[ozzie]

Originally Posted by TopCat

@kuze - i don't think it's that simple... If the said DRM is not present the developers would have to come up with an achievements system, auto updates system, cloud system on their own.. Steamworks provides them with an established and most importantly working system that includes all of those benefits and it is very easy to implement. Microsoft ( achievements ) has such a system and Sony (trophies) has such a system.

There's no reason why Steamworks should cease to exist just because DRM isn't inflicted onto your games anymore. This idea is absolute nonsense, pure and simple. None of the benefits depend in any way on DRM, none. Why would or should this be? DRM is no glue that holds everything by its mere existence magically together and acts itself as a unifying system that can be shared between multiple games.
That's what Steamworks is for, but it has little to do with the DRM. Steamworks is a collection of tools that Valve opened up to third parties some time ago. With it developers can integrate their games into services offered by Steam, like matchmaking, microtransactions, achievements,etc.. But that happened a long, long time after Steam already launched with its DRM. This should be proof enough that yes, it's just that simple.

Originally Posted by TopCat

@ozzie - sorry man, but Germany's stupid rating system is to blame here. If you want to provide a service in a certain country you have to have this country's laws in mind. If for example 2K had to cut content from the German version of GTA IV, Steam can't just allow its German customers to buy the uncut version, because that would be A) a breach of contract B) a disobeyment of the country's laws.

This is no issue of legality, this is an issue of Steam not offering a better service. Steam could offer German costumers the ability to prove their maturity so they could buy uncensored games. German laws don't forbid such a procedure.
I'll just quote kuze who said already more on that matter, which you apparently skipped by:

German's laws are not Valve's fault, but not providing any means to authenticate your persona on Steam is. Germany in particular even offers an electronic infrastructure specifically for cases like this (eID, ePA).

[TopCat]

Please, share with me a REASONABLE AND EASY way to prove your maturity, PLEASE... Are you gonna scan your ID card or s.th ??! Those games were censored for a reason and that's because of the German ratings system and their laws. Do you really think that 2K, EA, Activision, etc would bother cutting content from their games if there was another way out of this situation ?!?

Steamworks is connected directly to the steam clieant and in a way to your own account.

As I said, it's your loss. Don't try to convince me, PLEASE. For me it's enough that developers like Bethesda and Gearbox are supporting Steam and Steamworks. That says it all.

If you choose not to support it you'd probably miss out on some awesome games like Borderlands 2 and Daedalic's new game The Dark Eye: Chains Of Satinav.

Oh and BTW Alan Wake managed to recoup its costs within the first 48 hours of being on sale... Wow, Steam's bad...

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by TopCat

Please, share with me a REASONABLE AND EASY way to prove your maturity, PLEASE... Are you gonna scan your ID card or s.th ??! Those games were censored for a reason and that's because of the German ratings system and their laws. Do you really think that 2K, EA, Activision, etc would bother cutting content from their games if there was another way out of this situation ?!?

Steamworks is connected directly to the steam clieant and in a way to your own account.

As I said, it's your loss. Don't try to convince me, PLEASE. For me it's enough that developers like Bethesda and Gearbox are supporting Steam and Steamworks. That says it all.

If you choose not to support it you'd probably miss out on some awesome games like Borderlands 2 and Daedalic's new game The Dark Eye: Chains Of Satinav.

Oh and BTW Alan Wake managed to recoup its costs within the first 48 hours of being on sale... Wow, Steam's bad...

Don't forget its so horrible that they have a daily sale of a specific game on top of huge weekend and holiday sales. Yeah, the consumers hate this program. Not to mention the hate from the Indie developers for how horrible Steam is. Its horrible to gain a profit from a huge audience that supports steam and its generally well built and unified PC gaming service and economy.

[kuze]

Originally Posted by TopCat

Please, share with me a REASONABLE AND EASY way to prove your maturity, PLEASE... Are you gonna scan your ID card or s.th ??! Those games were censored for a reason and that's because of the German ratings system and their laws. Do you really think that 2K, EA, Activision, etc would bother cutting content from their games if there was another way out of this situation ?!?

Steamworks is connected directly to the steam clieant and in a way to your own account.

As I said, it's your loss. Don't try to convince me, PLEASE. For me it's enough that developers like Bethesda and Gearbox are supporting Steam and Steamworks. That says it all.

If you choose not to support it you'd probably miss out on some awesome games like Borderlands 2 and Daedalic's new game The Dark Eye: Chains Of Satinav.

Oh and BTW Alan Wake managed to recoup its costs within the first 48 hours of being on sale... Wow, Steam's bad...

Way to argue on the internet! You a) cry about "ppl bashing steam", but after encountering some coherent and well-founded arguments against steam you b) fail to comprehend any of them. After ozzie's clarification you c) refuse to discuss it further, saying you're right, because big companies support Steam, too. "If a corporation says its good, how can it be bad for the consumer in any way?!"

As for your question about reasonable authentication: it has been said (and said again) right above your post. Yes, scanning your ID would be one way to deal with it (this is already being done by numerous online retailers). To make it easier for both parties, you use your electronic ID, which most Germans have already. This is a sentence to test if you're even reading what I'm saying. Put it into your computer, bingo, Steam knows you're over 18. Man, that sure is a hassle.

And Monolith: we're not saying that Steam is the root of all evil that needs to die and burn in hell with its users. Steam's a good service. By eliminating the concerns stated above, it can become a great service.

I feel like I'm talking against a wall here, to be honest.

[TopCat]

Wo, wo, wo, wo, wo... Wait a minute... I am not saying that it's good because "a corporation says it's good". I am saying it's good, because I've got no problem with it AT ALL and also because some of the best developers out there ( and most of the indie devs out there too ) are using it and are saying that it's great. I can even show you some quotes from indie devs who say how good Steam/Steamworks, but why would I do that... I feel like I'm talking against a wall here, tbh

Scanning your ID card would be the absolute worst way to clarify your age/maturity, because it would require for it to be checked by a real person. So, imagine that there's a HUGE release like GTA and 1000s of ppl are submitting their ID cards, then those ppl would have to wait for hours to even start downloading the game. That's why it's called digital distribution, because all the processes are done automatically. Oh and btw, if a certain game is being sold in Germany and it is censored, how is Steam supposed to offer an uncut version of that game when such a version is not being offered at retail ?! If an uncut version is not being sold in your country then Steam has no right to sell it to you, because that might be against the law.

I've always known that adventure gamers are conservative people, but never thought that they're THAT conservative.

[kuze]

Originally Posted by TopCat

Wo, wo, wo, wo, wo... Wait a minute... I am not saying that it's good because "a corporation says it's good". I am saying it's good, because I've got no problem with it AT ALL and also because some of the best developers out there ( and most of the indie devs out there too ) are using it and are saying that it's great. I can even show you some quotes from indie devs who say how good Steam/Steamworks, but why would I do that... I feel like I'm talking against a wall here, tbh

The devs are using it because it simplifies their life and assures a wide audience for their games. I did get that point. Steam is nice like this. Unfortunately, it has some downsides, which are of no concern to you apparently, but are a concern to many of us. Take music DRM for example. If people didn't cry out loud when almost every online music retailer was enforcing DRM on their consumers, they still wouldn't be offering DRM-free mp3s today. And that would be a bad thing. Because DRM is bad.

Originally Posted by TopCat

Scanning your ID card would be the absolute worst way to clarify your age/maturity, because it would require for it to be checked by a real person. So, imagine that there's a HUGE release like GTA and 1000s of ppl are submitting their ID cards, then those ppl would have to wait for hours to even start downloading the game. That's why it's called digital distribution, because all the processes are done automatically. Oh and btw, if a certain game is being sold in Germany and it is censored, how is Steam supposed to offer an uncut version of that game when such a version is not being offered at retail ?! If an uncut version is not being sold in your country then Steam has no right to sell it to you, because that might be against the law.

a) Yes, scanning IDs would be a hassle (even though it would only have to be done once by tying the ID to your account), which is why there are better alternatives in place. Valve only has to adapt them.

b) Most of the uncut versions of such games are in fact allowed to be sold in Germany, but only to adults (e.g. games on the Liste B of the BPjM), and without open advertisement. L4D and L4D2 are such games. There are even localized German versions of those available (e.g. in Austria), but I bet most of German gamers would settle for the US version of the uncut game. Valve would therefore not go against the law, if they implemented some form of lawful authentication.


Also, not embracing everything with open arms just because it's convenient for you for the given moment does not equal being conservative. I use Steam. I'd like it to be better.

[ozzie]

Originally Posted by TopCat

As I said, it's your loss. Don't try to convince me, PLEASE. For me it's enough that developers like Bethesda and Gearbox are supporting Steam and Steamworks. That says it all.

Well, why would I try to convince such a close-minded fool like you?
Ugh, I needed to get that off my chest...

Oh and BTW Alan Wake managed to recoup its costs within the first 48 hours of being on sale... Wow, Steam's bad...

Again, you reveal yourself to be the master of the straw man! I never said Steam was bad. I'm very well aware of its positive effects. I'm just not convinced why I should, without any objections, use this service.
On Steam you buy games you never own and you can only use as a part of a service offered to you. That's not great value for money, especially since I can't resell the games. Not that I'm too bothered about that, but I think this should be reflected in the price.
You may be surprised to hear that at the time of writing I "own" (notice the sneer marks?) 63 games on Steam. So I do use the service and I used it less warily in the past. But considering the bad experiences I had with DRM generally and the DRM from Steam specifically I'm generally not willing to pay full price for a game on Steam anymore. I'm willing to pay a much lower price because that's how much the service is worth to me. But I wrote all this before so I'm not sure why I bother to write it all again...
Let's just say that if I had the choice between buying a game on Steam and buying a game on GOG I will always buy it on GOG.

If you choose not to support it you'd probably miss out on some awesome games like Borderlands 2 and Daedalic's new game The Dark Eye: Chains Of Satinav.

Honestly, I'm so spoiled for choice that I can bear to miss out on the occasional title. I might make an exception for The Dark Eye, because Daedalic. Depends on how good the demo will be.

Oh and btw, if a certain game is being sold in Germany and it is censored, how is Steam supposed to offer an uncut version of that game when such a version is not being offered at retail ?! If an uncut version is not being sold in your country then Steam has no right to sell it to you, because that might be against the law.

[sarcasm]Wow, you seem to know our laws better than we Germans here do![/sarcasm] It's NOT against the law to sell indexed games to adults. It's only against the law to sell them to minors and to advertise them. That has always been the case and it never changed. There ARE a few exceptions which aren't even allowed to be sold to adults, but those aren't the kind we're talking about here and they're very few in numbers anyway. Wolfenstein 3D was such a game, because of all the swastikas. Didn't matter that you were shooting all the nazis...

Scanning your ID card would be the absolute worst way to clarify your age/maturity, because it would require for it to be checked by a real person. So, imagine that there's a HUGE release like GTA and 1000s of ppl are submitting their ID cards, then those ppl would have to wait for hours to even start downloading the game. That's why it's called digital distribution, because all the processes are done automatically.

Well, finally something I would be happy to disagree with! Waiting for hours would still be better than waiting for days for your imported copy to arrive.
I'm not sure how this would work anyway since I never did any online age verification before. But I would make use of it on Steam because I already imported many games from Valve before, like Left 4 Dead and The Orange Box.
I think the point of an eID is that you don't need any manual intervention from a real person, but I dunno. I guess kuze is more knowledgeable in this regard than I am.

Edit: Now, this time kuze beat me to it.

[kuze]

Originally Posted by ozzie

I think the point of an eID is that you don't need any manual intervention from a real person, but I dunno.

That's right. All Valve needs is a certification by German authorities, who will determine which data from the ePA Valve will be able to request (e.g. date of birth). The actual verification is automatic.

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by ozzie

Well, why would I try to convince such a close-minded fool like you?
Ugh, I needed to get that off my chest...

Actually this whole thread has been closed minded as it gets.