Risen - Steam Update removes Tages

The Tages copy protection / activation for Risen was removed via Steam update a few days ago. Now there is neither Tages nor an activation limit for the Steam version.
More information.

Great, in preparation of Risen 2 -- I was actually planning on snatching Risen from steam.

…Tages is the devil.

Great. TAGES is some intrusive shit.

Yeah I actually could not play my legally bought retail Risen until Reloaded released their crack - TAGES was making it impossible. I am very glad they went with steamworks for Risen 2 instead.

Originally Posted by Paul
Yeah I actually could not play my legally bought retail Risen until Reloaded released their crack - TAGES was making it impossible. I am very glad they went with steamworks for Risen 2 instead.

This is so wrong on a myriad of levels.

Appreciated, though the only protection system I've ever had trouble with is StarForce.

Now I can finally by the game!

No way was I buying it with that malware on it.

Can you use mods with the Steam version? I assume the MoD Starter isn't compatible…?

Originally Posted by regomar
Now I can finally by the game!

No way was I buying it with that malware on it.

It's a good game. Fans of rpgs should play it.

Originally Posted by Paul
Yeah I actually could not play my legally bought retail Risen until Reloaded released their crack - TAGES was making it impossible. I am very glad they went with steamworks for Risen 2 instead.

Yeah, it is good to hear they are using Steamworks as the DRM. I wish every company that wants to use DRM, would use Steamworks. Steamworks is by far the best DRM out there. Plus, Steamworks is 100% free for publisher/developers to use, which hopefully means there could be more money in the budget to put towards the development of the game.

Originally Posted by Eisberg
Plus, Steamworks is 100% free for publisher/developers to use

Are you sure about that? I have a hard time believing that Valve doesn't receive a small percentage for every game sold on Stream.

Originally Posted by Eisberg
Plus, Steamworks is 100% free for publisher/developers to use

That's not correct. From what i've read Valve takes 30%-40%. In comparison Apple Store takes 20%, so Steam isnt really such a good deal.

They take a big chunk out of it. It's an obscene way of making so much money - but aren't most

You guys are talking about two different things. AFAIK Steamworks is indeed free, in the sense that there is no licensing fee for it. But of course it doesn't make much sense to use it without a Steam distribution deal, and Valve takes a cut for the distribution.
Other digital services take a similar cut without offering such a sophisticated DRM with a gazillion additional services for publishers and customers.

Never had problems with TAGES but still good to see this kind of DRM removed, hopefully this bodes well for Risen 2 and the applied DRM

Originally Posted by Gorath
You guys are talking about two different things. AFAIK Steamworks is indeed free, in the sense that there is no licensing fee for it. But of course it doesn't make much sense to use it without a Steam distribution deal, and Valve takes a cut for the distribution.
Other digital services take a similar cut without offering such a sophisticated DRM with a gazillion additional services for publishers and customers.

That's right. I have to think of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I bought at Gamersgate during their weekend sale and activated and downloaded via Steam, as it uses Steamworks. I wonder who gets how much for such a transaction.

Originally Posted by vurt
That's not correct. From what i've read Valve takes 30%-40%. In comparison Apple Store takes 20%, so Steam isnt really such a good deal.

Well, that's an entirely different thing.
Steamworks is absolutely free of charge.

They take a percentage if you sell your game through Steam, like any other DD platform, but that has nothing to do with Steamworks; in fact you can sell a Steamworks-based game on Gamersgate, Impulse or Green Man Gaming and Valve doesn't take a single penny out of that sale.

And about being a good deal… I can grant you that if you speak with pretty much any indie developers, they are going to confirm to you that for the service, bandwith, tools and visibility that Steam offers, what they take is a very fair cut.

If you don't trust my word, just read what a 1C manager has to say about it:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/opini…vs-steam/01887

As a generalisation, retail would pay these guys a maximum of 40 per cent of what they made. So on a £29.99 game the publisher would receive about £12 (and on a sub-licensed deal, we would then only get about £4.25 of that) – minus return, write down and consignment costs.

When would we get that money? Well, payment would be by the end of the quarter.

So, let’s say £10 per unit sale goes to the publisher, £3 to the developer/sub-licensor, and it’s in your bank five months after the customer has paid out £30.

Compare that to the digital model. On a £29.99 sale, the digital partner will pay the publisher – or in many cases direct to the developer – between 60 and 70 per cent, by the end of the month following the sale.

Wow. To recap: on a sale over the counter today, we can have our £3 by the end of March, or on a digital sale, we can have £20 by Christmas.

Remind me why we should choose to go with retail and decline to let Steam sell the game?

Originally Posted by Turjan
That's right. I have to think of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I bought at Gamersgate during their weekend sale and activated and downloaded via Steam, as it uses Steamworks. I wonder who gets how much for such a transaction.

The conspiracy theorist in me says : Giving a developer money for using Steam would be good for me as a Steam holder, because it would further harden and strengthen Steam's position. If anything goes well, even into a kind of Monopoly (that would be ideal, because then, Steam could dictate prices over developers in the long run, too).

There are rumors that Valve would develop their own console. Wwell, that would mak perfect sense. Because of Steam, which is nothing but a variant of

- Windows Marketplace
- App Store
- etc.

Since consoles and iDevices are "closed environments", a Steam console would be ideal to dictate pices. Plus, if people HAD to buy a "Steam Console" in order to be able to play games listed on Steam, it would put some sort of pressure (maybe even peer pressure) on those who wouldn't have access to Steam-games, then.

From a capitalistic point of view, a Steam Console would make perfect sense, because it would be a special kind of Monopoly for the PC markt, simply because there doesn't exist any "PC Console" yet. There are XBOX, Playstation etc. - but not a PC Console yet.

And that would put Valve into an excellent position.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The conspiracy theorist in me says : Giving a developer money for using Steam would be good for me as a Steam holder, because it would further harden and strengthen Steam's position. If anything goes well, even into a kind of Monopoly (that would be ideal, because then, Steam could dictate prices over developers in the long run, too).

There are rumors that Valve would develop their own console. Wwell, that would mak perfect sense. Because of Steam, which is nothing but a variant of

- Windows Marketplace
- App Store
- etc.

Since consoles and iDevices are "closed environments", a Steam console would be ideal to dictate pices. Plus, if people HAD to buy a "Steam Console" in order to be able to play games listed on Steam, it would put some sort of pressure (maybe even peer pressure) on those who wouldn't have access to Steam-games, then.

From a capitalistic point of view, a Steam Console would make perfect sense, because it would be a special kind of Monopoly for the PC markt, simply because there doesn't exist any "PC Console" yet. There are XBOX, Playstation etc. - but not a PC Console yet.

And that would put Valve into an excellent position.

This is completely wrong, and the exact opposite of what this rumored "Steambox" was supposed to be.
The point at stake was exactly the opposite of what you are suggesting: not to turn the PC in a closed platform, but to define a series of standardized specifics for an compact PC, sold as an open-platform "console".

According to these rumors, no restrictions on software of any kind were planned. The thing was supposed to run even concurrent DD platforms as Origin and pretty much any PC software (not even limited to Windows).

Beside, Valve wasn't even the manufacturer, this "standardized PC-console hybrid" was supposed to be an open design, free of use (and of royalty fees) for any hardware manufacturer willing to support it as a standard.