STEAM/U-Play-Origin

[DEAD34345]

Steam nearly has a monopoly on PC gaming, and it pulls all kinds of anti-consumer bullshit.

What anti-consumer rights bullshit are you talking about?

You buy a game, you play it. You should be fine as long as you are not doing any of the following: use cheats, abuse people in-game or on the forums, scam other people etc..

If you follow the rules you have nothing to worry about.

One of those rules is that they can invent new rules whenever the hell they want to. Sure, I haven't had to break any of those rules as of yet, but this essentially means Valve has the power to do whatever they want with your games for any reason they want. People don't buy games on Steam, they buy a license which allows them to ask Valve if they can maybe play the game they paid for, and Valve generally allows it. The fact that they could choose not to, however, is anti-consumer bullshit (at least in my opinion).

Now, I've not had any bad run-ins with Valve so far, but the only reason I allow myself to be put into such a disadvantageous position in the first place is that I know I can always immediately get my games back elsewhere should I ever need to.

When you buy a game off steam, you enter a contract with them. This contract goes both ways, so while you need to follow it, so do they. That means that while it's physically possible for them to just decide to remove your access to your games, it is illegal to do so.

I find the 'they can do anything they want' argument to be shit in general. It's not even an argument, it's a statement of the obvious. Any person in the world can just pick up a rock and bash someone's head in. Walmart employees could break into someone's home and take back games bought from them. Just because it's possible, it doesn't mean it's a valid concern.

Sure, but it's the most one-sided kind of standard form anti-consumer contract there is. Valve has the legal ability to change the contract whenever it wants written directly into it, whereas we do not. It's less a contract and more of a "We can do whatever we want and you can piss off if you don't like it" kind of deal, not to mention that there are supposed to be a ton of laws stopping exactly this kind of contract from being legal in the first place. Ordinarily I actually would just piss off, but as it happens Steam nearly has a monopoly on PC gaming, so I don't have much choice in the matter if I still want to continue playing the games I want.

(I doubt Valve is actually breaking the law by the way, more likely these laws don't apply to digital purchases for whatever reason, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a shitty and immoral business practice)

 

[TomWiley]

Firstly, as much as we like to pretend the opposite, let's just accept right here and now that Valve isn't the only company with the right to develop an app for digital distribution .

While we're at it, there are SEVERAL things that Origin does WAY better than Steam, their support for switching between offloading your games on the HDD or SDD being one of them, their userface being another and their offline support is way way better.

Now add the fact that no developer should be forced to give Valve 30 percent of their sales because we want the convenience of having just having one app on our PCs . That's why some developers want to use their own distribution platforms.

Lastly, for everyone that's concerned about performance, you can disable "start with Windows". It's not difficult.

 

[Ticklefist]

Firstly, as much as we like to pretend the opposite, let's just accept right here and now that Valve isn't the only company with the right to develop an app for digital distribution .

While we're at it, there are SEVERAL things that Origin does WAY better than Steam, their support for switching between offloading your games on the HDD or SDD being one of them, their userface being another and their offline support is way way better.

Now add the fact that no developer should be forced to give Valve 30 percent of their sales because we want the convenience of having just having one app on our PCs . That's why some developers want to use their own distribution platforms.

Lastly, for everyone that's concerned about performance, you can disable "start with Windows". It's not difficult.

I'm genuinely interested in knowing what EA game brought you so much joy that you now view Origin through the rosiest of rose tinted glasses.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

I don't think there will be many more coming. As Origin found out the hard way, going up against Steam is practically suicide.

 

[TomWiley]

Firstly, as much as we like to pretend the opposite, let's just accept right here and now that Valve isn't the only company with the right to develop an app for digital distribution .

While we're at it, there are SEVERAL things that Origin does WAY better than Steam, their support for switching between offloading your games on the HDD or SDD being one of them, their userface being another and their offline support is way way better.

Now add the fact that no developer should be forced to give Valve 30 percent of their sales because we want the convenience of having just having one app on our PCs . That's why some developers want to use their own distribution platforms.

Lastly, for everyone that's concerned about performance, you can disable "start with Windows". It's not difficult.

I'm genuinely interested in knowing what EA game brought you so much joy that you now view Origin through the rosiest of rose tinted glasses.

Mirror's Edge was pretty good.

 

[masticina]

If EVERY publisher required their own Steam Clone yeah it would suck!

The gain from steam is that it is easy and relative cheap. One login and it should work but yes sadly you'll find games requiring U-play, Origin on.. le sigh Live for Windows.

Now if the added layer is a login for lets say Galagtic Civilisations II sure. If you guys run your own servers okay.

But I rather want to keep the amount of logins I need to keep track off as low as possible as anybody really. And yes having to go through 3 layers is to much! [looks at Metal Gears Online], seriously .. why!!

In part I do understand what the big developers want from it. It allows them to add extra features and be different enough. It also allows them to offer such features as cloud storage at their own service. Eh if you kinda like that kind of stuff.

But sadly yes how more layers, please check these settings, log in here, activating account stuff you put between the gamer and their game how worse it gets. YES I get it they can't just only run a steam ID based game. If they also want others to enter multiplayer.

In the end it ends up with the usual reality. Some games do it RIGHT, others do it WRONG. Some developers at times make some pretty bad choices. It happens and in this age they will get told about their actions. Yes the dreaded gamers complaining about things. Sometimes they are wrong sometimes they are right.

 

[Deathlyphil]

and please dont start saying that valve are the good guys and they will never be corrupted and abuse their power in the future..

Of course we can't guarantee that Valve will become corrupt, but, and this is a huge but, Valve is run by gamers. Let me just repeat that.

Valve is run by gamers.

Not suits, not people obsessed with profit, not people that treat gamers as people to be abused and ripped off. That alone makes all the difference in the world.

this is not an argument at all.

interplay was run by gamers.
heck one of their slogans was interplay by gamers for gamers.
- image snip for space -
and you know how that turned out to be.

its like saying nuns are incapable of rapeing people. and thats BS.

I said we couldn't guarantee that Valve won't become corrupt, and I stand by that. Money and power corrupt any and all that touch them. And Valve is very powerful, and I'm guessing, very rich.

My argument is that people who genuinely understand what they do, and how it affects their consumers, should do better than their opponents who are just in it for the money.

Valve make games (occasionally) that they want to play. Not games that must be franchises, not games that they can update the number and be done with it. They support their community. They have a low-level of DRM. They have amazing sales.

On the other hand, they do have DRM. They don't allow reselling games. They don't allow you to take a class action lawsuit against them. I'm sure there are other various dubious / under hand things they do.

Even taking this in to account, at the moment they are more consumer-friendly than Origin.

 

[Rariow]

People complain about Valve getting too much praise, and I agree with both sides of the argument. The reason Valve gets so much praise for Steam isn't what they do right, it's just what they don't do wrong. Uplay and Origin both have a very limited selection of games, for full retail price despite there being no reason for it if you're distributing digitally, and are, at least in my experience, buggy, crash-prone pieces of crap. Steam isn't amazing because it's doing something ahead of the curve, Steam appears amazing in comparison simply because it's got a good, functional service with enough games to justify using it and those awesome sales that allow me to pump up my library without dying of hunger.

I do want more digital platforms, as long as they're all as not bad as Steam. I really don't think of Steam as an amazingly good thing, it's the other digital platforms that aren't up to decent standards.

Whatever you say, whether you like Valve or not, you have to admit this: A monopoly is never a good thing. Steam is practically monopolizing the PC digital distribution market. GoG and Gamersgate put up a bit of competition, but stuff like Origin or Uplay has next to no market share. It's good for now, but what once the people currently working at Valve move on? What if the next generation of Valve turns into what EA is now, but with complete control of the PC market? Heck, what if the current people at Valve decide to stop being as not-jerkish as they are?

 

[Ticklefist]

Mirror's Edge was pretty good.

Well it's not exclusive, which I wasn't specific about anyways, and the added DLC does make Origin the best way to play it. So ok there's that. You dropped the other part of your post but I'll answer anyways. I just disagree that the UI is better. I think it's more limited with less options. I do like the ability to hide games. Dislike that demos stay on your games list forever, making that option to hide games a necessity.

 

[Vigormortis]

an thats the point. they are changing their TOS slowly into a direction that smells fishy and they practically are becoming a monopoly.
and a corporation/company without competition is a dangerous one.

The only "dubious" change to the TOS is the "no class action" clause. A clause, I might add, that is not mutually exclusive to Steam. (not that that makes it okay) Nor one that is technically binding.

However, the one thing most people either ignore or simply don't know about that particular change to the TOS is that it also coincided with another. That being that Valve not only recommends you take them to a claims court, should you want to file a grievance, but that as long as your claim is below $10,000 they'll foot the legal bills. All of the legal bills, including the plaintiffs.

Also: "monopoly", much like "hate" and "strawman" and other such words, has lost almost all meaning now-a-days.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly

Seriously, I don't get it... How can anyone claim "Steam is a monopoly!" with a straight face?

I mean, really? Come on.

come on, man. thats like saying pol pot wasnt so bad of a guy since we had stalin and hitler in the past.

And boom, straight to Godwin's Law.

Look, there are plenty of things to complain about in regards to Steam. Do we really need to make shit up and over-exaggerate the smallest of them? Just to prove some illusory point?

No, we don't. It doesn't help anything and the genuine issues end up not being addressed.

 

[shintakie10]

If I may?

Bullshit. Valve can no more "take away" your games than can Microsoft or Sony.

Every game I've purchased on Steam is nicely and neatly stored on two external hard-drives. Funny thing, Steam itself has a back-up utility built into it. So Steam actually made the back-ups for me.

So, even if Valve does for some reason decide to cancel my account (which, despite others doom-and-gloom claims, would only happen if I wanted it cancelled or if I'd done something egregious like credit-card fraud. I.E. offenses worth real jail time.) I still have full use of every game I purchased.

If your account is just banned you still have full access to your library of titles. You can download them at any time. You simply lose access to the Storefront and many of the online features.

You only lose access to the Steam servers; and subsequently the ability to download your games; if your account is closed.

But again, that only happens if you choose to close it or you do something seriously illegal.

I'm actually getting sick of hearing people scream about Valve "being able to take away your games whenever they want to!" It's simply not true. And more people would realize this if they just looked into it beyond reading someones claim that Steam screwed them over via posting (often doctored) pics on Reddit.


On a final thought, even if Valve does arbitrarily disable your account without cause, you can very easily take them to claims court. In fact, as long as your claim is less than $10,000, Valve will even foot all of the legal bills.

Funny, here's a question for you.

If I, at any time, decide not to agree to the Steam EULA like say back when the EULA was updated to disallow people from joinin in a class action lawsuit against Valve, what happens to my games?

Answer. You can't play them. Ever. For any reason. You could not even go into offline mode in order to play your games (I know, I tried). If you did not hit accept, Steam would forcibly close. If you attempted to open it again, the only option would be to accept the EULA, or have Steam close. You could not play Steam games, regardless of where you bought your games at, until you accepted that EULA. If you never did, you never got your games.

In fact, the only option that Valve gave to consumers who didn't agree to the EULA change at the time was to cancel their Steam account. They would not get a refund and unless they downloaded a crack to the game(somethin that is, at best, a legal grey area) that they should legally own, but accodrin to Valve they don't, they will never be able to play that game again.

Do you know how I know this? It basically happened to me. I couldn't play the games I by all rights should legally have owned because I refused to accept a change to Steam's EULA. Anythin that had Steamplay on it was completely inaccessible to me unless I agreed to the EULA, regardless of the fact that I owned those games. Online, offline, Valve owned, indie game, didn't matter.

Tell me again how Valve is such a benevolent and consumer friendly company so I can have a great big laugh at your naivety.

 

[Vigormortis]

this is not an argument at all.

interplay was run by gamers.
heck one of their slogans was interplay by gamers for gamers.

and you know how that turned out to be.

its like saying nuns are incapable of rapeing people. and thats BS.

Difference being that Interplay became an publicly traded company, with a board of directors of whom I can all but guarantee weren't gamers.

They adopted a purely corporate business structure. They simply kept the early slogan as a means of good PR.

Valve, on the other hand, is still a privately owned company. No public stocks. No board of directors. Everyone at the company is either a gamer at heart, an engineer, or an artist. Only a small handful of them even have business degrees.

Also, as a result of their design structure, virtually all major company decisions have to go past everyone. Essentially resorting to majority vote. So in essence, we're not really likely to see some corporate decision that "comes from on high", that most of the company doesn't agree with.

This is not to say, of course, that they can't make detrimental decisions. They've made a few slip-ups over the years. Though they've rectified most of them. It too isn't to say that they will never become a publicly traded company, though this is not likely for a very long time given the sentiments of Mr. Newell and many others at the company. Still, they very well could become "corrupt".

As it stands though? They are far, far, FAR less likely to go down that path than most other publisher or developer.

 

[Vigormortis]

Funny, here's a question for you.

If I, at any time, decide not to agree to the Steam EULA like say back when the EULA was updated to disallow people from joinin in a class action lawsuit against Valve, what happens to my games?

As I have a few friends who didn't agree to the new TOS at the time, I can say with confidence that your games are still yours to play. They didn't accept the new agreement, and only lost access to the storefront. They could still open steam and play all of their games.

Answer. You can't play them. Ever. For any reason. You could not even go into offline mode in order to play your games (I know, I tried). If you did not hit accept, Steam would forcibly close. If you attempted to open it again, the only option would be to accept the EULA, or have Steam close. You could not play Steam games, regardless of where you bought your games at, until you accepted that EULA. If you never did, you never got your games.

Except, that WASN'T the case, as I said above.

In fact, the only option that Valve gave to consumers who didn't agree to the EULA change at the time was to cancel their Steam account. They would not get a refund and unless they downloaded a crack to the game(somethin that is, at best, a legal grey area) that they should legally own, but accodrin to Valve they don't, they will never be able to play that game again.

Again, utter bullshit.

And, as for the cracks, they are perfectly legal as long as you've legally purchased the software you intend to crack and don't plan to sell or redistribute copies.

Do you know how I know this? It basically happened to me. I couldn't play the games I by all rights should legally have owned because I refused to accept a change to Steam's EULA. Anythin that had Steamplay on it was completely inaccessible to me unless I agreed to the EULA, regardless of the fact that I owned those games. Online, offline, Valve owned, indie game, didn't matter.

It basically happened? What does that even mean?

It sort of happened as you describe, but not really? It only kind of blocked you from playing the games?

This is really confusing.

Also: I'm going to assume you mean "steamworks" and not "Steamplay". If so, then if you couldn't open Steam than that is why those games wouldn't work. Steamplay, a system by the way that is optional, only checks to make sure the game is launched from the Steam platform. It's not some "always online" DRM or some such thing.

Tell me again how Valve is such a benevolent and consumer friendly company so I can have a great big laugh at your naivety.

Ah. So instead of owning up to the fact that I refuted your prior points, you're going to give me some dubious story of how all this "sorta happened to you" and then follow that up with a condescending insult.

Classy. Really classy.

[edit]
On a side note: If you're buying in digital distribution, and aren't bothering to take the responsibility to back-up the games you've purchased (as I said in my previous post), than you're openly asking for trouble.

Not making the back-ups is the equivalent of buying a game on disc, then tossing the disc in the bin, and then hoping no one takes the trash out lest you not be able to go back and get the disc at a later date.

 

[shintakie10]

Funny, here's a question for you.

If I, at any time, decide not to agree to the Steam EULA like say back when the EULA was updated to disallow people from joinin in a class action lawsuit against Valve, what happens to my games?

As I have a few friends who didn't agree to the new TOS at the time, I can say with confidence that your games are still yours to play. They didn't accept the new agreement, and only lost access to the storefront. They could still open steam and play all of their games.

How'd they pull that one off. Every time I tried to open up a game, the Steam EULA popped up. I'd hit no and Steam would close. End of story. It got to the point I just accepted the fuckin thing because I got tired of being locked out of my games.

And, as for the cracks, they are perfectly legal as long as you've legally purchased the software you intend to crack and don't plan to sell or redistribute copies.

As far as I'm aware, the use of cracks on owned property hasn't fully been tested in court. Much like EULA's actually. You can probably guess that if it did get challenged in court the ability to crack a game file so you can get around whatever you want to get around would be upheld since things like jailbreakin have been classified as legal for a while now. However until it's actually held up in court, its a legal grey area.

It basically happened? What does that even mean?

It sort of happened as you describe, but not really? It only kind of blocked you from playing the games?

This is really confusing.

Also: I'm going to assume you mean "steamworks" and not "Steamplay". If so, then if you couldn't open Steam than that is why those games wouldn't work. Steamplay, a system by the way that is optional, only checks to make sure the game is launched from the Steam platform. It's not some "always online" DRM or some such thing.

Basically happened is what I always say because I suck at english (and its my first language, woo!). Its how I speak so its how I type. I ended up acceptin the EULA because I wanted to play my games and I could not because every time I declined to agree to the EULA Steam would close and I'd be unable to play my games. And yeah, I meant Steamworks. Brain got U-Play and Steamworks jumbled for some reason.

On a side note: If you're buying in digital distribution, and aren't bothering to take the responsibility to back-up the games you've purchased (as I said in my previous post), than you're openly asking for trouble.

Not making the back-ups is the equivalent of buying a game on disc, then tossing the disc in the bin, and then hoping no one takes the trash out lest you not be able to go back and get the disc at a later date.

Truth be told I never thought I'd need them. The only actual fear I had was Valve goin under, but then I'd have plenty of time to back up my games. I didn't think I'd suddenly not be able to open Steam to play games because Valve decided to change their EULA.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

No I don't want any more Steam, Uplay, Origin or GFWL type things as they are full of shit. Now some more gog, Greenman gaming that is something I wouldn't mind.

 

[J Tyran]

steam doesnt just provide drm, it provides control over your customers.
it binds you to it and gives you no choice as to accept whatever they feel like in the future.
dont like it, your account gets closed with no refunds on all the games you purchased so far..

and please dont start saying that valve are the good guys and they will never be corrupted and abuse their power in the future..

Citation required. I'm not familiar with any situation where a person lost access to their purchases because they "don't like it." And what's not to like? The ominous what-ifs of your vague doomsday prophecy? What plausible threat does Steam DRM present?

http://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/valve-accept-steam-subscriber-agreement-disable-account/
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/xor0j/i_asked_steam_support_if_i_could_keep_playing_my

that should provide you with some reading material.

and thast how they shoved their "you cant make a class action suit against us" paragraph down your throat..

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/01/steams-sub-agreement-prohibits-class-action-lawsuits/

That's not someone that lost their account because they "don't like it." That's giving up your account because... rules? Be petty to your own detriment.

You're not seeing it, A person gets a Steam account and buys games and agrees to the terms of service. Valve then change the terms of service (usually taking something away or something else bad for the consumer) and tell you to agree to them or close your account.

The problem is you already agreed that they could do this, hence they can force new terms of service this way. Its the biggest issue with all these services, PSN, XBL, Steam/Uplay/Origin.

Yet the EU is too busy making a fuss over being able to resell digital licenses rather than this rather nasty piece of anti consumerism.

 

[Ticklefist]

steam doesnt just provide drm, it provides control over your customers.
it binds you to it and gives you no choice as to accept whatever they feel like in the future.
dont like it, your account gets closed with no refunds on all the games you purchased so far..

and please dont start saying that valve are the good guys and they will never be corrupted and abuse their power in the future..

Citation required. I'm not familiar with any situation where a person lost access to their purchases because they "don't like it." And what's not to like? The ominous what-ifs of your vague doomsday prophecy? What plausible threat does Steam DRM present?

http://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/valve-accept-steam-subscriber-agreement-disable-account/
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/xor0j/i_asked_steam_support_if_i_could_keep_playing_my

that should provide you with some reading material.

and thast how they shoved their "you cant make a class action suit against us" paragraph down your throat..

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/01/steams-sub-agreement-prohibits-class-action-lawsuits/

That's not someone that lost their account because they "don't like it." That's giving up your account because... rules? Be petty to your own detriment.

You're not seeing it, A person gets a Steam account and buys games and agrees to the terms of service. Valve then change the terms of service (usually taking something away or something else bad for the consumer) and tell you to agree to them or close your account.

The problem is you already agreed that they could do this, hence they can force new terms of service this way. Its the biggest issue with all these services, PSN, XBL, Steam/Uplay/Origin.

Yet the EU is too busy making a fuss over being able to resell digital licenses rather than this rather nasty piece of anti consumerism.

Nah I get it just fine and I don't care if they change their policy to improve how they handle people that do things they shouldn't. If this sort of thing is of genuine concern to anyone then perhaps the Steam community would be better off with them anyways.

 

[TomWiley]

Mirror's Edge was pretty good.

Well it's not exclusive, which I wasn't specific about anyways, and the added DLC does make Origin the best way to play it. So ok there's that. You dropped the other part of your post but I'll answer anyways. I just disagree that the UI is better. I think it's more limited with less options. I do like the ability to hide games. Dislike that demos stay on your games list forever, making that option to hide games a necessity.

Yeah, I dropped it seeing as it came off as too rude.

The discussion around the UI is completely subjective, but I personally prefer Origin's more minimalist approach. Less is more. Although Valve is still improving and refining the Steam interface, it still feels cluttered and bloated. There's a whole social community on Steam which me and most people never use because it's confusing, needlessly complicated and poorly implemented.

Again, this is all subjective but that's certainly my experience. Aside from that, it also seems like Origin drains less resources. Whenever I check the resource manager, Steam is always stealing RAM whereas Origin seems to have a much smaller memory footprint.

My point however is that we're so quick to glorify Steam and demonize Origin, but we're doing it not based what these two products actually offer but rather based on the emotional experience we have with the two companies. There's something off-putting about that.

 

[shadowuser10141]

Steam nearly has a monopoly on PC gaming, and it pulls all kinds of anti-consumer bullshit.

What anti-consumer rights bullshit are you talking about?

You buy a game, you play it. You should be fine as long as you are not doing any of the following: use cheats, abuse people in-game or on the forums, scam other people etc..

If you follow the rules you have nothing to worry about.

You don't own any games on Steam. You own licenses that can be taken away at a moments notice for any reason that Valve deems fit. Whether or not you agree its a justified fear that Valve can legally take away the games you have bought and paid for with your own money, the simple fact that they actually can do such a thing at all is anti-consumer.

You do not own any software you have not coded yourself.
Software in intellectual property and licensed for use.

How am I supposed to take you seriously with that avatar? You're about 19 years old but watch a show for 7 year old girls.

 

[shintakie10]

Steam nearly has a monopoly on PC gaming, and it pulls all kinds of anti-consumer bullshit.

What anti-consumer rights bullshit are you talking about?

You buy a game, you play it. You should be fine as long as you are not doing any of the following: use cheats, abuse people in-game or on the forums, scam other people etc..

If you follow the rules you have nothing to worry about.

You don't own any games on Steam. You own licenses that can be taken away at a moments notice for any reason that Valve deems fit. Whether or not you agree its a justified fear that Valve can legally take away the games you have bought and paid for with your own money, the simple fact that they actually can do such a thing at all is anti-consumer.

You do not own any software you have not coded yourself.
Software in intellectual property and licensed for use.

How am I supposed to take you seriously with that avatar? You're about 19 years old but watch a show for 7 year old girls.

So you're against consumer protection I take it?