Open Letter to Steam and Firaxis Games

[Brutus66]

I have to agree with the OP. I still nostalgically remember how simple the install was for Civ2 (my first exposure to Civ)- you simply put the disk in and installed it, no code/serial, no phoning home to mama to make sure it was legit. Sure, Steam has nice features, but the point is that there is no opting out. The fundamental, underlying premise is that you're a thief that is assumed to have stolen the software until proven otherwise. That (along with cheaper distro) is Steam's raison d'etre. Civ V doesn't have Steam because the consumer desired it. Ultimately it was the decision of greedy corporate bean counters afraid that, somebody, somewhere, was cheating them out of a buck.

So screw all of you with your replies of "yawn". We have to say, at some point, "Enough is enough already", or in just a few short years this crap becomes accepted as "normal" and before you know it we are dealing with Ubisoft-level copy protection. When it comes to either government or corporate behavior, it's not a matter of what is "right", but what the road will bear, ie; what we are willing to tolerate.

[Brutus66]

. firaxis exists to sell products, not to make you happy. if they can achieve a sale whilst making you happy, that's convenient and nothing else.

Three cheers for Steam!

Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

Typical, 21st century sheep.

[Guynemer]

Jesus H Christ, man. It's no different than installing DirectX. I've got way better things to be paranoid about than Valve.

Besides: somebody, somewhere was cheating them out of a buck. Lots and lots and lots of bucks, to be accurate.

[Ming]

So screw all of you with your replies of "yawn".

Yawn... silly rants... Yawn again. They are simply trying to protect THEIR product from thieves. Go ahead and rant about how they are considering you a potential thief, but guess what, people are potential thieves, and they are doing what they can to protect their investment. They aren't calling YOU a thief. When you lock your doors, are you calling all your friends and neighbors thieves? NO... just protecting yourself, just like they are.
Try to claim that nobody will steal their product if they didn't put protection in place... go ahead... OH, you can't.

[wodan11]

The fundamental, underlying premise is that you're a thief that is assumed to have stolen the software until proven otherwise. That (along with cheaper distro) is Steam's raison d'etre. Civ V doesn't have Steam because the consumer desired it. Ultimately it was the decision of greedy corporate bean counters afraid that, somebody, somewhere, was cheating them out of a buck.

I don't think that's the only reason. Civ IV had obvious and big time problems with the in-game downloader that significantly impacted the market. Or, have we forgotten about all that? There are plenty of reasons that ease of distribution, instant gratification for the buyer, convenience of updates, etc.

[Egbert]

How exactly does one need to learn how to use Steam?

Check two boxes, you'll never need to deal with Steam at all.

These boxes are perhaps cryptically named, maybe this is the problem?
"Offline Mode" apparently means allows games to work offline. That could perhaps be made more clear...
Unchecking "Load Steam on Windows startup" is perhaps also cryptically named. If only we could somehow make it obvious how to disable Steam from loading on Windows startup.

I want Civ5 on my disc. I do not want anything else on my disc.

I am not disputing the points you made. I do not care about those points.

This is discrimination against luddites, discrimination of the worst sort with terrible and unimaginable consequences.

Luddites of the world unite !

[PLATO]

*****ing about how intrusive steam is when you're running microsoft products always amuses me.

Shhh! They will hear you.

[Lambiorix_be]

I Ultimately it was the decision of greedy corporate bean counters afraid that, somebody, somewhere, was cheating them out of a buck.

So screw all of you with your replies of "yawn". We have to say, at some point, "Enough is enough already", or in just a few short years this crap becomes accepted as "normal" and before you know it we are dealing with Ubisoft-level copy protection. When it comes to either government or corporate behavior, it's not a matter of what is "right", but what the road will bear, ie; what we are willing to tolerate.

What did you expect, that the game industry is some kind of charity with as ultimate goal to please everybody. It is just another company that needs to make money in order to make more and better products. If you don't like them don't buy their products, it is your own choice. If most customers agree with you their sales will go down and they will change their policy. It is that simple.

I don't understand why people first buy the product and then start complaining. There were so many opportunities to be informed about this before you bought the game...

[Iola of Shinola]

The only annoyance I have experienced with Steam is that somehow my password got messed up. I requested a email reset. 25 minutes later I was still waiting for the email and I figured that maybe I should make the request again. Mistake! 15 minutes later the email arrives, and it won't work because (I surmise) the second request has messed up the first one. Only issue remaining is that the second email has yet to arrive (2 hours and still waiting.) I guess I will go make a third request....

[Iola of Shinola]

UPDATE:
I never received any further emails from STEAM.

I finally got the password reset thing to work. It is cumbersome, and frustratingly slow for the email thing to work. The first time it failed, and then many many hours of frustration elapsed before I finally got it to work. Who is to blame??? I dunno. I might have fat fingered the code AND screwed up on the copy and paste ( yes I tried both ) and then finally got it right the next time. OR maybe they were having some sort of server issue or something.

[Ming]

I don't think anybody will praise "customer support" at Steam. Personally, I love D2D better, because they have been very responsive when I have had a problem. Steam never is "responsive". They have always been slow to respond to emails, and I'm usually not thrilled with the response. But it it is what it is.

But if I was a gaming company, I would use some system like this. When I park my car, I lock it. When I leave my home, I lock the door. That doesn't mean that I'm calling everybody a thief, it just means that I know there are thieves out there. I have to protect myself... just like the game companies have to.

[dannubis]

Not that I disagree with the usage of steam, (besides some initial problems having to do with my firewall settings I never had any problems with it) but this analogy is misleading. You don't have a third party come into your house and lock it for you. This is what steam does.

Now, for those who don't like to have steam automatically do stuff behind your back, Asher already explained how to turn this off.

[Ming]

Well... if I couldn't lock/secure my house or car myself, you can bet your sweet life that I would have a
third party come in and do it for me

The point is, just because I do what I can to protect myself (just like the gaming companies), that doesn't mean I'm calling EVERYBODY a thief... I'm just doing what can against those that are thieves.

[dannubis]

Point 1: Yeah, but if you buy a door, you don't expect a third party to come with it to operate the lock so the door doesn't get stolen...

Point 2: No argument there

[Iola of Shinola]

Wow. doors and locks???? really?

Firstl: I am not a STEAM hater. I am begining to hate this analogy, tho.

I bought my copy of CIV 5 from the store the morning that it became available. I hadn't visited any of the forums, but had seen some of the glowing reviews. I see now, in the fine print on the back of the game that a STEAM subscription will be required. At the time I bought the game, I was not aware of that. My bad. Always read the fine print. Do I understand the need for STEAM? Absolutely. Do I like it? No. Would I prefer not to use STEAM? Yes. Do I think that FIRAXIS should make the STEAM subscription requirement more "obvious" to a casual store buyer? ABSOLUTELY.

My logic goes something like this:

By the time I get it home, and install it, it is too late to get my money back if I am one of the STEAM haters. Given that this obvious warning banner is going to do nothing positive for sales of their product, I understand why they do not do it. So the analogy of the door and the lock, falls completely apart. I don't think an analogy is even a good idea. It is what it is. If you don't like it, your stuck. Do your homework and read all the fine print next time. Don't want to do that? Then either don't buy anymore software for your computer, or join the legions of pathetic whinners that take no accountability for their own actions and want to blame someone/something else for all of their issues.