Thanks.

I thought about posting it at civfanatics, but I already picked up 2 warnings over there for a post ranting about steam and the steam sales spam.   I figured I'd better quit before they barred me from the site (I still find it useful for the "other games" and the older civs mod sections). But that now makes 2 reasons why I'll be passing on civ5.

1) because of the steam requirement - I don't want their software on my computer nor do I want to help them in their monopoly quest.

2) because of the shoddy way t2/firaxis treats their customers who have problems with their products. When civ4 came out, it had a mess of problems and t2/firaxis took their merry time fixing them. The way people with problems were treated by t2/firaxis and their affiliated civfanatics site was abominable. Anyone with a problem was harassed and insulted  and the site did nothing to stop it. Even encouraged that treatment. I see the same rubbish going on over there now.That's not how one treats a customer. I didn't much care for the changes in civ4 from civ3 , so had no interest in buying it new. But I probably would have picked up once it hit the bargain bin. Because of the treatment of customers by civfnatics, I decided why give these people my business and never got a copy for that reason. I see the same rubbish developing over civ5, so even if it didn't require a 3rd party to run, and even if I the game specs were really enticing, I still wouldn't pick up the game because of the way they, and their affiliates, treat their customers.

Tasunke, if you want me to post it, I will.

'You can lead a horse/person to water/knowledge but not make them drink/think'

I've seen a number of pro-steamers arguing against those who want the choice of steam/nosteam.  I haven't seen anyone argue that steam shouldn't be an option for the pro-steamers.  Has there, and I missed it?

If not, that's interesting...

Many of the anti-Steamers have said they're willing to pay extra money or lose features to have it not on Steam.  That should tell you something.

I am pretty sure the same people would be extremely upset if they had to use Impulse and not Steam. It's just too easy to agree with forcing others to do something you chose to do anyway to the extent that you forget that you had a choice initially.

That's what they always say. But it hasn't stopped Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Empire: Total War, Modern Warfare 2, etc. to be huge commercial successes.

Steamworks is starting to get me steamed....

And while you guys are boohooing over Steam, Steam has now released a Mac version, with, a Linux version close behind.

Civ IV, and undoubtedly Civ V, will support Steamplay, meaning if you buy one copy, you can get it on both Windows and Mac.

Valve is also granting anyone who bought any Source game on Windows the Mac equivalent for free. Watch out, the evil Steam empire is coming for you by expanding into your market when other companies don't even bother to do so.

From your posts it's been obvious you're not arguing as a gamer but as a corporatist (and, of course, there's nothing wrong with that).

Second -- we know the result of the decisions made for HL2, LFD, etc.  We don't know what the results would have been had the decisions been otherwise. You can speculate or cite studies that estimate (have you any?) but that's it.

Regarding Civ5, we won't know how their decision to force steam would compare with making steam a choice.  Even if we knew that, knowing the long-term effect is something else.  I've been a civ fan for almost 20 years, since day 1.  Many companies today, especially in the US, are short-sighted, looking from quarter to quarter instead of the long run - decades, generations, even centuries.

EDITED TO ADD:

Third -- Has anyone claimed that not forcing steam will cause Civ5 to not be a 'huge commercial success"?  I haven't, and I haven't seen that claim.

If not, then yours is the fallacious argument Strawman.

In fact, arstal who you replied to, said the opposite -- folks would pay to not have steam forced upon them -- making Civ5 and even greater commercial success.

And who are the ones who go to parks to entice young children to their lairs by offering them candy?

It may have been a big commercial success, but it lost all of my future business. Eventually it will start to catch up to them.

The Total War series declining rapidly in quality isn't due to Steam- but due to the studio rapidly declining in quality.

That  said, I do expect Steam to cause the mod community to take a hit, given the nature of Civ mods.  (different animal then a Source mod)

Valve/2k offering a free Mac version with a Windows purchase is a good thing- and a good idea.  However, I'd never use it- I don't care for Macs.

As for start games being on multiple platforms- you could ask Paradox what their sales figures are- as Paradox games are on every DD platform, and in the case of expansions, are DD exclusives.

Nice strawman. There's virtually no Valve bashing in this entire thread.  Nearly all the ire is directed towards 2K.

Don't get all Derek Smart on me. You know as well as I do that the majority of this thread is the bashing of the evil Steam future monopoly. If not, then simply bashing Steam.

You know, I've never seen a sales pitch that insulted, attacked and otherwise annoyed potential customers work. In every case, it only influenced those potential customers to become hostile to the company the sales pitch was for. I've boycotted many products because I was annoyed by their aggressive and rude sales people.

Just a hint, mind you.

Good thing you were already boycotting Steam before I got here, or else I might have changed someone's mind on the internet! Would've been a world first.

I agree with you here.  I love Impulse personally because I can buy the games I like and not have to worry about losing disks.  I never had a problem myself reinstalling software after a reformat.  I do however have a problem with game companies requiring a constant Internet connection to play their single player games.  One time activation I have no problem with at all.

I want to point out that right now CIV IV complete is at a bargain price here on Impulse.  Even tho I have it on media, I went and picked it up here just so I have it available through Impulse.

You might have changed my mind. Then again, maybe you're one of the ones who did. :D  I had never heard of steam before this week. I had been checking out the progress of civ5 at civfanatics every once in a while, when I noticed a discussion about steam. Didn't like the idea about having to use them to run civ5, but I didn't feel strongly about it one way or another. I was still undecided about whether I'd be interested in picking up civ5, anyway. It was all the aggressive steam sales spamming on that site that convinced me that something was wrong. So I looked into steam a little deeper, at which point a search lead me here, btw, and that's when I found out steam was working on a microsoft like monopoly and using some of the same manipulative tactics to get there. So it was your fellow sales people (and possibly you too ) at civfanatics who turned me off using steam in the future (I really don't have any use for the service right now, anyway). It was learning how they they practiced business that really offended me. I've seen too many aspects of people's lives get microsofted by these control freak corporations, and never has any good come from this. It always leaves people with less control over their own lives and a gives a few greedy, fat, drooling yutzes a lot more power over people than they really should have.

That's my objection to steam. I don't like their aggressive sales people and tactics and I don't want them getting a monopoly on game downloading (and perhaps later, all sorts of programming).

With the civ people, I briefly entertained the thought they might have changed their ways with civ5, but this steam malarkey convinced me that optimism was foolish.

I'm just curious, I've never really used Direct 2 Drive, but I vaguely remember hearing that there's a one year time period on game downloads...is that true?  I could be confusing it with a different company, or maybe I'm confused as it's just something I heard on some forum.  Anyway, is that, or was it ever, true? 

Edit -

It seems to be the EA Store, atleast according to the wiki on it.  I've never used them, so I don't know..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Store

Not my knowledge, and if it were true I'm fairly sure the uprising in revolt of this would've ended the known world since Direct2Drive's prices are around the same as Steam and Impulse's prices.

Direct2Drive is probably one of the most lame digital providers, although at least its friendly.

It requires no draconian DRM, or "online activation" ... you simply buy the game online and download it. The reason it is the most lame, however, is that (for the most part) it seems to only be a once per computer thing ... meaning that unlike Impulse or Steam, you can't use a D2D drive on multiple computers. This could just be my own experience and not the majority of interaction with D2D however.

Oh, and I make it no secret that I am annoyed with Valve/Steam's business practices.

Yea ... honestly, what they should have done is require the Online DRM/ Steam for multiplayer ... and just had a simple CD-Key for single player retail.

As in, Steam digital version has the Online DRM and Single/Multiplayer, steamworks, ect

Retail version would have an additional CD-key, but only the CD-key would be required to install and play the single-player version of the game. If you wanted multiplayer, you could log onto steam and "upgrade game account" with online DRM and Steamworks in order to access patches and Multiplayer modes.

Once you have a working multiplayer (through the one-time activation thru Steam), you only need to run Steam in the background when accessing the internet (multiplayer) and you can multiplay both on Steam servers AND on independent servers (like hamachi).

THIS, imho, is how they should have done it. In this way, it doesn't alienate single player gamers or modders as much as the current system, and you still need to undergo their Anti-Pirating measures for the ability to play multiplayer.

This multi-tier approach would have been much more User-Accessible.

http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=125721

Valve putting a banhammer on the TF2 mod community for making custom hats.

Another reason to be worried about Civ V and modding.

D2D has limited activations.  They bricked my game after the no-DRM patch came out, of  all ironies.  I had to work around the problem by getting the .exe file from a friend via AIM.

That doesn't make sense at all.  Two different games made by two different companies.  That's like saying "it doesn't look good for Impulse, because EA Downloader only offers download links for games you purchase for one year...don't you see a trend happening here?"  

Nope, doesn't apply.   

Riiiiight.  And when the first mod that adds in the Babylon Civ (which costs $10 in a DLC) gets banned then what will you say?

This whole Steam controlling mods thing is very bad, very very bad because mods are the lifeblood of the Civ community and Steam will cause it to bleed.  I'd have to say that this disturbs me more then the fact I don't want Steam running to play my single player game.

Civ 5 will still sell tons of copies and will be a great success.  Mostly because most people that buy at retail (the majority of sales) will have no idea of the Steam requirement.  Civ is a game that has a lot of "causal" gamers.  Many that don't even have an Internet connection.  Needless to say they will be shocked to say the least.