EDIT - Someone official at 2K has responded that my EULA question has been ruled illegal when I asked for clarification. Since I don't want to propagate anything that can be construed as illegal, I have removed the original post.
EDIT - Someone official at 2K has responded that my EULA question has been ruled illegal when I asked for clarification. Since I don't want to propagate anything that can be construed as illegal, I have removed the original post.
Last edited by butsam; 09-14-2010 at 05:36 PM.
I agree with you there. I haven't been following the MP discussions, but it would be reasonable for this to be an option. You've already purchased a copy of the game and are in the same physical location while playing. I can't see how restricting this would result in many more game sales, and it would just really annoy paying customers. If you're inviting friends over to play it's like an extended demo.Originally Posted by butsam
Even MS has started to concede this one. An Office (Home) license now covers up to 3 computers.
Well, you get a DVD which you really don't need. A quickstart pamphlet - the manual is pdf only for all versions including retail. It probably also comes in a DVD case. Oh, and if you actually go to the store you might get a printed receipt and a bag
normally steam will flag the game as "in use", disallowing multiple people to play on the same account at the same time.
It really depends on how they implament single player mode.
Xurk, I would agree with you if both players are online, but if one player is online and the other is offline, LAN mode is still active for both people...and as long as both have activated both can play the game...but the one offline has no way to connect to Steam to get the notice that the game is being played by the other player -- so it at least seems possible according to the FAQ, but I am not an experienced Steamer and don't want to break any laws so I want to know if there is any technical or legal reason why this can't be done before I actually try to make it work. Of course, it is LAN that is active not Internet, so you must be in the same local area to play, which restricts it to a household for all intents and purposes (you must also share your Steam user ID and password with the people on the LAN you are playing with, etc...so I don't see this as outright abusive of the EULA). Why else would LAN mode be enabled in Offline mode though, except for 2K wanting to allow this? If in fact this is allowed, my respect for them will increase exponentially for putting some sanity in the licensing (but yet not giving up the right they fully deserve to making sure people buy the game).
Last edited by butsam; 09-13-2010 at 10:02 AM.
normally for steam games, even playing single player flags the game as in use, IE the system you activate for offline use owns the license until you check it back in.
they may not do that for civ 5, no clue.
I would really LOVE an answer to this by a Developer if possible, I am faced with the same situation where I wanna play occasionally against my wife and if I can get away with getting one copy instead of two then even better...
Please Greg or someone? can you give us an answer?
Can one be online set up a game against an offline opponent in the same household?
I would love to play against my brother without needing 2 copies, but if I remember correctly, Steam would let us play against each other using the "same" Supreme Commander 2... then again, my 2 brothers and I play against each other all the time on the "same" copy of Sin of the Solar Empire, but that is Impulse and not Steam. In short, I have no idea....
2kGreg we have a question for you! Please give us an answer.
I have not had the experience with steam, but with my noob understanding, you are basically buying a "seat license". You can install the software as many places as you would like; however, your license/account can be active only on one PC at a time.
So for 2 people in the same household that want to play at the same time on different PCs I would expect that you will have to buy 2 copies and have 2 separate steam accounts. If they implement Hotseat mode, then you could take turns at the same PC and take twice as long to play, but only require one seat license.
1 Copy per Steam Account. You can call Steam as some sort of DRM. The Steam account itself works like CD-key or CD-key storage if you have multiple games.
For example... If I have installed Civ V of my own copy on 2 computers, it can only be playable with the account I registered the game with. Which is equivalent to 1 account. So no. 1 copy won't be enough. Even if your wife has a separate Steam account on the 2nd computer in which YOUR copy is installed, it won't be able to play. But one of you offline... hmm.. I never thought of that. I think that might be possible.
Edit: On second thought, I think Steam makes offline LAN not possible... I'm not sure. I will go and try this out myself.
And no, the way Steam works makes it almost impossible to break EULA.
Last edited by Kevin2202; 09-13-2010 at 10:59 AM.
If Civ5 is set to broadcast Steam ID during multiplayer setup, you wont be able use 1 copy for several users to play multiplayer.
It is possible and does not violate the EULA.
This is also something I want to know, I play Civ with my son using LAN. It does seem a bit harsh having to buy two copies just to play a local game inside the family. I never had to buy two versions of Monopoly.
That makes sense. We do not want to make it too easy for pirates.
Sounds like it's not going to be easy for legit customers either. Long live DRM
Not something I've ever experienced... Steam in offline mode can't "mark" anything on the Steam servers, it doesn't communicate with them at all. It doesn't have to go online to start a game while in offline mode.
This is generally how software licensing works. You can install the software on multiple computers, but you can only use the software on one computer at a time. If you want to run multiple copies of the software at the same time on different computers, you need to buy multiple copies of the software.
I can understand how this can seem unfair, but it's difficult to allow multiple use in a way that's not open to abuse. If you can run 2 copies at the same time in the same location, what's to stop you running 3 copies? Or running multiple copies at different locations? This is how casual piracy came about, and why DRM/disc checks are used on modern games.
It's not fair on those who are willing to play by the rules, but when you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys the only option is to punish everyone.
nzgeek good point and thank you for the explanation. But can we get a confirmation on the inability of two members of a household using offline mode to play AGAINST EACH OTHER. I would like to know before purchasing two copies.
It is common sense that the same house, the same family, should be able to play using only one game. But nowadays greedy companies are banning that. Happens the same with sc2, and I'm sure many others
yeah, well common sense and business don't really mix quite well.
the only difference between now and 10 years ago is publisher today have the technical meaning to enforce their abusives eulas.
in this aspect, steam-like platform are bad news.
steam really only has two good aspects.
1) - it allows you to keep a track of YOUR games and their key-codes
2) - it makes multiplayer easier for the coders and producers
Apart from those reasons Steam and other related software has only got the bad points of DRM, and there are many of those. For some people thoses good reasons outwiegh the bad, for others the opposite is true. Its all up to the player as to whether the system isa good one
steam really only has two good aspects.
1) - it allows you to keep a track of YOUR games and their key-codes
2) - it makes multiplayer easier for the coders and producers
Apart from those reasons Steam and other related software has only got the bad points of DRM, and there are many of those. For some people thoses good reasons outwiegh the bad, for others the opposite is true. Its all up to the player as to whether the system isa good one
I don't see why that is common sense. You don't get to buy one copy of Windows for every computer in your house. You don't get to buy one copy of Office for every computer in your house. In fact, this was rarely ever seen with any business/commercial/productivity software.
Games companies rarely officially supported the idea that buying the game gave everyone in a household the right to play simultaneously. Several games like Starcraft (I), Diablo (I) and Age of Empires (I) supported spawn installation which effectively allows this while making it pretty clear that the ability to run multiple copies off a single CD was a change from what they normally wanted to allow.
The reason that most other games passively allowed it was because it was pretty hard to detect and prevent. You couldn't do internet session locking (effectively what Steam and Battle.net do: to play you have to have a unique session to remote resource) because the internet wasn't something you could assume users would have access to. Other than that, it was really hard to create any sort of authoritative token that discern a disallowed clone from a game installed from another CD. Since all CDs were identical and PCs could be run in isolation, it was nearly impossible to think of a scheme that was worth while.
The fact that the software developers didn't have the ability to enforce the rules that have been laid out in their licenses for a decade doesn't really justify the insistence that they can't start enforcing them now that the internet empowers them to do so. Game developers were basically turning a blind eye to this particular variety of copyright violation for years because they didn't have the tools to stop it and the impact was pretty small (copying is offset mostly by increased demand for more games).
So, yeah, it looks like the days of our family members getting a free ride is over. Instead of complaining that we aren't able to freeload anymore, we should be focusing on encouraging friendly behavior, such as the effective ability to spawn single-player versions of Starcraft II via Battle.net. Impulse seems to be working toward supporting this sort of thing as well, but a couple of examples still show the licenses as explicitly disallowing this activity.
(NOTE: Please do not take this message as an endorsement for or against Steam, Battle.net or Impulse. I name them only because they cover the majority of the "new crowd" of digital distribution)
Last edited by slowtarget; 09-14-2010 at 03:01 AM. Reason: Removed incorrect information
I personally don't see the issue with buying 2 copies if someone else in the same household wants to play it with me or against me, but its a turn based game and in my opinion, turn based games are not viable for multiplayer.
Once again, in my opinion, i tried it with Master of Orion 2 and it was so dull waiting for some players to take their turns.
Are you kidding me, turn-based games make the best multi-player. sure RTS and FPS games make for a bit more interaction, but if im playing multi-player through th internet I'd rather be doing it through a turn-based game where i can be slightly more impassive to the other user (friend or foe) then trying to rely on someone to do something when that i had only met at the beginning of the game
Last edited by Caeledon; 09-13-2010 at 09:38 PM.
There are more good aspects than that:
3) We live in a digital age with a nearly ubiquitous internet (among those buying video games). Manufacturing and shipping boxes and loads of plastic is both inefficient and unnecessarily polluting. Sure, servers need power, too, but a server farm uses a lot less energy than a single delivery truck. Digital distribution uses less energy and produces less waste.
4) It supports roaming profiles. Your games are tied to your account, not your computer.
5) It allows for better update distribution. While I know some people like to avoid updates because they are afraid of bugs, as a software guy, I dislike the idea. Nothing annoyed me more than doing support for some user that was tripping over a bug I had already fixed because they decided they didn't want to update. I'll admit this isn't a positive for some people, though.
6) It supports more egalitarian worldwide distribution. I sympathize with our suffering Australian brothers (and sisters!) and honestly believe that digital distribution will go a long way to reduce the bizarre 30% Aussie Tax that games get trying to cross that stretch of the Pacific between Singapore and Sydney.
7) It drastically reduces the cost-to-produce independent software. This cannot be shouted loud enough. Traditional software production costs were so high that independent game makers were all but banned from international distribution. The internet made this a little easier, but digital distributors like Steam and Impulse have breathed life into the indy games market. Dozens of indy games are now available (and advertised!) to a worldwide audience that never would have even known they existed using the traditional production style.
(NOTE: These apply to any form of digital distribution)
'Free ride' is a bit harsh, we're not all free off-loaders.
I will get a copy of Civ5 for my son too, I pretty much knew I had too anyway, as we also need two of Civ4 to play a LAN game, and have had for a couple of years now.
It may have to wait until xmas, though. School just started again, and 12 yr-olds grow amazingly quickly. That is probably the ideal gift.
A nice idea may be something like 'buy one, get one half price' or something like that, like some book stores in the UK. Might have to wait for something like that though, can't see any software developers doing something like that for a long awaited, potentially record-breaking release.
@slowtarget - Us Aussies are suffering more than just the 30% tax. We have (generally) slow internet so downloading the game and subsequent patches from a site or system that doesn't allow us to us a download manager for pausing it can take a lot of our bandwidth and time, we have an oposition party in out government that dont want to do anything about the slow internet problem and we have the 15% GST on everything that isnt essential. AND as you mentioned there is that surprisingly big difference in the prices of the US and AUS versions even though out dollar is almost equal with yours. Combine our current governmental parties both trying (and mostly failing) to push Internet filtering and DRM supremacy down our unwilling throats with the fact that we as a nation tend to be more open to ideas such as Open-Source software or non-DRM software and you can sort of imagine how much we are hating the ideas of DRM-like software or software management right now. Possibly because of our slow internet we generally don't like to entrust our data to internet-related programs or cloud based programs
Last edited by Caeledon; 09-13-2010 at 10:06 PM.
The rule of drm is simple, what ever they do can be undone. 2k games has always been the front runner on drm, what ever they think will sell more games they will do.
Steam is pretty open to the fact that lan games are not controllable. For the most part, any steam game with multiplayer can be ran on a lan game as long as both pc's do not have internet connection. Even games that block same id's can be spoofed. What ever can be done, can be undone.
So simple answer, yes it can be, but it may take some programing. But since civ has always been the most programmable game, it would not be hard to do anything with it.
I suspect it will be as hard as civ 4, which was not really that hard.
If you want two people to play the game at the same time, you must buy two copies of the game.
In the same way that you can't watch a movie on two TVs at once, and you can't play an Xbox 360 game on two 360s at once, and you cannot use a single copy of Windows on two computers, you cannot play a single copy of Civilization V on two computers at once.
The workaround suggested by the OP in this thread, if it even works, would be considered piracy, so let's everyone take care not to discuss those sorts of technical workarounds, as it's pretty much the only zero-tolerance rule we have here.
Last edited by 2K Greg; 09-14-2010 at 02:08 AM.
Are there any way to play multiplayer on the same machine then? Since it's turn based Player 1 can do his moves and when done he'll hit end turn and then Player 2 makes his moves on the same machine Civ 5 is running on, or am I wrong?If you want two people to play the game at the same time, you must buy two copies of the game.
In the same way that you can't watch a movie on two TVs at once, and you can't play an Xbox 360 game on two 360s at once, and you cannot use a single copy of Windows on two computers, you cannot play a single copy of Civilization V on two computers at once.
The workaround suggested by the OP in this thread, if it even works, would be considered piracy, so let's everyone take care not to discuss those sorts of technical workarounds, as it's pretty much the only zero-tolerance rule we have here.
'Free ride' is a bit harsh, we're not all free off-loaders.
I will get a copy of Civ5 for my son too, I pretty much knew I had too anyway, as we also need two of Civ4 to play a LAN game, and have had for a couple of years now.
It may have to wait until xmas, though. School just started again, and 12 yr-olds grow amazingly quickly. That is probably the ideal gift.
A nice idea may be something like 'buy one, get one half price' or something like that, like some book stores in the UK. Might have to wait for something like that though, can't see any software developers doing something like that for a long awaited, potentially record-breaking release.
Civ? Get him doom 3 instead. Also, you only need one copy of civ 4 to play LAN. I play regularly with my friends and family.
I have four boys 9-15 plus myself. It will cost me $250.00....
I understand it is business but I cannot justify 250.00 to play a game.
I also cannot listen to my kids fight over it one at a time
It looks like it will be zero untill I hit the lottery
You're talking about "hot seat" mode. The game will not have this mode at release, but we hope to get it added via a patch before long.
Thats all we wanted was as firm yes or noIf you want two people to play the game at the same time, you must buy two copies of the game.
In the same way that you can't watch a movie on two TVs at once, and you can't play an Xbox 360 game on two 360s at once, and you cannot use a single copy of Windows on two computers, you cannot play a single copy of Civilization V on two computers at once.
The workaround suggested by the OP in this thread, if it even works, would be considered piracy, so let's everyone take care not to discuss those sorts of technical workarounds, as it's pretty much the only zero-tolerance rule we have here.
Thanks
You can do what I always do... pick your 2 favorites. (the youngest dosen't look like me anyway)
Just for the record: You can definitely watch a single movie on two TVs at once in the context that the question was given in (playing Civ against wife). It is 100% legal in many countries to let members of a family make copies of copyrighted content so that they can all consume (watch/listen to/...) it at the same time. (It becomes a different story only if DRM is involved. For details, contact a lawyer of your choice.)
Of course this copying is something that publishers and other big companies don't like but that's simply the way the majority of people in many countries want their laws to be.
I'm not here to argue for or against DRM but I can honestly say, that this position is harsh.If you want two people to play the game at the same time, you must buy two copies of the game.
In the same way that you can't watch a movie on two TVs at once, and you can't play an Xbox 360 game on two 360s at once, and you cannot use a single copy of Windows on two computers, you cannot play a single copy of Civilization V on two computers at once.
The workaround suggested by the OP in this thread, if it even works, would be considered piracy, so let's everyone take care not to discuss those sorts of technical workarounds, as it's pretty much the only zero-tolerance rule we have here.
My wife and I routinely play CIV IV together and if it wasn't possible to do so on our home LAN, she wouldn't be playing at all. She plays because I love CIV and now she is hooked too. We don't have an extra $50-60
My choice for those nights is Settlers of Catan!
Look for Steam sales - I wouldnt be surprised if at some point in time before end of this year Civ5 was available there for 33-50% off. Your best chance will be Xmas sale, which is biggest sales during entire year.
Thank you for the post Greg officially clarifying; I will buy 2 copies then if I want to play against someone else even in the same household simultaneously (with other than hot seat of course...assuming hot seat is an option). I was confused on what may or may not be possible, I appreciate getting the developers' opinions on the matter, I want to do what is permissible under the EULA -- you and your team have worked hard, and deserve fair treatment in return.If you want two people to play the game at the same time, you must buy two copies of the game.
In the same way that you can't watch a movie on two TVs at once, and you can't play an Xbox 360 game on two 360s at once, and you cannot use a single copy of Windows on two computers, you cannot play a single copy of Civilization V on two computers at once.
The workaround suggested by the OP in this thread, if it even works, would be considered piracy, so let's everyone take care not to discuss those sorts of technical workarounds, as it's pretty much the only zero-tolerance rule we have here.
2K should have offered a Bulk Buy discount like most games have been doing for years on Steam. Seems only fair. The game is already overpriced as is- you can't honestly expect people to buy more than one copy and not get any discount for it. That's just unfair. I would urge 2K to seriously consider some sort of bulk pack in the coming months so that people can buy multiple copies and share them with friends/family at a discounted price.
Else no one will pay those outragous prices. In the end you're making more money off a bulk buy option because no one will buy more than one copy at the price you're offering it at. I think the best case of this working was Borderlands as because it was a strongly co-op game they got a lot of adopters of the bulk buy option which previously they probably wouldn't have done due to the cost, but because they got a discount were able to share the savings together.
The game was very expensive and my opinion of 2K continues to be lowered further because of the treatment its been giving its customers lately. Mafia 2 was insulting to say the least and I hope that trend does not continue but I suspect it will. 2K was charging too much for Mafia 2 via steam $109.. you've got to be kidding me- way to show your appreciation for Australians. A bulk discount would go miles in this country, stop being so damn greedy for a change. I bought your overpriced game- I'm not happy about it but I know Firaxis do good work so its forgiven this time. Give a discount for those that buy mutliple copies, its only fair.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
2K Greg