'll have to excuse me if I see the statement that Skyrim's problems are partly due to the distribution system with a great deal of scepticism.

To everyone that decided to participate, I'll add you shortly .

I agree that it is wrong that companies use steam as a drm protection method, if you buy a disc you should be able to do with it what you want PERIOD.

But Steam itself is a very good shop with excellent service, I never had any problems with broken cd's, games in wrong languages, not having the right patches etc.

I had a really bad experience with retailed boxed games before Steam came, since I discovered Steam i have purchased a lot more then before. So i don't agree Steam hurts gaming. Through Steam i also discovered a few indies, i wouldn't have known otherwise

I admit I posted the above before actually reading Halcyon's link to the Nexus forums. Having done so now, all I can add is "a thread with a hundred posts complaining about Steam proves that it is not popular? No".

Forum threads with vitriolic posts against every major and minor religion, every major and minor political view, any and all hobbies and creative outlets are only a google search away. Every single choice we make regarding our lives, our attitudes toward work, food, sex, even personal hygiene, there is someone somewhere in the world who believes we deserve to die in a fire for it. So the simple existance of threads negative towards Steam doesn't really mean much.

Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam's history. THE fastest selling, beating Call of Duty and other popular franchises. There are more than half a million people running Skyrim through Steam right now, so it would be rather unnatural if there weren't a few thousands dissatisfied with it. And because this is teh internetz, along with dissatisfaction, even justified one, comes hearsay and laughable hyperbole.

9 out of 10 posts (see, I can do it too!) go like "I've never had a problem with Steam, but I've heard it killed a guy's cat! What kind of monster can defend this sort of thing?".

Another common compaint is "Steam is a huge drain on system resources!!!!". Um, what? Unless you run a rig you got second-hand in 2003, Steam is a drop in the ocean. And I have news for people running rigs they got second-hand in 2003: Steam is not the reason you can't run Skyrim/Crysis 2/Shogun 2/anything mainstream released after 2008.

Everything else is mostly ideological opposition to the way Steam works, and I can't argue against that. I too would prefer it to be like GoG, a truly DRM-free platform, but it isn't. And it will never become one, unless it starts losing market share to a competitor that is truly DRM-free. I wouldn't hold my breath.

I feel that the good outweights the bad, and that's all there is to it.

If I felt that the bad outweighted the good, as I believe Origin does (and a pox on EA's house for naming it after an amazing company they bought and ruined), I would boycott it, even if that means missing out on games I want to play, because it is the only chance, however slim, that the next game I want to play won't use it. Raging against it and the users that decide the compromise is acceptable (this is not directed at Halcyon and CrisGer, who voiced their opinions politely and without "nerdrage") while using it seems rather pointless to me.

The good news is that one can still buy a game through Steam, and then crack Steam out of the game... so there is still hope for us non-Steam lovers.  Where there's a will, there's a way, as they say.  But you have to do it quickly, before that first wave of patches start coming... ROFL 

(Ok, Stiler, Nik & co., I know you can set your settings to not auto-update, etc, just kinda cracking a joke.         )

Just btw, I have NEVER lost a game CD, I'm too organised.   I have all my games packed alphabetically in a closet.  The only time I lost one, was when a friend accidentally drove over the disc with his motor bike.  (Don't ask) ...but seriously - how often does something like that ever happen? 

I have never lost a CD key either, but I have lost manuals from big box games. I really hate the old "check page X in the manual" copy protection (civilization, I guess I'll never see you again).

I'm trying to keep my on and offline life a bit separate, so I'll sadly not join the JA steam group. All the people I have on steam are real life friends.

Originally Posted By Fnord
I'm trying to keep my on and offline life a bit separate,

The distinction is an illusion. Free your mind, there is no spoon!

I love your new avatar, Mr Innocent. 

My cd's have been destroyed in numerous ways: a flood, a fire, stolen, thrown on the floor by my dad. So that's why i prefer a non-physical copy 

Originally Posted By markornikov

 stolen, thrown on the floor by my dad.

Btw, I have heard that Origin PR people are beginning to seed forums with negative, disparaging statements about Steam participation in your private games. I'm not saying Halcyon is one of them, but please know that this is a pie that everyone wants a piece of.

Destroying and replacing a DVD is no excuse to give up your total freedom to a third party. There is no choice here for gamers, and not enough up-front notice that Steam is mandatory. 

This isn't a case of belly-aching and a forum full of whiners. These are people expecting control of their purchase, people who do not care about Steam's forums or achievements or any of the other usual clutter sites offer as "personalization."  No, it is the opposite. It is taking the gamer out of the game control and trading it for a chat room.

Most people/kids don't read.  If they read, they don't understand, especially complicated notices on a crowded game box in small print.  All you get out of reading the notice on the Skyrim DVD is that you need an Internet connection and Steam to activate the game. There's a URL to learn more before you purchase. That is deception.  Besides, I, like thousands who preordered, didn't even see the box until after receiving it.  Me, it was preordered for me and given to me as a gift.  

Mr. Innocent, is Origin hiring PR people?  Sign me up.  But isn't it a conflict of interest for you to even recommend that?   

If Skyrim is the best selling Bethesda game, perhaps it would have sold more and incured less negative publicity without Steam.  Or maybe it's all the console market. 

I find no value in Steam whatsoever. The value is to Bethesda, and maybe those who lose their DVDs or find it an immense hassle to slide it into the drive. 

So what on earth will you talk about in the Steam group?  How is Steam part of your enjoyment of Skyrim? 

Skyrim being a Steamworks game has been reported on all major gaming sites since sometime in May, as well as in Steam itself. How any PC gamer with even a passing interest in Skyrim could miss that information is beyond me, though I agree, it should be more clear on the game box itself.

People should have control of their purchase. People should not expect it from a Steamworks game. As I said before, using Steam is a compromise, and if people are unaware of that, it's time they learnt how to use internet search engines.

I don't know if you honestly believe I am in the employ of Steam/Valve. I wish I was, though not in the lowly position of "internet warrior drone".

I am uncertain as to EA's, Origin related or not, currently available positions, but are you aware of the service's terms, and the recent practice of EA to lock people out of their games, in some cases permanently, for misbehaving on the forums? And in some cases, for no reason at all? It seems strange to me that anyone who feels so strongly about having control over the games they purchase, a position I understand and respect, would advocate Origin/EA in their current state.

Originally Posted By Halcyon
If Skyrim is the best selling Bethesda game

Earlier today, Bethesda announced that Skyrim reached 10.000.000 sales. Ten million. All platforms included of course, but still.

Originally Posted By Halcyon
perhaps it would have sold more and incured less negative publicity without Steam.

Steam has more than 30 million active accounts. You are kidding yourself if you believe that has not contributed to the game's success. As for negative publicity, it is rather relative. Most official gaming media are all "GOTY!", "10/10", "RPG of the century", with few of them mentioning the game's various problems at all. What little critisism there is is focused on the atrocious PC UI, and the usual torrent of bugs, not anything Steam related. Or maybe it is Steam's fault that most of the patches broke as many things as they fixed? Dragons flying backwards, lol.

Originally Posted By Halcyon
Or maybe it's all the console market.

Bethesda promised to announce sales by platform, so we'll know sooner or later. Still, as I've said before, Skyrim is the fastest selling game in Steam's history, and Steam doesn't cater to the console crowd, at least not yet. Personal estimate, of the ten million units sold, at least two are on the PC, and about half of that directly through Steam.

Originally Posted By Halcyon
So what on earth will you talk about in the Steam group?  How is Steam part of your enjoyment of Skyrim? 

Steam is not a part of my enjoyment of Skyrim, mostly because I don't enjoy Skyrim all that much. It is certainly better than Oblivion, but I find it somewhat bland, and certainly not as interesting and engaging as Morrowind.

I'm glad it has sold well, and I hope that it will show other developers that there is money to be made in huge, detailed, ambitious single-player games, RPG or otherwise. Perhaps one of them will get it right.

I never proposed that the Steam group be a Skyrim one, but a JA one. From my experience, not much talking takes place in such groups. They are mostly a statement of having a common interest, and a practical way of picking people to play multiplayer games with, being somewhat certain that a member from a forum you both frequent won't act like a total moron, as is often the case with random multiplayer gamers. But if we did talk, it'd obviously be about anything we felt like, just like we do here. Simple, isn't it?

Since we're spreading this across topics...

Originally Posted By Halcyon, 4 days ago
I'm somewhere in the middle, but typically if you're having a problem with Steam, it is not Steam's fault.  It is not quite plug and play, and you have to know what you're doing somewhat.  

 

Some see autopatching as a big benefit---unfortunately, some of the patches don't solve everything.  That said, I have had NO problems with Skyrim and Steam and patches or anything else. Others have, but I have not and a lot of others have not had problems.

Originally Posted By Halcyon, Yesterday

We MUST use Steam to enjoy Skyrim and FONV and a lot of us hate the hijacking and intrusion.  What value does Steam bring, and why is it not optional?   It was positioned as an ideal activation solution, but it has totally taken over our personal computers and games.  Read the Nexus fourms and Bethesda forums....this is NOT popular.

 

So, no, I am not interested in joining a Steam group.  Just the oppostie.  I would advocate Steam's removal from gaming altogether.

What is this, I don't even

I love Steam, but I don't think it should be forced upon any player; same goes for Origin and any other similar service. It should be optional.

Well, I expressed my view.  You expresed yours.  Have a ball.

My username on steam is inesrocks. Add me!

w00t, the christmas sale has started on Steam, i'm shopping!!! 

Another thing i love about internet shops, they constantly offer good deals, while my local retailers NEVER put anything on sale. They still sell Oblivion for 30€