Steam, UPlay etc !?

[LiddleP]

I am only just somewhat coming back to Windows (though not quite there yet) but back in the day when I was an active user, supporter and programmer on Windows, there was nothing like Steam. You simply installed your game and played away and for Multiplayer games we had places like Kali that offered us servers to play on, then people like GameSpy started showing up.

I recently bought 2 games (Far Cry and Skyrim) to complement the purchase of my new Laptop but all of a sudden I am confronted with Steam and Uplay, etc - and I don't have a clue what is going on :wacko: - lmao - it is not funny

Trying to find out more, one of course learns about the privacy issues (most know probably even better than me what I am talking about, so no elaboration) and rebels, giving up on trying to find out more - but that means one is lumbered with a game they cannot play and do not wish to sell on because they do want to play - roflmao

Is the only way one can play really to join one of these outlets ?

In all seriousness, what are they all about ?

Are they just Game retail outlets, do they only sell digital games (downloadable) or do they also sell games on CD/DVD ?
Do they also provide servers on which to play MP games ?
What more do they provide and most importantly how do you try safe guard your privacy ?

Last of all, just what are the options, how many of them are there, what are the choices and which should one join ?
- I hear some have pretty bad problems when it comes to registering your game, from laggy servers to who knows what else

Please feel free to add any info that might help the newcomer like me, from ease of registration to whatever else you consider worth knowing about.

 

[vanthus]

Steam is pretty much required these days for most games,it's pretty painless joining it and there are a lot of advantages.
I had never heard of Uplay till I received my copy of farcry 3,it's compulsory to play my version through Uplay even for "single player" it's much the same idea as steam and like steam it only takes minutes to set it up.You'll soon get used to it.

 

[Rakk]

I know there is Steam, UPlay and Origin, and yes mostly you have to use whichever one it wants to play the games (ie. there is no way round it), though don't think you'll only need one of them - different games may require different ones, for example if your Game is released by Electronic Arts, it will not be available on Steam, you will have to use Origin.

Personally, I quite like Steam, it gives a nice chat client to talk to friends if nothing else, and you can see what they're playing at any moment in time (as long as they have it linked to Steam).

Steam and Origin are definitely game outlets (digital download only), don't know about UPlay, I find Steam not that cheap for games most of the time, but in their sales, you can get stuff really cheap.

 

[baron75mk2]

Its all just fancy DRM the lot of it - but steam is a very good game platform (for single player stuff at leased , have heard some say of multiplayer server issues with certain games) , as for the other two , uplay and origin, well opinions vary is all ill say , there is no LEGAL way around them unfortunately & with the other two you will find you have to be online to play the games this has caused major performance issues in the past with games like assassins creed 2 & prince of persia just to mention a few - with steam you can play offline once you have initially installed for the first time , but i havent found that steam has degraded performance on any game so far.

But as Rakk has said unfortunately its not a case of joining one of them , you have to join whatever one the game uses , me personally i have steam & thats it , if its not on steam i dont buy it period as i hate the other two clients with a passion.

 

[steaky360]

I think something that might alleviate your privacy concerns is that I have not noticed an increase in PPI reclaim calls since signing up for Steam/etc. so I'd like to give them a wee bit of credit in that they have not sold my data onto someone else yet.
It seems to be the way of the internet that personal information gets plastered all over the shop but I think (with Steam at least) you can maintain fairly high control over what others can see/search for from you.

I agree with everything else said above though, it is just DRM packaged up in a fancy program. Admittedly steam does work well though. I use uPlay but only for games I have to (assassins creed series for instance - even though its out on steam now I think it opens in uPlay). I installed origin so I can keep a track of the winter sale (assuming there is one) as I'm keen on getting the Mass Effect Trilogy (not available on Steam unfortunately).

I wouldn't be concerned about joining Steam/uPlay/origin etc. if the game you want to play uses them then you kinda have to, but they are not all bad really. Kinda pointless (if you don't use any of the other features, friends etc.), but not necessarily bad.

 

[Kalisnoir]

As said previously Steam / Origin / UPlay are just fancy DRM but with a store to buy with as well. Baron said there is no legal way around it but actually it's not against the law to get a cracked version of the game (just get the cracks not the actual full download) provided you OWN a LEGITIMATE CD Key, you are then free of the DRM (in cases of UPlay anyway, never needed to for Steam given it's a solid bit of software and doesn't require always on connection).

There has been a lot of controversy over them however it's either only from people who are stuck in the past and hate the idea of digital downloads. People thinking Origin is stealing all of their private information (it doesn't) or just hating Uplay because Ubisoft don't realize they are actually losing sales over how rubbish it is!

tl;dr
Yes you can legally bypass the DRM, but Steam is brilliant and although personally not had an issue with UPlay, lots of people have. Origin is fine but I never use it really, only when I want to play BF3.

 

[steaky360]

OWN[/B] a LEGITIMATE CD Key,

I'd be careful there, although you've obviously looked it up in more detail than me (and as such, I'm potentially mistaken), but my understanding was that you could not download a copy of anything regardless of whether you own it yourself (at least in the UK). I'm not even sure if you were entitled to create your own backup (if you were it would be tied to the original item), but (if you are) in the case of music/films etc. you had to make the backup yourself, downloading a copy was not legitimate/allowed. However this might be different as you are only purchasing a Key in the case of Steam/etc. games. I think its not allowed to contravene the DRM software, as such using a cracked copy of a game would not be allowed (you would at least be outside the terms and conditions of the sale of the CD Key in the first place).

Obviously there is the ethical standpoint to all of this too, I would agree 100% its not unethical to use a cracked copy of a game you have legitimately bought, in my opinion you should be able to do whatever you like (within reason obviously) with the software once you have bought it. I'm just not sure the law has caught up yet. For instance it used to be the case that 'technically' it was illegal to transfer music from the CD onto your PC in the UK. I actually hope that has been changed now as that is a bit ridiculous if I am honest.

Of course, as I said above, I'm not sure any of that is current - I'm pretty sure it used to be the case but that may have changed (here's hoping for some positive change!).

 

[Kalisnoir]

I'd be careful there, although you've obviously looked it up in more detail than me (and as such, I'm potentially mistaken), but my understanding was that you could not download a copy of anything regardless of whether you own it yourself (at least in the UK). I'm not even sure if you were entitled to create your own backup (if you were it would be tied to the original item), but (if you are) in the case of music/films etc. you had to make the backup yourself, downloading a copy was not legitimate/allowed. However this might be different as you are only purchasing a Key in the case of Steam/etc. games. I think its not allowed to contravene the DRM software, as such using a cracked copy of a game would not be allowed (you would at least be outside the terms and conditions of the sale of the CD Key in the first place).

Obviously there is the ethical standpoint to all of this too, I would agree 100% its not unethical to use a cracked copy of a game you have legitimately bought, in my opinion you should be able to do whatever you like (within reason obviously) with the software once you have bought it. I'm just not sure the law has caught up yet. For instance it used to be the case that 'technically' it was illegal to transfer music from the CD onto your PC in the UK. I actually hope that has been changed now as that is a bit ridiculous if I am honest.

Of course, as I said above, I'm not sure any of that is current - I'm pretty sure it used to be the case but that may have changed (here's hoping for some positive change!).

You could be right with the DRM, I was only speculating however I do know that it is legal to download a nocd crack provided you own the game (I figured the two would go hand in hand). Even though by law it is still stated that you only bought the rights to the medium you have purchased (in other words you don't have the right to download a copy of it despite you own it on DVD / Bluray) there has been several cases in the past in which the defendant has not been prosecuted provided they only downloaded and didn't upload the file. Of course I'm no lawyer however so don't hold me responsible if you get caught and prosecuted ha but I have plenty of times in the past downloaded films I already own.

 

[steaky360]

You could be right with the DRM, I was only speculating however I do know that it is legal to download a nocd crack provided you own the game (I figured the two would go hand in hand). Even though by law it is still stated that you only bought the rights to the medium you have purchased (in other words you don't have the right to download a copy of it despite you own it on DVD / Bluray) there has been several cases in the past in which the defendant has not been prosecuted provided they only downloaded and didn't upload the file. Of course I'm no lawyer however so don't hold me responsible if you get caught and prosecuted ha but I have plenty of times in the past downloaded films I already own.

I've not heard/read any cases but its good to see the judges are taking a sensible approach to this kind of thing. Just make sure you don't use a torrent sharing program (as its difficult to 'only' download haha).

Bah, I think its more of a case of being sensible now-a-days, if you like a game - buy it If you've bought it, don't be daft and everything should be ok

 

[LiddleP]

Thanks for all the info and advice guys, sounds like DWM though.

Personally, while this form of DRM could be the way forward for MP games, I think this is totally wrong for SP games, they protect themselves and leave your systems wide open to attack.

I bought the games on CD as I prefer to have my copy to hand and not have to go download whenever I find the need to reinstall my OS from scratch, and I am only really interested in the Single Player aspect of these particular games - Games like BF3 would be a different issue as their strong side is MP but even there I prefer to have my games to hand on CD/DVD

For me to be forced to keep an open connection while one plays a Single-player game is far from ideal - I really hope my games only require or offer Steam as an option.

Under the circumstance I think they are begging to have their games hacked, a one off registration that provides a code that can only be used by the one copy of game should suffice for SP games, already inconvenient enough to have to input that everytime one wants to play the game but at least a heck of a lot better than being left wide open.

Oh well, I concede defeat, I reckon as I am being forced to use places like steam to play these games, I might as well stick to them all the way, ignore all new games and only buy when Steam has its Sales- now I know, these are the last games I will ever buy at release.

That way I'll be getting on average 6 top rated games for the price of one at the end of the day, probably end up only buying as many as I would have at release price, not that I would feel guilty if I did go for more at tuppence a time, sweet defeat.

If the majority do the same - and it does seem the only sensible thing unless one has the money to burn or needs help with an addiction - I bet when the majority of their income is from The Sales they will finally realise just how bad an idea it is

- but not without first splashing out on patching them out of the games, hopefully.

 

[Grimezy]

Steam really isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. I'm sure they have sufficient security measures in place to prevent people's games being hacked, etc...

Yes it's not ideal having to install it to play single player games but once you've got it, it's always there. It's a doddle downloading through steam and they do offer some brilliant sales. I haven't paid much over £3.75 for the last 10 games I've bought and they've all been very highly rated. For gods sake I got Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition with all 5 expansion packs for £3.75, try finding that in a game shop.

I too like having a hard copy of the game in my hand, more so because my download speed is pretty poor but all in all, digital gaming isn't too bad. There's some great sites out there that sell cheap games, most of which can be registered through steam by just entering the Unique code they give you after purchase and then all of your games are located in the same place on Steam. I haven't really needed to use UPlay or anything yet as I don't have any Ubisoft games but I also have Origin for BF3 and although it's not as good, it's still manageable.

 

[Kalisnoir]

Steam really isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. I'm sure they have sufficient security measures in place to prevent people's games being hacked, etc...

Yeah, Steam guard for example, whenever you log in on another computer it will email you a code that you have to input before you can login.

And like I said before you don't need to have an always on connection with Steam, aslong as you've downloaded it already you can login offline.

 

[LiddleP]

@Grimezy, I hear what you say but methinks you've misread my post wrong.

I never had a go at steam, in fact I believe I said I hoped all my games were on steam, I like the fact that they at least allow me to close down my connection after the DRM checks have taken place - my gripe is with the games manufacturers implementation of DRM as related to SP games, more like Digital Wrongs Management than right.

Other than that I don't see what Steam or any others have to do with protecting my PC if my connection is left open, maybe there is a heck more I need to learn about this when I am finally able to get my Lappy going.

 

[steaky360]

@Grimezy, I hear what you say but methinks you've misread my post wrong.

I never had a go at steam, in fact I believe I said I hoped all my games were on steam, I like the fact that they at least allow me to close down my connection after the DRM checks have taken place - my gripe is with the games manufacturers implementation of DRM as related to SP games, more like Digital Wrongs Management than right.

Other than that I don't see what Steam or any others have to do with protecting my PC if my connection is left open, maybe there is a heck more I need to learn about this when I am finally able to get my Lappy going.

I don't understand what you mean by Steam protecting your PC... its not antivirus if that is what you mean? Its essentially just a gaming platform that launches your games and links you to other players via Steams friend system. It really doesn't have that big an impact on most games.

 

[LiddleP]

I don't understand what you mean by Steam protecting your PC... its not antivirus if that is what you mean? Its essentially just a gaming platform that launches your games and links you to other players via Steams friend system. It really doesn't have that big an impact on most games.

I don't understand what you find difficult to understand about the statement "I do not see what Steam has to do with protecting my PC" !!?

How do you connect that statement to Steam being an anti-virus !? ... why not a firewall ?

The statement you pick on came about because Grimezy said "I'm sure they have sufficient security measures in place to prevent people's games being hacked, etc..."
... thinking about what he might mean, I can only assume he is talking there about the steam account being protected. While I do appreciate the extra info volunteered, why he goes there is otherwise beyond me.

If I thought Steam would help me protect my computer I would keep the kettle on.

 

[steaky360]

I don't understand what you find difficult to understand about the statement "I do not see what Steam has to do with protecting my PC" !!?

How do you connect that statement to Steam being an anti-virus !? ... why not a firewall ?

i simply didn't understand what you were referring to, are you saying you did think it had antivirus or a firewall (I don't think it does)? I think it's got the same kind of protection as any other game but I would not (for example) replace my antivirus with it . If your not meaning that (ie. because of what grimezy was suggesting) but rather that steam has measures in place to stop games getting hacked (steam guard etc), then yes it has some measures in place and its certainly no worse than a cd with cd key really (personally, I think it is better for the end user).

They will protect your steam login in terms of keeping your data secure on secure servers etc to prevent others from accessing your account / games.

If I thought Steam would help me protect my computer I would keep the kettle on.

I don't get it? :sweatdrop:

End of it all is unfortunately as said above you really can't get too far away from steam etc. but as also said above steam (at least) is actually pretty good!

 

[Grimezy]

You were suggesting earlier that you're disliking all of these third party programs that potentially put you and your privacy at risk and that you would much rather put the disc in, install it to your desktop and play it from there rather than playing it through a third party platform. Therefore, I was clearly stating that I'm sure Steam have sufficient measures in place to protect your privacy and that your games are secure.

Apologies if I got the wrong end of the stick but all you seem to do on threads in complain about your privacy being protected and you act like everybody in the world is out to get you. First it was the free codes for Metro on FB and you thought it was a scam to get you to sign your privacy away and now Steam and other platforms requiring you to use them to play the games you just want to stick in and play.

Again, apologies if I've misunderstood you this whole time.

 

[LiddleP]

You were suggesting earlier that you're disliking all of these third party programs that potentially put you and your privacy at risk and that you would much rather put the disc in, install it to your desktop and play it from there rather than playing it through a third party platform. Therefore, I was clearly stating that I'm sure Steam have sufficient measures in place to protect your privacy and that your games are secure.

Apologies if I got the wrong end of the stick but all you seem to do on threads in complain about your privacy being protected and you act like everybody in the world is out to get you. First it was the free codes for Metro on FB and you thought it was a scam to get you to sign your privacy away and now Steam and other platforms requiring you to use them to play the games you just want to stick in and play.

Again, apologies if I've misunderstood you this whole time.

Understood and apologies not required (but accepted, if it helps), I merely posted as I felt you had misread my post.

Nothing you said enabled me make the connection between this and the other posts (re Metro on FB) or indicate that this was your way of trying to help address my concerns there, my security concerns as stated in this thread mainly had to do with needing an open connection to play SP games.

Your assumption that I was having a go at Steam, is what justified my posting, If you had not misread the post you would not have made that assumption as it clearly shows I had accepted Steams method of implementing the DRM checks as the way to go, not that I had much choice in accepting.

It is a pity you feel so strongly about my rights to privacy, enough to try take stabs at me with your statements "All you seem to do is complain about.." & " ... you act like everybody is out to get you ..." I find this to be rather vindictive.

There was absolutely no need for this, Yes, I have privacy concerns and darn right too. Everyone is entitled to their privacy and opinions but you do not have a right to foist them on others and sometimes you ought to know when to keep them to yourself- this was one of those times.

If this is a result of me unwittingly stepping on your ego by pointing out that you had misread my post, all I can do is apologise and hope that you get over it.
I do not know you, neither do I have anything against you, as I said earlier on I appreciate all the genuine information offered by everyone here - so if I hurt your feelings, I can only hope that you understand that it was not intended and move on, in the interests of progress I do hope we can get along.

i simply didn't understand what you were referring to, are you saying you did think it had antivirus or a firewall (I don't think it does)?

Steaky, forgive me, I do not know how to further assist your comprehension as you appear to be a bit muddled, but I will try to clarify.

On the one hand, your saying "i simply didn't understand what you were referring to" implies that you now do comprehend, but then you continue " are you saying you did think it had antivirus or a firewall" and I am made to realise you don't comprehend.

I honestly had not considered the thought that one or the other might exist and none of the information volunteered indicated this to be the case.

Until now that is, and now you mention It, it does sound like it could be a good idea if an AV and/or a F/W were incorporated into the software required to access their services (if it is not already the case, and just as long as it was only an option as some of us prefer alternatives), that said I was and am still happy to accept Steams method of tackling the issue -> by enabling one to disconnect after the DRM checks.

While I did find it difficult to see how a statement like "I don't see what Steam or any others have to do with protecting my PC" could be taken to mean anything other than just that - I now see the possibility of one or the other or even both incorporated into their software as being probable justification for your line of thought - though you appear unsure about if that is the case but say you would not use it as an AV.

I hope this answers your question.

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

Steam's awesome.

Origin has orange bits on it.

Uplay lets me have a little Conor avatar.


The only thing that annoys me is needing to have more than one of them. Never had an issue with Origin etc, just wish everything could be in one place...i.e. on Steam! (With the Conor avatar ofc )

 

[LFFPicard]

I am only just somewhat coming back to Windows (though not quite there yet) but back in the day when I was an active user, supporter and programmer on Windows, there was nothing like Steam. You simply installed your game and played away and for Multiplayer games we had places like Kali that offered us servers to play on, then people like GameSpy started showing up.

Aaaah those days..

My days were heat.net never really used Kali.
Had to when heat.net shut down, but then mplayer showed up and gamespy so Kali hardly got a look in for me.