STEAM

People ask for Steam > they give them the possibility to switch over to steam > People complain that steam alone is too limited.

There will always be someone who dislikes something.

If Steam is a problem for you, don't use steam. UBERnet is probably gonna offer all you need, and you can add PA as a non-steam game. If you like steam, use it, but live with the consequences.

Weird discussion.

Steam (or any other type of DRM) is just fine for alpha and beta, but it would really hurt if DRM wasn't loosed after release.

If you join the alpha on steam now, the limitations are not that big. It's not like you are going to play PA alpha on LANs yet anyway. But later on, Steam means a big limitation since you can't just share your copy of the game with your friends on a LAN and play together.
And most people WON'T understand why they had to buy yet another 3-4 full copies of the game for their friends when they only played the game together for 3-4 hours.
And thats an issue with many modern games, they have very lacking single player (if at all) and the only thing worth it is online mode, but then again you are forced to play competitive, unless playing with your friends. But you can't unless they all buy there own $20 copy of the game, even if they play the game only once.

There is a simple consequence to this, either give players who converted their copy of the game to Steam access to the DRM free version too once the game has been released or provide a different solution for steam users. And even if it was just a "light" version of the game, which puts the restriction upon the user that at least one player with a full version must be in the same game.

Steam is not DRM. You can play game's Offline just fine on steam IF the game supports offline play. Steam is a Digital Distributor. It is not inherently DRM, that's the developers choice...

Planetary Annihilation could be put on the Steam Store as a FREE download if Uber wanted to do so, and limit the players ability to connect to their servers based on you having a valid Account Key.

Not saying they should do that, but honestly they could. Pirates will be all over the game on day one anyway... Why not cut out the middleman and have a free copy of the game on Steam that can only play Skirmish LAN games?

DRM doesnt just mean "always online". Steam is basically using an online-activation system for all it's games. You need to be logged in at least once to use the offline-mode after all.
If you add PA as an official game to steam you will probably have to live with this.

You mean just like how you needed to be online to download the game?

Yea. Steam is SOOOO inconvienient. :roll:

Are you really installing Planetary Annihilation from a USB stick while you're already ON the plane?

Talk about crappy planning.

Steam IS DRM, and a rather restrictive one.

The least restrictive form of DRM is when you need a key to install or to play the game, but they key is verified by the installer only and no other restrictions are put upon the player. Nonetheless, thats DRM already.


Next stage is CD key, but with the restriction that two players can't play together using the same key.
To be honest, thats already an inaccetable grade of DRM for me. When I'm in the same physical location as a friend, I want to be able to try multiplayer WITHOUT the need to buy a second copy.

Some publishers are more friendly than others and decide to make the DRM two stage, the CD key is only required for online multiplayer, but NOT for LAN so you can actually just share the CD and you don't even need to share your key. IMHO the best solution by far!


Steam goes even a step further as the game key is bound to your account permanently, you are not just unable to play the game with friends, you can't even borrow the copy of the game to a friend any more. And this isn't even linked to the Ubernet matchmaking service....
Steam is also troublesome if you have multiple PCs. You can install the game on all of them, but you always need to go online with the PC you want to use next to play the game. Bad luck if you just played on your desktop PC, but you take your laptop with you and your forgot to switch to your laptop while you still had Internet... Or if you forgot to activate offline mode while still online, this is also often broken.


Always on DRM is just pervert, but it's not the only type of DRM, just the most restrictive and most troublesome one. And a great example how easily people forget how bad their situation already was before if you just treat them bad enough.

Steam is NOT a restrictive service in and of itself. It is the Developers and Publishers that choose to use Steam as DRM. Steam is perfectly capable of being just a download service if the devs want it to be.

Don't rag on Steam just because Developers and Publishers WANT to use it as DRM... that was their choice.

I can make a FREE steam account and play Team Fortress 2 and never pay a single copper penny to Valve. If Uber wants to they can allow me to make a new account with Steam and download Planetary Annihilation for free, limiting it to LAN parties only...

If Uber wants to. Valve and Steam have NOTHING to do with it.

If Uber is committed to this game being DRM free they probably should give out Planetary Annihilation for free on their own site and on the Steam Store too. If you want to use THEIR servers for matchmaking, hosting and doing the grunt work of the simulation however, then you've got to buy a legitimate game key.

Uber is in FULL control of their DRM situation here, and as far as we've seen they only want to limit your access to THEIR servers for matchmaking, hosting and doing the grunt work of the simulation.

That would be perfect, but you don't really think they will, do you?

I hope they do.

The game will be free to download from any number of sites after just a few hours/days of release... why should the Steam Store be different? Why should the Uber Store be different?

There won't be any pirated copies of the game if the game is free to download from the start.

Playing online and using UberNet to do the calculations for your game... now THAT they can charge for and should feel free to DRM the crap out of. It's their service, You PAY for services. But the game is DRM free. So make the game DRM free. It really should up for download through Steam... for free.

Offering the game for free on an official platform is a ridiculous idea that defies any logic in terms of making money with the game. Unless you add in all these "nice" f2p money-making-concepts.

Even if you have all data available on a DVD you still need to add the game to your steamaccount to use it. Afaik this can only be done while online and every steamgame uses it. (Apart from free game maybe, but PA is just not a free game.)

Also you can't easily resell steam-games, which is also a form of DRM.

M'kay. Good luck with that viewpoint Colin. Resale of games is the one thing Steam can't currently do. But I'm pretty sure EberNet isn't going to had out refunds willy nilly, or have a marketplace on their storefront where you can buy "used" keys.

Steam is restrictive?!
I am the only one here, who can launch the game without steam running (not even in offline mode)?
Just open the steam/steamapps/common/game_folder and run the game like there's no steam. And you can copy said folder and paste it anywhere you want and it will work just fine, if there's no additional DRM in the game itself.

Since when is "the game" out?

Also, that doesn't work on most games, even ones like FTL, Kerbal Space Program, Darwinia, etc. It just calls for steam to open the game for you when you attempt to open the .exe. I don't even know if it's the developers decision - it seems like the are only freed from the Steam - tied DRM if the game has a complete incompatability with it.

Edit:

Thought of another issue: if we decide to buy another copy at release to have it on 2 platforms, it wouldn't include any of the extra commanders in the rewards, so it's not even as if we can just just re-buy the game and get the same on both platforms if wanted.

I am not asking for used keys, but preventing them like steam tries to do is DRM. DRM is far more than just "always online".

Steam's normal way of doing things is to handle everything through the steam-client. So you need at least one online login to play. That's DRM at it's finest form. It just happens to work out so well that most people have no problems with it anymore, which is good. Some games might not integrate with it like that, but those are rare exceptions.

Maybe I don't really understand the problem, but there are many cracks and pirated steam games out there where you don't need to be online to play...

I think for PA it does not really matter, since most of the good stuff happens on the server at Uber... so who really wants to play the game with all its glory is bound to use a good server...

Also, didn't they mention to release the dedicated home-server software later, after game release? So that would be also a way to prevent copying the game in the very beginning...

Wouldn't that be a form of 'timed DRM' though?

For the server software yes... don't nail me on that one, but am pretty sure to remember that Mavor said something about it... older Livestream or... somewhere here in the forums...

I don't give a hoot about DRM except the kind that limits my number of total installs or tries to invade my system and advertise based on what it finds. I think it was Ubisoft that tried limiting me to 3 installs on any machine... ever. Glad those days are over.

But I still won't touch EA's Origin service...

You are probably thinking of Spore, which was published by EA.

Anno 2070 was the game I was thinking of. They removed that DRM measure later... but it was there on release and so sensitive that if you upgraded your Graphics Card it thought you were on a "new" system and ate one of your installs.