Erm. Few may know I once made a very public display of 'losing' my Steam account during a sandwich related incident; of which I thought there would be no repercussion or regrets. But it seems like fate has a great sense of humor as I didn't know that Fallout: New Vegas, coming out in October, will require Steamworks to activate - thus tying it to your Steam account.

Now I assumed that the whole 'Windows Live' thing would carry on, as Fallout 3 and its DLCs were all under that form of DRM - thing is you didn't need to actually log in to your Xbox Live account, or make one to just play the game on the PC, so it doesn't exactly count. I think it was simply for achievement.

My question is really, without making another Steam account, logging in and 'activating' it, is there a way to play this game on the PC? If not, is my only alternative the Xbox version? Is Steamworks - Steam - or something else? Do think this is fair for it to switch from Live to Steam, why was this choice made by the publishers - or does it even matter?

I'm not anti-Steam as such, I just choose to avoid it now, just like a lot of people choose to avoid Starforce/Tages.

I believe you have to make a Steam account, log in, and activate the game.

Do you need to use steamworks if you buy this game on Gamersgate or other DD site? That'd save you from creating another steam account, but of course you'd have to create account on some other site.

I must have missed the sandwich thing, but I think I remember something of it.

The only way to play New Vegas legally on the PC is to have an active steam account. Looks like your options are limited to getting the 360 version.

Wish I had better news, but Steamworks = need Steam account to play.

I'm going to have to go change my order to the Xbox version then and miss out on high-res texture packs, mods and the whot-not :-C

There is no legal way.

Nevermind. Thanks for the support guys.

Indeed.

Well, depending on how you view certain changes to the DMCA recently and consumer rights in general, if you buy the game and "get rid of steam" it might be legal. I certainly wouldn't have any moral problem doing so.

However, technically, there is no... authorized way, shall we say.

Like I said it all depends. If the activation and install is done by Steam but the exe is DRM free then it's happy days as you can un-install Steam and not use it again. Fallout 3 used SecuROM and GFWL but the SecuROM was bypassed by using the exe direct as was GFWL.

But what of the sandwiches? WHAT OF THE SANDWICHES?!

Agreed, but I doubt that will be the case.

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/how_i_traded_my_steam_account_for_a_sandwich/page1 There you go. Sheesh! Use the search function :P

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Far Cry 2 now DRM free on Steam? Not saying it will happen with NV but it does happen.

New trailer for New Vegas BTW: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/09/28/new-fallout-new-vegas-trailer/