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Beware: Valve/Steam small print BS...


Bikerdude

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Bought Maxpayne3 a week ago, went to go play it today but ended up sending a complaint email to steam support instead.

 

Dear Steam support,

 

When I ran MaxPayne3 for the first time today I was first greeted with a pop-up saying I would have to copy the CD key to the clipboard to activate the game, I thought this odd because since when does a steam game need to be activated on anything other than steam...?!

 

1. The activation issue above was not mentioned in the small print on the store page

2. Signing up to Rockstar's social account warns that it will permanently link to my steam account, this is not mentioned AT ALL in the small print on the store page and which I will not accept.

 

Therefore I require a full refund of £12.49 and to have the game removed from my steam account. Should this not be done in a timely manor I will have to report the matter to my credit card co. who will refund the money to my account and pursue valve for the outstanding amount.

 

regards

 

Lets see what they actually do, as traditionally Steam support are a bunch of 'taffers' when it comes to helping their customers.

 

The moral of the story, read the small print on ANY steam game you buy. Because in my case even when I read the small print there is still some other unmentioned bullshit to deal with...

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I notice under Max Payne 3's PC System requirements:

Other Requirements: Initial activation requires internet connection and a valid Rockstar Social Club account (13+ to register); Online play requires log-in to Rockstar Social Club (13+); software installation required including GameShield IronWrap; DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86).

Got enough digital rights management in place, yet, Rockstar? Oh, you're going to release it on Steam on top of all that DRM? Disappointing.

 

I nearly bought Final Fantasy VII during the summer sale, but stopped when I noticed "Requires a Square Enix account" under system requirements. NoooOOooo thank you. I'll go borrow my brother's old Playstation instead, thanks.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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Yep, that is sadly the norm these days. I bought Bioshock 2 and it lives under steam, yet still needs Games for Windows - Live account. Same thing for GTA4. I think Mass Effect 2 required some kind of EA-account, IIRC.

 

If you want steam to be the only DRM, you can't buy all the games you want, sadly. If you want to play most of the games various publishers, you need to have accounts for every frickin' single publisher out there.

 

More the reason to wait for the game to be 5 euros or less: make sure them bastards get the lowest amount of cash from you as possible. Steam makes this possible in a nice, easy and legal way.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Got enough digital rights management in place, yet, Rockstar? Oh, you're going to release it on Steam on top of all that DRM? Disappointing.

I believe I have steam/valve bang to rights, if only by a slim thread. when I read the SP I thought it was gonna be a case of sign up with some fake name/email inisde the game and then carry on as normal, not more DRM etc..

 

I finally take the plunge and make peace with buying games on steam (albeit below £15 and this is what I get for trying to be above board and legal like..

 

You guys do know that any GFWL game don't require a real/online account, you can just create a local login etc. Its the reason I like GFWL games, eg the Batman series etc.

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You guys do know that any GFWL game don't require a real/online account, you can just create a local login etc. Its the reason I like GFWL games, eg the Batman series etc.

Some GFWL games require ONLINE account to save the campaign progress.....see Section 8: Prejudice.

Ora modified xlive DLL :D

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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The solution to these problems is to get a console and get all the games second hand. Then the developers get nothing; no control over you, no compensation, no ability to harvest your personal data for marketing, etc.

 

What happened to producing games and offering them without trying to shovel a bunch of other stuff down the consumer's throat?

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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The solution to these problems is to get a console and get all the games second hand. Then the developers get nothing; no control over you, no compensation, no ability to harvest your personal data for marketing, etc.

 

The irony in that statement is that even from a new console game, developers get only a small portion, and it's the developers who want to bring a good game, the publishers are the ones who wish to give you the oh-so-wanted "extras" (meant purely ironically). Alas, that is the state of the game industry today.

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If you want steam to be the only DRM, you can't buy all the games you want, sadly. If you want to play most of the games various publishers, you need to have accounts for every frickin' single publisher out there.

 

I'm pretty sure saying "most" is a hyperbole here as despite having 190 games on Steam the only one I have that requires an account on another service is Dark Souls with GFWL (which, due to it's oddball multiplayer-in-singleplayer component, effectively requires another account across all platforms anyway).

 

That being said I do try to avoid this where possible. Ultimately it's up to that game's publisher how that ends up going, and often times for the "store" it can be a case of either accepting that or not having it available at all.

 

I know there are several titles GOG.com (which I again recommend to anyone who really wants to avoid problems like this) effectively cannot carry at all right now because their policy does not allow for outside DRM.

Edited by Professor Paul1290
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@Dram:

 

Imagine If the developers who are working on a big-name game for some publisher said; "we will not make this game unless you stop with the unnecessary components which tarnish our name and anger consumers". If enough developers banded together, the publishers will be screwed. They can't make the game themselves, and replacing their entire engineering staff doesn't sound like a fun or rewarding prospect.

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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they'll just sack them, and hire new people, most developers are part of the publishing company, having sold themselves down the swany river ages ago, publishers contracts usually have clauses in them where the developers become part of the whole while making games for them including the right for the publisher to hire and fire who they want. loads of developers have disappeared over the years due to publishers disbanding the developing company.

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If you think that's bad, try Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. You download it on steam, then you run it and it installs UbiSoft's uPlay DRM factory which must be fired up each time you start the game. So basically you need to start up steam, start FC3:DB which then starts uPlay, then, once verified, will start the game.

 

A shame really as the game is blooming great if you love your 80s stuff but what hassle!!!

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If you want steam to be the only DRM, you can't buy all the games you want, sadly.

And if you want no DRM at all, there are only a few games left. Otherwise, if the developers and or publishers don't trust enough in there product and that people will buy it that they think they have to use this stuff, let them. I just don't buy games using DRM, and I'm not very sad about it. And if the day shall come where all games use this stuff, I just get myself a new hobby.

 

Life goes on. :smile:

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The architecture of the PC is constantly evolving. A game that runs today may not ten years from now, nevermind DRM. And when you look at all the unoffical bugfixes and resolution hacks people have come up with to keep their favorite games running, DRM is a small hurdle. It's a hoop you're more than willing to jump through if you've ever used DDFix. When these companies have gone under and their authentication servers are offline you are not shit out of luck.

 

Bigger budgets require a bigger security blanket. There aren't many options here. You endure the hassle of DRM or you stick to indie games like Minecraft.

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Bigger budgets require a bigger security blanket.

Than maybe it would be a good option to reduce the budgets of games instead of trying to produce one AAA game after one another.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

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The game company exists to generate wealth for its owners.

 

Competition in the game industry is fierce, more and more AAA titles coming out. In order to sell, the game must get enough attention and high enough metacritic score. The game must beat the competition. This is achieved by having better and more realistic graphics and gameplay mechanics that appeal to the masses. You must have big titles and big budcets to have a fighting chance to get the media coverage to make enough people to buy the game expensively when it is new.

 

You must have DRM to prevent people to play the game for free.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Well as predicted instead of getting a reply from a human being I got a copied and pasted reply - c**ts.

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

 

We apologize for the delay.

 

These requirements are noted on the store page for the item:

 

http://store.steampo...com/app/204100/

 

As with most software products, we do not offer refunds or exchanges for purchases made on our website or through the Steam Client. This includes, but is not limited to, games, Early Access Games, software, gifted or traded purchases, downloadable content, subscriptions, and in-game items/currency.

 

We will make an exception and refund titles that are still listed as available for Pre-Purchase on our website. The refund request must be received prior to the official release date for the item. You can see when a pre-purchased title is scheduled to officially unlock by viewing the green information bar on its store page.

 

This only applies to preorders purchased from your account; preordered titles received or sent through the Steam Trading system cannot be refunded. We do not offer refunds for Early Access Games.

 

Please review Section 3 of the Steam Subscriber Agreement for more information.

http://www.steampowe...riber_agreement

 

Support for this title is provided by the original developer or publisher. Please refer to the following article for more information on contacting the support team for this title:

 

Title: Max Payne 3

Link: http://support.steam...ERUO-0002&tpg=1

 

It is recommended that you complete any applicable steps on the page linked above. If you are still unable to resolve the issue, you click the blue "technical support" link provided in the article to contact the support department for this title.

 

As an alternate resource, please check Steam Discussions for other users that may have resolved this issue. You can find this game by using the search box near the top of the page:

 

http://steamcommunit...cussions/#games

 

My reply

 

Dear Steam support,

 

Going to the MP3 page as you copied and pasted back at me - http://store.steampo...com/app/204100/ and then going to the "other requirements" section, my complaint is still valid.

 

1. The activation issue is not mentioned in the "other section" on the above store page

2. The "other section" on above store page does not mention anything about permanently linking to my steam account to Rockstar's social club DRM, and which I state again for the record will not accept.

 

Quoting the steam subscriber agreement at me does NOT make it legal, how ever much steam/valve thinks it does!

 

So again, I require a full refund of £12.49 and have the game removed from my steam account. But if steam/Valve are unwilling to do this and just copy and paste replies back at me instead of talking to me like a human being I will be reporting the matter to my credit card co. who will refund the money to my account and pursue valve for the outstanding amount.

 

regards

 

Oh and just look at what a pile of shit this game actually is - http://support.rocks...hnical-Support. I thought games on steam were supposed to go through some sort of quality check process before being released...

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I thought games on steam were supposed to go through some sort of quality check process before being released...

:laugh:

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

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Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

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You are wasting your time. These people do not give a damn about you, or any customers for that matter. If they did, they can easily provide multiple compiles of their game for different online services which have had features from the other redundant services removed. Instead, they just layer more and more on as can be demonstrated here. Its like getting a burger covered with layers upon layers of stuff that you neither want, nor asked for.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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Really? Wow. That's pretty sleezy if its really the case. I wonder if a human even oversees that at all... or if they just have code that does it.

 

I can imagine hypothetical code for such an action now.

 

case=RevengeOnCustomer

if $customer_id purchased $game_id && if $CreditCardAccepted=0 && if CreditCardDenialReason=chargeback

then

ban $customer_id

done;

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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This is a bit off-topic and probably a broken record from me at this point, but it's not like Steam is the only digital game store out there.

 

I mean off the top of my head there's GOG.com, GamersGate, and Desura in addition to Steam.

GOG.com is DRM Free (they don't let games with DRM on at all) and aren't limited to just "old games" anymore, they've started expanding their catalogue to new games as well and have kept their "no DRM allowed" policy.

Desura is DRM "agnostic" in that it has games with DRM (depending on pubisher) but doesn't have DRM itself, so games only have DRM if it comes from the outside (which is noted on their store pages).

GamersGate technically has light DRM that checks on install, but that is mostly there just so they have "something" and they've even straight up told their customers how to subvert their "DRM" it if they needed to, and it's "agnostic" otherwise (see Desura).

 

Not to mention most of the indie games I've bought have copies direct from the developer's site which are naturally DRM free (except for the occasional key).

 

I haven't tried it yet, but there's also Green Man Gaming, and from what I can gather they have their own DRM, but they're notable for actually allowing returns/trade-ins on games that only use their DRM and not a third-party. (or something like that, maybe someone else here uses them and can clarify)

 

Yea, it's a bit off topic, but some people seem to be under the impression or are implying that Steam is the only digital game store out there when that isn't really the case.

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If you issue a chargeback against Steam they will ban your account, meaning that you'll no longer be able to play any of your games. It's a pretty shitty situation where we are completely powerless unfortunately.

Yeah I pretty much figured, but I only have 3 game on this account (Orangebox, DX:HR, WFOW) OB can be had for £8, DX im finished with its only War for Overworld I would rather not have my money wasted as I have only just bought it. So to that end I am contacting the devs of that game and explain the situation. And if and when Valve delete my account I will issue charge backs for DX & WFOW.

 

From now on I am going to have a steam account per-game so if valve pull this shit again Its no skin of my nose, yes its a pain but as has been said they clearly don't give a flying f**k. And regarding not being able to play the games I already own, there are ways around that....

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