Forgive me, this is the first time I have posted here if i tread on anyone's toes, i am sorry.

That said, why STEAM? I did not purchase, nor do i want STEAM. Even when i play it off-line, STEAM is still active (and yes i followed all of the STEAM instructions). i have since, though I have played the game, removed the game from my system, STEAM and all, and will attempt to return the game from where i got it. I doubt if i will get my money back (yes 59.99 USD plus tax). BUT I DID NOT PAY FOR STEAM, nor do I WANT IT on my system!. And not having it, means i cannot play FONV.

Bethesda you were very very wrong to include this STEAM as a must have to be able to play FONV!

As an option, sure, that would have been acceptable, i would have opted out of the option, but it would have been nice to have a say-so in it.

Because of STEAM, I will not play FONV or any other FO game released by Bethesda. I like my privacy, and despite "assurances" that my privacy is respected. it seems that Bethesda and the STEAM people do not respect my privacy by invading my system with their pop-ups and ads, which i do not want nor do i need. In fact, i am going so far as to tell friends and others to not purchase FONV unless they wish to have this STEAM thing on their computer system invading their system with pop-up ads and may the patron Saint of hackers wonder, what other else happens while STEAM is on (was) my Computer (Please notice, that i said MY computer, it is not Bethesda's nor is it STEAMs . . . i have set my systyem to block STEAM and all it's related programs.

Thank you, sorry for my rant

Thomas Dean
FO3 player,
No longer a FONV player

If not Steam, it will be SecuROM, Starforce, or some other invisible DRM scheme.

At least with Steam, it all operates in the foreground.

Sorry you don't like it, but you should get used to it. Digital distribution is pretty much the only way PC gaming is going to survive the console explosion. Steam happens to be the most popular digital distribution store around, as well as the most accepted DRM.

-

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:


Distribution sure; no problems there (so long as it is one option and not the only option)... As for DRM... I dunno; I hope CDprojekt does exceedingly well with their adventure.
http://www.gog.com/en/page/tw2_preorder/

I like the way GoG does their thing, and I hope that they do succeed. I'll still be using Steam as long as Valve keeps treating me right. I've invested a lot of money into their platform, and they've never been anything but good to me. They even gave me a free game one time due to a mild dispute that I had with their payment system.

That said, if they ever turn to the dark side, I'll be the first to damn them.

Why are so many people angry about Steam?

Personally, I prefer to buy all my games through Steam so I can easily restore if I change computers or hard drives. You can download and pre-install games before their release date. The download speed is very fast. Also, it automatically updates the game with patches for you. No need to download individual patches to manually update the game.

In fact I have considered a few games that I decided not to purchase because they weren't available on Steam.

Personally, I would have preferred Securom

I don't think the OP has issue with Steam the Digi-Distributor, like a lot of us here that would like an option that's more than "Steam Digi-Distro" or "Steam onDisc"


First off, Good for you that you can get your games through Steam if you want, we don't mind the option to do so, just remember not all of can do that due to having less than a fast connection & sometimes at least for a Singleplayer game it's best to let the user decide what patch they want to use.

Steam isn't the best for everyone.

Well, when you purchase a DVD off the racks that says you need "activate" on Steam, that doesn't mean to me that Steam will control your game play or chart your progress. I hate it. I want to control what I buy. In this day and age, if they can't solve the DRM without having Big Brother controlling your game play, then think again. Find something better than having developers buy in to a middle man. It's a horrific and sleazy way to sell a game.

Steam might be great for those who participate, but I don't want to. I want it out of my computer and out of my life. I'll register or activate a game with a third party, but I want it to vanish after that.

I'm sorry I bought New Vegas because of Steam. There has to be a better way. I don't want to join a group or a hand-holding marketing plan that takes advantage of my purchase and my computer. Control those who abuse the DRM, not me. There must be digital solutions more sophisticated than this that allows buyers total rights to play what they purchased.

Steam, please, evaporate.

That's the point I was getting at with my first reply. With very few exceptions, pretty much every PC game you buy will install some form of DRM onto your machine without telling you. Some of the more extreme examples will disable certain software that you might be running, such as NERO or Daemon Tools, both of which have quite legitimate uses, despite the opinion of the layman.

StarForce, in fact, has been known to destroy disc burners, because.. you know.. pirates use them to copy things.

Steam, on the other hand, does everything right up front. You sign in, you activate your game, and you can go offline whenever you want.

You're fooling yourself if you think that the other games you're installing aren't running things in the background.

Now.. with all this in mind.. which seems more like Big Brother to you?

This wont stay secret for long.... and the answer is not to buy in the first week/or month of release. :shrug:

There are folks out there that will install a new system (or VM) and endeavor see exactly what a product installs ~and some will make that information public.
(Or you can sometimes ask the publisher/reseller; I've done this before and gotten an honest answer.)

You guys are making a huge deal out of a piece of software that you don't even have to "use" after activation.

You can install FO:NV without downloading it from steam using a simple run command. It will install steam as part of the installation process, and prompt you to tie it to an account. After that, you can run in offline mode, and just use steam to install updates.

Steam is the best form of DRM out on the market right now, it doesn't force you to remain online (I'm looking at you Ubisoft....), it doesn't have an awful installation and update process (GFWL), and it doesn't cause conflicts with other software or hardware (see Mister Nutsy's post above). Of course, it would be better for all of us paying customers if we had a choice not to have steam or any other form of DRM included with our games, however.... game publishers for the most part still see their paying PC customers as a whole as a bunch of criminals.

Exactly, and there have been people monitoring Steam since the beginning, and I have yet to hear any news of it doing anything malicious other than making you memorize a password.

The same can not be said for SecuROM or StarForce.

No DRM? Great! Those days, however, are behind us.

Steam will not install a game (even from the disc) unless you are online. There are tremendous tracts of the US where reliable internet is not an to option buy, or nowhere near an affordable option. Folks with a desktop cannot always pack it up and haul it into town to the coffee shop or library; (and their friends may be in the same boat). Steam loads itself every time you try to play whether you are online or not. I do not want an application that I did not run to have access to my system using my security credentials (or even just CPU time and RAM). :shrug:

*Point: McAffe pushed http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175940/McAfee_apologizes_for_crippling_PCs_with_bad_update once that crippled corporate and home users alike when it mistakenly destroyed Windows system files, leaving those systems unable to boot. How would you know or even guess at the cause!? Auto updates are bad if there is something wrong with them, or something that you do not agree with ~in that respect its like theft! because they overwrite files on your system without permission.

In the case of Steam I don't care. I just want it gone. Right now its on my system as the unwanted friend of a guest, and when that guest leaves it will get the boot.

*Not even a guest at that (since I PAID for FO:NV); Call it the unwanted assistant of a paid entertainer ~like the balloon clown at your kid's party that brings along an offensive (and overly forward) friend ~to "help".

Well Witcher 2 may be either the turning point or the last nail.

given a choice between all the DRM out there i would say STEAM is more desirable than the others, especially ubisofts crappy version. unfortunately due to piracy DRM is here to stay although ironically all of them (including STEAM) have been broken and in the end they only work for a day or two. if i recall correctly there was a workaround to ubisofts ultimate super unbreakable DRM within a couple of weeks of assassins creed 2 being released.

there is nothing wrong with STEAM. it is not doing anything malicious to your computer otherwise we would have heard about it by now. the most dangerous viruses and trojans are the ones you DONT see. and you will never see them unless you AV catches them or you babysit your processes page in task manager. people that complain about STEAM taking over their computers leads me to one of two conclusions........you are currently wearing an aluminum hat and never look up for fear of being seen by "those" satellites or you have a pirated version and cant get the game to work.

if you want to see an obnoxious system then you have to look no further than games for windows live in fallout 3 which was horrible and caused game crashes. now that is an intrusive and malicious software.

I hope it's a turning point. I really do. I sympathize with those who are forced to use Steam when they don't want to.

As an avid gamer, I happen to find it extremely useful, though. I think Valve is a stand-up company, and if we must have DRM, I'm glad they're the ones that have made the biggest splash lately.

I'll still continue to buy from them, regardless, and I'll still stick up for their service.

Guys... DO NOT FEED THE TROLL!

This issue has been posted and reposted. Consumers that fail to read the agreement on the packaging (or gathering information about that on their own) have no one to blame but themselves. DRM practices like Steam is the future. While GOG.com offers DRM free software, there are limitations. Softwares developers (or property/license holders) must agree to the sale of their software and may disallow it from being downloaded in the future (which has happened). Obviously, you may backup the software at any time, but support will halt when the agreement expired.

Steam allows continual support for the life of the product and will most likely allow DRM unlocked software when and if the Steam activation service is terminated.


***

As long as there is piracy, there will security to protect against it. It matters not whether the protection is successful. Deal with it. It is your right to not purchase services that may or may not have security protection. However, posting on the subject doesn't change policy.

except that it effectively discriminates those without broadband connection


though in LIVE's favor, using it was an option, I was happy when I noticed on the first trailer that FNV wasn't a G4WL title. had I known then that it would use a system that would in essence say "make the Dialuppers SUFFER!" I have spoken up alot sooner

You might take a closer look at the items you're purchasing.
It says right on the box that it requires an internet connection and free Steam account.
You did, in fact, pay for Steam.
You just didn't read the fine print.

No one ever does... This is why at least 30% of topics in the hardware and software discussions are insufficent hardware. Do people ever read EULA (the fine print) for anything? When you buy a car, do you not read the lease agreement... or do you simply sign and forget about it??

Laziness or simply ignorance... that is the true question.

@Rusty: There are plenty of sources of Internet for those who do not have broadband at home (broadband is listed as a requirement on the box). Go to a Internet Cafe, a public wifi hotspot, or a library.

I never figured out any way to disable LIVE. I could use it offline or online, sure.

What was most annoying about it is that it would arbitrarily decide whether or not to start with the game. Depending on what it decided, I would have two different sets of saves.. those from a game I started with GFWL, and those I started without it. If I wanted to resume a game I started WITH GFWL, and it decided not to work, I had to restart my computer.

I'm currently playing FO3 on the second computer since I got the game, and I still have this problem.

GFWL is total balls.

Honestly, I can see how the text on the box could be misleading. It's not inaccurate, but it can be misinterpreted.

There was a fair bit of pre-release discussion of the issue, but if you didn't follow the game before its release you would have missed that.

edit: Fallout Mod Manager has an easy way to disable GFWL. FOSE does it by default. I'm not sure it was intended to be able to be disabled, but it isn't difficult.

You miss the point. Some did not read it sure, but others (like me) knew full well, but are angry that it was done at all.
** Imagine if you were told that you had to give a fingerprint in order to use your ticket to a movie at the theater.

***Actually an airport security check is more apt. (and just as effective) *Had to pull the perfect youtube link; Adam Savage swears at TSA in the end.

Which ones? (curious)

You can buy it like a music CD, but you cannot sell it like music CD. I don't see how Valve can ever make good on that claim, as they would have to get permission from vendors on a title, by title basis ~unless its laid out in their terms of service that they can strip out the protection if they wish.

More to be angry about. :shrug:
This is no different than say... if the next Batman film were to only come out on Bluray ~"Deal with it. It is your right to not purchase... the movie."
There is nothing legally wrong with it, but it would still be foul.

Unfortunately, likely to happen at some point. Can you buy "The Dark Knight" on VHS?

That day is coming, too. Good luck trying to buy VHS copies of new releases.

GIT OUT MAH HED!