Does FM 2011 need Steam?

[x42bn6]

EDIT: You're evident hatred of DRM means you are either a pirate or a loony libertarian who doesn't understand simple economics.

Personally I bear no grudge against anyone, either commercial entity or private individual who takes steps to protect their hard earned revenue streams.

The argument is that DRM actually hurts things in the long-run because it annoys loyal customers.

It's the wrong industry but it's a similar argument to this: http://r3dux.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/DVD-Customer-Vs-Pirate.jpg

Invasive DRM hurts genuine customers because the game will inevitably cracked and therefore DRM-free - so who gets hurt more? The loyal customer! The pirates get DRM-free software (although they may have to wait), while the loyal customers get the joys of DRM.

I would argue Steam is invasive because it can actively restrict what you do, although it's not as bad as, say, Ubisoft's idea of DRM.

The only DRM that needs to exist is sufficient DRM to discourage casual pirates. There are people who pirate who will eventually go legal because they will be able to earn more money or will eventually understand the importance of paying for software. However, for these users, they would never have bought software if they hadn't been exposed to it (including pirated software) in the first place! Consider deviantART. I am sure that the majority of works on there produced via Photoshop are illegal copies of Photoshop - the average teenager won't have access to an Adobe license. Yet it is exactly this market that is most likely to go on into the design industry in the commercial world, using legitimate, commercial versions of Adobe's products. If Adobe had put in a very restrictive DRM that prevented a lot of piracy (or at least made it very hard to run without it), then teenagers wouldn't be interested in Photoshopping (they may have gone elsewhere) - and Adobe would get less revenues later on.

The only thing that DRM needs to address is casual copying. The other thing required to defeat piracy is to make those who could be willing to (eventually) go legal is to convince them to go legal via more working demos, DLC and education (amongst others). There will always be a select group of people who will pirate without caring - developers and publishers can do very little about that, akin to getting a persistent convicted thief to try and buy things from a shop properly. It's the other part of the market that needs to be addressed, and it's not the avenue where restrictive DRM works.

Where Steam succeeds is bringing content digitally to users. Where I am wary in this department is Steam's near-monopoly in this area and the fact it can rip-off European and Australian customers with its 1:1 pricing. Steam really needs competition before I personally will consider its virtues - which is a shame, because I really wanted Civilization V.

[playmaker]

If you would have read what i said you would see i meant two people playing a different game on the same account.

I did read what you said. And I understood it. What I am telling you is that irrespective of Steam, what you are talking about breaks the licence agreement and it always has done. Steam/DRM has just made it possible to enforce.

And dont give me this its just a license crap. I haven't signed any license when i bought it so they can shove their Eula's wherever they want. I bought it i own it. It might be different on steam where you perhaps have to agree to some conditions before buying it. But to compare eula and other silly things disclosed after the purchase has been made to a government issued drivers license is just silly.

Actually its not a fact. Companies might want it to be a fact but legally speaking its on extremely shaky grounds. I never said i owned the IP. Thats just silly. I just own a copy of the product and that is a fact.

But yes, i mostly stopped buying games. Most of those that i would like o play are infected with DRM and im not paying for such a product.

It's not crap. It's 100% legally irrefutable fact. I worked in software licensing for 15 years and took part in over 400 audits, so I'm pretty well versed in the subject. It works exactly like a driving licence - it grants permission to use or do something according certain rules out of your control. It doesn't matter how you would like it to work, this is how it does work - even if it is difficult to enforce at times.

You DID agree to the licence. The installation has a check box and you can't continue without ticking it.

[TCBarrett]

Well, things are quite angry here.

The problem is always with the lawyers. Blame them!

The laws surrounding this topic are stupid and need some common sense attached. There are lot of sensible solutions already available in the public domain. There is a middle ground, because people will buy stuff that they like and want. It is a shame that penalising loyalty has to continue rumbling on for so long.

I am not a Steam fan either, and am cautious of anything that uses it.

Requirements, be they legalese, hardware, software, dependencies or memberships should be clearly conveyed to the consumer. Sadly the games industry is maligned with a bad reputation when it comes to this. And unless this changes, I will not be pre-ordering any game ever again. Even the only game out there that I await more eagerly then FM (and I've been waiting for years on that ;p)

Amongst all the FUD here, the OPs original question is a valid one. FM staff could just answer the question. It is not a difficult one. Even if the game is incomplete, they must know what they are trying to achieve, the decision will have been made months ago.

But I re-iterate - blame the lawyers!!

[Miles Jacobson]

Recently I have had very bad experiences with games that are integrated with the Steam organization. Civilization V was my most recent purchase and it was so bad that I returned the product to the retailer and received a full refund without question. I was so puzzled that they had not asked me any questions as to why I was returning the game that I asked if they had experienced problems with the game. They said that hundreds of people had returned the game and all said that they were unhappy at the integration with the Steam organization. I love the Football Manager genre of games and have bought every new version since its inception. However, if Steam is involved then I, along with many other friends, shall not buy the new game. So, can anyone please tell me whether this game has been integrated with Steam?

The problems with Civ are nothing to do with Steam.

You do not have to play FM via Steam, but you'll get the better experience by using it, due to the achievements and auto-updates. Unless you don't like achievements and auto-updates.

For anyone who is interested, Steam Cloud will be available for FM11.

That is not true.

[edgar555]

Tiger Time spreading false rumours again!

[TigerTime]

Ahaha. The review on FM Base of FM11 says steam cloud is enabled for FM11.

There's a screenie of it as well:

[edgar555]

Hmm, who do I believe? the bloke making the game or fmbase?

[TigerTime]

Same, of course I believe SI on this. It's just that I believed it was enabled for FM11 because Sean (FMBase admin) said it was and provided a screenie in his game review.

[Blaupunkt]

Your experience is not a general description of everyone's Civilization V experience - in the same way that the guy who installed it and had problems too isn't a general description either.

There are a fair number of people who are annoyed with Civilization V and Steam, although the majority do go on to play the game anyway.

There's oddly enough nothing flawed about that argument if there are ways of making money through sharing of software. A lot of games a while back were pirated for large LAN games - like Quake or Counter-Strike - where one license was illegally used for everyone. Yet what happened was that these people got into the game and when they grew up, they became loyal customers who went out and bought the software - because they were given the opportunity to play the game when they were younger. And it has nothing to do with the disc - some games don't require you to have a disc in the drive to play.

In addition, games released under free licenses can be played across multiple computers. Some developers let their customers freely distribute limited demos of their software and let them have online/LAN play.

by the very fact you are trying to use the "piracy is good, it leads to loyal fans/customers in the long run/future " proves your argument IS flawed, i used to play HLDM/CS/TFC when it first came out, i went to a lot of lans, noone there EVER had a dodgy copy of a Half life with a key generator to play the game! i see you have tried to use this argument in other posts after this, while i can follow your logic and see what you are saying it simply is not true. how do you know the majority of work produced on deviantART or sites like this is done with a dodgy copy of photoshop?!!! how do you know some people dont use something like >>Gimpo<< which is free >>INFO<<.

after reading all the posts before posting this it seems to me you are judging people by your own standards.

All this tinkering of settings is truly annoying though, surely? If I want to play the game, I don't want to go through all these silly methods of running Steam offline or telling Steam to ignore updates manually through some setting I didn't know existed (the majority of users never see "Settings" options). I just want to play the game the way I want to play, and it just so happens Steam breaks a lot of these "wants".

and

Er, no. The average user doesn't touch settings or options - the average user rarely sees it, too.

From my experience the "average user" cannot wait to get their hands on settings, where they usually select the incorrect screen res, ramp up the AA etc, then set most if not all of the settings to high or max then wonder why the new game they have just got runs like a 3 legged dog through knee high treacle, and i am talking about my own family and friends here and believe me when i say these people are the most "average" PC users you can get, for example sit my did in front of a PC and with in 5 mins he will have screens up you did even know existed and more web pages than you can possibly imagine as he continues to wildly click anything and everything on the screen!

[reflection22]

What exactly is Steam Cloud, out of interest?

[r0x0r]

(re: Steam Cloud support)

That is not true.

While I understand the arguments against steam cloud for saves, have you considered letting us use the cloud for tactics and training routines? They are small enough that it shouldn't be an issue, and would make multi pc playing easier.

[TigerTime]

Lets you save your games online on steam so you can play your save game on any computer that has FM installed and steam installed.

[kristo17]

Will the steam achievements be bugged like in fm10....

Some of the biggest achievements is bugged, in details you are not awarded with a achievement

For an example : Continental King and Hero achievements.

[edgar555]

Will the steam achievements be bugged like in fm10....

Some of the biggest achievements is bugged, in details you are not awarded with a achievement

For an example : Continental King and Hero achievements.

Yes I think thats what they are aiming for You know, just to annoy you.

[x42bn6]

by the very fact you are trying to use the "piracy is good, it leads to loyal fans/customers in the long run/future " proves your argument IS flawed, i used to play HLDM/CS/TFC when it first came out, i went to a lot of lans, noone there EVER had a dodgy copy of a Half life with a key generator to play the game!

Of course, you generalise the entire gaming population in the entire world? I'm not denying that buying legal software will lead you to continue to buy legal software in the future...

Just think about it! Piracy lets people know how good software is, and this will undoubtedly sway opinions of the company that made that software in the future. In addition, piracy is free promotion of your software.

Why do people encourage the spreading, almost pirating, of demo applications? Because it's publicity! Demos are, after all, as close as you can get to "legal piracy" - spread the word with a cut-down product.

In addition, for music at least, pirates actually buy more music than the average user. Why? Because they like the music and want to support them. The lack of samples and demos for music means that piracy is often done - you can't know what something is without experiencing, and you are therefore less likely to buy an unknown artist's album right away.

I agree it is counter-intuitive but consider this: If your product is pirated heavily, it means it's a pretty damned good product, and therefore you have a product that will sell for the correct price. There will always be pirates who will never buy your software unless you make it free, but you can't do anything like that - but if you can convince your consumer base to buy, then you will sell more.

Why do you think companies are trying to connect with their customers more, through social networking, interacting with customers via forums, by letting them in on advertising promotions, by rewarding long-term customers with more benefits, and so on? Simple - it's got to the point where DRM isn't helping, but people are finally wisening-up that there is actually a large proportion of customers who are "on the edge" of pirating but considering buying - if you make them happy, they will buy.

i see you have tried to use this argument in other posts after this, while i can follow your logic and see what you are saying it simply is not true. how do you know the majority of work produced on deviantART or sites like this is done with a dodgy copy of photoshop?!!! how do you know some people dont use something like >>Gimpo<< which is free >>INFO<<.

The average age of deviantArt is around 18-22 I think (I've forgotten where I read that survey from) - the demographic that can't really afford Photoshop, by far the most popular image editing software out there. GIMP's market share is nowhere near Photoshop's. Legal image editing software exists - but it's not heavily used (because Photoshop is that good).

From my experience the "average user" cannot wait to get their hands on settings, where they usually select the incorrect screen res, ramp up the AA etc, then set most if not all of the settings to high or max then wonder why the new game they have just got runs like a 3 legged dog through knee high treacle, and i am talking about my own family and friends here and believe me when i say these people are the most "average" PC users you can get, for example sit my did in front of a PC and with in 5 mins he will have screens up you did even know existed and more web pages than you can possibly imagine as he continues to wildly click anything and everything on the screen!

That's not the average user. I've done software development and know what the demographics of software are roughly like. The average user doesn't care about anti-aliasing - they want to play the game right now. The settings come much later. Some games have different sorts of average users - like video games with very steep requirements (they attract more technical users than normal, so they are more likely to go for the settings). To them, the "Play Now" button is about as tempting as it gets.

A game that is well-designed will have optimal settings for the screen and video card, amongst others - so there is no need to go to the settings. I consider myself a technical user yet I didn't go to the options when I bought Football Manager for the first time (2007) - I didn't need to, although later I discovered some tricks through it. Warcraft III too has a very good set of default settings and few video game issues unless you have a really old computer - it just works.

[Blaupunkt]

Of course, you generalise the entire gaming population in the entire world? I'm not denying that buying legal software will lead you to continue to buy legal software in the future...

Just think about it! Piracy lets people know how good software is, and this will undoubtedly sway opinions of the company that made that software in the future. In addition, piracy is free promotion of your software.

Why do people encourage the spreading, almost pirating, of demo applications? Because it's publicity! Demos are, after all, as close as you can get to "legal piracy" - spread the word with a cut-down product.

In addition, for music at least, pirates actually buy more music than the average user. Why? Because they like the music and want to support them. The lack of samples and demos for music means that piracy is often done - you can't know what something is without experiencing, and you are therefore less likely to buy an unknown artist's album right away.

I agree it is counter-intuitive but consider this: If your product is pirated heavily, it means it's a pretty damned good product, and therefore you have a product that will sell for the correct price. There will always be pirates who will never buy your software unless you make it free, but you can't do anything like that - but if you can convince your consumer base to buy, then you will sell more.

Why do you think companies are trying to connect with their customers more, through social networking, interacting with customers via forums, by letting them in on advertising promotions, by rewarding long-term customers with more benefits, and so on? Simple - it's got to the point where DRM isn't helping, but people are finally wisening-up that there is actually a large proportion of customers who are "on the edge" of pirating but considering buying - if you make them happy, they will buy.

The average age of deviantArt is around 18-22 I think (I've forgotten where I read that survey from) - the demographic that can't really afford Photoshop, by far the most popular image editing software out there. GIMP's market share is nowhere near Photoshop's. Legal image editing software exists - but it's not heavily used (because Photoshop is that good).

That's not the average user. I've done software development and know what the demographics of software are roughly like. The average user doesn't care about anti-aliasing - they want to play the game right now. The settings come much later. Some games have different sorts of average users - like video games with very steep requirements (they attract more technical users than normal, so they are more likely to go for the settings). To them, the "Play Now" button is about as tempting as it gets.

A game that is well-designed will have optimal settings for the screen and video card, amongst others - so there is no need to go to the settings. I consider myself a technical user yet I didn't go to the options when I bought Football Manager for the first time (2007) - I didn't need to, although later I discovered some tricks through it. Warcraft III too has a very good set of default settings and few video game issues unless you have a really old computer - it just works.

there is so much i can say but so little point.

[philly_flyer10]

It's not crap. It's 100% legally irrefutable fact. I worked in software licensing for 15 years and took part in over 400 audits, so I'm pretty well versed in the subject. It works exactly like a driving licence - it grants permission to use or do something according certain rules out of your control. It doesn't matter how you would like it to work, this is how it does work - even if it is difficult to enforce at times.

You DID agree to the licence. The installation has a check box and you can't continue without ticking it.

For it to be valid, you have to have a chance to agree or decline it to be valid. Since you cant do that, everyone but the pedantics dont give a crap about the EULA and do exactly what they want with it with no consequences at all.

[jakobx]

I did read what you said. And I understood it. What I am telling you is that irrespective of Steam, what you are talking about breaks the licence agreement and it always has done. Steam/DRM has just made it possible to enforce.

It's not crap. It's 100% legally irrefutable fact. I worked in software licensing for 15 years and took part in over 400 audits, so I'm pretty well versed in the subject. It works exactly like a driving licence - it grants permission to use or do something according certain rules out of your control. It doesn't matter how you would like it to work, this is how it does work - even if it is difficult to enforce at times.

You DID agree to the licence. The installation has a check box and you can't continue without ticking it.

#1 - Read it again. There is no law that prevents me from using two products i bought at the same time.

#2 - Were you auditing companies or normal people? There is a difference. Anyway. The checkbox appears after the sale has been made and any additional terms that were not disclosed during the sale are IMO not applicable. Perhaps the courts would agree but we wont know until such a case happens in european courts.

[Matt ex SEGA]

I think this thread is probably done. Not least because there's at least 10 more like it on the forums....

You don't have to like Steam, and with the last version of FM, you don't have to use it. That's likely to be the case this year to the best of my knowledge. So we'll shut this one down, and you can all wait for the announce...

Cheers

Matt