To be consistent... now I would compare DRM before and after Steam. Gamers took a step back by adopting and embracing Steam. So you helped make my point. If the xbox one is yet another step back in terms of customer freedom... history has proven folks will line up with cash in hand to do so.

Uh? In my experience, Offline mode works with no need to call home. Are other people's experiences different? I for one wouldn't buy any game from Steam if Offline mode required a periodical connection.

Neutral but optimistic tier: PS4

So far Sony hasn't done or said anything to piss me off yet but all of the lauch titles seem rather lackluster and not very impressive so far, without a doubt though, I'm sure the PS4 will be a solid system with good games and exclusives down the line

Fuck off and Die tier: XBONE

I said it before time and time again, Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about you or the gaming community, and everyone was like "HURR YOU'RE JUST A TROLL, THE 360 WAS SO AWESOME" (spoilers: it wasn't)
The Xbox One will make that even more clear what Microsoft's intentions are, when Microsoft got into the business just to give Sony competition it at least has games and exclusives, right now it has jack shit

Just Pathetic tier: I don't think I even have to mention nintendo at this point, current gen hardware parading as "next gen" with very poor 3rd party support and gimmicks everywhere

Hitman Absolution was under 10 bucks last week, Sleeping Dogs was 2 bucks (in a price fuckup, admittedly) or six bucks and a quarter (non-fuckup price), Tomb Raider's been under 20 already. So yeah, Steam allows one to get the games ludicrously cheap. I did not say permanent price cuts to those pricepoints, but even on full price it is considerably cheaper than CURRENT console releases (here in Mexico, at least).

If anything, I would expect the PS4 to have sales on digital distro similar to Steam, since they already have some like that (only NOT as steep discounts) on the PS3 already.

Orcish is an Xbox fanboy :p

Apparently a lot of people have issues with offline mode. I've never had any myself and have been able to leave it on a machine for weeks (restore when I wanted to download something haha)

What was wrong with the 360 in terms of just playing games and nothing else?

Also I would buy a WiiU out of pity.

Except that PC gamers can still just pirate everything if they want, they have always had this choice, and publishers know we have this choice. People live Steam because of convenience, but that status-quo is only maintained because Steam is probably the "lightest" form of DRM around, if Steam ever brought in extra-DRM type stuff which really annoyed it's customers, gamers would start to just get a cracked version of game from TPB instead of paying for it on Steam.

Console gamers for the most part do not have this option, sure consoles can be chipped/hardmodded but there's always a risk of their hardware being damaged, and consoles this coming gen will probably be extremely difficult to crack, and even then they won't get online patches, ability to due DLC, etc. So the entire convenience thing rules it out.

Consoles are closed platforms, which is why prices are so high for games and there's never Steam-like sales on XBLA or PSN, because they can charge whatever they want and get away with it, because it's a closed store with no in-platform competition, Sony and MS own their respective platforms absolutely and take a cut of every game sold.

It's easy to talk shit about people who pirate games, but piracy is ultimate equalizer to the bullshit of the industry, because of PC if the price is too high, the DRM too obtrusive, the PC gamer always has the choice to get the game without paying. It's up to the developers/publishers to make the customers WANT to pay for the convenience of legally owning it, being able to download it whenever you want (without torrents), hosting of patches, etc etc.

Eeeh, dunno, at least Steam makes the DRM also provide a service to the player, be it just silly chat interfaces or going as far as working as the multiplayer layer (which is pretty damn good) while not being actively harmful (Starforce) or cumbersome and limiting (SecuROM limited activations). Taking the good with the bad, I would rather have steam as DRM than deal with either of those.

I think it was around in 2009 when MS's shift changed completely and instead of focusing on the games they are now focusing on...well...not games

TV! Sports! Media!
TV!
And now a dog.

The misconception that gamers 'embraced' Steam is basically the smoker's club effect. The smoker's club effect is when you go into a smoker's club and claim that smoking causes lung cancer. Everyone is more likely to disagree with you because you are among people who have a vested interest in believing the contrary.

If you go online, you will see an ostensible 'majority' (actually, it's not even that) vocally defending Steam. This is only the case because the people who frequent gaming forums are predominantly PC gamers. Not all console gamers have PCs, and those that do are considerably less likely to frequent a gaming forum from a PC.

(As a side note, you'll see the odd person who claims they came back to PC gaming thanks to Steam - on several occasions I've called them out on their bullshit by finding posts dating back a decade on PC gaming from them. It's like the supposed former drug dealer who "found Jesus")

Society at large hasn't embraced Steam.

To be fair, Steam did revitalize pc gaming. Hard.
Lower shelf space in game retailers? Yeah that was happening.

Disagree :p

perhaps its semantics, but not only is there a resounding support of steam (both by fanboys and by more logical people that like it for their own personal reasons), but shear numbers are a fact that I can't ignore. IMHO, if you are buying games on Steam... you have embraced it.

They average almost 4 million concurrent connections... what is the next closest competitor? (couple hundred thousand, maybe?). (and given that most of their competitors offer similar DRM that they paved the way for... I claim that society has embraced Steam.

But I'm certainly not claiming 100% have... just the majority.

Not until prepaid SIMs are declared illegal. But I guess that's the logical next step. :)

I was a bit amused a couple of years ago when there was some big news that a couple of telecom companies had sold "spying technology" to Iran that allows the Iranian authorities track down mobile users. That "spying technology" is part of the modern mobile networks' specs, all 3G etc. mobile networks have that same "spying technology".

The only question is, how are the authorities going to use that technology. I'm sure e.g. China and Saudi-Arabia (and now US of A) are using it exactly the same as way as Iran did, to follow what the network users are doing and trying to catch those who they consider wrongdoers.

Is there now some confirmation for this? I think Valve has been earlier very vague if there is any set period of time after which you have to connect again. I recall just seeing some message from Steam support that sometimes the client might want to contact back to Steam servers, even if you wanted to keep it offline.

After all, doesn't SV keep saying that he was offline for 6 months? Maybe Valve read those messages and decided that long periods of offline mode can't be acceptable. :)