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Beware: Valve/Steam small print BS...


Bikerdude

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Yep, you're right, Paul. There are other choices besides Steam. I use them on occasion. For example I've purchased games directly from Frictional. The problem is when all the games you want to play are only available on Steam. DNF, Rage, DXHR, etc. That's why I got a 360 and got those games used. I spent more for a used copy than they wanted for it on Steam, just to screw them over.

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

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Another update on this, as well as replying back to Valve and their arrogant shit arse support reps, I contacted Rockstar directly after would you believe speaking to them on the phone at 9:30pm on a weekday...two thumbs for that.

 

Hello Rockstar support

 

Just spoke to one of your support guys and he gave me your email address as he said the guys that monitor this address should be made aware of my predicament.

 

Essentially my issue is that of the social club account linking to my steam account upon initial activation and the installation of software and registry keys on my PC without authorisation. I can see why it might be needed for multiplayer, but not for initial activation of the game. Fyi I don’t do multiplayer, I have always and will continue to be a single player only.

 

Had this info been stated on your requirement’s page I would have not bought the game, so there are 2 outcomes as I see it.

  1. Rockstar tweak the activation so it doesn’t require linking to my steam account or install crap on my PC, or tell me of a way around this issue.
    or
  2. Or nothing gets done and I file a visa charge back to my steam account, that account then gets closed by steam and then I file more visa chargeback’s for the other 2 games on there.

The end result of this little incident is I will be registering a separate steam account for every steam game I buy from now on, because I am never again going to be held hostage by the frankly shit arse attitude of Valve customer support.

 

Regards

 

 

And a copy of the opriginal support request to Rockstar which is a copy of the one sent to steam support.

 

From: Rockstar Support

Sent: 05 August 2013 21:20

To: B1k3rdude

Subject: Rockstar Games Request Received: Post sales complaint/technical problem

 

Dear RS support,

 

I currently have a sales complaint issue open with Steam because I believe they and yourselves have deliberately or carelessly mislead customers with the info on your respective requirements pages, namely -

 

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

- http://support.rocks...em-Requirements

 

Is it not Rockstar's responsibility to give the customer all the relevant info or links to such to enable the customer to make an informed purchasing decision?!. How the hell am I supposed to go looking for info I only get made aware of "AFTER" purchasing and subsequently 'trying' to install/activate the game?

 

1. Referring to line of text above where it states "Initial activation requires internet connection and a valid Rockstar Social Club account " On both pages there is no clear statement of the game needing additional activation via the CD key after being activated on steam...!!!

 

2. Also no where on either page does it mention that the initial activation and logging into "social club" would permanently link to my steam account and for which I vehemently object too! Rockstar does NOT need access to my steam account for any reason.

 

3. There was also no mention on the steam store page or Rockstar's requirements page that initial activation via "social club" would result in software being installed on my PC. This happened without any notification or request for authorisation. I attempted to create a Social club account, but stopped at the point where it said it would permanently link to my steam account- how dare Rockstar install anything on my PC without my explicit authorisation?

Now steam support unsurprisingly are giving me the bloody run about, but if I have to I will issue a visa charge back for this game and then because my steam account will be closed I will have to issue visa charge back for the other 3 games on that account.

 

But if a way can be found for me to play a game I legally paid for without linking my steam account to a 3rd party service and without crap being instealled on my PC then Im game.

 

regards

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I am REALLY curious to see how this plays out. But it's funny because I "downloaded" Max Payne 3 for the DRM reason and I booted it up.. finished it in a couple of days and had no problems, yet you.. the paying customer has to go through all this shit.

Edited by TylerVocal
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I am REALLY curious to see how this plays out. But it's funny because I "downloaded" Max Payne 3 for the DRM reason and I booted it up.. finished it in a couple of days and had no problems, yet you.. the paying customer has to go through all this shit.

One of the reasons the Rockstar support game me for the account linking issue was because of dodgy copies etc. My reply to him was why would they need that for a legitimate copy bought on steam..? He conceded my point.

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Hahaha love it! I'm not sure which Assassins Creed title that is but I purchased Assassins Creed 2 from the store and brought it home, installed it and then had all of those lovely issues. Also my internet dropped out at one point kicking me out of my single player game just after I finished a rather tough battle and then lost my progress -_-

 

I had the same problem playing Diablo 3, I thought it was strange that you can be "logged out" of your single player session if you pause the game, get up and go make something to eat and grab a drink, come back then you're greeted with crap like that. I mean if they want to impose these restrictions on multiplayer (as long as it isn't too strict) then so be it but for the Single Player experience leave it alone I say!

 

I own all of the Thief games (hell I think I have bought them multiple times over the years due to loosing discs) and also I have bought Oblivion and Skyrim, all are strictly single player games with pretty much no DRM and it's fantastic! I will always support light to no drm games over DRM packed games.

 

I assume this opinion echos throughout most of the gaming community. Reading the new Sim City amazon reviews is definitely proof of that as well.

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Im gonna leave my opinion on this, but i seriously doubt any of you here are going to like it.

 

Steam is a GREAT service for a DRM based thing in my opinion. Lots of (big) sales, A large variety of communities, a rather sweet content delivery system, and tons of nice community features such as user profiles and achievements make it over-all worth it in my eyes, which is a good trade-off for DRM. However I do admit it does have some flaws.

 

Most of the flaws you are experiencing having to do with the game itself Bikerdude is because the publisher Rockstar Games wants you to use an account for their website for added features which may or may not be worth it (I dont have the game so I wouldn't know), which if it isn't worth it then thats just sort of an "oh well money spent" moment. THAT on the other hand is one of the few issues that steam itself has, the fact that you cant re-sell/refund your games was a bad move on Valve's part which im thinking is actually going to get fixed soon!

 

"shut the taff' up, why the hell are you saying its going to get fixed? I dont see evidence of that anywhere!"

 

 

Well, there are a few things to me that point out that this may possibly happen. For one, Steam recently added a "community market" function, which CURRENTLY allows people to sell their TF2/DOTA 2 items, games in their inventory (independent from library), and sell profile Smilies and skins on it. That "community market" option to me wouldnt surprise me at all if they eventually allowed people to re-sell games in their library through that. Another thing is that Valve is currently being sued by a german consumer group for not allowing it's users to re-sell or refund their games, which due to that they could keep themselves from getting sued by adding re-sell and refund options to their platform, which I dont think anyone would want to be sued (source: http://www.pcgamer.c...t-resell-games/). Finally, there was a steam game sharing feature spotted in a few pieces of code in a few recent updates to steam. What does that have to do with refunding and re-selling? It doesn't entirely have to do with it, admittedly. However I consider the fact that they may or may not add that a step forward to adding refunds and re-selling functionality to steam, which even I the big valve/steam fan here considers this an VERY GOOD thing that im saddened that they forgot about, or didn't want to add it.

 

In the end, I believe eventually Valve is going to find a solution to your re-selling/refunding problem. As for the whole "Rockstar Club" thing, that is a problem with Rockstar itself and not steam, So I don't think Valve has any power over that.

 

If you want to, go ahead and call me blindly optimistic or a taffin' idiot, Im just simply trying to help explain the whole problem, which honestly shouldn't have been a problem anyway.

 

Oh well, at least im pretty sure its getting fixed. :)

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@Above poster, what do you think of the following situation? I (used to) purchase games regularly. Back then, I had to deal with publishers forcing me to keep a disk in the drive to play. This means that when CD drives become obsolete, I will no longer be able to play these games without:

 

A: risking a visit from the imaginary property brigade for going around their disk-authenticating malware

--or

B. having to re-purchase the games in order to get a version that doesn't contain the malware; malware that does not and never did serve a legitimate purpose for the end-user

 

Given the fact that most of these developers/publishers are just out to screw me and run (none of them release patches to remove this stuff from their older games anymore, and few of them even continue patching their games at all two months after release), why would I trust an online system where they can:

 

*change the terms of sale post-transaction, whether I like it or not

*harvest my personal data and share it with third parties, or just keep it in some database that always seems to end up getting cracked by hackers eventually

*decide to shut down service, taking away access to my games

*manipulate prices of games by destroying the second hand market... They can make everybody buy "new" copies of games, even games that came out over a decade ago and have not been officially patched or updated in 98% of that time.

Edited by lost_soul

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

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@Above poster, what do you think of the following situation? I (used to) purchase games regularly. Back then, I had to deal with publishers forcing me to keep a disk in the drive to play. This means that when CD drives become obsolete, I will no longer be able to play these games without:

 

A: risking a visit from the imaginary property brigade for going around their anti-copy malware

--or

B. having to re-purchase the games in order to get a version that doesn't contain the malware; malware that does not and never did serve a legitimate purpose for the end-user

 

Given the fact that most of these developers/publishers are just out to screw me and run (none of them release patches to remove this stuff from their older games anymore, and few of them even continue patching their games at all two months after release), why would I trust an online system where they can:

 

*change the terms of sale post-transaction, whether I like it or not

*harvest my personal data and share it with third parties, or just keep it in some database that always seems to end up getting cracked by hackers eventually

*decide to shut down service, taking away access to my games

*manipulate prices of games by destroying the second hand market... They can make everybody buy "new" copies of games, even games that came out over a decade ago and have not been officially patched or updated in 98% of that time.

 

Alright, Here goes!

 

*change the terms of sale post-transaction, whether I like it or not:

 

This is more of a personal preference thing to me. I dont mind it personally but i admit it can lead to some shitty stuff happening. But so far it hasn't *really* happened it seems, at least to me.

 

*harvest my personal data and share it with third parties, or just keep it in some database that always seems to end up getting cracked by hackers eventually:

 

If your worried about passwords, that's something you have to risk with everything with a database ever, including this forum. So its more or less better to just keep track of when something's database gets hacked or not.

 

If your worried about credit card info, then find ways to buy steam games outside of your credit card. There are pre-paid steam gift cards that are sold at places like Best Buy and Gamestop if you want to stop by them that go in the amounts of $20, $50, and $100. Some countries dont have access to that however, in which case I would recommend you buy a pre-paid card that steam supports such as a Visa card with any amount of money that you want to use on it. And if you use your credit card anyway and are just worried if that info is going to get out, Steam's Database was only hacked once. Sure its definitely possible and even likely that they could get hacked again but when they were hacked they had account info pretty heavily protected, enough so that when people were warned that the database was hacked that many of them had plenty of time to change credit card numbers and passwords, so a heavy crisis was over-all averted, especially since the hackers were never able to actually crack valve's way of protecting user info as far as I know. And as far as the sharing with third parties part, that to me just seems sorta paranoid as I have never heard of or seen Valve do such a thing, and I doubt they would unless that third party was a branch of a govt.

 

As far as your name, where you live, etc, that is just a really paranoid assumption and its likely anyway that wherever you live's govt and most companies you've dealt with already have that info anyway.

 

*decide to shut down service, taking away access to my games:

 

Steam is such a heavily used service and profit garner-er that I really doubt that it would ever shut down unless a nuclear war started, at most it would just change owners from Valve to some other company. And besides, Most steam games that I have or know of can either run without steam or be tweaked to play without steam as long as it isnt a MP only or MP focused game. Speaking of that, companies can shut down service to games by themselves, like if Rockstar wanted to, they could shut down Rockstar Club for Max Payne 3 if they really wanted to taff with customers. Valve usually discourages developers from doing that though and Valve also never shuts down access to games themselves unless such a thing REALLY needed to happen, such as the rip-off that was The War Z.

 

*manipulate prices of games by destroying the second hand market... They can make everybody buy "new" copies of games, even games that came out over a decade ago and have not been officially patched or updated in 98% of that time.

 

When you delete a steam game, you are able to re-install it through your account easily with no need to buy a new copy just because you lost it's files. As far as the second hand market though, currently Valve are sorta doing that to the PC market which is sad. But I don't believe it will last very long thanks to that german consumer group lawsuit so im pretty sure the second hand market will live on in steam through the steam community market. The patching for games though depends on the developer. Valve encourages it, but they dont enforce it because they want to let publishers/developers decide on it rather than them. Besides, when it comes to games that are over a decade old, its likely it's devs have either closed up shop like looking glass or it's devs arent interested in it because they are working on new stuff or just simply want to "move on from the old". I do know Valve themselves still updates Half Life to this day though! And i forgot to mention account banning being a part of the "re-buy games first hand" thing, which steam accounts rarely do get banned (aside from VAC which is more common) completely, all you have to do is follow the following:

 

Don't hack in multiple MP games multiple times

Don't get your account hacked from some dumb account phishing scheme

Don't Hack other people's accounts or share your account password for some reason.

 

Which is pretty simple as I don't believe you or anyone else here is really into that stuff.

 

Hopefully I've done a good enough job at helping explain this! Im not trying to come off as rude currently but I am trying to explain things, which I'm honestly sorta used to people jumping at me violently for having an opinion for some reason.

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Well it looks like my bank/cc dept have made the decision for me, I got a letter today informing me they have recovered the £12.49 yet my steam account is still active and MP3 is still listed. I'm guessing its only a matter of time before valve closes the account and I will then contact SubT. games to get a local copy of WFOW and then file a visa CB for that and DX:HR+DLC.

 

And have heard nothing from Rockstar or steam support since the 5th.

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Hey, Bikerdude, Good luck! Its always cool to see somebody going through the trouble of challenging the system and not backing down.

 

If more people did what you are doing instead of just letting the system fuck them over constantly, this planet would be a better place overall.

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

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Well Well Well...

 

Hello,

 

We apologize for the delay.

 

The store page for this title states the following:

 

"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)."

 

As with most software products, we do not offer refunds or exchanges on games, DLC or in-game items purchased on our website or through the Steam Client.

 

As a one-time customer service gesture we can issue you store credit for the amount of your purchase into your Steam Wallet. The credit will also remove the title or item from your account.

 

Please confirm that you would like us to proceed with this credit.

 

Dear Steam support,

 

Can I confirm to whom I am addressing? as you have not listed your name/position,

 

I strongly suggest that the store page and Rockstar's page needs updating then, as my previous statements are still valid!

 

Even though it contradicts what is stated in the line above, I appreciate the gesture and will investigate how I can make use of the steam wallet.

 

Moving forward I cannot stress strongly enough, that Valve/Steam support needs to become more customer focused as I can see the issue of the T/C's not listing everything the customer needs to be made of aware of raising its ugly head again and again! And if this happens again to myself I will not hesitate in raising the issue again as I have done this time.

 

Please be aware my bank have jumped the gun and issued a visa charge back with out requesting my authorization, I have spoken to them today to apprise them of the situation. Once I have ascertained how to make use of the steam wallet and see if its feesable and only then will I instruct them to reverse the charge back etc.

 

regards

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...and why exactly are they not required to offer refunds? Every other product you purchase can be returned to the store for a refund in a reasonable time. Hell, I bought a tablet a wile ago and I asked "if I don't like this, how long do I have to return it?". I was told 15 days and that was fine for me to evaluate it and make sure it did what I wanted it to do.

 

I'm guessing some sleezy software publisher bribed the government to make software exempt from this sort of thing twenty years ago when all software came on floppys.... but now that the publishers have total fascist control over the user, why are they still allowed to get away with using the "no returns" card?

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

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Probably because people could play and beat a game in 15 days.

 

That means people would buy the game, play it and complete it in 15 days. Then return it and get their money back. Sounds like bad for business to my ears.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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...and why exactly are they not required to offer refunds? Every other product you purchase can be returned to the store for a refund in a reasonable time. Hell, I bought a tablet a wile ago and I asked "if I don't like this, how long do I have to return it?". I was told 15 days and that was fine for me to evaluate it and make sure it did what I wanted it to do.

 

I'm guessing some sleezy software publisher bribed the government to make software exempt from this sort of thing twenty years ago when all software came on floppys.... but now that the publishers have total fascist control over the user, why are they still allowed to get away with using the "no returns" card?

 

Eh, I'd chalk it up to there not being a reliable way to ensure a customer is really "returning" a piece of software for a long time. The thing with software is that in a lot of cases by necessity the machine that runs it is also capable of copying it.

 

I mean, you can get into details about specific laws and the nasty details of the back and forth action on those, but when it comes down to it the above issue is why that conflict exists in the first place.

 

That's part of why there are consoles and other kinds of similar hardware. With a console the device that runs the software doesn't need to be able copy it. Because of that they make returns viable.

Consoles don't see as much obvious DRM because consoles themselves are the most widespread and accepted form of DRM, they just act through hardware rather than through software.

 

That being said, there is currently at least some experimentation in systems that allow returnable software to be more viable (see Green Man Gaming's "Capsule"). It's not anywhere close to being widespread yet and it still has a LOT of issues, but it is something that's starting to emerge and develop.

Edited by Professor Paul1290
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But again, they have total 1984 control over you. They can tell *if* you ever launched the game at all, they can tell whether you even ever fully installed the game to begin with, etc.

 

It isn't like having a fully-functional disk, where the customer has some rights to privacy.

 

...and for the record, I can buy a screwdriver, use it to fix my things and then return it. I have not done that.

 

I have also been teaching myself to use Blender. Some of the things I've been practicing modeling have been wrenches. If I go buy a 3D printer today, does that invalidate my ability to return any tools I purchase in the future? For example I can buy a proprietary tool, measure it, model it myself, print my version and return the original tool to the store.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmDz7Q9_h6c

 

I suppose the American thing to do is ban the use of 3D modeling software, or 3D printers, or the use of 3d modeling software in conjunction with said printers.

(this post brought to you by an American)

Edited by lost_soul

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

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I'm not going to say that there are no problems with digital distribution and DRM, there definitely are, and I dislike them just as much as anyone else and again I try to avoid them where I can.

 

 

 

However, there also exists the notion that method of distribution by physical media is/was better. That particular notion is one that, as someone who has a sizeable collection of old games, I disagree with for a number of reasons.

 

One is the question of reliability. A lot of people/groups will give you varying figures for how long a CD/DVD lasts under ideal storage conditions, but from my experience it's a vague and depressing "0.5 to 15" years. Much of this is not due to poor care, but often due to factors simply beyond the consumers control such as those that occur at manufacturing. You can make an argument that there might be an element of the classic "planned obsolescence" at work there.

Sure, hardcore gamers and hobbyists like us know to make back-ups and maintain them well, but the average consumer arguably does not have any better long-term playability with physical media than they do with digital distribution.

 

Another was who got to decide who got to get their games out to the public or not. Physical media offered privacy to the user, but it also gave companies a level of control that wasn't as obvious but isn't any less significant. With physical media, publishers and manufacturers had greater control over what got to be easily available. Sure there was shareware and other such models back then, but back then it wasn't capable of reaching people to the extent that it can today and was mostly limited to hardcore geek types.

As nasty as some big game companies are now, back then they were just as nasty AND everyone had to go through them if they wanted to get any kind of visibility at all.

There are reasons why indie and niche games have become a big thing on Steam and even the upcoming PS4 despite the control these companies want to exert. Because normal gamers have gotten used to the idea of digital distribution, those games would become widely available to some extent regardless of Sony or Valve's actions, so in a sense they HAVE to accommodate such games to some extent otherwise they would happen and evolve without them anyway.

Digital distribution age may have granted big companies more control over the games that they themselves produce, but I would also argue that it also opened the door for other portions of the industry that they do not have as much control over.

Even now as big AAA companies exert more control over the games they make, they arguably don't have quite as much control over how the gaming scene as a whole works as they did back in the day partly because of the ease of digital distribution. I believe the recent surge in more focused, specialized, and niche games and the return of some previously unpopular genres, largely through various forms of digital distribution, is indicative of this.

 

Another reason involves incentives to keeps games available. Games are not like paintings or sculptures or buildings, games are more like machines. People need to care about them or they simply don't last, even if you write them into an indestructible medium and stash them into a vault somewhere. Until we have a reliable developer of perfect emulators for everything that work an all the latest systems, it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Digital copies of games don't take shelf space, there's no visible excuse to take them off the "shelf", and above all people can always see them there. That sounds rather trivial, but when it comes to keeping things working long-term that can be just as powerful, if not more powerful, than any physical medium. When something is kept widely and easily available, there is an incentive to maintain it, and that's an important thing.

I would not be surprised if eventually we have a greater percentage of all the games produced in 2008 still widely and easily available by 2016 than the percentage of games produced in 1994 still widely available by 2002 (yeah those are totally random dates, but you get the idea). I wouldn't be surprised if that was already the case to some extent, there are a few early 2000 era games I'm still trying to get copies of.

 

 

 

Now that is NOT to say that I don't agree with what what you've said, and I'm not arguing against a lot of those points because I do agree with them. I agree that Steam, Origin, or whatever's DRM and policies are something I would rather not have, and I agree that it would be preferable if we didn't have to deal with privacy issues related to that. There are many ways I would wish the situation to be much better than it is now. In fact, I avoid Steam or Origin where practical, preferring less intrusive stores and services for games I want to keep (my Steam library may be big but my overall game library is even larger and much of it is NOT on Steam).

 

I would even go so far to say I am glad some people have objections to Origin, Steam, and other such services. I know a lot of people like that and I think that's very important.

Heck, I am a also GOG.com fan as well, and will say that a large sub-group of that community has no shortage of negative things to say about Steam, many which are pretty rational.

 

 

However, I guess if I am arguing something, I argue against the notion that the previous era of physical disks only was better, as I very much disagree with that. I argue that it was just as shitty back then as it is now, it was just shitty in different and less up-front obvious ways.

 

 

 

I suppose on the subject of disruptive technologies such as 3D printing, of course as new technologies like 3D printing become widespread the law will have to change to accommodate such things, and eventually we'll have to decide how to best handle that. This discussion is one that happened when VCRs came about, when we got writable CDs, or even home computers became widespread for that matter.

 

Ultimately there is no "right" or "wrong" to what happens, at least not one that isn't merely what people make up and agree on. What really matters is whether we can agree on where our rights should be.

Edited by Professor Paul1290
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You should edit that again, you missed a few things. :P (j/k!) Wow, what a wall of text! You're right though and I completely agree on all fronts you've mentioned.

 

It reminds me of a family I've been friends with for a long time over in Indianapolis. They owned a large contractor company, the father and three boys. I was friends with one of the boys through school and what not. I was talking to him one time about "purchasing" for their needs building custom homes.

 

The thing I remember about the conversation is that he and his two brothers where all purchasing products for the homes they were building. I figured since they were family and worked for the same company that they used similar practices but that couldn't have been further from the truth.

 

He said (I'm paraphrasing here as I don't recall exactly but you'll get the gist),

"I buy things that are the least expensive, it doesn't matter how far I have to go to get it, I always get the best deal on what it is I'm looking for. If someplace has it but its not a good deal, he'll wait until it is. (He is the eldest)

 

Javid (the middle child) goes to which ever place is the closest that has what they need or some facsimile of it, regardless of price, which ever is more convenient. You'll waste time and money searching all over for the best deal he has said many times.

 

Jimmy (the youngest) always gets what is required. If they have it close, great. If its far away, he'll get it. He gets exactly what is wanted where ever it is. They have to order it? That's fine with him.

 

These are just three different approaches by three members of the same family to attain something.

 

I guess if we have to cater to, not just three known peoples' wishes and habits, but every family with multiple children + adults' needs, some people are not going to get what they want the way they want it.

 

Of course, this can all come across to someone who has thought about these things in a broader perspective as a bit selfish and petty. This is the way I want things and I've found others that agree with me, damn it!!!

 

Just be aware, as I'm sure you all are, that physical media isn't here to stay. Hell what's the lifetime limit on the CD/DVD/Bluray die layer? 10-15 years? I'd rather have a backup of a backup be it DRM'd or not. But I'm in the convenience camp personally. If I have to jump through a few hoops, so be it. I deal with software bugs and workarounds, etc. so its not that big a deal to me.

 

Is it a pain in the ass sometimes? Yes. But our energies are better directed in to other things, IMO.

 

Just remember that we're really still in the infancy of the computer age. These things will work themselves out.

Edited by Lux
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The die layers in disks has nothing to do with it though, because official disks are pressed, not "burned", the way consumer disks are made. They're called "lands and pits". The "lands and pits" on an official CD are recessions in the under-layer of the disk. You can scratch up a CD, but you can also repair the CD. As long as the scratches are not very deep and you did not crack/bend the disk, it can usually be repaired for a couple of bucks.

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

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Good point, though if the die layers had nothing to do with it, why are they present?

 

I'm aware of their mfg. process as I live in (now) the only city in the US with a Sony production facility. We used to polish the CD/DVD/Blu mothers for them and machine the aluminum targets for the sputter process along with many of their mfg. line crib parts. Its a fascinating process how the aluminum substrate is sputtered on to the discs.

 

Still, the die layer and reflective layer are the thorns in the tigers paw; without them, the pits and lands can not be accurately read.

 

The point I'm making is, is it 10 years? 15 years? 50 years? Some discs I have that have not been subjected to abundant humidity and stored correctly have become unreadable even though unscratched. Most of them are still good though. It could be they've addressed some of the earlier issues but still, disc lifetime is an unknown. It isn't something you can say with any certainty, "I burned this disc #years ago with all my family photos and their safe". If you have 3 discs burned with the same data, chances are at least one of them still works but burning multiple discs of the same data isn't the norm for most users.

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Well, I've got twenty year old CDS that play just fine. Nirvana, NIN, etc... However, my personal experience is that CD/DVD-RW technology is utter crap. I'm not talking about write-once disks, i'm talking about re-writable media. EVERY single re-writable disk I've *ever* used has become unusable in just a couple of years. It can neither be read, nor be re-formatted/erased. Computers just sit there and try to read the disk for as long as you leave it in the drive.

Edited by lost_soul

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

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047028/ea-brings-full-refunds-to-origin-its-pc-games-store-in-an-ongoing-quest-for-gamer-love.html

 

It seems somebody has taken my advice. You can "return" digital games if you haven't launched them. Not bad, now just allow us to play them a couple of days to see if they're extreemly buggy before returning them. You can even keep track of our position in the game to tell if we've gotten too far for a return.

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

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