A random rant regarding Steam Moderators Thread

Note: I have read the Cosmos rules (I can see this as off-topic, right?) but couldn't find anything against what I am posting now. If I read over any rules, please alert me. Thank you.

Several months ago, I received a permanent ban for the following post.

Me wrote: Yes, DRM is a useless system. It punishes users that buy the game legally and rewards those pirating a game due to the fact that these restictive security measures are not in thier copy of their game. In general, pirates get a better deal than those buying games legally. Sad, but true.

Reason: Advocating Software Piracy

Wait, WHAT? Where did I say that pirating is a good thing to do? I merely stated that DRM is an aweful restrictive measure that punishes honest customers. I never said that everybody should go and pirate games because that is a bad idea as well.

Filed a support ticket, got a reply along the lines of "we did it correctly, go away" and made a new account.

Yesterday, it was time for another ban. This time because of a reply.

Other wrote: DRM sucks, pirates are much better off because they don't have to deal with that SecuROM crap and I, as an EA customer, do have to deal with it.

Me wrote: Hey, that's funny, last time I said something negative about DRM I got banned.

Now, I opened my browser this morning to run into an error message.

Your account has been suspended.
Reason: Ban Evasion
Date the ban will be lifted: Never

(Fun fact: The other user is not banned yet. Talking about sticking to your rules and even threatment.)

Really? What is up with some moderators these days? Why do some forums ban you for "rules" not written down anywhere? I had a similar experience on the alaplaya forums, where I lost 10 accounts in just 2 weeks because I was apparently breaking a lot of rules. Re-read the Code of Conduct, Terms of Service and even the forum rules which were hidden really well multiple times, but not even the slightest reference against the things I was doing.

And why do they think that randomly banning and giving people no chance on reprise is actually effective? If you give the user a temporary ban, that user is much more likely to be quiet during the time he is banned. If you give the user a permanent ban immediately then he has already lost his account anyway, why wouldn't he make a new one?

Oh well, time for a new account in a few days...

/rant

That does seem a bit harsh - it's an objective observation that DRM is a restriction and potential source of driver conflicts etc, and it's a problem that only legitimate customers are burdened with. There's big studios who have stated this same observation in official interviews (Avalance and CP Projekt spring to mind). It is not advocating piracy to point out that DRM is often a failure, as it isn't causing pirates any great problem - but can and does cause problems for the people who are giving developers their money.

Not to get involved with DRM debate, on the subject of forum moderators, it's common it seems. One forum I won't name temp banned me for numberous dumb reasons, such as not believing in a soul, or my opinions on idealistic hollywood romances. Another forum I will name, Co-optimous, threatened me with permaban for critisisms of their rhetroic, inacturate copy-pasted news posts and the sites large amount of payola. With such bullying, I left deciding that any site that bullies desenters into silence isn't where I want to spend my time.

The common trend seems to be that I, as a person of logic, is loved when my opinions and facts fall in line with the mods beliefs. I'm a genius, my opinion highly valued, ect. When my opinion falls against those, it's banning time, with some half arsed excuse.

I've also learned that, just like RL, it's about who you know, not what you know. In that unnamed forum, armed with mod power, a guy went on went power crazy, making off forum threats, and letting his RL friends get away with murder, and the Admins wouldn't step in because the mod in question was a close friend. That said forum is now dying, overrun with 4chan meme crap, rhetoric and magical thinking all because doing a favour for buddy by giving him mod powers rather than giving it to an experienced member who is qualified for the job. It also shows that people can't handle power, even something as minor as a niche game forum will get abused until it crumbles.

Edited by: SabreXT

Steam will ban for for the slightest mention of DRM and piracy in an attempt to disassociate themselves with the negativity concerning DRM.

Also, I have recently decided to pronounce 'DRM' as 'Durm'. Because it is.

TheLastProject wrote: Note: I have read the Cosmos rules (I can see this as off-topic, right?) but couldn't find anything against what I am posting now. If I read over any rules, please alert me. Thank you.

Several months ago, I received a permanent ban for the following post.

Me wrote: Yes, DRM is a useless system. It punishes users that buy the game legally and rewards those pirating a game due to the fact that these restictive security measures are not in thier copy of their game. In general, pirates get a better deal than those buying games legally. Sad, but true.

Reason: Advocating Software Piracy

Wait, WHAT? Where did I say that pirating is a good thing to do? I merely stated that DRM is an aweful restrictive measure that punishes honest customers. I never said that everybody should go and pirate games because that is a bad idea as well.

Filed a support ticket, got a reply along the lines of "we did it correctly, go away" and made a new account.

Yesterday, it was time for another ban. This time because of a reply.

Other wrote: DRM sucks, pirates are much better off because they don't have to deal with that SecuROM crap and I, as an EA customer, do have to deal with it.

Me wrote: Hey, that's funny, last time I said something negative about DRM I got banned.

Now, I opened my browser this morning to run into an error message.

Your account has been suspended.
Reason: Ban Evasion
Date the ban will be lifted: Never

(Fun fact: The other user is not banned yet. Talking about sticking to your rules and even threatment.)

Really? What is up with some moderators these days? Why do some forums ban you for "rules" not written down anywhere? I had a similar experience on the alaplaya forums, where I lost 10 accounts in just 2 weeks because I was apparently breaking a lot of rules. Re-read the Code of Conduct, Terms of Service and even the forum rules which were hidden really well multiple times, but not even the slightest reference against the things I was doing.

And why do they think that randomly banning and giving people no chance on reprise is actually effective? If you give the user a temporary ban, that user is much more likely to be quiet during the time he is banned. If you give the user a permanent ban immediately then he has already lost his account anyway, why wouldn't he make a new one?

Oh well, time for a new account in a few days...

/rant

You are now banned because I feel like it.

I really don't like the steam forums much, regardless of the moderators (never had any trouble when I did post a few times) Too many silly people.
Luckily I have only been banned at one forum, for posting a topic in the wrong section.
And power definitely does go to peoples head, seen it happen, from a moderator to admin, resulted in a divided community, some migrating over to another forum eventually, though its all reversed now.

arieas wrote: I really don't like the steam forums much, regardless of the moderators (never had any trouble when I did post a few times) Too many silly people.
.

That's true. I once saw a mod closing a DRM rant thread because he didn't agree w/ OP's opinion. Seriously

And I know this is highly off topic but I don't want to create a thread merely for this: are games on Desura DRM free? If not, how can I check which kind of DRM the game uses?

Tjaele wrote: And I know this is highly off topic but I don't want to create a thread merely for this: are games on Desura DRM free? If not, how can I check which kind of DRM the game uses?

DRM-free. At least AFAIK.

Edited by: feillyne

Tjaele wrote:

arieas wrote: I really don't like the steam forums much, regardless of the moderators (never had any trouble when I did post a few times) Too many silly people.
.

That's true. I once saw a mod closing a DRM rant thread because he didn't agree w/ OP's opinion. Seriously

And I know this is highly off topic but I don't want to create a thread merely for this: are games on Desura DRM free? If not, how can I check which kind of DRM the game uses?

We are a DRM agnostic service while we swing towards DRM free as much as possible we wont force any developer to design their game that way. So far the only DRM we have used is CDKeys mostly because Indie devs normally are not super jerks.

Henley wrote:

Tjaele wrote:

arieas wrote: I really don't like the steam forums much, regardless of the moderators (never had any trouble when I did post a few times) Too many silly people.
.

That's true. I once saw a mod closing a DRM rant thread because he didn't agree w/ OP's opinion. Seriously

And I know this is highly off topic but I don't want to create a thread merely for this: are games on Desura DRM free? If not, how can I check which kind of DRM the game uses?

We are a DRM agnostic service while we swing towards DRM free as much as possible we wont force any developer to design their game that way. So far the only DRM we have used is CDKeys mostly because Indie devs normally are not super jerks.

As long as the game page clearly states that it uses DRM and, if it does, which one so I can steer away from such games easily then this is completely fine to me and most likely to pretty much everyone else as well. Could be it already is this way, but I haven't been able to find any such game yet.

Most of the forum moderators I see are like the gmod moderators I see, website staff included. This forum seems fine, but that's probably because it's slower then most.

Hmm yeah i find some of the steams "you require internet access to play this game" everytime a little difficult... after all somedays my network just wont.. function and when its down .. i get to play ony 2 of my 4 games...
other then that all i can say is a quick farewell and goodluck all.

Games should be like books, not bloody newspapers. The gaming industry is painting itself into a corner. One day they'll wake up and the interwebs will have shat themselves, leaving Steam and Origin and kin really pretty desktop icons.

Edited by: CallistoNTG

You got banned in the first case because it sounded like you were showcasing how piracy is a better deal than legitimate purchases. Sad situation, but true.

In the second case, it was pretty much your own fault. Why would you say "Last time I said that, I got banned", when the Steam Forums clearly state that they'll catch you if they find out you've been banned before?

I used to love steam, but I'm slowly losing respect for them due to their crappy mods and tech support as well.

I'm trying to get them to help me with a lost account, and they just keep copy pasting steam policy and giving me the same replies over and over and asking for information that I already gave them, which just shows that they aren't even reading the damn messages we are sending the tech support!!

and then I didn't respond for 1 day (thanksgiving day) and they closed my ticket :p I reopened it but so far nothing...

I understand they probably have to deal with a lot of shitty people and scammers all the time, but even considering that, their tech support and their mods are still rather bad.

Edited by: spacelike

This is one of the reasons I enjoy indie, the spirit is much lighter (mojang being the prime example), you notice that all the free games on steam are bigger names and very few, here there is a much bigger selection of the free stuff (hence, I will be posting my game that I am developing here).

I find that the thing linking me to steam are the games that I get from humble indie bundles.

I would rather ask a community and wait on them for help or google it.

On a last note, there are a lot of things in place that hurt the law abiding ones, making it easier on the pirates. I came from pirating to find that there is a wealth of software available for free and easier to get (other than old DOS games...maybe), making pirating ridiculuos in my eyes, in otherwords, pirating is for those who are don't care to learn or want to sit by and hope not to get caught.

I'm seriously not sure I'll buy Mass Effect 3, on account of Origin's arse-ness. And I bought BOTH originals.

Look at Skyrim. Opt-out beta patches? Developers are starting to realise that forcing everyone to download a half-baked hotfix causes nothing but suffering. Steam, at least, has a decent offline mode.

edit: this thread is drifting off topic.

Edited by: CallistoNTG

Ah, this reminds me of a forum I was on (not naming it) where the head moderators generally enforced their personal views. I was new and hadn't been there that long, so I actually stood up for myself and pointed at all the things people were ignoring and wouldn't fix (that was after close to 9 months of being there that I started trying to suggest fixing things). I eventually quit out of frustration because everyone just dodged the point and never did anything of value.

So far, this forum has been good. I think it's because ModDB (for the most part) breed a culture of people intelligently talking to other people. Almost as if God intended it, aye? That and the forum moderators don't try to shoot first, answer questions with pre-qued replies.

Edited by: TheUnabridgedGamer