Would you buy Civ5 if it was only offered on Steam?

[Nikolai]

It's not Firaxis' decision. PI is both dev and publisher, Firaxis is only dev.

[Modo44]

But feel free to rag on Steam because your ISP sucks

Yeah, because Steam itself is stable and available 24/7, and the rules never change.

But seriously... what difference does it really make. I'm not a big fan of steam, but I'll be damned if I let that effect my decision on whether I want a game or a not.

DRM from a third party not fully controlled by the publisher. What could possibly go wrong?

About the only positive argument for Steam is about multiplayer. The others are just saying it's not that bad, like not being terribly bad is an achievement of some sort.

[Ming]

You don't change your ISP because they had a fire in the Exchange building and took 4 days to recover their services.

Actually... I probably would. A real ISP would have a back up plan in place that doesn't take 4 days to recover from.

If you don't understand the difference it makes then this discussion isn't for you Ming. What I think is pretty obvious with the question of this thread is if you're actually so ticked off by the game being only for sale on Steam, if you'll pirate the game.
Because rest assured Ming, everyone here WILL play the game.

Maybe I'm not the one having problems understanding. With the exception of the original load, and any updates, you don't need to be online to play the game. It can be played in offline mode. You DO NOT NEED an internet connection to play the game.

And if what you are claiming is that you will STEAL the game because it isn't available in a format you like, but is acceptable to many, I think that says a lot about you.
Being available only on Steam doesn't seem like a reasonable reason to steal the game to me. At the end of the day, it's still theft.

I can't emphasise enough how Paradox' system is the most user friendly. If you buy the disc you get an online copy as well.
If Firaxis did the same, allowed us to play offline without Internet connection, and yet allow us to register a version of the same game we paid for in Steam if we want to, enjoying all the benefits that Steam has like Multiplayer, how could we possibly complain?

In fact, why wouldn't Firaxis want to do this?

Again... games can be played offline with Steam, so what's your problem?
There are many different ways for publishers to distribute their games. For BUSINESS reasons, they make what they think are the best choices. I would personally like to buy the game from D2D, because I've had the best experience with them, and I think their customer service is superior. But I hated gamespy. So while Steam isn't my favorite choice, I'm not going to whine and say I'm not going to buy the game... or say I'm going to steal it.

If I really want the game, I will buy it regardless of the distribution method.

[rah]

I had problems connecting the other day. I just opened steam and selected play offline and had absolutely no problems playing. I don't know what people here are talking about. I'm not a fan of steam, but the crap people are saying here is an over reaction. More games are going this path so people are going to have to get used to it or do without a legitimate copy.

[ColdPhoenix]

I had problems connecting the other day. I just opened steam and selected play offline and had absolutely no problems playing. I don't know what people here are talking about. I'm not a fan of steam, but the crap people are saying here is an over reaction. More games are going this path so people are going to have to get used to it or do without a legitimate copy.

Were you playing Civ 5?!?!

[Nikolai]

I believe there are other games than Civ5 on Steam...

[rah]

One other nice/bad thing about steam is they offer limited time offer demos on games. They're not stripped down versions of the game. So if you like you can try them and be bored by them by the time the trial period is over.
Some consider it annoying that you're notified that they're available when you log in, but it's not a big deal and I actually like one of them that I tried. I would never have tried it otherwise.

GET OVER IT.

[Modo44]

GET OVER IT.

Make me.

[rah]

Yeah, not being face to face does have it's limitations.

[cloudtoground]

And what about slow Internet?

Hey guys, I'm a Civ player that doesn't post here often. This thread has me a little worried.

What about the people who have incredibly slow Internet connections? How will they acquire the game, if they have to download the entire thing with Steam?

My father has a maximum download speed of 20Kb/s. And it's a marginal-quality wireless connection...prone to disconnects. How long will that take to download the game? Could it even be done in a reasonable time-frame?

And yes, he DOES play CIV. And it's a desktop, not a laptop, so driving to a fast hotspot isn't likely. Any other counter-arguments I need to address? I've had some time to think this through...

Why can't a physical disk be available in stores at all? Not everyone is blessed with high-speed Internet access.

[thyrwyn]

Physical disc will be available, but you will need to authenticate via Steam.

[MxM]

I had problems connecting the other day. I just opened steam and selected play offline and had absolutely no problems playing. I don't know what people here are talking about. I'm not a fan of steam, but the crap people are saying here is an over reaction. More games are going this path so people are going to have to get used to it or do without a legitimate copy.

I have 2 problems with steam, and it is not the actual requirement of being connected to internet.

1) I am casual gamer, I do not play games each day, STEAM is not running on my computer constantly, so if I want to run Civ, I would have to run STEAM first (even if it is done automatically). That means I have to wait, when steam runs, loggs me into their websites, checks for updates for this and other games, takes resources from my computer, and only then launches the game. And when I end the game, I have to manually open steam window and exit from steam to free computer resources. It is a hassle that I do not need.

2) Steam updates itself from time to time (quite often actually). The problem is that it can download update, but it would need to be shutdown to install the update. Next time when it starts (when I decide to play another game, which can be in a week), it connects to internet, and installs update. Internet connection is required for that. On couple occasions I could not play game because of that because my internet connection went down and steam would not be able to install the update, and I, of course, would not be able to turn on offline mode, because steam would not run without finishing update installation! One time I could not play for a week during my vacation because of the storm and flood in our area killing my ISP for long time.

Yeah, sure, my ISP was bad in terms of down time, but at the time, it was the only high speed internet available to me.

These are the two things of why I do not want to buy games on steam. Impulse, Gamersgate are much better, I always check those sites first before STEAM.

That said, I still prefer Steam to CD (if you have to insert it each time to play)

[rah]

Can't you just keep it in offline mode. I did that for awhile and since I had it set not to launch at startup, when I wanted to play a game. Click steam, it would launch in less than a couple of seconds since it didn't have to connect. AND since it's not connected it's not searching for updates. When done, it takes about 2 seconds to shut it down. I don't see how 4 to 5 seconds is any kind of real inconvenience for playing a game. Loading a CD takes much longer.

[MxM]

Can't you just keep it in offline mode.

But then it removes the advantage of keeping my game up to date. Other online distributer handle it better - when you run downloader (such as Impulse) - it will check for the patches, but by itself it does not need to be present to play the game! Steam is ugly in this respect.

When done, it takes about 2 seconds to shut it down.

It takes two seconds for me just to find that small icon in the tray. And of course, they conveniently do not allow you to exit steam by right clicking on it. You have to run the full window, (takes time) then click the file menue and exit. It takes longer than 2 seconds, and for me it is annoying because they kind of force my hand to do it (or force me to leave STEAM running)

Loading a CD takes much longer.

Oh! I agree with that, and this is why I prefer STEAM to CD and will buy it on STEAM when it is out. It is just there are better systems to distribute the program, that care more about people who pays money for the game. Any other system that I know of is better and less intrusive than STEAM! ANY OF THEM! And that includes even company specific stores, like Blizzard store.