Is this the future for FM?

After having to go through 'Steam' to play FM 12 I am wondering it the following may be the future of the game.

1. That access to the game will be by 'Steam' only and that there will not be any option to buy a boxed version at all.

2. That the game will go fully online only within the next two or three years.

I wonder because having to go through 'Steam' to play the game is of no help to anyone but SI and 'Steam'. It is easier for the customer to play out of the box rather than to have to install 'Steam' before the game can be played. Indeed, there are a lot of people who don't want 'Steam'. I would be interested to read the views of others who may have been thinking along similar lines.

I don't really like having Steam on my computer but if it's set to offline mode I barely notice it. It's not like it pops up with 3 minute ad breaks during gameplay or anything.

Even in offline mode it does pop up every single time you start the game. It only takes one click to say "yes, really I meant offline" and is only a minor irritant, but it does make you do it every time.

I dislike Steam, but if SI want to go that route then I won't stop playing the game or anything.

Unfortunately I can only see this going one way, and that's into a slanging match between the pro and anti steam groups!

I have no opinion either way. I don't hate it, but then I don't care for the benefits that other users like. I don't play any other PC games except FM but can't say Steam really bothers me as I don't notice it's there. I would say that Steam has done what SI wanted it to do this year, and it has also enabled them to implement quicker hotfix patches which have helped the end user.

A lot of people are like me in that they only play FM on a PC, but if you can play a game I'm sure you can download Steam. I can't see the game going 100% digital yet. At least not until most of the users have unlimited broadband access.

I'm not too sure what you mean by 'fully online' though. For me that would mean the same as point 1?!?

To be honest I went back to FM10 for a little while because of Steam and it made me love FM again. 2010 was a great game in my opinion.

I've posted a few times to the effect of not liking it.

It's a buggy intrusion that doesn't offer any services I actually want and cocks up a lot that didn't need fixing in the first place.

Unfortunately from a commercial standpoint it makes absolute sense.

Mandatory use of Steam is one of the few things that makes me feel less respect for Sports Interactive, who I otherwise regard very highly

1)Don't get me wrong I get the boxed copy of FM and would enjoy a simple install no steam however in a reply to your first point on boxed copies.

We need to save resources, simple the Earth does not have unlimited resources and sooner or later all games will go digital, just a fact, we cannot as a race afford to have another 100 years of boxed copies as the price of making them will bwe too high due to the oil prices required to make the plastic of the boxed so I think if SI are starting early good for them, and you know what buying from Steam gives them more money that does not need to go to making of the box/ transport/ retailer's cuts ( though Valve would get a cut). This should mean more money goes into the game , and if it doesnt so what! As long as they keep up their high standard I dont think many will care, and if it bothers you so much vote with your wallet, dont buy it.

Also others are doing the same thing see: PSN( or SEN now) and XBL's games on demand service are already offering,EA's origin servce, so using Steam to install is the same as other game playing machines and honestly I think Steam is nice service to use espicailly the offline service.

2) Didnt they try that with FML, and that didnt make enough money to support it so I doubt they will switch considering the wheelbarrow's of money they make off a pure offline game. And IF they do , dont buy, I wouldnt , again vote with your wallet.

mije1983. By fully online, I mean that there will not be any option to buy the game in a box from your local store. The game will only be able to be played through the internet.

Blidly. I think that the 'if you don't like it then don't buy it' is only a negative and unconstructive view that is used as an easy option. I have not said that it bothers me, only that I would prefer the option of not having to install a third party software before I can play the game. I must admit, however, that I will not play the game if and when it ever goes online only and that I have every incarnation of the game from the first 'Domark' edition.

Keep the opinions coming coming in, gentlemen.

mije1983. By fully online, I mean that there will not be any option to buy the game in a box from your local store. The game will only be able to be played through the internet.

Blidly. I think that the 'if you don't like it then don't buy it' is only a negative and unconstructive view that is used as an easy option. I have not said that it bothers me, only that I would prefer the option of not having to install a third party software before I can play the game. I must admit, however, that I will not play the game if and when it ever goes online only and that I have every incarnation of the game from the first 'Domark' edition.

Keep the opinions coming coming in, gentlemen.

So point 1 and point 2 are the same then :confused:

It, or something very similar, is the future of all gaming.

You're not going to be able to play any new games in two to three years that are not using some form of online authentication. That's just the inevitable reality.

Mije, point one is as you say, exactly the same as point two

I have no idea why people hate steam, unless they are just lazy couch potatos? It takes seconds to log on and from then on it doesn't affect anything. People saying they go back to FM 10 and find their love for the game again??? That's just stupid... Why would having to log on to steam make the game rubbish?

As for people who have problems with steam, it's just your internet that's no good, otherwise everyone would have these issues. I've never had any issues at all.

As for people who have problems with steam, it's just your internet that's no good, otherwise everyone would have these issues. I've never had any issues at all.

Well, that's clearly wrong, isn't it? Unless you have every kind of hardware and software available and run Steam without any issues, you can't really say that. There could easily be any issue with another program causing Steam to not work properly; that would be the fault of either Steam developers or the developers of the software causing the issue rather than the user.

By the same logic, there can't be many bugs with FM because otherwise everybody would have these issues. Sometimes it only affects a number of users.

Back to the original topic, I'd hate to have to purchase the game as a download, if only for the fact that downloads are, for some reason, more expensive.

i personally hate steam and this is coming from a computer repairer. firstly no one actually seems to look further into the registry problems steam causes. its almost as bad as malware. it messes up registry affecting performance. its also a cpu guzzler when being used. all in all i would much prefer the old activate over the phone (yes i remember the whole license coding thing issue we had before) but its easier.

what no one else has recognised either that im not happy about is fm12 comes out same cost as every year but we now if decide to sell it cannot do that. sigames and sega have limited and stopped a second hand market which i totally disagree with.

what no one else has recognised either that im not happy about is fm12 comes out same cost as every year but we now if decide to sell it cannot do that. sigames and sega have limited and stopped a second hand market which i totally disagree with.

Oh, it's been recognised, discussed and debated plenty. Indeed, it's one of the key points for any publisher to use distribution platforms such as Steam- it's a strong tool against piracy, but it also kills the second-hand market pretty much dead. Put yourself in the publisher's shoes- if someone buys a game (or music CD, or film on DVD) second-hand, the original publisher is seeing zero income from that sale at all. From a purely financial standpoint, there's little difference between that and someone copying/downloading it for free. As such, it is in their interest to prevent that from happening.

Personally, I dislike Steam a lot. I don't agree with it from a philosophical perspective- I don't like having a centralised third party involved, because it makes them a target- and I was making the same argument long before Steam was hacked last year. To play an offline game, I should not need a username and password registered on a database held by another company. I am also firmly in the camp that disagrees with the way in which gaming is moving away from people owning games to renting them, which puts the user entirely at the mercy of that third party. If Steam decided to shut off it's servers tomorrow, or if something unavoidable happened to them to take them offline, their T&C make no guarantees whatsoever that game access would be retained.

But going to Steam has achieved a lot of what SI said they wanted it to do when they were looking at the move, so I would expect it to be here to stay. And, if I want to play FM, I'm going to have my peace with it. I have the choice of using it and playing, or not using it and not playing- that is my choice. On the flip side, it does mean that if something Steam-related goes wrong with my game, it is entirely reasonable to expect SI to help sort it out. They threw their lot in with Steam- that was their choice.

But the fact is, there was no pre-release piracy- indeed, it took a good couple of weeks for the game to be cracked. It has made patching a lot easier and more reliable than it has been previously- no, it's still not perfect, and no, the patches themselves aren't perfect, but as a distribution channel, Steam has done it's job for the vast majority of users. And, as you say, it has stopped the second-hand market entirely, which for a publisher, is a good thing. I would be very surprised to see FM go back to a non-Steam (or equivalent) process, because it would be going against the way in which the entire industry is moving. I don't like it, not one bit. But until something better comes along, that's the future.

I have no idea why people hate steam, unless they are just lazy couch potatos? It takes seconds to log on and from then on it doesn't affect anything.

Except for all those times it has affected things.

As for people who have problems with steam, it's just your internet that's no good,

I have an excellent internet connection.

otherwise everyone would have these issues. I've never had any issues at all.

I never have any issues = no one else having issues.

Great arguments there.

I hate steam too, it creates problems problems problems, add these to the actual game problems and some of us might not get a chance to actually play the game

apparently Sega thinks only 4% people who play FM are affected by Steam

I'll never understand why some people love the boxed copy so much. I hate boxed copies.

I actually have to get off the couch and leave my house to get a boxed copy. Even if I am lucky enough to find one available on the internet I still have to go downstairs to answer the door when game is delivered, and the postman comes really early so I have to wake up before 1pm. The boxes are really hard to open too, sometimes I can't tear the plastic off them without hurting my fingers. Last year I had to go all the way downstairs to the kitchen to search for a knife to slice open the seal.

And then there's the storage issue! There is simply not enough room in the world for me to keep a boxed copy of all the games that I own. For now they are kept on top of my wardrobe but it is quite high and I think its dangerous to stand on a chair to get them, so I have to phone my dad and ask him to come upstairs to get the game down for me.

I'm really hope that SI move away from these boxed copies and only offer a digital download. Then my dad won't risk falling off the chair and lots of trees will be saved. Lots.

Don't think this steam argument will ever go away and I can't see why SI would go back now either. Its maybe time to accept steam or go back to fm11 and download updated databases. At the very least its time to stop making threads about it unless we can have a "pointless whinge" forum.