Already on sale?

[StephenT]

I can understand that I cannot play two copies of the same game. But why should I not be allowed to run Civ 5 on computer A and PoN on computer B at the same time?

I'm pretty sure you can do exactly that. Just put Steam into Offline mode before you start the game. Since it's not connecting to the internet it has no way of knowing whether you've also playing a different game on the other computer.


As for the general point: yes, Steam is a form of DRM. It's much less intrusive than, say, Starforce; and it's a lot more convenient than having to keep the physical disk in your drive whenever you play a game. I'm afraid I can't understand people who object to DRM just on the principle of the thing: do you also object to people locking their door when they go out? But as well as being DRM, Steam also lets me buy both new and classic old games at very low prices, and automatically patches them and keeps them up to date for me.

The only time I'd ever hesitate to buy a game through Steam is if it's something like a Paradox or AGEOD title where I know there are going to be lots of beta patches and hotfixes, because Steam only support actual released patches. (Oh, and if I want a printed manual for some reason, or a glossy artbook or something being offered with the physical disk.)

[Ironchancellor]

Sorry if i sound dim but what does DRM stand for? Yes i have several games on Steam as well ive had no problems with them. Unlike Gamersgate where ive had a few games i couldnt run maybe because of my type of Windows. But like you said you know the games are up to date and been set to run in different windows compatability. There might be a way in downloading beta patches on your game by looking it up in your Steam directory. Theres a sub folder called Steamapps then in that there is another folder called Common. Open that one up then you see all your games there with all there own files, like if it was in your own program directory. If you have your PON game there study the files and see if you can recognise the ones that this site mentions. Obviously its up to you if you want to try it all out and see if you can install the beta patches. If it goes wrong i expect you can uninstall the game clear any files in that PON folder and install the game again.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[DooberGuy]

I find it much more annoying that I have 10+ games on my steam account but I am only allowed to play 1 at a time!

So if I have my nephew and niece over I have to choose do I play a game or do they play a game I bought and paid for.

I can understand that I cannot play two copies of the same game. But why should I not be allowed to run Civ 5 on computer A and PoN on computer B at the same time?

I understand that the developers like Steam to get a copyprotection service, but this limitation of use of items I have purchased and paid for is going too far.

Put your other Steam accounts onto offline mode, if it's offline they don't know you're using it on another computer

[Czert]

The offline thing is easy, you just connect to steam, start the game and then go into offline mode in steam.

So, you are doomwd in 2 cases - if cant start/connect to steam for whatever reason and/or your acont will be banned (for whatever reson too).

[Czert]

Duh! STEAM isn't just a game seller you know. They're a DRM service. What would be the point of putting gamers thru the trouble of downloading games from STEAM if there were not some sort of DRM advantage to be derived from it? Limiting the usage to one computer at a time is the whole point to STEAM and if you don't like it, don't buy from STEAM unless absolutely necessary. The only games I have from STEAM are the Total War games because you just can't avoid STEAM when you purchase those particular games. Everything else gets purchased elsewhere even if I have to pay a little more. I certainly wouldn't have purchased PON thru STEAM.

And implementing of DRM is why I love gamersgate and hate steam (have games froom booths), enjoing games from from gamersgate, but dont play steam anymore - it was civ 5, and it as great disapoint to me. Civ 3/4 was much better to me.

edit:
and i just after reading other posts remembered another - very important thing to me - security. Due the way as you download/manage games (and direcories) via gamersgate/steam, you are relative safe if someone hack your gamersgate account (but you must messed something earlier to allow it to happed), but via steam you are much more vulneable (infected steam can dowload viruses/trojan horses without your knowlenge).

[flotsam]

Has everyone forgotten about the most subtle DRM of all? Losing your license key via manual, e-mail, jewelcase, or whatever. Or, losing/crushing/breaking
your actual CD/DVD. Ever had an understanding manufacturer listen to your story and send you a new game?
With Steam, you never have to worry about that again--codes are always there.

Tired of patching, patching, and patching again. Just to play a game with your friends 6 hours later? (i.e. try COH sometime).
With Steam, you never have to worry about that again--games are almost always fully patched--unless there are issues.

Want to have a game ready when you get home?
With Steam, you never have to worry about that again--just start downloading the game before you leave the house. Come home from work--presto.

Want to play multple Steam games on multiple computers?
No problem, just start Steam in offline mode on however many computers--though you cannot play two of the same game--that's piracy.

FYI, if there are online requirements, it's because the game designers themselves put it there not Steam OR the game is specifically designed to work with Steam cloud and it's a "feature". (i.e. Batman/MS Live). So multiplayer games you may have to login. Single player--offline.

Did your computer hard drive just die?
No problem, your games will be ready in no time.

Want to find deals on games just about every week/holiday?
It's hard to find a better deal than Steam has to offer--albeit, I see better deals elsewhere at different times. You have to catch the deal at the right time--and compare. Like PON for $10.

I was a skeptic, but now I love Steam. All the above issues happened to me. Now, I appreciate Steam.

[Kev_uk]

I was a skeptic, but now I love Steam. All the above issues happened to me. Now, I appreciate Steam.

Lol! You sound as if you have joined some kind of cult.

[montgomeryjlion]

Steam-Lovers anonymous!

Personally, I loathe Steam because I'm away from the internet 90% of the time with my laptop and always forget to go offline so I can't play my games...
Absurd...

Also, when I get back, Steam spends an hour uploading something or other. No patches, just the Steam engine.

But, in the end, whatever makes you happy...

[berto]

Has everyone forgotten about the most subtle DRM of all? ... Or, losing/crushing/breaking your actual CD/DVD.

I misplaced a game CD under weird circumstances once, and HPS sent me a free replacement forthwith. HPS & AGEOD -- nice guys to do business with, both.

[RobC04]

[quote="montgomeryjlion"]Personally, I loathe Steam because I'm away from the internet 90% of the time with my laptop and always forget to go offline so I can't play my games...
Absurd...
QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure you can go offline after you are already disconnected from the internet. It may take a little while before Steam times out trying to connect though.

[montgomeryjlion]

Personally, I loathe Steam because I'm away from the internet 90% of the time with my laptop and always forget to go offline so I can't play my games...
Absurd...
QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure you can go offline after you are already disconnected from the internet. It may take a little while before Steam times out trying to connect though.

I'm told it works but it doesn't for me...
Or maybe I'm just not patient enough...

Recall waiting for 15 minutes one time though...

This is on a laptop with iffy power connections.
NOT what I want to use my battery life for.

[ERISS]

Steam users are compelled to love it, as they can't leave it once they have some games on... That's why Steam is the more evil drm.

[DooberGuy]

Now that this thread has become a Steam vs. non-Steam thread I apologize. I was just wondering if anyone had any news on how the game has been selling?

[Adlertag]

For me doing 50% to a game just released one and a half month ago is disrespectful for :

1 the developpers who worked so hard to create such huge games.
2 the customers who bought the game at release 20 euros. I can't imagine the same situation with a car, say, you buy it 20 000 euros this month and 2 months later your neighbour could buy it 10 000 euros...

Retailers logic is also strange as now customers are aware of that and will wait some time before buying the game at a low price.
In fact, this silly war between retailers is going to kill developpers motivation to create good and deep games which are so time consuming.

Finally we all lost something :
1 Customers are encouraged to wait to acquire the game at low price although they wanted to play it ASAP. (related to argument 2 below).
2 Retailers are forced to go forward their logic of continually lowering price of games to sell more. (related with argument 1 above).
3 Developpers aren't paid the right price for the huge job they did.

[McNaughton]

People can chase sales all of their lives, pinch pennies, and never get ahead. I really think that a sale on an object that is $20.00 is not the end of the world.

If you are good with your money on a regular basis, this is no issue to have spent $20.00 on a game that is now on sale for $10.00 (i.e., that $10.00 will not make or break you).

If you are bad with your money on a regular basis, then a 50% sale on $20.00 will not help you anyway (i.e., you would most likely have thrown that $10.00 away on something useless anyway).

So, really, why the issue on such an inexpensive product anyway?

[RobC04]

For me doing 50% to a game just released one and a half month ago is disrespectful for :

1 the developpers who worked so hard to create such huge games.
2 the customers who bought the game at release 20 euros. I can't imagine the same situation with a car, say, you buy it 20 000 euros this month and 2 months later your neighbour could buy it 10 000 euros...

Retailers logic is also strange as now customers are aware of that and will wait some time before buying the game at a low price.
In fact, this silly war between retailers is going to kill developpers motivation to create good and deep games which are so time consuming.

Finally we all lost something :
1 Customers are encouraged to wait to acquire the game at low price although they wanted to play it ASAP. (related to argument 2 below).
2 Retailers are forced to go forward their logic of continually lowering price of games to sell more. (related with argument 1 above).
3 Developpers aren't paid the right price for the huge job they did.

I don't really know exactly how Steam makes arrangements with game publishers when it comes to price. If it works like a store that sells physical goods, then Steam must pay the game publisher a set price per unit. So if Steam sells a game for $10 or $20, Paradox would get the same amount of money from Steam. It is only decreasing how much money Steam gets to keep per unit. Steam dropping the price wouldn't hurt AGEOD or Paradox. Of course I don't know if that is how it really works, but it makes sense. I don't think a game publisher would just agree to Steam setting whatever price they want if it meant the game publisher would get less money per unit sold.

All stores set the price at a point that will be the best for them. A lower price means selling more units. It also may boost attention to the game, get it into more hands, and then have peope buy more copies at the full price when the sale is over.

[RobC04]

People can chase sales all of their lives, pinch pennies, and never get ahead. I really think that a sale on an object that is $20.00 is not the end of the world.

If you are good with your money on a regular basis, this is no issue to have spent $20.00 on a game that is now on sale for $10.00 (i.e., that $10.00 will not make or break you).

If you are bad with your money on a regular basis, then a 50% sale on $20.00 will not help you anyway (i.e., you would most likely have thrown that $10.00 away on something useless anyway).

So, really, why the issue on such an inexpensive product anyway?

I think the most important parts of being good with money is spending less then you make, put money in savings for retirement, and don't borrow money unnecessarily. Part of being good with money means not wasting it. Sure saving $10 on one item isn't a big deal, but if you try to make most of your purchases (games and otherwise) at a good price, then you are saving $1000s of dollars.

So, if you were really excited to get Pride of Nations when it came out, and it is worth paying full price, by all means do it. Nothing wrong with that. I paid pull price for Civ 5 because the Civ series as been my favorite series of all time. It was worth it to get it when it came out (in retrospect it wasn't worth it because I don't think it is as good as the other Civ games, but I didn't know that at the time). I was on the fence with Pride of Nations and the $10 sale made me buy it a couple days ago. I still haven't installed it and tried it yet.

[Turbo823]

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE STEAM VERSION!

You will hear a lot of people complain about it on this site, but the game doesn't have anything wrong with it if you buy it off steam and if you wait for sales you can get it cheap. To be honest though, this game is already cheap.

I agree. Steam for me is an easy way to archive all my games. If the hard drive crashes, and I can easily reinstall without having to worry about serial numbers, patches, updates and so on.

Pride of Nations is now $10 on Steam, this seems like bad news to me. Did the game not do well, or is this just paradox being dumb?

The only logical reason for discounting a game is to promote sales on a lagging product. What I personally think is hurting this game is the slow execution speed of the turns. Most gamers are going to shelve a game that takes 1.5 minutes to 7 minutes per turn to process.

[ERISS]

If the hard drive crashes, and I can easily reinstall without having to worry about serial numbers, patches, updates and so on.

Same with an external HD (which won't crash if you only use it to store your games, and disconnect it when not in use), plus you owe the games and don't need internet to install them.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Ironchancellor]

Hello sorry if this is a bit offtrack talking about the pros and cons of Steam. But talking about having games on external drives someone mentioned about storing games on there and turning it off and on. Well i have an external drive and i also store my games including my Steam games on it. I usually keep it connected and running all the time as i use one or other of my games from computer and external drive. My USB cord had packed up a few weeks ago and luckily i had the right type from somewhere else to connect it up. What i want to know there isnt anything wrong or possibly damaging having a external drive connected and running all the time? And could it cause a USB cord to wear down somehow? Im just curious about this as i never used external drives before. Otherwise the games seem to run fine from it. Thanks for any replies.

[Kev_uk]

Hello sorry if this is a bit offtrack talking about the pros and cons of Steam. But talking about having games on external drives someone mentioned about storing games on there and turning it off and on. Well i have an external drive and i also store my games including my Steam games on it. I usually keep it connected and running all the time as i use one or other of my games from computer and external drive. My USB cord had packed up a few weeks ago and luckily i had the right type from somewhere else to connect it up. What i want to know there isnt anything wrong or possibly damaging having a external drive connected and running all the time? And could it cause a USB cord to wear down somehow? Im just curious about this as i never used external drives before. Otherwise the games seem to run fine from it. Thanks for any replies.

I cannot see that the cord would go wrong by constantly having it plugged in, although if you keep moving it or unplugging it then, like any cord, it will increase the chances of being damaged - but just having it continually plugged in should not cause it harm.

External drives are slower than your internal Hard Drive, so yes I would use it for storage but I would not use it to install software on that you run from it. They are excellent for backup however. Like with any computer peripheral the more you use it, the higher the chances of it going wrong.

HTH

[ERISS]

if you keep moving it or unplugging it then, like any cord, it will increase the chances of being damaged
External drives are slower than your internal Hard Drive,

That's why I use a good (quick and sure) Internal HD on an external dock which can be put ON/OFF without unplugging it. To be sure, you may want to unplug it when the weather is stormy.
As an additional security, have an usb-key where you copy again your buy datas and game keys (the HD should not burn, that is a psychological security ).
With the dock, you can even easily test your old internal HD you spared...

[Ironchancellor]

Hello thanks for your reply. Well playing a number of games from it doesnt seem to affect them too much. But i see on the Amazon site yesterday that they have their own USB connection cords for external drives that seem to have good reviews. And they also have external drives there that arent too expensive. But my present one a Maxtor suppose to last for 20 years i hope. See how it goes, thanks for your advice anyway.

[Ironchancellor]

I forgot to mention that i didnt keep pulling the USB cord out and putting it back in all the time. Its to much trouble doing that at the back of the computer. If i wanted to turn the external drive off i would pull the main plug out that it has. No i just found one day that it was no longer functioning with my main computer and i traced the problem to the USB cord not working anymore thats all, so i replaced it with one from something else i got until i get another one from amazon.

[RobC04]

... You have to decide if you want to enjoy the challenge of a reasonably good AI or play something more simple like checkers to get your instant gratification fix.
.

I am glad the long turn times don't hamper your enjoyment of the game. There are a lot of good computer strategy games out there where AI turn times are less then a minute. You don't need to play a game as simple as checkers for that. Also the market for hard core strategy games is unfortunately a small part of the gaming market. That is probably the biggest reason why sales might not be that great (we are just speculating here). Having long tern times probably doesn't help. There were lots of complaints on the Civ 5 forum when turn times started getting above 30 seconds pretty early in the game. Fortunately they were able to improve that.

I too favor a strong AI vs fast turn times (up to a reasonable point, which is different for different people).

[Kev_uk]

I am glad the long turn times don't hamper your enjoyment of the game. There are a lot of good computer strategy games out there where AI turn times are less then a minute. You don't need to play a game as simple as checkers for that. Also the market for hard core strategy games is unfortunately a small part of the gaming market. That is probably the biggest reason why sales might not be that great (we are just speculating here). Having long tern times probably doesn't help. There were lots of complaints on the Civ 5 forum when turn times started getting above 30 seconds pretty early in the game. Fortunately they were able to improve that.

I too favor a strong AI vs fast turn times (up to a reasonable point, which is different for different people).

One reason I never got into the massive War in the Pacific is because the first turn took at least over 1 hour to plan , and then even longer, in some cases with lots of combat, to execute. It was really unfortunate as the game was good and well researched. It needed more automation, but then that raises the question is it being dumbed down to try and rectify this?

It was a monster game, and it became an actual 'chore' to play, i.e the enjoyment and fun factor became outweighed by long turn planning and resolution. So I think PoN (for what I have played of it, busy with RuS presently) is quite frankly not all that bad.

I think you need to find a healthy balance with something as big and intimidating as WiP and a game that also is as well researched and as 'big', but still keep a game enjoyment factor, such as PoN. When I was younger I know I would have really loved Grigsbys monster games, now older and with more responsibilities I just don't have the patience or the actual time, which is tragic in lots of ways.

[Ironchancellor]

I ditto the last message. The same problem here because of the detail and scale of those sort of games and all the rules i just dont feel i have the time to go into those sort of games as much as i prefer them. Thats why i never got Plan Orange or War in the East as much as i would like to. Especially the cost of them as well knowing i wont have the time for them. Oh well the curse of growing old i suppose.

[montgomeryjlion]

Well, just to be contrary, it's only in "older" age that I actually found the time to play these games.
That is, once I kicked the last kid out of the house