As I said earlier, Steam is also coming to consoles very soon... so you won't really be avoiding it there for long either.

I would argue that it IS the game company's fault (by company I assume you mean publisher, they're the ones responsible for antipiracy nonsense). It is the publisher's decision to attempt to secure their games with serial numbers, copy protection, and online installs/saves. Blaming pirates is like blaming a bank robber for a policeman misfiring and shooting a civilian. Sure, the bank robber caused the ruckus, but the policeman should have known better than to open fire with civilians around.

Antipiracy does nothing to stop piracy. Steam releases are just as quickly pirated as disc releases. Ubisoft thought they had pirates beat by forcing constant internet connection, but their games were hacked and pirated all the same. Antipiracy only serves to inconvenience legitimate customers.

The only way to stop piracy is to NOT release the game, like Capcom's idiotic stance with SSF4 PC. They shifted piracy to the Xbox version, disappointed a few hundred thousand PC customers (including me), and lost millions in potential revenue, but somewhere out there a boardroom full of suits think they won.

Please don`t try to state facts when you don`t know them all yourself. Yes, it`s fact that it`s written in a small red box on the cover, but it`s also a fact that the online stores who sells the physical copy of FNV fails to inform their customers that they have to do an online activation. I`ve double checked the store i bought it from and several others, where they do not mention in a single line that this games requires an internet connection to be able to install and activate the game. You might say that if you can use an online store, what`s the problem? To beat you to it, you can borrow friends or families computers to use online stores, that doesn`t mean that you`ll have to have internett access at your home. Ok, i might even agree that the fault is with the online stores that sells the game for not informing their customers about the fact that you have to activate over the internet, still it doesn`t change the fact that people who for example buy this game from an online store when they use their school computer or whatever will get a very unfortunate surprise when they recieve their game in the mail. How could they know that they would need internet to install and be able to use their offline game? But still, as i have said before, i`m glad they didn`t choose the Ubisoft way of always having to be online when playing offline games:P

And personally i don`t have anything against steam, i use them every now and then. The point is still that offline physical copies of games should not have to be activated over the internet to be able to play, if you buy the physical media that should be it.

I was a very big fan of Half Life at the time.
I did not play Half Life 2 because of steam requirement.

And "more recently", I did not buy Dawn of War 2 because of steam (I have Dawn of War and all its extensions ...).

Imarion

You call BS....seriously? Wow...you saw right thru me.

How about this: I didnt WANT to buy a new NIC card. I have another computer with an internet connection. Its just not the computer I originally chose to try and install it on, but back to my original query. Why would you offer to sell a physical DVD of the game if your going to force people to use internet to install it anyway...why not just simply make the game downloadable only?

I find it funny how people refuse to use Steam because of problems they have had in the past. It's that same as saying that you refuse to use a computer because it crashed once a few years ago. It's also funny how people believe that Steam is just for DRM. It isn't. It's main purpose is a game distribution program, with community features and free, easy to download patches. The community friends feature is incredibly useful too. Say you and a friend both buy the same game, and something awesome happens in it. You would either have to go and call that person to tell them, or wait until you next see them to tell them. With Steam, you can tell them instantly. The community features also let you talk to other people that are interested in stuff you are interested in. There are too many features to list for it.


Also, you don't need to be online to actually install the game. You just need to be online to activate it. If you have the disk, you just put it in the community, and an autorun thing comes up (like most PC games), and opens the install from disk part of Steam. No downloads required at all.

Developers can do whatever they want for a drm. They have the right to protect there hard work the best way they can. If that means forcing legit owners of the games to jump through hoops to play it that svcks, but don't blame the devs. Blame piracy.

If you cannot access your saves and DLC while offline that because you are playing on a different xbox then the one you downloaded the DLC onto. You are only being forced to play online because it has to verify you actually own the content.

Im guessing your xbox broke, or you got a new one. You need to do the liscense transfer to get all of your stuff back in line.

All DLC is tied to two things. Your gamertag and your xbox's serial number. If you are playing on a different xbox, you have to be online.

Heres a link to help you out:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Support/LicenseMigration/Home

Same here.

I don't want the community features, and don't want Steam running in the background (and don't want the overlay)... Absolutely none of that has anything to do with the game that I bought; Its adds nothing, but a resource drain and an open server for a singleplayer game.
I paid for the game, not it's parasite.

BoguS I say...
If you are not online, you get the following ~indefinitely.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Install_loop.gif

Even though the installer may choose the files on the DVD over a full download... It still will not begin to install without phoning home first.

Exactly the point of my irritation! Thx for posting the gif:)

Now i've not played game on a PC for quite some time now. The last time was when Steam was just introduced and it was as hated then as it is now. But from what some friends have told me you pretty much have no choice but to have an active internet connection to be able to play your games now, along with Steam in some cases.

I know you need the DRM to stop piracy, but I do think that in some cases this takes it to far. But as I don't game on a PC anymore I guess I don't really care to much.

Actually Steam and the publishers using Steam aren`t the worst cases, at least you have the option the play in Offline mode with Steam. The irritation in this particular case is that you HAVE to be connected to the internet to be even able to install the game when you actually have bought the physical disc. I know some people are frustrated that you have to use Steam at all, which wouldn`t have been such a big deal to me personally if you had gotten the option to install while in offline mode.

And when it comes to DRM, it hasn`t stopped piracy at all:P The best way to stop piracy in my opinion is to create better, cheaper and easier ways to obtain legal products. Not sure about prices outside my own country, but here a legal copy of Fallout NV costs a minimum of 40￡ (amazon.co.uk ￡28.20), or the price in dollars 70$ (amazon.com $46.99), and that`s the PC version which usually is cheaper than the console version. I can understand higher prices in a physical store where the costs will be increased because of production of the physical media, transportation, the need of store clerk salaries, rent of store apartments etc, but when you remove most of these factors with a digital store prices should drop considerally, which they don`t! In some cases i`ve actually found the digital copy to be more expensive than the physical copy, which to to me means that something somewhere is terribly wrong:P

I have absolutely no problem with companies saying that you have to have an internet connection to REGISTER your game!

I mean seriously, what is the problem? IMO, anyone that doesn't have an internet connection shouldn't be gaming anyway!

How DARE they require an nVidia Geforce 6800 just to play the game!

I don't have such a high-end card, and it seems silly that I need one to play a game that I bought from the store as a hard copy.

I bought the game with 159.99 hard earned quamples, and then when I get home I find out you need an nVidia Geforce 6800 to play! DirectX 9.0? I didn't ask for that, it's the developers fault for putting such a requirement on their game.

We should start a class action!

Dude, Steam uses 8mb of your RAM. Is that really a big difference? Also, you CAN disable the steam community in game, which probably makes it less of a drain on your memory when you are in game. You can disable Steam from even signing into the community portion of the program. You can disable any and all notifications. You don't want friends, or have the community features? Don't use them. You don't have to visit any page in Steam except your library if you don't want to. You don't have to even visit the store page. Hell you don't even have to have steam running, except when playing a game that requires it.

Really, I think you are just arguing for the sake of arguing. This isn't 2002, and 8 megabytes isn't a big drain, nor would I classify it as parasitic. That's a bit of a stretch.

EDIT: And let us not forget the grandaddy of all things great about Steam. The sales. Throughout the entire year, they have many different forms of sales. During these, you can pick up games for RIDICULOUSLY low prices. Right now, for example? STALKER bundle is 9.99. DOW2 bundle is 19.99. DOW bundle is 14.99. Its just about to be November folks, the sales are only going to get bigger and better. The Christmas/New Years sale is just..... well. You will see. It blew me away last year, and surely it will only be better this year. Probably bought 15 games, for around 60 bucks and these weren't 10+ year old games.

When it all comes down to it, the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

Dude, now you`re just being ingorant of what this thread is all about. You have to have an internet connection to INSTALL the game, even with physical copies. If it was just about REGISTERING your game this discussion never would have started. I`m a gamer, but my deal is mostly soloplayer RPG games, and because i play offline games i`m not supposed to be able to enjoy those offline games if didn`t have an internet connection?

That`s just as silly as comparing NES games to Wii games. None of them require online connection, the difference is the hardware. Where in this case it`s not the hardware. The game itself is not designed for internet gaming, so there`s no reason for the internet. If you make a new game designed for heavier machinery you need to upgrade, see the difference?Had it been a digital copy, no problem, a physical copy? Well, some people might get a nasty surprise if they try to install it without having internet.