Its not so bad. It solves problems like the dates on savegames getting fucked up. You might get an online gamerscore or whatever.

GTA4 uses it, I dont really mind. Its not so hard to fix it up. I've only ever recieved one email from them I think and that was on signup.

I think more and more games will use it, probably anti-piracy measures..... 

So I've got to play the game between two slices of DRM bread.

Fuck it.

I don't mind Steam, and I probably wouldn't mind Windows whatever either, but both together is too much of a ballache for me - it's not like I don't have other stuff to play.

When are the high up fuckwits going to realise that you need to make it as easy as possible for the customers to buy your product.

GamesForWindows + Steam = sale -1 

GTA4 is rediculous!

G4W, Rockstar Games Social Club, .NET Framework, Visual C++ (!!!?&%#$!!@!), NVidia BETA Drivers (which crashed my comp)

Sigh.....

Atleats you dont NEED Steam for DoW2 (do you?) 

I didn't buy GTA4 either.

DOW2 I can buy in hard copy, but if I have to do that just to circumvent their DRM systems (considering I'll probably have to find a nocd patch anyway) then I'm not feeling like a valued customer.

I just mentioned being a valued customer and hacking a game in the same sentence. I can say something like that because it's my ~$50 you want me to part with. 

Today the British government (a) decided 3 strikes was unenforceable and, more importantly, (b) suggested increasing ISP's prices to cover a mandatory fee to 're-imburse' the music industry for users piracy.

I think this legally obliges me to steal media now... 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5586761.ece

If my blurred rambling didn't make sense. Heavy weekend ;p 

I got it - the three strikes thing threw me because it was introduced when I was outside blighty.

The music industry has long being going down the tubes since they want to hang onto hard formats - that being the only way they can squeeze a profit.

How much longer are cd's going to be a viable format?

And if you can fit thousands of songs onto most other forms of media then hard formats become obsolete.

Not much to do with the topic, or pirating music, but;

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/16/valve-pirates-are-underserved-customers

Criminalising your customers a bad idea? It's mind-numbing how slow most of the industry CEO's are, considering games are supposed to be the new media. 

there seems (to me, anyway) to be a downward spiral at the moment where more people are pirating because of stricter drm 

of course, i realize it's not *just* because of that. nothing is that simple. 

didn't know you guys were baseball fans... 

a couple of flash games with boiled-down "coop" puzzles. you control multiple entities, toggle between them, and solve puzzles.

http://lightforce.freestuff.gr/threesome.php

http://www.kongregate.com/games/sebby_man/two-rooms 

How well does it run, yo? 

Don't think it requires such a top of the line pc, it ran very well with all settings maxed, but my vid card is pretty new. 

My girlfreind's netbook will run it on Medium:

9300 M GS (8400 equiv) 256 dedicated
Vista (!)
2Gb DDR2 667
5400rpm HDD
Atom 270 (1.6Ghz)

Runs OK, occasional mild stuttering, but y'know - it's a Netbook!

Brilliant game. I run 1920x1200 on an 8800GTS on High! :)

Buy it...... 

running on high settings on my laptop (2ghz core 2 duo, mobile 8600gt, 2gb ram, XP) at 1280x800, getting a good 30fps. 

Off topic-ing a bit more, my personal favourite media industry tactic is using download statistics as a lost profit model.

This means that every time an album is downloaded, they count it as an (~)15$ loss of earnings that can be written off against profits to avoid paying tax. ie, for every album downloaded the publishing company makes ~1$ in taxes they don't have to pay. Whether the downloader would have bought the album or not, the publisher makes money (and the artist gets screwed). 

You're joking. Big business are such scum. Maybe someone will get a chance to give G.W.B. a bullet now.
<Loosen collar>

Fallout 3 does look amazing :>.. saw it briefly on a 360. I played Industri/Tenebrae for the first time too. Nice looking Q1 engine. 

 

Yeh.

Yeh. I know. 

pretty cool, liked it better than the second one (combat is heaps less frustrating) and although some of the puzzle design is a bit tired in spots, very satisfying on the whole. 

Oldschool point and click adventure game:

http://www.zombie-cow.com/?page_id=17 

And I donated 2 quid. Genuinely fun to play. 

this game is shit 

 

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/481906