I was reading the "Origin, why?" thread and a thought occurred to me. Or rather, a memory of something my dad said not too long ago. Doesn't fit there, so I thought I'd make a thread for it.
This is more a Steam thread than anything else, but it can apply to other things too. Why is there this fascination, nay, obsession, in the industry with "online authentication" and "always-on DRM" and other such bollocks? (Excuse my French) Take this example:
John Doe goes to GAME, sees The Orange Box for PC. Picks it up, sees on the back of the box "internet connection required for play". "Ok," thinks he, "no problemo." Makes his purchase, takes it home, installs both the game and Steam and is happily playing away within however long it takes him to download all the required updates. Fine and dandy.
However, after a bit, both of Mr Doe's children see him playing X/Y/Z and decide they want a piece of the action too, but both want their own friends lists and achievements, so they need their own accounts. Now we've run into a problem: Mr Doe now has to buy two new copies of TOB for each of them, a product he has already legally purchased (lets forget for a moment that TF2 is now free).
Forking out extra money for something you've already bought is bad enough, but now what happens when Mr Doe's ISP craps out and he's left with no internet? Now he's paid for three copies of games that no-one can play.
This is about the only thing I disagree with about Steam. This just does not seem right, either charging people multiple times (particularly parents) for products already purchased and almost wilfully neglecting to provide ample protection against loss of "teh interwebz". Yes, the ToS almost certainly covers this in some way, but that doesn't answer the question of why one person has to buy 3 different copies of the same thing for 3 different people using the same machine.
Could you imagine the outcry if M$ tried to do that with Windows or MSOffice? "Oh, you've got to buy multiple copies of the product for every person who wants to use it on the machine." Or how about if you went into HMV (or whatever your local movies and music retailer is) and you took, say a copy of Iron Man to the counter. "One copy of Iron Man pl0x." "Certainly. That's blah-de-blah-de-blah. Oh erm, how many people will be watching it?" "Well, me, er a couple of mates maybe..." "Well you'll need to buy two extra copies then."
Yeah that's going to go down about as well as proposing to bring your gay boyfriend home to meet your homophobic dad.
Also, I do realise there is a "Offline Mode" to Steam, but if you don't activate it before signing off for the day, you're buggered if your net cuts out. Or the Steam network dies. (has such a thing ever happened?)
But lets take this scenario from the not so distant past of 2000.
A different John Doe to the first one walks into GAME, sees Deus Ex on the shelf (zomgz! cardboard box nostalgia!). Picks it up, reads the specs and establishes that yes, his PC will run that quite happily. Buys it, takes it home, installs it and plays it. Him and everyone else who uses the machine, on the same machine, without anyone having to purchase extra copies of anything. The internet died? Not a problem, keep on uncovering conspiracies. Little Johnny wants play? Simply hop on and there you go kiddo, no fanny-ing around with logins or anything else. What causes this magic? Simply having the CD in the drive.
Or replace DX with Homeworld, whereby the magic is attained simply by entering a code during installation and leaving the disc in the tray.
I guess my point is this: What was wrong with the paradigm we had then? Why this change to a more inconvenient, troublesome and inherently flawed system than before? Why have we got to download this, sign up for that and stay connected at all times when we didn't used to before? Even if I go out and buy a physical copy of a game today, I can almost guarantee that I will be pretty much forced to sign up for this, that or the other crap just to play, never mind getting updates and patches. It can't be "piracy", as everyone knows that that hasn't really changed one way or the other over the years, so that is not an excuse or a reason.
Your thoughts please Escapist.
tl;dr: What was wrong with CD verification, why must we be signed up and online at all times?
EDIT: Don't take this as an anti-Steam thread, it isn't. You come here to flame me or Steam, you'll be tasting the wrath of the mods, so leave your attitude at the door please.
This is more a Steam thread than anything else, but it can apply to other things too. Why is there this fascination, nay, obsession, in the industry with "online authentication" and "always-on DRM" and other such bollocks? (Excuse my French) Take this example:
John Doe goes to GAME, sees The Orange Box for PC. Picks it up, sees on the back of the box "internet connection required for play". "Ok," thinks he, "no problemo." Makes his purchase, takes it home, installs both the game and Steam and is happily playing away within however long it takes him to download all the required updates. Fine and dandy.
However, after a bit, both of Mr Doe's children see him playing X/Y/Z and decide they want a piece of the action too, but both want their own friends lists and achievements, so they need their own accounts. Now we've run into a problem: Mr Doe now has to buy two new copies of TOB for each of them, a product he has already legally purchased (lets forget for a moment that TF2 is now free).
Forking out extra money for something you've already bought is bad enough, but now what happens when Mr Doe's ISP craps out and he's left with no internet? Now he's paid for three copies of games that no-one can play.
This is about the only thing I disagree with about Steam. This just does not seem right, either charging people multiple times (particularly parents) for products already purchased and almost wilfully neglecting to provide ample protection against loss of "teh interwebz". Yes, the ToS almost certainly covers this in some way, but that doesn't answer the question of why one person has to buy 3 different copies of the same thing for 3 different people using the same machine.
Could you imagine the outcry if M$ tried to do that with Windows or MSOffice? "Oh, you've got to buy multiple copies of the product for every person who wants to use it on the machine." Or how about if you went into HMV (or whatever your local movies and music retailer is) and you took, say a copy of Iron Man to the counter. "One copy of Iron Man pl0x." "Certainly. That's blah-de-blah-de-blah. Oh erm, how many people will be watching it?" "Well, me, er a couple of mates maybe..." "Well you'll need to buy two extra copies then."
Yeah that's going to go down about as well as proposing to bring your gay boyfriend home to meet your homophobic dad.
Also, I do realise there is a "Offline Mode" to Steam, but if you don't activate it before signing off for the day, you're buggered if your net cuts out. Or the Steam network dies. (has such a thing ever happened?)
But lets take this scenario from the not so distant past of 2000.
A different John Doe to the first one walks into GAME, sees Deus Ex on the shelf (zomgz! cardboard box nostalgia!). Picks it up, reads the specs and establishes that yes, his PC will run that quite happily. Buys it, takes it home, installs it and plays it. Him and everyone else who uses the machine, on the same machine, without anyone having to purchase extra copies of anything. The internet died? Not a problem, keep on uncovering conspiracies. Little Johnny wants play? Simply hop on and there you go kiddo, no fanny-ing around with logins or anything else. What causes this magic? Simply having the CD in the drive.
Or replace DX with Homeworld, whereby the magic is attained simply by entering a code during installation and leaving the disc in the tray.
I guess my point is this: What was wrong with the paradigm we had then? Why this change to a more inconvenient, troublesome and inherently flawed system than before? Why have we got to download this, sign up for that and stay connected at all times when we didn't used to before? Even if I go out and buy a physical copy of a game today, I can almost guarantee that I will be pretty much forced to sign up for this, that or the other crap just to play, never mind getting updates and patches. It can't be "piracy", as everyone knows that that hasn't really changed one way or the other over the years, so that is not an excuse or a reason.
Your thoughts please Escapist.
tl;dr: What was wrong with CD verification, why must we be signed up and online at all times?
EDIT: Don't take this as an anti-Steam thread, it isn't. You come here to flame me or Steam, you'll be tasting the wrath of the mods, so leave your attitude at the door please.
