The mandatory installation of Steam for Modern Warfare 2 PC has been deemed a "Trojan horse" by digital distributor Direct2Drive, who's refused to stock the game along with Impulse and Gamersgate.
Direct2Drive has told Gamasutra, "We don't believe games should force the user to install a Trojan Horse." The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 will use Valve's Steamworks to manage such processes as installation, DRM, patching and save games, but this also means that Steam itself needs to be on players' systems.
The online retailers feel that selling a game that carries a storefront for a competitor is against their interests.
Impulse told IGN PC site VE3D, "We share some of the same concerns as Direct2Drive over the bundling of the Steam client with the game. The most obvious issue is the forced inclusion of a competitor's store that blocks us from carrying the game."
Modern Warfare 2
Official trailer
1:32Launch trailer
Modern Warfare 2
Official trailer
1:32Launch trailer
Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video
You must be at least 15 years of age.
Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again..
Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular
Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page
But the retailers emphasise that their issue is not with Modern Warfare 2 or Activision. "Our issues with the game are solely with the Steamworks bundling. We enjoy a great relationship with Activision and would love to sell the title, but not with Steam," said Impluse, while Direct2Drive will be offering US$5 off coupons to some Activision titles as recompense to customers.
The news follows Gearbox's Randy Pitchford's claim that as a developer Valve has a conflict of interest regarding Steam, and called for Steam's move to being an independent business.
Direct2Drive are 100% right on this one. They would be shooting themselves in the foot by selling MW2, becuase for them it could be the last ever game that a user ever buys from them. It is totally wrong, Activison should of thought of this months ago. How would Activison feel if D2D forced each buyer to sit through a 2 minute Medal of Honour video? They would be mad, but this is what they asked D2D to do. tossers.
I have used steam since the beginning, and think it does the job, with the exception of pricing. I do think so people tend to overreact regarding steam, if it sucks explain why. Used D2D once and never again, but I see in a way why they would be grieved but then at the same time so what, be competitive on prices and people will vote with their wallets or purses.
in the way you can say anything on the internet without backing it up of course
Privacy
Steam collects and reports anonymous metrics of its usage, stability, and performance, all, with the exception of Valve's hardware survey, without notifying the user at the time of collection or offering an opt-out.
Steam is also used to report similarly non-identifying data by several of its games. While some forms of this data are reported back to the public in aggregate form, for instance the results of the aforementioned hardware survey and gameplay statistics, other non-identifying data has been known to be collected without any indication (as is described in Valve's privacy policy). The only known example of this undisclosed collection of data has been that of the level of fragmentation of Steam's files. The data was used to justify the development of a defragmentation option within Steam to reverse the performance-degrading process. "Rather than having to guess or estimate performance bottle-necks", a Steam Update News entry said at the time, "Steam gave us the ability to precisely solve the real-world problem."
Regional restrictions and pricing
Steam allows developers and publishers to change prices and restrict game availability depending on the user's location.
Both regional restrictions and pricing are unpopular with Steam users affected by them, and a Steam Community group called "Rest of World" exists to try to lobby against them.
Some of the difficulties in selling a retailing game worldwide are detailed by a forum post from a member of Valve's staff:“ Sometimes publishers are split into mostly independent North America/European/Asian divisions and one division doesn't have the rights to distribute in all areas. In order to distribute in all areas we have to negotiate deals with all the different divisions and they all have different ideas of how pricing should work and how important digital distribution is for their games. We are always trying to help them understand the importance of markets around the world as well as help them understand the importance of fair and equal pricing for all regions, but it's an ongoing struggle. ”
—John McCaskey, Steam programmer, August 2008
Regional pricing is widely used by Valve to artificially ensure that prices on Steam stay comparable to the retail price of a game in user's area, which considering regional differences and exchange rate fluctuations can lead to dramatic differences.
On December 12, 2008, Steam began offering its products in Euros and Pound Sterling, if the user lived in Europe (including countries not located in the Eurozone, e.g. Norway) or the United Kingdom. Most prices were converted at an exchange rate of 1€ = $1, instead of the real exchange rate at that time of 1€ being $1.44 USD. In addition to that Valve started charging all European customers (except in the UK) the same VAT, meaning customers living in countries that don't collect a VAT on digital purchases (e.g. Norway) were charged the same as countries with a VAT of more than 20%.
While Valve does not have region restrictions on their own games, they do use Steam's authentication to prevent boxed versions of their games sold in Russia and Thailand, which are priced significantly lower than elsewhere, from being used outside those territories.
System failure
The error European owners of Half-Life 2 received when trying to activate their game
It is necessary to validate every Steam game online before it can be launched, although an offline mode is available. There are no alternate methods of activation such as via telephone or fax, which causes the system to deny access to those without Internet connections. According to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam's availability is not guaranteed and Valve is under no legal obligation to release an update disabling the authentication system in the event that Steam becomes permanently unavailable.
Temporary system failures may occur preventing users from activating their games. The first temporary system failure affected Europe on November 2004 just after Half-Life 2 was released, and in December 2006 the root authentication servers were unavailable due to storms in Seattle.
Default auto-updates
By default, to play a game offline, Steam and the game itself must be fully updated. When Steam starts online, the system checks to see if there are updates available. If there are, the user is forced to wait for update process to finish before being able to play again, though games can be streamed online. These updates cannot be rolled back by the user, which prevents users with unusual or unrecognized issues reverting their software to its previous, functional state. Steam can be set to stay offline and not attempt a connection, but this offline mode has its own restrictions and limitations, including preventing games which have not been updated from running in offline mode. It is possible to deactivate the update look-up on a per game basis in the game's properties.
Changes to minimum specifications
On June 30, 2007, users who ran Windows 98 or Windows Me were no longer allowed to run Steam or any games that previously supported those operating systems. However, only a small percentage of Steam users were affected by these changes. Installing Steam on either of these operating systems results in an error forwarding the user to the Steam support website. Additionally, users without SSE processors were warned that Source engine games would no longer function "within the next few months" if they did not upgrade their computer hardware (due to the impending release of its multiprocessor update).
Resale limitation
Games bought through Steam cannot be resold. The Steam Subscriber Agreement denies users the right to "sell, charge others for the right to use or otherwise transfer account";.
Furthermore, retail purchases which have already been tied to a Steam account will not be transferred to another if the receipt presented to Valve as proof of purchase is from an "online auction website or used software vendor".
Phishing
Since Steam accounts give their owner access to all of their games on any computer, phishing is common. Usually, a user will pose as an administrator of Steam. They will inform a user that their account is to be closed unless they reveal their password for validation purposes. Valve has taken action to prevent this. The top of all Steam Friends chat windows has a note informing users to never tell their password to anyone.
Valve has systems in place to return accounts to their rightful owners if contacted through their support system, but if a phisher uses cheats on the account whilst it is stolen, the account can be irreversibly banned by Valve Anti-Cheat.
Installation Directory
Content for all Steam games must reside in the user's "steamapps" folder.
As much as I love the fact I can click a few times and own a new game, never need a disk and use the Steam overlay in all my games, I don't think Activision should require users to install Steam to play the game from other digital distributors. From a DVD version, fine.
Activision have shown a dark side recently, with the whole £55 rrp and the endless full price releases of Guitar Hero. If they want to sell the game online, it should be exclusive to Steam.
I still don't get why there's so many haters of Steam. Maybe I missed the part with any valid arguments for the loath of said application.
Oh no! They collect anonymous statistics to help improve the service! How dare they!
Regional restrictions and pricing
Sure I dislike the awful prices this often results in, but as you quoted, it's not steam's choice - they allow the publishers to choose. Valve's own game prices have always been fair. And, in fairness, I can see why publishers would want the games to be the same prices as the stores in each region - things cost different prices in different countries for everything, it might not seem fair but you put up with it for everything else, why does steam deserve special vilification?
Online validation
So realistically, steam requires an internet connection. That makes it a problem for gamers without the internet, but the vast majority of us do have the internet, and it's unreasonable to expect that a digital distribution service should regard offline service as being of high importance.
System failure
Oh no! Steam had a glitch that one time years ago! It must be s**t!
Default auto-updates
Most steam users regard its ability to keep their games up to date as a good thing... and your own quote gave the counter-argument on this point - you can turn auto-updates off for any game.
Changes to minimum specifications
Who still uses win 98/ME? I really can't blame them for wanting to push people off archaic OSs.
Resale limitation
A limitation of any digital distribution service, not just steam.
Phishing
Anyone who's stupid enough to give out their password doesn't really have the right to blame steam for what happens. And phishing is hardly a unique steam problem - it's an inherent problem with all online services.
Installation Directory Content for all Steam games must reside in the user's "steamapps" folder.
*gasp* the horror.
Ok, so quoting steam's problems from wikipedia hasn't helped your argument.. do you happen to have any real reasons to call steam a load of s**t?
Back to the news article... I think D2D etc are right to do this, it's ridiculous to expect them to distribute a game with their competitor's store included... but "a trojan horse"? Really? We can accept the real reasons for them not agreeing to it without them needing to resort to such hyperbole.
I've slightly confused.... what about the large amount of people who already have Steam installed on their computer? Cus there's a lot of us.
I won't download for three reasons though: -10 or so GB download does not sound fun -Steam installs all its software on my first hard drive which is rapidly running out of space, I need MW2 on my second HD. -I want the box
But yeh, Steam is pretty damn good. Far better than any other digital platform I've used.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
