And this is why I am planning to find a way around Steam. Stuff like Steam are just crappy programs, prolly made by the Government, to control what we play. That's what I think is happening now.

1. You can't legally circumvent Steam if the game requires it to activate.
2. lolwut. It's used by the gaming companies to try and maximize profits, the government has nothing to do with it.

Narmy is correct
but on point 2 the effect is really that it alienates at least a portion of the potential customer base thus profits aren't maximized & creates a haves & have nots situation needlessly (in comparison if Steam was an option

Point 2 was a joke. As for Point 1. If I paid $60 for Skyrim and no matter what, I have every single right to play it the way I wish to play it. With or without steam. I didn't stole it, didn't harm anything, didn't did anything bad. I just bought the game and play it the way I wish to play it, which is without Steam because I don't have internet on my gaming laptop. If doing that is illegal then that law is unjust.

~Edit~

And it is going against one of our freedoms in America, unless I am mistaken and other people are allow to control what you do your own private stuff that you've paid for.

If the loss of customers was a major problem, then they wouldn't keep using it. Just sayin'.

I agree with you that it's unfair. I just thought I would caution you, since the rules here are touchy about the subject of DRM circumvention.

Ah okay. I don't want to cause any problems on here because I ain't an enemy of Bethesda's for sure. I loved what they do, and I want to work at Bethesda some day after I get my schooling for Game Designing done. This steam thing is the only thing that they've done that really got me on my nerves about.. I understand why they did but I just don't understand why they force it and not make it optional.

Money. It's more or less the same reason you see exclusives on consoles. For every game sold on Steam, a portion of the sale goes to Valve and a portion goes to the publisher/developer of the game. If they sign an exclusive contract, the publisher/developer gets a larger portion of the sales. That's really all there is to it.

That is basically the question thought by all so called "Steam haters"

Just popping in to say this: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/rumor-valve-potentially-working-on-a-steam-box-console-with-partners.ars

Valve already commented on those rumors:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Valve-Steam-Box-Zotac-Alienware-Big-Picture,14959.html

The HDTV friendly UI had already been planned months ago as an update to the software, but they don't have any plans for a Steam console at the moment.

And I don't for one second believe them when they say they have no plans for it when even they qualified it with "at the moment". That's marketing code-speak for it's coming.

They didn't, that was my paraphrasing of the article.

What would they have to gain from hiding it anyway?

It would take people actually doing something other than complaining on the internet.

Once people show that it's a serious issue and bring some of Valve's questionable actions to light, they may change their policies. I doubt anything would change otherwise.

I have feeling something very bad is gonna happen here soon because of Steam and programs like it. I'm curious how long its gonna take for someone to try to sue them or something to the like.

Here's a thought!

The company who made Steam is leeching! Think about it. They made Steam, a free and pretty much useless program that is connected to some games. When 'Steam Games' are sold, that company gets a cut of the profit... Basicly, they do nothing will getting some of Bethesda Softwork's profit! That is what I called leeching.

Correction; they don't do nothing, they sell and advertise and distribute the game. They replace retail stores in that function. When Walmart sells a Bethesda game, Bethesda gets some of the money, and Walmart gets some. They don't seem to really "do" anything other than put it on shelves, but shipping copies costs money, and any shelf space occupied is space not selling something else. Bethesda has store pages, but they don't own huge chains of buildings to distribute games to people all over the country, and so those stores get a cut for serving that need.

Steam doesn't have to worry about shelf space or the shipping of physical copies, but maintaining the enormous bandwidth of a service that deals with so many large downloads is very expensive in itself. They deal with that instead of Bethesda, and advertise the game to the millions of people who use the program. Reasons to like or dislike the program are a separate issue, but Steam "deserves" a portion of the profit as much as a retailer does. One of the reasons so many companies are so quick to hop into using Steam is because they actually allow the publisher a larger chunk of the profit than retailers do.

Spyware is malicious. Steam is not.
Id say preventing you from playing your game is malicious.

Spyware does not provide a service. Steam does.
What service, buying games and chating, steam is one of thousands.

Spyware is supposed to run invisibly. Steam clearly does not.
True, it sits there doing nothing, contributing nothing, taking up space.

Spyware is installed inadvertently onto your system. Steam is not.
Steam is even worse they black mail you into using it.
Up untill just recently on most games it gave no indication on the game box you were going to be force to use steam. Even on skyrims box it says internet connetion and steam account required for activation. It doesnt say once its activaded you still have to run steam. That could be misiniturped.




Could happen, I dang sure would want to join in on a class action, Bethseda needs to feel the pain too for treating its customers like chumps.

I can you see you've givin up all hope. To be honest I guess the steam model is going to be the future of every thing, movies, games, music, we wont need to buy computers, dvd players or consoles any more, just one box and an internet connections all were going to need.

Sounds convenient, doesn′t it? It′s also convenient for them as they can without difficulty control everything about your media consumption. They can give you what you want but they can also shut it down completely, restrict access to certain things, or suddenly demand extra monthly pay and if you refuse, well you can guess what happens.
Steam is centralization and if history has taught us anything, it is that with more centralization comes less freedom and control from the people which is what true democrazy is about.

When someone not even in my own country can decide what games I should play or what music I should listen to, then a very dangerous path has been taken.

QFT

Mirocu, Terror, I think that's a bit overdramatic. There will always be other avenues, simply because there will always be a demographic that cannot into DRM. Would I like to see Steam go away? Yes. But do I have other options? Yes.

A quick reminder, advocating DRM circumvention is not acceptable on the forums. It's fine to say that you don't like DRM or that you're going to boycott a game or publisher because of their use of DRM. However admitting to circumventing DRM or advocating such action may result in an official warning.

As we're approaching the post limit here let's try for a fresh start http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1359009-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-27/.