DRM free or Steam Early Access?

Tiy had posted on Twitter asking which people preferred: https://twitter.com/Tiyuri (I'm not sure how to link to specific tweet statements, but it's there)

From what I understand, going through Steam would mean faster updates during beta. DRM free would be much slower, but... it's DRM free. Duh. Some people seemed to ask for both, and if you look he also addresses this: http://pastebin.com/xaSRGGr8 So it sounds like either one or the other.

Personally, Steam sounds like the better and more efficient option for both ends - we get updates faster and thus can test things more quickly. But I can understand some people's misgivings on the subject of DRM.

Thoughts?

 

I'm okay with either, but steam would be more convenient for me.

 

Steam all the way! Maybe Gaben will make Steam cards for Starbound too

 

Steam is far, far too convenient to ignore. DRM or not.

 

Steam Early Access would be my choice. It certainly sounds as if it will also make things easier on the dev team and it will work wonders to help ensure that those testing things out can stay up to date well with the latest version. Without a version control process (such as Steam could provide for the testing pool) things start to get messy.

 

Not interested in steam, convenient or not. Unfortunately for me, I suspect steam will win out hugely in this poll.

 

I've never really had issues with Steam, and I do want it out as fast as possible.

 

that's because it is convenient as you have said

so most people are going to pick the one that's got the most positives

that being said, I would like steam since it makes things a lot easier for me and more faster updates would be amazing

 

Steam is convenient, and already my main gateway to gaming, so that's where my vote gets cast.

 

Seems like Steam has won.. I personally am against DRM's, however I can see how it'd benefit us for them to use DRM. This doesn't really change my opinion though, I'd rather have bigger updates with more to test than micro updates multiple times a day. Some patience and DRM free sounds good to me, but i'm the minority here.

 

Mind if I asked why you don't prefer Steam? I personally feel like it's the PC gaming community's go-to platform, and it's probably one of the only programs on my computer that I let auto-run on startup.

 

Of course, and in a choice like this there always has to be a loser. I'd prefer that there didn't have to be a choice, though, and I'm somewhat annoyed that CF can't be bothered doing both. I'm perfectly happy with having fewer updates than steam.

I don't like their DRM or their forced updates, nor do I like the fact that they can update their terms and conditions and have it apply to all your purchases retroactively - if you don't accept, they can cut you off from your games.

Mostly it's about control. I want to be in control of where I use my games, when I use my games, and how and when I update them (or whether I do.) Some of this can be worked around in steam, but basically I don't like DRM and will avoid it where possible.

 

In the beta phase, the ability to cycle updates through quickly is going to matter. The devteam will be able to get feedback about changes quicker, roll out fixes to found bugs quicker, etc.

Also, it's worth noting that there ARE titles on Steam that don't actually use the Steam platform DRM at all. Arcen Games' stuff (AI War, Tidalis, etcetera) are sold over Steam, but once they're installed they can be launched just fine without Steam actually running.

 

From the sound of it, it's not that they 'can't be bothered', it's just that doing both would mean more work than they feel is necessary for the task at hand.

 

Like I said before, my only option of buying this game without depending on anyone is through Steam, otherwise I would have to hunt someone with a International Credit Card and ask him politely to buy this game for me.

So, Steam Early Access. Regarding updates I don't really mind any.

 

It would be a massively bad decision to release a beta without DRM protection / non-steam. They can offer DRM free / non-steam when the game actually releases...

 

Dude, is not like Steam is a new DRM tool. Games got pirated on Steam day one nowadays, though the frequent updates might slow down piracy a little.

 

I am somewhere between the two I guess, though I have picked Steam for the poll (sorry anti-steam people).

I can understand the DRM concerns, and I mainly picked Steam for the convenience, along with the thought that it's probably more valuable for the devs to get the most up-to-date version of the game in our hands as soon as they can so we can find the bugs. Personally I would prefer larger, more spread-out updates, but that's from a player perspective, and it kinda defeats the purpose of beta testing so far as I can see.

I think on balance it would be more use to the developers to benefit from multiple, small updates via steam, which would hopefully translate to the game being completed sooner. Steam might have DRM issues, but it is very popular, and free to install, making it easy for many people to test the game. Not to mention, updates rolled out once a day or every other day would mean a lot of people reporting bugs that have potentially already been fixed but just aren't live. The only way to prevent that would be for them to post some sort of live-update of fixed bugs not patched yet, which might make sifting reports easier as the day goes by, but would also take developer time. The logical option (though understandably not a preferred option for all) is to go via steam and make sure that players are using as close to the version the devs are working on as possible.

 

Fair enough, poor choice of words. But ok, if it's too much work to keep both updated as often as they are suggesting, how about updating each half that often and do both, rather than cutting off one group of customers altogether?

 

I would say it's because the more updates they can push out, and the more builds people can test, the more quickly bugs will be spotted and the faster the game can be completed. Halving the number of updates and running two independent update schedules means they will be spending a disproportionate amount of time on simply updating, as opposed to actually developing. If it takes more work to create DRM-free updates, then clearly they are something of an obstacle to development.