Skyrim's not using gamebryo, it's using Creation Engine. And Creation engine is using bits of gamebryo, yes, but it's the newest version of it (and really, saying it's the same engine is like saying that Unreal engine 1 is the same engine as Unreal engine 3,) and Bethseda has modified it to suit their needs heavily.

Also, choice of engine hardly influences editing tools, it's how a company decides to implement it.

But why would people do that when they LIKE Steam? When they PREFER Steam? That's the point you're missing: this is not a fight, the fight is over, people PREFER a client to manage their experience and make it more convenient. Steam might face competition from other clients, but the war of DRM free exe versus client is OVER.

Well then you probably shouldn't have replied to my discussion with someone else entirely? Pretty sure we came to a resolution earlier.

Yeah, they have upgraded their old technology again. They actually never used straight gamebryo, because gamebryo is not really any engine per-se, but... whatever. If you can't tell the damn thing is 90% the same I'm not going to argue about it.

I disagree intensely.

You can't either unless you have access to the source code. So ... Do you? Because right now it's just speculations, as you don't actually know how much they've changed. And just because it looks similar doesn't make it so.

Yeah. If you have a home-brew editing tools, which TESEdit is, it's much more influenced by the way you decide to store your data than by the used engine. Actually, display engine used by editor and the game can be completely different, it doesn't really matter (apart from obvious deviations from how's stuff displayed in editor and how is it displayed in-game.) So yeah, if Bethseda's got a certain way of storing their data, and if they don't change it too much, they can just pretty much keep the editor they already have with only little changes, while using a completely different engine for the game itself.

Maybe what you're saying is true, but I like to believe that people who purchase digitally and who want a client like and prefer Steam. Making that distinction is important I think. I don't know how that information can be distinguished with simple sales figures either. Do people like and prefer Steam just because it was bundled with a game they bought? I don't know but I like to think that people would purchase directly from Steam if they wanted it.

PC sales figures suck ass compared to consoles. Maybe they are not interpreting the signals correctly or it's not the signal they want so they ignore it. It's very possible people decided they'd rather put up with consoles than put up with the type of DRM found in PC gaming so they were voting against it. I'm one and I didn't try to rationalize it back then, I just did it. PC games made up 80% of my game purchases for 10 years before I decided to say "fuck it". Most of my friends that play games used to play at least a few PC games and now they no longer play any except for a few trying out WoW.

Back when I was buying PC games, there were still quite a few PC games developed for the PC instead of being a console port.

That sounds nice, and I agree it should be irrelevant, but circumvention isn't usually legal and is looked at as the same thing as any other piracy.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_v._Reimerdes


Someone posted this on this board one time and it pretty much sums up my feelings with the PC game industry.

http://i.imgur.com/ZbOUZ.gif

Nah, everyone loves the community and social features Steam provides, as well as the auto-patching and other such conveniences. Same thing on Xbox Live and PSN really, and you can bet those services will turn into Steam on the next generation of consoles, i.e. DRM.

I wish most people preferred the GOG method and we could have a DRM free swing, but they just don't. Diablo 3: worst DRM ever, best selling PC game of all time. They just don't give a shit.

PC gaming has always been niche compared to console gaming... always. There is no "this is what caused it" because it has been and always will be so. The reason: convenience. Customers hold convenience up as a higher priority than anything else. As soon as the Xbox brought FPS and Western RPG games to consoles there was little reason for most people to keep PC gaming anymore, so the niche we had grew even weaker.

Funny enough, Steam is the only thing that turned that around a bit and strengthened our platform back up. Why? It added convenience.

This is an extremely complicated issue with rulings on both sides that won't be resolved for decades, so making absolute statements about it is frankly ridiculous.

Well, one thing I like about Xbox Live is that it's not mandatory. I have mine offline although networked for streaming media from my PC. Maybe the next generation will make it similar to Steam but it's not mandatory yet, so take that. While I can see some benefits to making patching easier, I think that relying on automatic patching can give developers an incentive to be lazy and more likely to release buggy games. Personally, I'd rather be able to choose if I want a patch or not, like don't install patch 1.3 for ToEE pleaze.

If you (speaking generally) want Xbox Live Gold you pay for it and if you don't want it you do nothing. The more people pay for it, the more Microsoft spends on upgrading features and its infrastructure (Xbox Live's network stability is pretty damn good). And don't you dare mod your console to be a homebrew gaming center with a 500 gb self-installed hard drive full of "illegal" games while using Xbox Live! If you want to both mod a 360 and have access to Xbox Live, you buy two Xbox's. I think this is a better way to vote for what you want, so if people want Steam maybe it should be a separate charge. Speaking of which, I think a better way to vote for modding on the PC is to let modders charge for their service if they want to. They don't have to though either. DLC is like options on a new car to me. I'd rather buy the base package and go to an independent shop for my options if I want some.


Yeah, like stating PC DRM is irrelevant :P

A little bit more on topic, something like a hypothermia mod for Skyrim is a reason why I'm considering trying to get back into PC gaming other than older games that work on my laptop. I think I might acquire a cracked version though.


edit: inserted Xbox Live Gold to be clear