But since I always have an internet connection on my computer, I would prefer the disc version to have online activation. Other people here want the disc to have disc verification. By including both methods, everybody's happy.
Except the anti-DRM people, but it's hard to please them while at least making some effort against copying.
But since I always have an internet connection on my computer, I would prefer the disc version to have online activation.
Small question; If you always have a connection why do you want to install them from the disc instead of DL them in the first place?
Or do you have some DL-limit?
The bonusses can be played without the games installed, and they probably upload the 'fixed' episodes online too.
Small question; If you always have a connection why do you want to install them from the disc instead of DL them in the first place?
Or do you have some DL-limit?
The bonusses can be played without the games installed, and they probably upload the 'fixed' episodes online too.
...
I distinctly remember I used to think my posts through more.
But then there's people who do have a download limit. They might want to install from the disc, but not have it in the drive all the time.
That's a small group though, so I'd understand Telltale not being able to cater to them.
...
But then there's people who do have a download limit. They might want to install from the disc, but not have it in the drive all the time.
That's a small group though, so I'd understand Telltale not being able to cater to them.
Wait, how does disc-based activation, with the files on a disc, and all activation on a disc, not cater to people with download limits?
They don't want to, or can't, have the disc in the drive every time they play. Online activation would help with that, while still not affecting their download limit much.
Maybe I'm in a selfish little "me"-bubble, but wouldn't that group be a pretty small one in comparison? I mean, the group that 1) Has a download limit that keeps them from playing Telltale's relatively small episodic games, but is still buying the games online for a disc version, AND 2) Despises disc-based activation, and wants to activate the game online. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. But so far in this discussion, this person seems to only exist in hypotheticals.
I just signed up for this forum to say that my purchase of this game is wholly dependant on it not using online activation. I was going to order today before I caught wind of this, my order is now postponed until this is answered. I'm also now going to buy the store version of Wallace and Gromit from Amazon rather than the Telltale version.
As for why I care, the reason is preservation. I can still play Sam and Max: Hit the Road, the Curse of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and all the other old adventure games, because they can run completely independantly of any outside sources. If a game refuses to run after the company who made it shuts down their servers, I have no interest in it.
WARNING: The following is pure speculation and may not be representative of the final product.
The DVD for Tales of Monkey Island will be nothing more than the digital copies burnt onto a disc using online activation. Below, a break-down of events:
1) Expected shipping is in April, a little over 2 weeks away. This current thread is 3 pages long and not a single Telltale employee has addressed this concern. What makes this worse is the fact that several other threads have been getting more attention from Telltale despite their arbitrary nature (some either being praise threads or joke threads). The DRM on the disc has been a legitimate concern and yet not one representative has visited this thread to either confirm, deny or dodge questions about the issue.
2) According to history, as it gets close to 1 week before expected launch, then and ONLY then will a representative of Telltale address this issue. However nothing will be confirmed so be prepared for an ambiguous answer to the effect of 'we are still unsure' or 'we are still finalising'.
3) Once discs have been shipped and received by customers, only then will Telltale completely confirm the DRM on the disc. 'Tee hee sorry guys! Online activashion!' will be the expected response. Telltale already have your money so they don't care at this point.
On my time on these forums, I've only seen telltale employees not answer for two reasons:
a) They're not sure of the answer
b) They're not allowed to answer (for instance revealing information about Sam & Max 3, etc).
Never have I seen a reason c "they're staying away from the thread because they know we won't like the answer and they're hoping more people will buy a product that they wouldn't buy if they knew what it really is".
It just doesn't sound like them. If they're not answering, I'm betting it's because they're not quite sure what exactly to answer. I see no reason why they wouldn't be allowed to answer, after all.
More than that, I've never seen them give anything less than their best effort to give us exactly what we want. The voodoo cards are proof of that. If they say that they don't like online activation DRM any more than we do and they're trying for a disc-based solution, I believe them.
I would think that the backlash that the WG dvd drm produced would encourage them not to do the same thing here. Especially when Monkey Island is quite possibly THE most popular franchise in the history of point-n-click adventure gaming. WG seems more obscure to me, thus affecting fewer people. I would hazard a bet that Telltale knows that if they don't do this right, then they're going to have to answer to the hardcore fanbase, which apparently contains many a person who can get downright surly at times (classic vs. se, mi2se boxart, cmi vs. ron's mi3...)
I really hope so, I've wanted to buy this game ever since it was announced. Strong Bad and Wallace and Gromit too, for that matter, but I wanted to buy them all together to save on shipping (Looks like it'll be just ToMI and Strong Bad now based on the W&G issue)
I've also always had a great respect for Telltale's approach to digital distribution. I think they're a rare company that "gets it": there are some people who love digital distribution, some who hate it, so the logical way to reach the biggest audience is to offer both. It'd be a shame for them to go back on that policy.
I think some people are being a little overly-critical of the online activation system. Especially from TTG. I can understand the idea of preservation of your games after a service has ended, but honestly is it so far fetched to believe that these companies (most of all TTG) would put some kind of update on their website that would "patch" these games that require online activation so that they won't need to? Or release separate downloadable installations that don't require any activation? All this just prior to shutting down? I'd think it'd be any companies responsibility to ensure that people can play their games for years to come even when they stop supporting them. Sure, lots of companies probably would just turn a blind eye, but TTG?
I personally don't believe it'll be the end of all good things if a company that requires online activations for their games goes under. There are still options and opportunities for afterwards to continue being able to play your games. Look at what happened to Prey. Wasn't that game under some online game service called Triton or something? After Triton went under there were vouchers released to everyone who bought the game from Triton so that they could acquire it for free from Steam instead.
Personally, I don't believe Steam will ever die. It's too much of an innovation. Maybe years later Valve gets bought out or sells Steam or something happens to it but Steam will always exist. It's too big and too many people use it to shut it down (at least without some kind of compensation to allow you to continue playing your games after its demise).
In a truly pessimistic world, I like to be a small voice of optimism.
Hah! Are you serious? It's practically (no, it is) the PC equivalent to XBox's Live Arcade, PlayStation's PlayStation Network, and Nintendo's WiiWare and DSiWare online stores.
Valve (the game company who made Half-Life) created it as a distribution method for their games. Then they opened it up for third party titles and it just exploded. All major triple-A game titles, if they're released on consoles and "Games for Windows" are usually all available on Steam as well.
I think some people are being a little overly-critical of the online activation system. Especially from TTG. I can understand the idea of preservation of your games after a service has ended, but honestly is it so far fetched to believe that these companies (most of all TTG) would put some kind of update on their website that would "patch" these games that require online activation so that they won't need to?
I kinda doubt it because as they said before, the reason the online activation is still in the disk version was more for their convienience than to prevent piracy. If they can't afford the resources to dedicate to taking it out now, do you think they would in 10 years, particularly if the company is about to shut down for good?
Also, Steam would not necessarily have to die in order for the game to stop being available, they might simply choose to remove it from their site. Apparently, XBox Live Marketplace has already removed a couple of its oldest games because the demand for them was nonexistent at this point, but that's only hearsay because I don't own an XBox and even if I did I wouldn't use the marketplace.
I do appreciate that the risk of losing your game is fairly small and the hassle of online activation is not that much, but I still resent the notion of buying something with my money and then being told that I don't fully own it and my right to use it can be recinded at any time.
But this discussion of DRM vs non-DRM is really beside the point, I'm not here to dispute Digital Distribution's right to exist. The question at hand is simply whether or not an offline standalone version of the game will be made available or not.
Also, Steam would not necessarily have to die in order for the game to stop being available, they might simply choose to remove it from their site. Apparently, XBox Live Marketplace has already removed a couple of its oldest games because the demand for them was nonexistent at this point, but that's only hearsay because I don't own an XBox and even if I did I wouldn't use the marketplace.
This is wrong, by the way. The "removed" games were due to legal reasons. One game was free, on as an advertisement, and the promotional period was up. A couple others were dropped due to licensing issues after a merger. If you had previously purchased the games, you could still re-download them from your account's "Downloads" page, so the files are still on the server. They just didn't have the right to distribute them to new people anymore.
Totally. Only heard of it here. I know everyone knows about it here but I assumed it was because telltale sells their games there.
Don't feel bad. I only heard about Steam first when I bought SMI:SE from it.
What that means is that you usually buy games from a brick-and-mortar store instead (such as GameStop,) or you haven't regularly bought PC games in a while (which is my case,) or you're too busy playing MMOs to notice anyway (which I doubt that's it for you, but it sure would fit my bro-in-law.)
Wiki says Steam's been around since Sept. 2003, and I'll bet that the vast majority of PC games I've bought since then have been from TellTale (that's four TTG games I own) in the last year, since I heard about ToMI. Everything else is GameCube and PS2 games.
Before I get hate for still being on last gen consoles, I'll point out that Wii is too catered to casual gamers, 360 RROD's too damn often, and until recently, PS3's cost too much.
Well, to sum it up, it said "Oh, that's what this "Valve" I keep hearing about is".
Then I go to say that although I know about half-life, it never seemed to be my kind of game so I didn't really care who made it.
And that if Steam is only online it makes sense I wouldn't have heard of it. I was interested in telltale from the time Sam&Max Season 1 was announced, but I didn't realise you could get a DVD in the end so I didn't join until years later, around when ToMI came out I believe.
And only because I heard about ToMI online rather than in a magazine, so I went to check the website and saw you'd get a DVD in the end. Otherwise I'm not sure if I'd have purchased it either.
I guess that makes me sound extremely old-fashioned :P But really, that's not the only thing. I barely play computer games anymore, since the only computer games I play are adventure games, and well they're not that common. This is the only videogame community I'm a part of, too.
So yeah, it lowers my chances of hearing about Steam elsewhere.
This is wrong, by the way. The "removed" games were due to legal reasons. One game was free, on as an advertisement, and the promotional period was up. A couple others were dropped due to licensing issues after a merger. If you had previously purchased the games, you could still re-download them from your account's "Downloads" page, so the files are still on the server. They just didn't have the right to distribute them to new people anymore.
Well, this is why I included several disclaimers about that information possibly being inaccurate.
Nevertheless, you mentioned licensing issues as a potential problem, and every game Telltale has ever made is licensed. Bone, Sam and Max, Strong Bad, Monkey Island, Wallace and Gromit - none of these are Telltale-created properties. When the contracts they have with the creators of these franchises expire there's no guarantee that they retain the right to distribute these games, unless it is specifically spelled out in the contract that Telltale can continue to sell the games they created indefinitely.
Compare how most downloadable game services (Virtual Console, XBLA, Gametap) are completely devoid of licensed games from Disney, Warner Bros, etc - the contracts involved in their creation have long since expired. About the only exception is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that's because they came to a new agreement.
I was interested in telltale from the time Sam&Max Season 1 was announced, but I didn't realise you could get a DVD in the end so I didn't join until years later, around when ToMI came out I believe.
And only because I heard about ToMI online rather than in a magazine, so I went to check the website and saw you'd get a DVD in the end. Otherwise I'm not sure if I'd have purchased it either.
Yeah, only reason why I bought S&M Season 1 in 2008 was because I knew I got a DVD too. I am old-fashioned that way (even if I am young enough to fall into the demographic to totally like the online model. Oh well...), still primarily playing old games too (because most coming out these days doesn't catch my interest). Same with the other telltale franchises (I care about, so that excludes Strong Bad).
So it was quite a downer to find the W&G DVD with online activation. I surely hope it's not the case with ToMI. While I already bought S&M 3, so that's going to be played, it would definitely influence wheter or not I would purchase games beyond that...
Well, this is why I included several disclaimers about that information possibly being inaccurate.
Nevertheless, you mentioned licensing issues as a potential problem, and every game Telltale has ever made is licensed. Bone, Sam and Max, Strong Bad, Monkey Island, Wallace and Gromit - none of these are Telltale-created properties. When the contracts they have with the creators of these franchises expire there's no guarantee that they retain the right to distribute these games, unless it is specifically spelled out in the contract that Telltale can continue to sell the games they created indefinitely.
Compare how most downloadable game services (Virtual Console, XBLA, Gametap) are completely devoid of licensed games from Disney, Warner Bros, etc - the contracts involved in their creation have long since expired. About the only exception is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that's because they came to a new agreement.
We're actually talking about different things entirely, and different kinds of deals. There's really no comparison between the two at all. For example, while LucasArts doesn't have the right to make a new Sam and Max game anymore, they can still distribute Hit the Road. It's completely different than allowing a store to sell the game you made.
I might even be using the wrong term, I'm by NO MEANS a legal expert when it comes to copyright and trademarks. But I do know that EVERY game in the XBLA more or less can come down, and very, very few of them have.
When the contracts they have with the creators of these franchises expire there's no guarantee that they retain the right to distribute these games.
The fact is that the contract with the creators of Bone did expire. That's one reason why TTG isn't going to complete their Bone series. What that means is that they're not allowed to createnew Bone games. They're still well within their rights to sell their own finished product, which is the two games they made already. TTG would only have to stop selling a game if they had no legal right to develop it in the first place.
It wouldn't make sense for copyright law to allow a copyright-holder to be able to give someone the rights to create a finished product that is based on said copyright, and then take away their ability to profit from their work. [Edit:] Seperately, they would only be forced to stop distributing the games, if the developer told them to stop. But they are the developers, so why ought they to tell themselves to stop selling their own games? [/edit]
For example, while LucasArts doesn't have the right to make a new Sam and Max game anymore, they can still distribute Hit the Road. It's completely different than allowing a store to sell the game you made.
I might even be using the wrong term, I'm by NO MEANS a legal expert when it comes to copyright and trademarks. But I do know that EVERY game in the XBLA more or less can come down, and very, very few of them have.
No, you have it right. The confusion probably stems from the the difference in relationship between copyright-holder vs. developer, and manufacturer vs. retailer.
If Telltale wants retail stores to stop selling Sam & Max season 1, then the stores have to comply, but Steve Purcell can't just tell TTG that they can't sell their own games anymore, unless TTG put something in the game that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.
Thanks for responding, Will, so we know you're not deliberately ignoring us!
As for companies releasing games stripped of DRM right before going out of business, that usually doesn't happen because companies are sold to other companies, or their assets are auctioned off by the bankruptcy court, and suddenly putting out the games for all with no copy restrictions would be viewed as dumping assets, even if it is the right thing to do. Sometimes acquiring companies who don't care about those particular games can be persuaded to release them again more freely after the acquisition, sometimes not.
If I recall correctly, the only reason we had online activation for Wallace and Gromit was because it would be too costly and time consuming to change it to a disc check, and W&G didn`t sell well enough to warrant pumping more money into the project.
Every copy of the game will actually ship with a brand new "Dial-a-Pirate Code Wheel™." This way, you don't have to have the disc in the drive, but no online activation is required!
Comments
Except the anti-DRM people, but it's hard to please them while at least making some effort against copying.
Or do you have some DL-limit?
The bonusses can be played without the games installed, and they probably upload the 'fixed' episodes online too.
I distinctly remember I used to think my posts through more.
But then there's people who do have a download limit. They might want to install from the disc, but not have it in the drive all the time.
That's a small group though, so I'd understand Telltale not being able to cater to them.
I'll shut up now then
As for why I care, the reason is preservation. I can still play Sam and Max: Hit the Road, the Curse of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and all the other old adventure games, because they can run completely independantly of any outside sources. If a game refuses to run after the company who made it shuts down their servers, I have no interest in it.
The DVD for Tales of Monkey Island will be nothing more than the digital copies burnt onto a disc using online activation. Below, a break-down of events:
1) Expected shipping is in April, a little over 2 weeks away. This current thread is 3 pages long and not a single Telltale employee has addressed this concern. What makes this worse is the fact that several other threads have been getting more attention from Telltale despite their arbitrary nature (some either being praise threads or joke threads). The DRM on the disc has been a legitimate concern and yet not one representative has visited this thread to either confirm, deny or dodge questions about the issue.
2) According to history, as it gets close to 1 week before expected launch, then and ONLY then will a representative of Telltale address this issue. However nothing will be confirmed so be prepared for an ambiguous answer to the effect of 'we are still unsure' or 'we are still finalising'.
3) Once discs have been shipped and received by customers, only then will Telltale completely confirm the DRM on the disc. 'Tee hee sorry guys! Online activashion!' will be the expected response. Telltale already have your money so they don't care at this point.
Prepare for the worst, never be disappointed.
You heard it here first.
a) They're not sure of the answer
b) They're not allowed to answer (for instance revealing information about Sam & Max 3, etc).
Never have I seen a reason c "they're staying away from the thread because they know we won't like the answer and they're hoping more people will buy a product that they wouldn't buy if they knew what it really is".
It just doesn't sound like them. If they're not answering, I'm betting it's because they're not quite sure what exactly to answer. I see no reason why they wouldn't be allowed to answer, after all.
I bet they're going to do it however is best.
I've also always had a great respect for Telltale's approach to digital distribution. I think they're a rare company that "gets it": there are some people who love digital distribution, some who hate it, so the logical way to reach the biggest audience is to offer both. It'd be a shame for them to go back on that policy.
I personally don't believe it'll be the end of all good things if a company that requires online activations for their games goes under. There are still options and opportunities for afterwards to continue being able to play your games. Look at what happened to Prey. Wasn't that game under some online game service called Triton or something? After Triton went under there were vouchers released to everyone who bought the game from Triton so that they could acquire it for free from Steam instead.
Personally, I don't believe Steam will ever die. It's too much of an innovation. Maybe years later Valve gets bought out or sells Steam or something happens to it but Steam will always exist. It's too big and too many people use it to shut it down (at least without some kind of compensation to allow you to continue playing your games after its demise).
In a truly pessimistic world, I like to be a small voice of optimism.
Wait, you mean Steam is bigger than TTG? I've only ever heard of Steam on these here forums.
Valve (the game company who made Half-Life) created it as a distribution method for their games. Then they opened it up for third party titles and it just exploded. All major triple-A game titles, if they're released on consoles and "Games for Windows" are usually all available on Steam as well.
I kinda doubt it because as they said before, the reason the online activation is still in the disk version was more for their convienience than to prevent piracy. If they can't afford the resources to dedicate to taking it out now, do you think they would in 10 years, particularly if the company is about to shut down for good?
Also, Steam would not necessarily have to die in order for the game to stop being available, they might simply choose to remove it from their site. Apparently, XBox Live Marketplace has already removed a couple of its oldest games because the demand for them was nonexistent at this point, but that's only hearsay because I don't own an XBox and even if I did I wouldn't use the marketplace.
I do appreciate that the risk of losing your game is fairly small and the hassle of online activation is not that much, but I still resent the notion of buying something with my money and then being told that I don't fully own it and my right to use it can be recinded at any time.
But this discussion of DRM vs non-DRM is really beside the point, I'm not here to dispute Digital Distribution's right to exist. The question at hand is simply whether or not an offline standalone version of the game will be made available or not.
Don't feel bad. I only heard about Steam first when I bought SMI:SE from it.
What that means is that you usually buy games from a brick-and-mortar store instead (such as GameStop,) or you haven't regularly bought PC games in a while (which is my case,) or you're too busy playing MMOs to notice anyway (which I doubt that's it for you, but it sure would fit my bro-in-law.)
Wiki says Steam's been around since Sept. 2003, and I'll bet that the vast majority of PC games I've bought since then have been from TellTale (that's four TTG games I own) in the last year, since I heard about ToMI. Everything else is GameCube and PS2 games.
Before I get hate for still being on last gen consoles, I'll point out that Wii is too catered to casual gamers, 360 RROD's too damn often, and until recently, PS3's cost too much.
Well, to sum it up, it said "Oh, that's what this "Valve" I keep hearing about is".
Then I go to say that although I know about half-life, it never seemed to be my kind of game so I didn't really care who made it.
And that if Steam is only online it makes sense I wouldn't have heard of it. I was interested in telltale from the time Sam&Max Season 1 was announced, but I didn't realise you could get a DVD in the end so I didn't join until years later, around when ToMI came out I believe.
And only because I heard about ToMI online rather than in a magazine, so I went to check the website and saw you'd get a DVD in the end. Otherwise I'm not sure if I'd have purchased it either.
I guess that makes me sound extremely old-fashioned :P But really, that's not the only thing. I barely play computer games anymore, since the only computer games I play are adventure games, and well they're not that common. This is the only videogame community I'm a part of, too.
So yeah, it lowers my chances of hearing about Steam elsewhere.
Nevertheless, you mentioned licensing issues as a potential problem, and every game Telltale has ever made is licensed. Bone, Sam and Max, Strong Bad, Monkey Island, Wallace and Gromit - none of these are Telltale-created properties. When the contracts they have with the creators of these franchises expire there's no guarantee that they retain the right to distribute these games, unless it is specifically spelled out in the contract that Telltale can continue to sell the games they created indefinitely.
Compare how most downloadable game services (Virtual Console, XBLA, Gametap) are completely devoid of licensed games from Disney, Warner Bros, etc - the contracts involved in their creation have long since expired. About the only exception is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that's because they came to a new agreement.
So it was quite a downer to find the W&G DVD with online activation. I surely hope it's not the case with ToMI. While I already bought S&M 3, so that's going to be played, it would definitely influence wheter or not I would purchase games beyond that...
I might even be using the wrong term, I'm by NO MEANS a legal expert when it comes to copyright and trademarks. But I do know that EVERY game in the XBLA more or less can come down, and very, very few of them have.
The fact is that the contract with the creators of Bone did expire. That's one reason why TTG isn't going to complete their Bone series. What that means is that they're not allowed to create new Bone games. They're still well within their rights to sell their own finished product, which is the two games they made already. TTG would only have to stop selling a game if they had no legal right to develop it in the first place.
It wouldn't make sense for copyright law to allow a copyright-holder to be able to give someone the rights to create a finished product that is based on said copyright, and then take away their ability to profit from their work. [Edit:] Seperately, they would only be forced to stop distributing the games, if the developer told them to stop. But they are the developers, so why ought they to tell themselves to stop selling their own games? [/edit]
No, you have it right. The confusion probably stems from the the difference in relationship between copyright-holder vs. developer, and manufacturer vs. retailer.
If Telltale wants retail stores to stop selling Sam & Max season 1, then the stores have to comply, but Steve Purcell can't just tell TTG that they can't sell their own games anymore, unless TTG put something in the game that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.
As for companies releasing games stripped of DRM right before going out of business, that usually doesn't happen because companies are sold to other companies, or their assets are auctioned off by the bankruptcy court, and suddenly putting out the games for all with no copy restrictions would be viewed as dumping assets, even if it is the right thing to do. Sometimes acquiring companies who don't care about those particular games can be persuaded to release them again more freely after the acquisition, sometimes not.
Ideally also before the free shipping sale ends.
Obviously.