No More Steam Keys Usable on e-store DCS?

[SixthKnight]

But you were aware the keys bought on the ED store cannot activate any products in Steam?! So why did you buy it, even before release?

 

Now you blame your decision to buy that map with the big red "Doesn't work with Steam" marker, on the shop you bought it from, because the marker was actually right?! Really? :dunno:

 

Did you know that the steam keys worked for the stand alone client right?

 

As i said before, it was convenient for me to buy on steam and use those keys on the stand alone version but i cant just jump to the steam version (and keep that payment method) because i bought those modules in the ED store

 

Greetings

[shagrat]

Did you know that the steam keys worked for the stand alone client right?

 

As i said before, it was convenient for me to buy on steam and use those keys on the stand alone version but i cant just jump to the steam version (and keep that payment method) because i bought those modules in the ED store

 

Greetings

I was aware, but that still works. Only new modules on the Steam Store (with the Steam sales) won't work in DCS standalone... What is the problem? ED has sales all the time, so move over to DCS Standalone.

 

Steam seems to have decided they don't want to sell keys to you anymore that can be used outside their Steam platform.

[Rudel_chw]

By the way, just wait until NTTR, Normandy and Asset Pack is RELEASED, I am 100% sure they will be released on Steam shortly after.

 

I dont think so, at least not until the merge on DCS 2.5

[John Hargreaves]

I don't quite get the anti Steam feelings, I think it's pretty good, and the sales are always good for picking up bargains. There are lots of titles that I have discovered through steam, DCS being one of them. Gone are the days of having to patch games manually, Steam just automatically keeps everything up to date.

I've had some good DCS bargains on there, modules that I would never have bought at full price, so ED haven't lost any business, the opposite in fact.

It's always nice when you get the 'an item on your wishlist is on sale' email too. Fine if you don't use or like it, but you don't need to try and stop anyone else using it, just let it be

 

 

I'd guess this situation is out of ED's control for the time being, but once everything is unified it may settle down, no point ED wasting resources changing all the modules at this point as everything is due to be brought together anyway.

Edited May 13, 2017 by John Hargreaves

[shagrat]

I dont think so, at least not until the merge on DCS 2.5

They are still in Early Access/Alpha.

My guess is, we will See a Release with 2.5, so we are both right. ;)

[SixthKnight]

Steam seems to have decided they don't want to sell keys to you anymore that can be used outside their Steam platform.

 

Source?

 

For me its an ED decision to avoid to pay both steam and starforce for steam sales but thats affecting customers like me who likes to use steam to buy modules and use them in the stand alone version

 

Greetings

[shagrat]

Source?

 

For me its an ED decision to avoid to pay both steam and starforce for steam sales but thats affecting customers like me who likes to use steam to buy modules and use them in the stand alone version

 

Greetings

As I said it "seems" to be the same source everybody has to say it is EDs decision to willingly piss off the Steam community and make it more difficult to sell DCS through Steam.

I doubt they are happily kicking the revenue through Steam down the drain without there hand being forced?

 

Honestly what is the advantage to have a couple 100 or 1000 people buying your stuff through another store vs. 10 or 100 people being forced to buy at your store where you get 5% more revenue?

 

That isn't even including the possible newcomers attracted to DCS by Steam.

 

So unless somebody gives me a very good reason that is financially sound, I doubt it was EDs decision to reduce their income!

[BIGNEWY]

The reasons are pretty clear from this post on the pinned steam message

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/app/223750/discussions/0/2741975115067023612/

 

*** IMPORTANT! Change in copy protection ***

Please note that the DCS: M-2000C, and all future DCS World DLC releases on Steam, will now use Steam Keys instead of Starforce keys. As such, these purchases cannot be activated on the DCS World e-Shop version. Previous purchases will not be affected.

As to why the change to Steam Keys for future releases, there are three primary reasons:

 

1- Our partners at Valve/Steam have strongly encouraged us to do so over the past year.

2- Use of credit card fraud to purchase keys for gray market sales has steadily grown.

3- From the beginning, there has been a lot of unhappiness with the use of StarForce keys for our Steam DLC purchases.

 

Again, this only affects the M-2000C and future Steam DLC projects. It does NOT affect any existing sales. For example: past and future purchases of A-10C, FC3, F-15C, etc, are not affected by this.

 

Thanks

[cichlidfan]

The reasons are pretty clear from this post on the pinned steam message

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/app/223750/discussions/0/2741975115067023612/

 

This should have been part of Groove's post.

[shagrat]

I don't quite get the anti Steam feelings, I think it's pretty good, and the sales are always good for picking up bargains. There are lots of titles that I have discovered through steam, DCS being one of them. Gone are the days of having to patch games manually, Steam just automatically keeps everything up to date.

I've had some good DCS bargains on there, modules that I would never have bought at full price, so ED haven't lost any business, the opposite in fact.

It's always nice when you get the 'an item on your wishlist is on sale' email too. Fine if you don't use or like it, but you don't need to try and stop anyone else using it, just let it be

 

 

I'd guess this situation is out of ED's control for the time being, but once everything is unified it may settle down, no point ED wasting resources changing all the modules at this point as everything is due to be brought together anyway.

I agree, if people like Steam, let them use Steam. But people here tried again to use this "change" to blame everything on ED and "force" them to "put everything on Steam".

 

I love the DCS Updater, so every start I can decide to patch to the newest version or not. When I use Mods or scripts that are complex and sometimes have issues after updating, I can revert back to any version I want.

I get a notification about the ED Store Sales or new released early access right in the Menu and I don't need to start the Steam client, to play DCS, which is running services in the background which needs yet another bit of performance and RAM, I'd rather have for DCS...

 

To each his own, but I don't want to be forced to use Steam, just so a couple other guys can keep their convenience. Sorry.

[BIGNEWY]

This should have been part of Groove's post.

 

added

[cichlidfan]

added

 

Yes. I saw that. Thanks.

[n8d0g]

As I said it "seems" to be the same source everybody has to say it is EDs decision to willingly piss off the Steam community and make it more difficult to sell DCS through Steam.

I doubt they are happily kicking the revenue through Steam down the drain without there hand being forced?

 

Honestly what is the advantage to have a couple 100 or 1000 people buying your stuff through another store vs. 10 or 100 people being forced to buy at your store where you get 5% more revenue?

 

That isn't even including the possible newcomers attracted to DCS by Steam.

 

So unless somebody gives me a very good reason that is financially sound, I doubt it was EDs decision to reduce their income!

 

Game publishers and Dev's do periodically make marketing errors, ED is not the first nor will it be the last.

I would also like to point out thout sheer amount of speculations going on in this thread regarding the keys from Steam vs ED.

 

It strikes me that many individuals believe that Steam somehow screwed ED out of business when it's equally likely ED perhaps asked for more than reasonable terms.

 

The fact is no one knows how much more ED makes from Steam but the sheer volume of users and exposure Steam has often makes it a damn good idea to host games there.

[shagrat]

The reasons are pretty clear from this post on the pinned steam message

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/app/223750/discussions/0/2741975115067023612/

Thanks. Very enlightening... I guess Valve asked "very politely over the past year". :D

[shagrat]

Game publishers and Dev's do periodically make marketing errors, ED is not the first nor will it be the last.

I would also like to point out thout sheer amount of speculations going on in this thread regarding the keys from Steam vs ED.

 

It strikes me that many individuals believe that Steam somehow screwed ED out of business when it's equally likely ED perhaps asked for more than reasonable terms.

 

The fact is no one knows how much more ED makes from Steam but the sheer volume of users and exposure Steam has often makes it a damn good idea to host games there.

From Bignewys post a couple posts ago.

(...)"As to why the change to Steam Keys for future releases, there are three primary reasons:

 

1- Our partners at Valve/Steam have strongly encouraged us to do so over the past year."(...)

 

I know this type of "encouragement"... :D

[ApoNOOB]

This is going to happen. I accept it as a fact.

1. Customer buys Steam modules.

2. New module is released and not on Steam for weeks/months/years.

3. Customer try's to migrate to standalone.

4. Customer rages.

 

There is a bunch of dedicated people that do support over on steam forums and this is going to be a nightmare for us. Not to mention the weird discussions I am going to have with casual DCS friends who are all over Standalone/Steam and somehow having to explain to them why this stuff got even more complicated than it already is.

 

I always accepted the old solution, since when in doubt you could always migrate to standalone without any downsides. That's something I can explain with a straight face. But it's getting too complicated now especially when taking new customers into consideration. We need a new solution, this can not be the future. :)

Edited May 13, 2017 by ApoNOOB

[NineLine]

I find it very interesting at the least that somehow Steam is portrayed as the root cause and the origins of EDs choice to sell its own keys.

 

Can someone actually source me the reason why Steam didn't want to add keys to to their database in the first place ? There seems to be a lot of , what appears to be, baseless finger pointing and blame shifting.

 

Its standard practice for Steam to only allow adding of outside keys for 1 year.

[shagrat]

This is going to happen. I accept it as a fact.

1. Customer buys Steam modules.

2. New module is released and not on Steam for weeks/months/years.

3. Customer try's to migrate to standalone.

4. Customer rages.

 

There is a bunch of dedicated people that do support over on steam forums and this is going to be a nightmare for us. Not to mention the weird discussions I am going to have with casual DCS friends who are all over Standalone/Steam and somehow having to explain to them why this stuff got even more complicated than it already is.

 

I always accepted the old solution, since when in doubt you could always migrate to standalone without any downsides. That's something I can explain with a straight face. But it's getting too complicated now especially when taking new customers into consideration. We need a new solution, this can not be the future. :)

 

You may want to ask Steam and "encourage" them to change it?

[NineLine]

This is going to happen. I accept it as a fact.

1. Customer buys Steam modules.

2. New module is released and not on Steam for weeks/months/years.

3. Customer try's to migrate to standalone.

4. Customer rages.

 

There is a bunch of dedicated people that do support over on steam forums and this is going to be a nightmare for us. Not to mention the weird discussions I am going to have with casual DCS friends who are all over Standalone/Steam and somehow having to explain to them why this stuff got even more complicated than it already is.

 

I always accepted the old solution, since when in doubt you could always migrate to standalone without any downsides. That's something I can explain with a straight face. But it's getting too complicated now especially when taking new customers into consideration. We need a new solution, this can not be the future. :)

 

All ED can do at this point is warn people when they make purchases that they cant be used elsewhere. That is all they can really do.

[iLOVEwindmills]

Will there be an effort to make beta modules available on Steam after these changes? If the system stays as it is, ie modules can be unavailable to Steam for 1+ year, why keep selling copies on Steam in the first place?

 

It seems like you are going to get a never ending stream of people who buy a module only to realize later that the Steam version is the 'wrong' version.

[NineLine]

Will there be an effort to make beta modules available on Steam after these changes? If the system stays as it is, ie modules can be unavailable to Steam for 1+ year, why keep selling copies on Steam in the first place?

 

It seems like you are going to get a never ending stream of people who buy a module only to realize later that the Steam version is the 'wrong' version.

 

ED also tried early access but Steam users made it clear they weren't interested in incomplete products on Steam and wanted to wait till release.

[ZeeMan90]

ED also tried early access but Steam users made it clear they weren't interested in incomplete products on Steam and wanted to wait till release.

 

Yet this users are grabbing other early access titles and play them for years in an incomplete state. This gotta be the definition of double standards.

[MonnieRock]

The logical conclusion would be, to drop Steam and StarForce

 

Starforce is a Russian Company with their Headquaters in Moscow so, I do not see that happening.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce

[Chrinik]

They just need to dump starforce, use steam, push everything, even beta releases to steam - more users in the game, more customers, limited key activations a thing of the past, more community support, servers that run in a virtual environment, win win win

 

Well...the only one losing would be ED tho, as Valve takes a cut from everything.

 

That is why they are pushing their own proprietary e-shop, no third parties taking money.

 

I used to make the argument "get the standalone and enjoy twice the sales", but can´t anymore.

 

I switched to standalone a while ago...I still don´t know if it was a valve requirement or an ED decision, yet I think negatively about it.

[nosebruise]

I'm not blaming anyone for this situation, but it's definitely a huge headache as far as customer experience goes and will almost certainly result in negative perceptions toward the product.

 

DCS is (unfortunately, by it's nature) extremely unfriendly towards newcomers:

 

-The game itself is extremely technical. This is absolutely THE core feature of this product, being a hardcore simulator and is simultaneously a fantastic thing and a pain point. Most users will likely consider learning modules half the fun, but then there's also stuff like mapping controls and learning to navigate the frontend/editor. It's prudent to be cognizant that it by it's very nature the high learning curve and time sink is a barrier, including for those willing and able, even excited, to cross it.

 

-It virtually requires users to invest money in controller hardware.

 

-The current state of DCS as a product and the relationships of all it's bifurcations is complex. Steam Version/Standalone Version/OpenAlpha/OpenBeta/Release: different modules work with different branches, the same module can have different keys to different platforms. The complexity of just understanding what you should be purchasing is overwhelming at first glance and requires a non-trivial time investment before you even open a 500 page game manual. For many potential customers seeing this spaghetti mess at first glance and realizing they have to navigate a potential minefield of purchasing non-compatible products will be enough to turn them off from investigating further.

 

It's already a niche genre and complex by nature, so ANY reduction of barriers and unnecessary complexity to new customers is a huge plus. Especially if you want a thriving multiplayer community. Unlike the core complexity and the hardware requirements, the multifaceted versions seems like a somewhat arbitrary nightmare scenario that could have been avoided in world with more aligned incentives.

 

I've migrated to standalone long ago, and don't really care, personally, whether I have it installed via steam or not, I've already grown accustomed to standalone. That being said I can also understand the value that steam brings to the table.

 

As others have pointed out, steam functions to market DCS. While I vaguely recall some brief contact with knowing of the existence of some of the Lock On stuff before, I only really "found" DCS after seeing it pop up in steam a few times and finally deciding to set aside some time to check it out (glad I did, probably ED, MFG, Jetseat, & CH Products are too :D).

 

It's also a reputable service that a huge customer base is familiar with and trusts, and not some 'one-off russian website that I have to give my credit card info.'

 

I'd been pestering a friend to get into DCS for probably over 6 months or so, he was completely uninterested in the planes to the point of not caring about trying the demo, but showed a lot of interest in the choppers. I've briefly mentioned to him that standalone is the better route, but he ended up grabbing the Black Shark 2 module on Steam during the last sale on a whim. I would have preferred if he picked it up off ED's site, and he may come to feel the same way, but I also understand that it would have been harder to convince him to purchase from an unfamiliar website and he almost certainly wouldn't have made the purchase on a whim when seeing it on sale here vs steam (I know because I've linked it to him on sale on ED's site 2x before he purchased the steam version).

 

The issue with the keys creating an even more confusing split between the products is almost positively going to result in a lot of frustration, regret, and loss of interest for customers and potential customers and is sad to see :(.

Edited May 13, 2017 by nosebruise