I actually consider Steam the best, least intrusive DRM available. The only problems I have with it are the problems that New Vegas demonstrates so well: forced patches, problems playing offline, etc. For games that AREN'T horribly buggy messes, Steam is great. I think the reason Valve has so much trouble figuring out why we want optional patches and so on is that their patches for their games actually improve things 99% of the time (and the other 1% are usually fixed within a couple days).

Of course I also think DRM is totally unnecessary, but as charybdisjim points out, most publishers would rather screw the consumer since it seems safer in their [censored] crazy corporate world.

From a DRM point of view steam is not bad. However it is still poorly implemented, which causes a lot of troubles. And this again disqualifies the platform for an overall DRM measure on a game.
That does not mean that they should not release a game via steam. But it should NEVER be the only distribution. There are quite some folks who like steam and who don't have any problems with it.
But there's about just a group as big as the first who has severe problems or don't like steam. And they also do not want to invest hours of time just to solve problems with a platform they never actually liked.
I lost my entire evening time 2 days ago trying to find a solution for the update problem. There was none. By luck it somehow resolved yesterday evening. On the whole i spent about 3-4 hours just to fix a steam problem. And i really dont have much time over to play games nowadays (so the 4 hours hurt a lot). Steam support is a joke. They needed 36 hours to answer and the answers were as incompetent as i expected them to be. If my problem wasnt solved by now (by luck), I would have to spend more hours to write back and forth with steam support.

It is simply not acceptable.

Yeah fact is that steamworks was successful at preventing pre-launch pirated leaks for the PC version. That alone makes it difficult to argue to them that it was not a correct decision- though I'm sure they wouldn't suggest it could not have gone a little more smoothly. PC RPG launches always seem as though they could have gone quite a bit smoothly. On a scale of Dungeon Lords to Final Fantasy (North American Launches - linear+month of time to patch makes it an easy launch) it's probably between an Arcanum and a Baldurs Gate II in terms of smoothness. Ah man Dungeon Lords was almost worth snagging out of the bargain bins because of how hilariously broken it was. I particularly liked the empty building cells that you could enter but that, once inside, you found they hadn't gotten around to placing any exit doors yet. On the other-hand I don't think requiring steam's continued presence after that has accomplished all that much. Though I'm not sure how steam would respond to bethesda releasing a patch that changed that- not sure if they have a set policy regarding steamworks games and I'm sure Bethesda is under contract with steam for a set term to provide continued distribution and update services. I don't think, even if they wanted to at this point, they could painlessly alter the terms of that agreement.

probably right. My arguing agaisnt steam however is not targeted for the current release (I bought it anyways now), but rather for future releases, where I won't be buying steam exclusive titles anymore. Im quite sure others will follow or haven't even considered buying NV cause of steam. And again: My objection to steam is the implementation and not the concept. Give me a working, well designed platform and I will consider it again.

Well a week later and it seems this situation has only gotten worse. To reiterate the same points I've argued since FO:NV launched:

The "pro Steam" -vs- "anti Steam" debate is counterproductive (trolling) to people who cannot or simply do not want to use Steam because its implementation can be changed to make it entirely optional - which should make it a non-issue. gamesas just needs to release a standalone installer able to read from the retail DVD, standalone patches, and later on retail-box DLC packs - similar to Fallout 3. The installer and patch could be in the same package, maybe along with other tools to help with a Steam to standalone transition.

I would also like an apology from gamesas to the community as a whole and in particular for anyone who pre-ordered as its an added breach of trust. Steam aside, the rampant bugs are a flashback to their pre-Morrowind phase when gamesas was known as one of the buggiest developers in the industry. This isn't merely a hiccup, something caused this cluster [censored] and they need to own up to their mistakes. Half of that is timely patches, the other half is "making good" with the community to help restore some of the decade worth of good will burned.

On the parallel argument Steam is the future of PC gaming, ultimately that is predicated on the notion DVD retail-box releases is not the future of PC gaming, which might be true over a decade from now, but in the short term its a trivial argument. For DVD releases of Fallout 4, Elder Scrolls 5, and so on, I think Steam is fine for a primary release so long as a standalone installer including an unencrypted main executable is made available for download on the official launch date - this could include online game key registration and other reasonable DRM measures. There is little room to argue against that given pirates already provide that level of "customer support", in this case FO:NV was cracked within ~3 hours of the release, the same can be assumed for future releases, and after cracking the DRM is only an imposition to paying customers... I guess by that logic the standalone installer could be delayed until the Steam DRM is cracked, a compromise would be requiring online activation during install until its cracked, then release another one with offline install there after.

Finally, "Steam fans" should stop to consider why there is animosity towards Steam. If it were made optional via a standalone installer-patch these anti-Steam threads would disappear, the negative side of Steam would no longer be an issue, and the positive side could be touted more heavily. To continue bickering about this accomplishes nothing. We just need to uniformly demand gamesas release that standalone installer-patch.

The whole issue of bugs will disappear when an http://www.zdnet.com/news/ec-wants-software-makers-held-liable-for-code/300769 becomes law. Serious game breaking bugs will be a thing of the past when this bill is passed. At least, within the European union it will and will most definitely influence other regions as well . . .

That law will result in games being released in the EU at least six months, and probably a year, after their release everywhere else.

The companies won't be forced to ensure their games are bug-free. They'll just wait till the worst bugs are found and patched in other regions before releasing in Europe.

European game distributors will be hosed as millions of gamers will import the games rather than wait for bug free versions.

And while I agree with the previous poster that Beth could separate New Vegas from Steam, I don't think they will because I still believe it was the right business decision for them in the long run. Only they know whether they gained more sales than they lost or how it has affected tech support issues. I guess we'll have to figure it out based on their future actions.

Eh yeah that will probably mean fewer but more stable releases of business software but it's probably going to kill the release of the PC version of some cross platform games in the EU - if it becomes law as it is currently proposed. When the PC release of a cross platform game can already be as low (for some titles) as 10% - those developers may very well opt to simply not release a PC version in those markets or at all. The real nasty thing about it is that it doesn't matter if the intent isn't to penalize companies over issues that arise from hardware compatibility across a range of possible combinations for which complete testing is impracticable. It will scare those companies who currently see the PC platform as an increasingly dwindling portion of their total market.

I'm not arguing that it is clear from the article that this law would not also apply to consoles - but it would be far more cost effective to comply to it on a closed platform like a console than something like a Windows PC. Yes the law may very well mean that serious game breaking bugs will be a thing of the past; but rather than being a result of more thuroughly tested release it could be because you won't be getting those games on the PC.

Wouldn't matter for me personally since by the time I get around to play a game, at least a year has passed from when they are released. I didn't play the first BioShock until late 2008 and I haven't even played Modern Warfare 2 yet while Black Ops has been released barely a week ago. Time isn't much of an issue for me, I can wait for a game that is playable rather then a game that has been rushed out to meet the deadline . . .


Not all developers will choose to develop solely for consoles, there will always be PC releases. Many people don't have and/or don't even want a console, so I'm not afraid that developers will abandon the PC market if this bill becomes law . . .

Sounds good to me. Too bad the US lags so far behind in consumer protection and Senate gridlock makes it unlikely we'll catch up anytime soon.

Presumably free open source software (FOSS) under non-commercial development would be immune. As a loophole that would make it attractive for game engines to be released as standalone platforms under GNU GPL and have games treated as commercial content packs, data rather than software, also making them immune. FOSS game engines would be a massive boon modding, communities maintaining games after that two year period, total conversion mods becoming standalone games, porting to Linux, and so on. Distribution platforms like Steam would probably become a cornerstone of the commercial market (making non-broadband users even more screwed).

Obviously existing game engine companies would go the opposite direction, building out standardized engines for greater stability and licensing it as a platform just as consoles are now. This would probably mirror operating systems in many respects, more so than consoles are now. Note, EA already proposed this but was rebuked by MS.

Don't start on consoles vs PC. Keep in mind console vs PC market share statistics are limited to crossplatform games, rendering them almost meaningless for the game industry as a whole. PC exclusives and console exclusives do not count, nor do browser games which as a market segment is larger than everything else combined by sheer number of titles. I think huge budget games only gravitate to consoles due to platform standardization, piracy, and horrible cost to performance ratio in the HTPC/set-top-box form factor market segment - all of that will improve in time.

Bah, these posts are too long for forums, I really need to get back into blogging.

I don't mean that they would abandon the PC market- just the PC market in which the potential liabilities of doing business will be seen as outweighing the expected revenues. I also did not suggest all pc game makers would do this- but rather that in a time where PC version sales of cross-platform games are a dwindling percentage of total sales companies will think twice about releasing one in those markets if they do release one at all. That at is to say that for some series the decision to cease PC development of further installments may happen anyways and be unrelated to such laws.

Were this proposal passed a year ago it would have been less likely to delay the release of Fallout New Vegas as a whole- but I doubt you would argue that the PC version would be released in the EU as it is now. It would have been delayed there until it had been patched to those standards- but it could be argued that even Fallout 3 may not be considered up to those standards at its final patched version. So would companies vet the stability of PC releases more thuroughly for markets with such a law? Of course. Would a company decide not to release a PC version and pay for localization if it was decided the expected return on investment would be less than the minimal acceptable return on investment? Of course not.

Unless this sort of requirement were to be adopted in at least one other major market besides the EU nations than I think the most noticeable effect would be fewer PC versions of cross platform titles being released in the EU. I would love a global adoption of regulations stating that software fell under the standards of the UCC as most good do. I hate the special exceptions it currently enjoys- and not exclusively to the idea of working as advertised. Unfortunately, without undoing the agreements and enforcing acts currently enacted by most WIPO nations the most notable effect of this sort of otherwise highly desireable law will be to make the EU pc game market seem, like an unwanted source of liability to those game companies who make most of their revenue off of their sales for closed platforms like consoles.

The effect on PC exclusives? That will probably be a good one overall. Sure you would get fewer releases per year because of the added time they would spend in beta but you would be more assured of a polished product in the end. You would also be likely to see the return of large scale public beta tests of single player games IF free-to-enter betas were excluded from the law's requirements (the article suggests they might not be). As long as public inclusion in testing was not penalized then this could be a good thing for PC exclusives but a bad thing for the availability of PC versions of many cross-platform titles.

If that passes that is going to bite you guys in the ass worst then you think. It pretty much means you are going to have to wait a lot longer for your games because of it.

This is why I'm holding off getting my copy of FO:NV until the GOTY release. Bethesda set the precident with FO3, when they released the GOTY with the latest patches and all DLC it effectivley eliminated the primary reasons for logging onto GFWL. However I'm not setting my hopes up too high for a Steam-Free release because I fear it may result in some sort of contractual violation between Bethesda, Obsidian and Steam. From the technical side its a very easy fix, but until I've seen an official release from the companies in question I'm going on the assumption that the limiting factor are legal in nature.

I would second that having installed F:NV & removed steam without making a note of my username & password I am no longer able to play the game or reinstall on a new account.

Im not sure why this helped you, that Archive invalidation thing doesnt even appear in my install of FNV. I baught mine via DVD, installed, steam took over and patched, added in the caravan pack.. bla bla bla up and running. is thatAII_FNV!.bsa added in third party for people who modded their install, or is it for people who pirated the game? Alot of the people bit**ing about how much they hate steam and its protective measures can blame themselves for forcing the whole DRM thing. If we went back to the old way of just needing the disc and none of this online registering and validation stuff.. then everyone would just be copying the disc and playing pirated stuff. ANYWAY.....

your quoted solution didnt help, because my install apparently doesnt need it, nothing in the default ini file or even in the install directory that is anythign close to the archive invalidation thing.... I do hope your solution helps those who it applies to.

As far as the available options that Bethesda could have chosen from to protect their product from unfair practices and pirated, steam was a great choice. The people who are complaining how they hate how they have to get each game they want to play checked by STEAM by having an online connection are the ones who are trying to play a pirated game for free. Whats so hard about getting your game the big check mark of approval from some enforcing entity(like steam or GFWL) before they play? a few minutes out of their day.. then set their STEAM to offline mode.. wooptie doo. Steam was chosen because its a highly popular marketplace for both games as well as the whole community scene. Automatically keeps your game up to date, sends your game play stats to your page so you can show off how good of a player you are.. all while throwing in some protection for the people making the games.. so they can actually have their products baught instead of stolen. Lay off steam and lay off the game companies, not just Bethesda and Obsidian because thats the topic of this thread... the reason why they had to complicate things and add in all this extra protection and validation is because of the idiots who want to steal. Your fault you cant play your game.. jeese..like complaining to the cops.."why did you have to throw me in jail for all that time" when you go and break the law...


cant find friggen help threads when they are flooded with people wnting to troll on how things are unfair.. uh.. which i think I am doing now...

Anyone have anything decent to contribute to FALOUTNV related crashes and possible fixes? yes things svck, so please stop with it.. I and others here are trying to get out stuff fixed.

What I think is the completely stupid thing about it is that STEAM doesn't deter from a game being cracked. No matter how much they do with a game to try to protect it.. it still gets cracked and pirated. All this over protection does is make it more difficult for people who legitimately purchase the game to play the game they want to play how they want to play it. It's simply stupid.

If it passes, a new type of console exclusives will appear: games that are exclusive to consoles in European Union only and available for PC everywhere else. Because developers can guarantee that their program will almost definitely work as intended only if the system configuration is fixed.

Of course, every application or game will be released in EU at least one year after it is released in other countries. Even if the developers are willing to take risks releasing software for PC, they will wait till people worldwide find all bugs for them before releasing in EU. That means, of course, that EU gamers will import games from the United States to avoid waiting.

Finally, I don't even know what will happen to non-commercial software. "I downloaded your free file deletion tool, set it to remove all files on C: and it removed my valuable data! How was I supposed to know that my documents are also files on a disk? I just wanted to clean up some space! I'm suing you!". This may well stop developers from producing any software without having a bunch of lawyers ready. The costs of software will rise accordingly.

No wonder almost all software developers oppose this proposal.

So game makers will get in trouble if they release a game and it has bugs in it?

I am not new to the concept of Steam. I first encountered it when I heard there was a sequel to Half-Life. I did some research and decided that it wasn’t something I wanted to bother with. Then over the years more and more was being done to and with Steam and I’ve occasionally gone back to see what it has become. It seems that every time Steam gets “improved” it becomes less desirable to me. To this point I have just not been playing games that require Steam, but FO:NV has been on my list of Must Have games since it was announced. I had purposely stayed off the boards about it so that I would not read and spoilers, but I heard that some people had major bugs and I decided to check out a few of these posts so that I knew what to expect, that is when I first found out it was a Steamworks game. I was actually getting ready to go to the store and buy FO:NV when I read that. I did not buy the game, in fact I still have the cash in pocket that I was going to use. I’ve looked at Steam again and seen all that it has to offer, and I still want no part of it. A few weeks ago this attitude was labeled as “old fashioned”, then it was described as “computer illiterate” but now I’m seeing that not wanting Steam makes me a “Software Pirate”? This is just the lowest of the low blows, I hope it doesn’t continue to go down from there. (By the way, if someone loves Steam but not the UbiSoft DRM does that make them Part-Time Pirates?)

I asked this in another thread but I think I should ask again:

Does it really harm Steam users to have a non Steam version of the game? If the retail DVD version had Disk Check and the Steam version had Steam for DRM, would that really cause major problems for Steam? It seems to me that the Pro-Steam crowd got their way, why insult the rest of us who lost out?

Hey no problem man. I didnt mean that as a thumbs down to people who just go elsewhere other then steam.. just alot of the people that complain about using steam is unfair.. why i shouldnt pay for this.. they should pay me for that.. bla bla..That stuff is what drove me to do that post. I myself dont play games only by steam, or use it to influence what games I get and why. I was lightly surprised that the hard copy version of FONV still used steam, but would care less if it did or not... in fact the whole stat tracking and achievements thing on mine is out of sync.. but hey...


short version... didnt mean that towards people who use other games that arent STEAM.. your a beter example of what I would rather see.. dont like steam, use something else... dont whine and whine and whine about it.. specially in tech support threads...sorry if I offended you.

I remember back in the day when I used to pirate games and then get mad when Steam would make the crack stop working, and I too would go online and pretend I was a real customer who bought the game and hated Steam or some other DRM for a random reason. It was kind of fun. Now that I actually pay for games I love Steam.

I just registered because of this thread. I want Bethesda to know i have been a fan of there games since Morrowind. How ever i will not be purchasing NV because of Steam. Sorry for being slightly off topic but the company needs to know that they are losing there most loyal gamers.

Seeing Steam as a DRM module? Ehhh...