4 ms·
I think that Steam has been the best actual deterrence to piracy.
by shahbaby 9y ago
I think that Steam has been the best actual deterrence to piracy.
- testmasterflex 9y agoWhat’s their strategy?
- maccard 9y agoAlways online DRM, combined with an easy point of entry for people to buy and manage games. Their prices have historically been good, and they are also convenient and trustworthy
- Drakim 9y agoIs it always online? I thought you just needed to be online when you booted the game, so your singleplayer game wouldn't exit on you if your internet died.
- lozenge 9y agoClose enough. There is an offline mode in the Steam menus, but you need to be online to initially activate it.
- proactivesvcs 9y agoIME the offline mode is very flaky indeed. Every time I've needed it, it failed me.
- floatboth 9y agoDepends on the game. Some games (especially older ones) can launch in offline mode
- stordoff 9y agoIt's completely game dependent. You can distribute games that are completely DRM-free through Steam if you wish: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
- lithos 9y agoI remember some of the loops that we needed to go through to keep Steam working on a ship. Where personal PCs can stay airgapped from the Internet for 9 months to a year. Changing date (windows and bios), system rollbacks, and just about anything else. It was pretty terrible. In theory offline mode is supposed to work, and does on Mac. But on Windows steam breaks itself eventually.
- lrem 9y agoIs it settable per game? I have vague memories of choosing single player games because I was offline and those would probably still be on Steam.
- izacus 9y agoDepends on the game. I just got a nasty surprise with Prey (2017 single player game) which refused to run when my internet connection died.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoProviding a relatively lean, no-bullshit-attached interface for buying games + adding a gamification layer (achievements, social profiles). That, and frequent discounts. For people who have the money to buy a game, using Steam is much easier (and free of perceived malware risks) than torrenting.
- OscarCunningham 9y agoProviding a service that's better than you can get by piracy.
- ryanlol 9y agoEvery time I try to buy games from Steam I get to play the game for 24 hours, after which my Steam account gets banned and my payment refunded. I can see how this may deter piracy, but to be honest constantly creating new accounts gets frustrating pretty quickly.
- Jare 9y agoThat is not normal at all, I assume you have contacted Valve customer support and nobody has been able to work out the problem?
- ryanlol 9y agoI tried that once, but the support just replied with some bizarre KYC procedure. https://clbin.com/gCNYu https://clbin.com/gCNYu I'm trying to buy games, not open a bank account.
- stordoff 9y agoAre you using the same PayPal account each time (or similar billing details)? I'd suspect that being linked to a locked account is why future accounts also get locked.
- ryanlol 9y agoI've experienced this with two different paypal accounts I created specifically to use with steam after they stopped accepting bitcoin payments.
- proactivesvcs 9y agoIt's also frustrating when you change your password, the client accepts the change, logs you in, but silently truncates the password. After several weeks of not being able to play my games unless I changed my password first, and receiving nothing like actual customer service from Valve, I've never given them another penny - or any other game dev/service using DRM. Once bitten.