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[0_0 OH MY SCIENCE 0_0]

[Neruz]

and was told by a moderator that Steam was a Windows only service...

Well it is.

[0_0 OH MY SCIENCE 0_0]

[Neruz]

and was told by a moderator that Steam was a Windows only service...

Well it is.

And thusly, the sale of spark-plug adapters for plugging three-pronged-plugs into two-pronged-holes was banned, for they infringed on the intellectual property rights of three-pronged-socket makers, for whom the plugs were designed. And the companies rejoiced as users of three-pronged-extension cords had to install their brand of sockets, and nothing else.

Entirely different circumstance.


Allow me, in my pickled state, to elaborate (you have no idea how many times i had to retpye 'elabotate' to get it right.)

In order to get Steam working on Linux, one would probably have to make serious modifications to the Steam client, haxing the shit out of it, so to speak. This thougherly violates and breaks the terms of use agreement you sign when you install Steam, and thus is illegal and has no place on the Valve forums.


It's important to remember that Windows still holds ~90% of the PC market, so ther's also very little incentisve for devs to offer multi-platform support.

[kcwong]

If you ask me, the Steam client should have nothing special in them.

Since it's a client, it runs on the client's computer. If someone were to hack it, they can. Without cryptographic hardware installed, the best the Steam client can do is just to scramble the data, scatter it, and keep it in memory as short a period as possible, making it more time consuming to hack.

Therefore all the important parts, the verification, authentications and such must and will be performed on the server.

Which makes the Steam client nothing but a frontend with a cryptograhic library to chat with the server.

So porting it should not be a major issue... the more likely reason is that most of the games Steam supports are Windows games, giving them little incentive to port the Steam client to other platforms.

[0_0 OH MY SCIENCE 0_0]

[Neruz]

The ease of hacking the client does not stop doing so being illegal.

[kcwong]

The ease of hacking the client does not stop doing so being illegal.

Well, they want to stop/deter people from doing it... the illegal status won't solve the problem completely. Making it harder to hack, and updating their server and Steam client will keep it secure for longer.

[0_0 OH MY SCIENCE 0_0]

[Aqizzar]

Oh here we go again.  "Some company somewhere put hilariously worded, completely enforceable, rationally meaningless statements in it's User Agreement, that means I get to steal programs all I want because they broke the rules first."

I made this thread to complain about onerous copy protection and moronic tech support.  Don't crap up my thread with your Information Wants To Be Free garbage.

[kcwong]

You ever hear about the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

From their website they point out such other EULA gems as:

Do not criticize this product publicly.

and

Do not use this product with any other vendor's products.

ROFL! Which company wrote that EULA? EA? Ubisoft?

[0_0 OH MY SCIENCE 0_0]

[Mephisto]

Despite what a large number of you seem to believe, there is absolutely zero hax0ring required to get Steam to run on Linux. I'm doing it right now.

It's just so I could download X-Com and play it in the already-installed DosBox, but still. It works with no modifications to the client..

[de5me7]

Isnt piracy a dangerous topic on these forums? I dont want to get banned but..

im an x pirate, never used to buy games, but i have rehabilitated my self, and now i buy games. I would still consider piracy if there was no workable legal way to aquire a game. imo companies and devs have a reponsibility to make their product available.

i dont mind steam, but i dont like the idea of valve going bust or altering its user agreements radically and taking away games. It seems unfortuantly that the rise of piracy has coincided with the rise of software developers retaining access control over their software. You didnt used to need to register windows and u didnt used to need to be connected to steam and passworded in play games. I guess my piracy is partly responsible for this.

also i have legal diskcopies of both Grimfandgo and Full throttle. Ive never played full throttle, both disks were given to me. I like the plot on grimfandago but i didnt always like the one solution to a problem game mechanic. Im undecided on adventure games

[Servant Corps]

Well, piracy is a dangerous topic, but, from my view, it's only dangerous if you help people figure out how to pirate. As long as you don't tell people how to pirate, you're safe.

And even if you're a pirate who can't resist, there are ways where you can't get caught violating this rule.

Aqizzar: On topic, we need to find a way to have DRM without having this DRM harm innocent people like you. (I was wondering of letting the whole game be free, but allow for online verification for content such as secret novellas. That's not technically DRM, but it's a way of rewarding people for paying for the game, rather than punishing those that don't. See Good Old Games, for instance.)

I'm not sure about eliminating DRM entirely though. If only because of the argument (not backed by data, but possible) that DRM might discourage "lazy" pirates, and encourgae them to buy the full game.I want some enforcement mechansim to discourage piracy though, DRM or not.