Subset Games Forum

What, the day Valve goes out of business or you try to do something illegal with steam? Both are highly unlikely any time soon (I'd bloody hope so in the second case).

Agent_L wrote:Yes, here it's actually laziness in applying patches rather than safety.
OFC unless someone feels insecure without the latest patch, which might be what's happening here.

Maze1125 wrote:Have you anti-DRMers started resorting to spouting any old irrelevant nonsense now in the hopes no-one will notice and just assume you know what you're talking about?

The quote is indeed old, but it's very relevant and very true.
You can't see the parabola between convenience of living in a totalitarian system which provides for your basic needs (safety being one of them) but takes your freedom away from you and convenience of using DRM platform which provides autoupdating and ingame chat but may take the game from you anytime without reason. That's sad, but it was such short-sighted ppl Franklin had in mind. Back to my point: since 300 years, nothing changed.

Again, your quote is completely irreverent to that.

As the post just before yours pointed out. A lot of DRM makes your system less safe, yet people choose it anyway.

A choice is freedom. If people are making a choice to be less safe that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the quote you gave, which is deriding people for wanting less choice for more safety.

I'm not saying that DRM is a good things for customers. It isn't. On an individual level, it is at best neutral.
But that doesn't change the fact that giving that particular quote, for this situation, is complete and utter nonsense. There is no "analogy" here, Steam is not totalitarian if you can choose it. The quote you chose was just simply wrong.

Disc10 wrote:What, the day Valve goes out of business or you try to do something illegal with steam? Both are highly unlikely any time soon (I'd bloody hope so in the second case).

No, I actually think of 2 scenarios:
1) Steam changing License Agreement to smth I cannot accept. (I would not accept current one if I'd lived in US) - a situation that might or might not happen. (ofc I can always get so desperate that I'd agree to "Valve and its subsidiaries may also, if necessary, sew yet another person's mouth onto your butthole, making you a being that shares one gastral tract.")

2) As computers and systems evolve, many games at one point will became incompatible with future systems. Because steam client will be constantly upgraded, at one point Steam client will require new system to run, while some game could be only run on older one. This situation is bound to happen - it's just a matter of time.

Maze1125 wrote:There is no "analogy" here, Steam is not totalitarian if you can choose it. The quote you chose was just simply wrong.

Nope. They had chosen new License Agreement and forced it uppon me. I was not given a choice other than "lose all games you paid for and thought you own right to use".

(You can also "choose" to not live in a totalitarian country by moving out of it. I've chosen the Steam that didn't tried to strip me from my legal rights. That Steam does not exist anymore and I have to stay in the country, because I can't take my games with me.)

Agent_L wrote:

Maze1125 wrote:There is no "analogy" here, Steam is not totalitarian if you can choose it. The quote you chose was just simply wrong.

Nope. They had chosen new License Agreement and forced it uppon me. I was not given a choice other than "lose all games you paid for and thought you own right to use".

The time at which you used that quote, the issue at hand was people who choose to have the DRM version of a game, rather than a DRM-free version. Which is a completely different issue to Steam's new license agreement.
If there is a DRM-free version, then that person can choose to play that game without agreeing the the changes in the Steam license, but have chosen to agree anyway.

Now, you may not like how Steam changed it's user-agreement, but that doesn't change the fact that the quote you gave was completely irrelevant to the discussion at the time.

And, if anything, the fact Steam can change their user-agreement at any-time, and take your games from you if you refuse to agree, is just another example of how DRM is a much less safe option for users.

Maze1125 wrote:...

I've already explained that I meant "convenience".

What you're referring by changing EULA is not "safety" (from being denied access to games), but exactly "freedom" (to use the games).

Freedom is required for safety, and that's what Franklin tired to convey, imho.

Agent_L wrote:

Maze1125 wrote:...

I've already explained that I meant "convenience".

Good for you.
That doesn't suddenly make the quote mean that.

What you're referring by changing EULA is not "safety" (from being denied access to games), but exactly "freedom" (to use the games).

I have no idea what you're talking about here.

Freedom is required for safety, and that's what Franklin tired to convey, imho.

Yes, that's right.
It's still not relevant. If people have the choice between a DRM version and a DRM-free version, then they have freedom to choose between those two options, neither of which have any inherent state of safety.

Keep it up you guys, you're demonstrating one of the fundamental axioms of the internet!!!

licker wrote:Keep it up you guys, you're demonstrating one of the fundamental axioms of the internet!!!

Amen to that...

That Axiom being Godwin's Law? At least no one mentioned Herr Hilter yet.

AS for my original whinge: Good fellows at FTLGame.com actually put up bigger stickers on the website. Also I have received an OS X version, so great thanks for that to the guys at FTLgame.com. Next time I will just buy off steam directly and avoid putting up a post that turns into a 5 page thread rant-o-ramas. Apologies to everyone in here and at FTLgame for that bit.