Bethesda's single player games have been my escape since I discovered morrowind back in the day.

Everytime when I am disappointed by the mmos on the market, my bethesda games have been my back up plan.

I would just get lost in the worlds of morrowind, fallout and oblivion until the next mmo that i m interested would be out.

So I purchased Skyrim, played a few weeks, then jumped another MMO bandwagon and now its my time to return.

and I get the lousy, filthy, annoying steam "this game is not accessible right now" message.

Why Bethesda, why?

You aint freaking mojang to be dependent on these guys to release a game. Why do you torture me with all this crap about having to troubleshoot why STEAM HAS DECIDED THAT I CANNOT PLAY SKYRIM?

Why do you do this to your loyal, long term customers?? WHY?

After installing, play in off-line mode. Then go "online mode" for latest versions, if you want.

It could also be that Steam is updating info to the system.ini

Sometimes Steam does dumb things like acknowledging that a computer is offline (no connection) but refusing to start in offline mode.

I can assure you that, as laptop user who is sometimes forced to start a program without an internet connection it's a real pain in the ass.

I play in offline mode and only go online if I see enough good press about latest update....I then immediately go back to offline mode....so far I have never got the dreaded steam not available message....the first time I do though this game will be in the trash....Bethesda's reason for going with online activation is ridiculous.....the miniscule number of people who use hacked copies is nothing in comparison to the number of people who can't play this game because they either don't have internet or can't afford it. I have been playing rpg's for over 25 years so I have a pretty good library of games to chose from if I get tired of this....as a matter of fact Oblivion disc is in my computer right now and people are still putting out mods for it....22 new ones today....Also there are so many other things wrong with this game that it would be no great loss.

One word: DRM.

If PC players did not pirate so many games, we would not need steam.

It's not just PC players and Steam is service, piracy has nothing to do with the issue, it's just how Steam works.

False dichotomy. DRM isn't to prevent piracy. It's to prevent used game sales.

Funny how Xbox players had access to a leaked version of Skyrim nearly one month before the release while PC users didn't. Don't blame PC players like console users were all saints. Console users are usually less prone to piracy because it's more difficult to circumvent protections.

This. Basically the software industry thinks it's okay to steal away the people right to sell used wares. How is a piece of software different from a book?

Sometimes Steam goes down...but never for more then a few minutes.

If you're game still says that, Steam has as niffty update system that can detext if your game install is corrupt and will re-download any they are missing/corrupted.
Right click on Skyrim -> properties -> Local Files -> Verify Integrity of Game Cache



I personally hated steam when I first had ot use it 2 years ago, but after using it for a few months I started to love it......as far as modern DRM goes, it is the best.

Nearly 4 years later, and I still hate Steam just as much as the day I first installed it. So, YMMV.

And who can blame them? Games take a lot more money to make, yet they sell at the same or less price

Supar mario bros 3, barely 1 mil dollar to make... costed about 59-69$ on release
A game today takes 10-100mil to make, and yet they sell for the same price.

You can easily sell your steam account to somebody.


Funny how MOOOOOAAAAR games get leaked earlier on PC eh?

Next generation consoles have rumors to completly remove the ability to resell the games. you will need to register your games on your xboxlive account and so on.

And yeah, I understand why.. lets think of it, mr andersson wants to play "harrharr" he gets it for 50 dollars from GAMEstop, gamestop earns a bit of money, and so does hurpdurp who developed the game.
mr andersson did not like the game, or completed it, he takes it back to the store and is given a discount on another game.
GAMEstop will resell the game later, and will earn every single dollar for themselves, and the developer did not get anything.

THIS is the reason why DRM is needed, How do you contribute to the developer by buying used copies? you dont, I rather see people pirate a game than letting some a$$hole store get money they do not deserve.


Some things are not ment to be reselled.
Dont tell me that companies got enough money, because some of them dont.. developing games is a risky way to earn money, either you get tons.. enough, or not enough..
If you dont get enough money you can risk that 100's of people will not have a job the next day.
The first 2 weeks after a game is launched, can be the future of a gamescompany is still alive or not.

Solutions:
Remove DRM but have that you cant resell a game before 365 days has passed (1 year)

Remove Physical Copies and have that you can sell your Serialkey to a digital store and then get a 10-20% discount on your next purchase, a serial key can not be 'used' it does not make any diffrent on the game itself.
a used copy is always a used copy, and will not work just as good as a newly bought game.

Make resellers like GAME and gamestop pay a portion of their reselling profit to the developers.

That's actually more illegal than just pirating the game in the first place.

EDIT: Allow me to expand on that. The sale of a used game is the transfer of a single license, and unless explicitly prohibited in some form, is allowed by the developer and/or publisher. The sale of a Steam Account is the unauthorised sale of potentially dozens or even hundreds of games licenses, which is essentially theft on a grand scale of thousands of dollars, plus it'll get the account closed. Forever.

steam actually makes getting games from your friends and family easier/i played Civ V using my old mans account

I never said that its legal

Plus, why not support Steam, Valve has stated that they MAY make a console.

Oh, wow, a thread about Steam, ya rarely see those in here.

My two cents (again): Skyrim + Steam = svcks [censored] juice.

BUT, we kiddies are just gonna have to deal with it.

This.

Steam... is the only real alternative to getting infected by sony's rootkits and alternative DRMs that royally infect your computer with hazardous software that turns it into swiss cheese.

SecureRom anyone? No? didn't think you'd like that either.

Personally I've never had a problem with steam, if anything it's made life much cheaper and easier. Purchasing games directly through steam has probably in the long term saved me about $2500 in games alone, being able to purchase games that sell in retail stores for 60,80,120 dollars for sub $50 is a damn good deal. Offline mode has never given me a hint of issue. Anyone that has ever reported download issues I've always directed to picking another server, steam has dozens of them...

And it all comes back to the initial rule 5/90/5 rules

Doesn't matter what steam would do, 5% will always dispise steam, even if they did everything they wanted to a t, they'd still hate them... 90% don't care and will like/hate steam given their mood, but typically will accept it without much of a fuss anyways or without giving it a 2nd thought, and the other 5% are in love with steam and any form of bashing steam will bring about the end of days resulting in their wish to defend steam and slaughter the defilers.

And then we have the final rule..... over 90% of the problems people are experiencing in terms of steam related, are user errors...... yup... that statistic still rings true.. i'd even venture a guess saying it's probably closer to 95% of the problems people experience are most definitely caused by themselves either directly or indirectly through their own poor choices.

Do you have any legal precedent whatsoever for this frankly ridiculous statement?

I'm not holding my breath.

Use this thread to discuss Steam

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1331715-unofficial-steamdrm-discussion-26/