Found this and thought it was interesting

Every game other than Skyrim is "Games for Windows"PC as the platform except TESV do you suppose that means its a Steamer?

Going though there titles it seems they may try something new, most are tagged with the GFWL label... This is interesting..

I know that Brink uses Steamworks. Thus, your argument is invalid. Don't forget, Fallout New Vegas had Games for Windows branding too. Games for Windows branding =/= Uses Games for Windows Live.

Yeah, Games for Windows is just a type of certification Microsoft came up with.

Based on the Fallout III NV precedent I think that sadly it's pretty much a given that ES5 will use Steam too.

I hope it won't ( although I accept steam, I prefer avoiding it ) but I have the same feeling

I think it's a given that pretty much every big corporate game release other than EA will use Steam in the future. 9 out of 10 games this year used Steam that came from big publishers.

Can't blame them too much really... it has DRM most people don't complain about, it offers a good avenue for DLC (both pre-order style and real expansions), it gets a TON of fucking press. I don't personally like it but I it's rather obvious I am in a minority.

the only thing i dont like is that they can disable your account and remove access to every single game you've bought from them.

The programs has 100's of I/O reads and writes every quarter hour.

Offline doesn't work for extended periods and needs pre setup.

If all that was fixed i wouldn't care so much but the fact is your required to use steam makes every game rented since you don't own anything according to steams EULA

Yeah... that's pretty much the end all be all of the arguments against corporations having control over your games after the sale, isn't it? You can lose your games either because they want you to or because they go out of business.

Of course you can't really lose your games on an open platform...

Well , they're not your games but rights to use them. My fear is not them going out of business ( although they may verify the saying about a bicycle not moving being bound to fall ) as they manage to profile themselve as the most visible DRM management solution. I fear that eventually it could become a "pay per use" system.

EA uses steam too...

As long as they don't screw up mod integration let them go for it.

Fallout NV uses Steamworks, meaning it requires Steam regardless of where you buy it. EA's releases on Steam can be purchased elsewhere without the Steam requirement. It isn't even close to being the same thing.

Yes, well, I disagree with that on a fundamental level. That's kind of the point. I feel games should be like movies, you own a copy.

Technically games are exactly like movies from a legal stand point. You don't purchase a copy of the movie, you buy a license to view the movie in certain ways (e.g. not in a public setting, non-commercial only (as in you can't charge), etc. etc.). It's just not feasible to enforce it with movies, where they can enforce it with games.

Movies have no license agreement you have to accept to watch them. There are copyright laws you have to accept like the mentioned public setting restrictions, but a movie purchase is not presented as a license purchase to the customer at any point.