STEAM/U-Play-Origin

[Olas]

I'm done buying anything that requires me to install Origin or U-play. I only found about their existences after paying for games that unexpectedly forced me to install them to play. After I was done with those games, Mass Effect 3 and Assassin's Creed 2 respectively, I uninstalled both clients and now I check to make sure a game doesn't require them before I buy it.

Go ahead, hold your games hostage, I'll just take my money elsewhere.

 

[dfphetteplace]

U-Play is such a shit pile. It always gives me problems. If I bought it through Steam, why do I need more DRM? Especially some that doesn't even work.

 

[DEAD34345]

I hope that there'll be a few more digital distributors in the future, personally. Steam nearly has a monopoly on PC gaming, and it pulls all kinds of anti-consumer bullshit. The only reason I put up with it at all is that it's convenient, and I know there's always a certain other method for me to obtain my games if ever I feel the need to break their restrictions.

As for the stupid amount of logins and accounts being required for games these days, I really just have to hope that eventually companies will wise up and realize they're only costing sales. Steam gets away with it because it's established and everyone has an account with it already, but I know of several people (including myself) who have avoided games simply because they don't want to deal with Origin... Or god forbid, GFWL. Good Old Games has a nice DRMless system going, and from what I can tell it's only been getting more and more popular over time.

 

[Joccaren]

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.

This is actually what he described in his first post. He said "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.."
Granted the formatting was stupid and unintuitive, but he did mention that if you don't like Steam's new rules that they decide to force on you, you get no refund and no games. Basically, if Steam want you to do something, you have to do it, or no games and no refund. That's the rules.
Granted nothing bad has come off that yet, and I don't distrust Valve, but there is potential for abuse.

 

[shadowuser10141]

so I don't expect Ubisoft to continue with Steam

Ubisoft is not big (at least in PC land) or stupid enough to go exclusively with their own client.

 

[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.

 

[devotedsniper]

U-Play is such a shit pile. It always gives me problems. If I bought it through Steam, why do I need more DRM? Especially some that doesn't even work.

Don't forget when you go to hit play and it pops up downloading update....

I hate Uplay, I can understand it being there if you brought it from somewhere else but on Steam it's just useless and stops Steam from updating the game for you.

 

[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.

 

[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.

The exact same thing applies to iTunes, Google Play, Xbox Live, Playstation Network etc...
You don't even own physical Xbox or Playstation games if you read the license agreement.

 

[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.

The exact same thing applies to iTunes, Google Play, Xbox Live, Playstation Network etc...
You don't even own physical Xbox or Playstation games if you read the license agreement.

Hows that change what I said?

The ability to take away somethin someone has legally bought and paid for with quite literally any reason they think is good enough is anti-consumer whatever company or platform it comes from.

Aside from that, if you're defendin Valve I don't think puttin them in the same boat as Microsoft and Apple's ridiculously jacked up ideals on ownership does them any favors.

Either way I don't buy products from them.

I buy my music on Amazon and my games on GoG or in retail stores if its not on GoG. If I buy it in a retail store and it requires Steam/U-play/Origin to play or I can go fuck myself, I take option C.

And as for games on the Xbox and Playstation, so what? The only way that Microsoft and Sony can stop me from playin my games I have, even if their EULA's state its only a license is to physically come to my house and take my disc away. Is it fucked up that they claim the disc I own isn't actually somethin I own? Sure, but there's fuck all the can do about it.

 

[lacktheknack]

As long as GFWL is allowed to continue existing, I won't be surprised if U-Play and Origin do as well.

I still don't have an Origin account, and probably never will. I'm perfectly fine only buying things from Steam, gog.com and GamersGate.

 

[inidu]

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.

Valve is the most ridiculously pro-consumer company I've ever seen, which is part of why they have such a strong fan-base. They pretty much invented the current trend of major sales for games, and on top of that, even if you get an account ban (say, for cheating), that just prevents you from buying new games, not from accessing games you've already bought. They provide non-intrusive DRM with useful utilities and no install limits unless, and they back up your saves and settings such that you can resume your game on any computer anywhere. On top of that, all digital content is currently provided as a license, and even all physical game content is as well. This is not something Valve could change if they wanted to, nor something they caused.

Even further pro-consumer, their promotion of community and community content, which started all the way back with Half-Life 1, and continued with their practice of hiring good mod teams to work for them, was way ahead of its time.

You have a problem with how video game ownership law works, not with Valve, my friend.

 

[Souplex]

Not as many as you think since it's only for PC gaming.
Steam maintains its monopoly because it serves the under-served PC gaming niche.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

As long as GFWL is allowed to continue existing, I won't be surprised if U-Play and Origin do as well.

I still don't have an Origin account, and probably never will. I'm perfectly fine only buying things from Steam, gog.com and GamersGate.

If you've bought an EA game within the last 5 years chances are you have an Origin account. EA turned all EA downloader/Bioware accounts into Origin. Personally I don't buy from EA anymore due to Origin and this policy enabled me to dodge the shit bullet that was ME3. Ubisofts Uplay on Steam title means I avoid those as well. At this point only games I win from prise draws and and get really cheap from my local game store (which at this point is only Far Cry 3) Are my recent Ubi games.

 

[Vigormortis]

Steam. Uplay. Origin. Good Old Games. Gamersgate. Games for Windows Live. Impulse. Battle.net.

How many other DD services will we see in the coming years? Depends on what other companies, publishers, and distributors want a piece of the DD pie.

My guess? At least two more new services will pop up within the next two years. Likely coming on the heals of a major publisher suddenly wanting to jump headfirst into the PC market. (i.e. someone like Capcom, Square-Enix, etc)

Hows that change what I said?

The ability to take away somethin someone has legally bought and paid for with quite literally any reason they think is good enough is anti-consumer whatever company or platform it comes from.

Aside from that, if you're defendin Valve I don't think puttin them in the same boat as Microsoft and Apple's ridiculously jacked up ideals on ownership does them any favors.

Either way I don't buy products from them.

I buy my music on Amazon and my games on GoG or in retail stores if its not on GoG. If I buy it in a retail store and it requires Steam/U-play/Origin to play or I can go fuck myself, I take option C.

And as for games on the Xbox and Playstation, so what? The only way that Microsoft and Sony can stop me from playin my games I have, even if their EULA's state its only a license is to physically come to my house and take my disc away. Is it fucked up that they claim the disc I own isn't actually somethin I own? Sure, but there's fuck all the can do about it.

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.

 

[Araksardet]

I don't mind if every publisher has its own storefront. I DO mind if every publisher publishes exclusively on their own storefront.

IMO, the best-case scenario would be if there were dozens of digital distribution platforms, but publishers also publish games on multiple platforms. If everyone were competing to offer the best service and prices, instead of holding their games hostage.

Of course, that's unlikely to happen - instead, every publisher will withdraw to their own platform and never bother trying to make it a quality service, because they have a captive audience of fans.

 

[Caiphus]

I don't actually mind U-Play. At least their games get put up on steam where they can go on sale. And it didn't bother me too much while playing Far Cry 3/Trials Evolution. Origin makes you go onto their service, and download their shit just to buy games. Which is less convenient, frankly.

I'm perfectly happy for Steam to get some competition. In fact, I would rather that they did. Steam has its problems and they'll get sorted out a lot more slowly if it manages to cling onto its monopoly. That said, I don't think that any valuable competition can be brought from publishers themselves, who can supply their catalogue and their catalogue only.

So yeah, I don't mind U-play. Don't like Origin. However, I would rather neither existed and we got our alternatives from greenmangaming/gog/amazon.

 

[chuckdm]

It's a DRM thing. GOG exists to provide completely DRM-free things. Steam's DRM doesn't harm the customer much, and has some benefits too (crazy sales and the like). Ubisoft and EA decided that Valve wasn't being obtrusive enough to player's gaming, so they made their own distribution (and monitoring) platforms. Unless more publishing companies end up like those two there shouldn't be a large increase in distribution platforms anytime soon.

This is why I use none of the above. I have accounts, sure, but I do not have the software for any of these services installed. Instead, I buy 1 copy from Steam/Origin/etc, which I never download or use, then I grab 1 copy off TPB. I paid for a game, then I get to play it without DRM. I support developers and still don't have to deal with "oh noes why would you want to play this singleplayer game offline!" syndrome. And yes, Steam, Origin, and their ilk are little more than "DRM with benefits" and I'm against DRM in any form.

I will tolerate no more spying on me when I'm gaming. If I have to sorta-kinda technically break the law a little bit to achieve that, so be it.

So in short, I don't care how many there are. As long as my browser remembers my steam/origin/etc login and the Bay is still kicking, I really don't care.

Also, note to any mods: If you want to cite me for promoting piracy go ahead, but you'll notice I am paying for the games. If I can't advocate this approach here then I might as well add the Escapist to my list of "services I only tolerate so far" like steam and origin. What I am advocating here is MUCH more than fair.

 

[veloper]

Too bad GOG only does TW, old stuff and indie games. No fault of the potatos, it's just the publishers aren't too keen.

 

[AlbertoDeSanta]

What's worse is when you buy a game through Steam but also then required to install and log in to U-Play.

This happened to me, but with Windows Live. It's the biggest pile of shit that I need two different accounts to play one game that I've bought or been gifted. It's unnecessary bullshit.

Captcha: You can do this. I can, but I don't want to.