The downside of Online enabled games

[Alyeska]

Rockstar just released a patch via Steam for GTA San Andreas. They updated the game to support controllers like the X-Box 360 controller. They changed the default driving controls.

Oh, and they removed 17 songs from the game. Broke every single save game and accidentally disabled 1920x1080 resolution. The patch is mandatory since its Steam. You cannot rollback the patch. Doesn't matter that you bought and paid for the game and the content. All 17 of these songs were removed from a 10 year old game. The joys of music licensing combined with software licensing and an auto updating internet enabled software client to enforce all of that combined. Content can now be taken away from games you purchased retroactively.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/11 ... ves-songs/


I am now reminded why I used to purchase all my games retail even when available on Steam for cheaper. And why I was so pissed when developers started packaging Steam on their games even when I purchased it via retail. Because Steam can be used to take things away from the gamer.

[Havok]

Console.

[bilateralrope]

What gaming needs is for a consumer protection agency to step in and make it clear that bullshit where the developer takes away functionality will not be tolerated. Hit Valve hard enough and this downside should go away as Valve would not want to deal with the developers pulling this shit.

I'm just not sure why none have stepped in. Are none of them powerful enough, do they not care, or is nobody complaining to them ?

Console.

Don't the consoles all have auto-update now ?

[The Vortex Empire]

Fortunately, you can actually put any of your own music on a custom radio station in game.

[TheFeniX]

Console.

Don't the consoles all have auto-update now ?

I know the 360 does. While you can decline updates, Microsoft will force you off Live on any game that you refuse the update for. Steam's auto-patching is something I generally turn off ever on games I don't see the need for updates, since more than a few updates made Skyrim unplayable until the modders could update SKSE. "Console" isn't really an answer either way considering I would have to bother with my PS2 (long gone) or 360 (probably bricked by now) to play it.

What this really comes down to is that Rockstar could have setup for Steam to only remove songs from new purchases of the game, but it seems to be easier to just nix every copy. While Steam gives them the ability to neuter your game, Rockstar is still the one pulling the trigger.

[Havok]

What gaming needs is for a consumer protection agency to step in and make it clear that bullshit where the developer takes away functionality will not be tolerated. Hit Valve hard enough and this downside should go away as Valve would not want to deal with the developers pulling this shit.

I'm just not sure why none have stepped in. Are none of them powerful enough, do they not care, or is nobody complaining to them ?

Console.

Don't the consoles all have auto-update now ?

Yeah, but the updates stay on the console itself, you can always delete them and you can't remove content from the disc versions. I don't know about the downloadable versions.

[bilateralrope]

Don't the consoles all have auto-update now ?

Yeah, but the updates stay on the console itself, you can always delete them and you can't remove content from the disc versions. I don't know about the downloadable versions.

Lets say you purchase an Xbox One, PS4 or Wii-U game on disc. But that game has had some updates. Can you refuse those updates ?

If you can't, then consoles are not a way to avoid this problem in the future because the developer could always issue an update to break them.

At least PC has modders trying to fix some of the problems in some games. Just look at what they quickly fixed in San Andreas:

* Aspect ratios are now correct and not squashed, like they used to be
* 1.0/1.01 save games will not be rejected now
* 1.0/3.0 settings file will not be rejected now
* 10ms frame delay has been removed. As a result, game now locks properly on 30 FPS instead of 25 FPS
* Mouse should not lock up randomly when exiting the menu on newer systems anymore
* 16:9 and 5:4 resolutions are now selectable

[Alyeska]

Console.

Don't the consoles all have auto-update now ?

I know the 360 does. While you can decline updates, Microsoft will force you off Live on any game that you refuse the update for. Steam's auto-patching is something I generally turn off ever on games I don't see the need for updates, since more than a few updates made Skyrim unplayable until the modders could update SKSE. "Console" isn't really an answer either way considering I would have to bother with my PS2 (long gone) or 360 (probably bricked by now) to play it.

What this really comes down to is that Rockstar could have setup for Steam to only remove songs from new purchases of the game, but it seems to be easier to just nix every copy. While Steam gives them the ability to neuter your game, Rockstar is still the one pulling the trigger.

You can't really disable Steam updates anymore. Sure you can turn them off. But next time you launch the game it will update.

And about Rockstar. They did just that for Vice City. Leave the old version for people who already bought the game, provide the new version for new purchases. But for San Andreas, they just yanked it from everyone.

[bilateralrope]

I wonder if the yanking of the music for everyone was Rockstar's idea, or if the lawyers of the musics copyright holders forced them to pull the music for everybody on Steam after realizing that Rockstar had that capability.

Either way, now that Rockstar have done it, I expect the music industry to notice and start pressuring for the removal of licensed music from games where the license has expired.

[Purple]

And that is why I'd rather not own a title than buy it over steam. End of story.

[Vendetta]

I wonder if the yanking of the music for everyone was Rockstar's idea, or if the lawyers of the musics copyright holders forced them to pull the music for everybody on Steam after realizing that Rockstar had that capability.

It's probably something they had to do for license reasons, but why they had to do it is probably a bit complicated.

It may simply be that any update to the code provided on Steam counts as them supplying a "new" product under the licensing terms (because the product is wholly digital and any new download of a Steam game streams all the updates into it, rather than the copyrighted elements being supplied on seperate physical media, or even the updates being seperately downloaded files), and since they no longer have the license to those songs due to the original duration of the license they had expiring, they would be in breach of copyright if they didn't remove them.

This has happened before with all new versions of games with licensed music (XBLA versions of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio don't have all their original music), and it may simply be that the way Steam works forces them to do this.

[Covenant]

There's a lot of legal stuff in your steam package.

I've been wishing to release my old game as Open Source for people to play around with, but there's so much steam code in the wrapper that it is very hard for me to get anyone to strip it out, and I cannot just hand it over for them to do it since that stuff is not supposed to be just handed out. I could imagine all number of irksome things that Rockstar might have had to do, so they just decided to pull the plug. This is not their main demographic anyway, they'd rather take the bad press than the annoyance of lawsuits or even the polite naggings of a legal body.

Steam is a good platform but these things are incredibly frustrating. I like steam but I do not like things like "expiration dates" on music liscenes and server-side requirements that make games die off when the servers shut down or other stuff. I think hating Steam is a bit of a whiff there because it's the developers who choose or not choose to use the update capabilities of steam to screw with you, but among the many "consumer rights" that I think we need to codify must be some protections against retroactive erasure of assets.

Updates that break the game... that sucks, but that's just being sloppy. Nothing you can do about that. Deleting your stuff retroactively should not be something you can do so flippantly.

[Thanas]

In other news, CDPR once again shows everyone how it is supposed to be by making all DLC free for Witcher 3.

[TheFeniX]

In other news, CDPR once again shows everyone how it is supposed to be by making all DLC free for Witcher 3.

I think it's kind of weird that valve could make a killing off DLC for pretty much any of their games, yet I can't think of a single one that didn't have every major update released as a free patch, unless you count Left for Dead on 360 requiring money due to Microsoft's requirement on only paid updates adding new achievements (of course, MS games are immune from their own policy). Still, no valve Steam releases have paid DLC AFAIK. I guess they can wash their hands of it and just rake in free cash on sales for all the paid DLC from other developers.

[Tanasinn]

You can't really blame Valve or its update system for the borderline criminality of the music industry or Rockstar's incompetence.

[Vendetta]

I think it's kind of weird that valve could make a killing off DLC for pretty much any of their games, yet I can't think of a single one that didn't have every major update released as a free patch

Valve's own games are there to draw you in to Steam. To install one of the only two games they care about now, TF2 or DotA2, you have to have Steam, and once you have steam they can bombard you with Zomg sale buy it nao adverts for games you will buy but only have a 50% chance of even downloading, so you've given them money for literally nothing.

And then they sell you a hat.

[Alyeska]

I think it's kind of weird that valve could make a killing off DLC for pretty much any of their games, yet I can't think of a single one that didn't have every major update released as a free patch

Valve's own games are there to draw you in to Steam. To install one of the only two games they care about now, TF2 or DotA2, you have to have Steam, and once you have steam they can bombard you with Zomg sale buy it nao adverts for games you will buy but only have a 50% chance of even downloading, so you've given them money for literally nothing.

And then they sell you a hat.

I have all advertising and popups disabled. I only check the store when I am interested. Not because they pestered me.

[Irbis]

Still, no valve Steam releases have paid DLC AFAIK. I guess they can wash their hands of it and just rake in free cash on sales for all the paid DLC from other developers.

CS:GO has paid Operations, DotA 2 compendiums/events, TF2 limited crates, and all 3 are also heavily micro-transacted. Though, yes, they do get regular 'free' small upgrades.

The OP is yet another point for migrating to GOG once they finish Galaxy, Steam did a number of unpleasant stuff recently I can't see (yet) happening on GOG...