Mass Effect 3 Message Board  

I just looked and I could not see anything stating about scaning systems.

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[Edited by ServiusTheBear, 2/15/2012 1:43:44 PM]

Any program you install on your computer can potentially scan your system and everything on it. Saying that something does doesn't make it so. Steam doesn't scan your system to see what's there. Don't pull "facts" out of thin air to justify your argument.

Also, the only way Steam "dictates how, when, where and who" plays games on its system, the only time you can't play games is if it can't access the Steam servers for verification, which you can easily get around by setting all of your games to "play offline" as soon as you buy them. As for where and who, I don't see how you can use that one. "Who" is you - the person who bought the game. "Where" is no different than any other DRM in existance, where in most cases you have a set number of installs on different machines.

@sleepingsecret: The "NO GUARENTEES" you posted is exactly what I explained in my post. No software in the world can guarantee most of that. Something will work perfectly on one persons system, but might seem bug-ridden on another. The non-guarenteed access to Steam part is also in what I explained, in that unless you set a game to play offline, Steam verifies the game online every time you play. If the servers are extremely busy or offline, you'll not be able to play it. I've only had that problem once in two years and 477 games.

Most, if not all modern games scan your hardware. They have to in order to determine whether a game meets the minimum requirements, and to set the automatic graphic options if its designed to do so. Steam is a digital games platform. Go figure. The only time it purposely scans your hardware and sends it to someone is when they're carrying out a survey of hardware configurations, at which point you're prompted to allow or deny the scan, and then again to allow or deny the transmission of that information. The only folder it scans is its own. I'm still not seeing anything other than your own say-so to prove what you're saying.

People may complain about it, but they'll still use it. I enjoy BioWare games, especially Mass Effect, so I still buy EA published games. Though I hate EA and Origin, I'll still use it. Way to insult people because you can't justify your argument. It's not "the cool thing to do". People have extremely valid reasons to distrust and dislike EA and Origin. Just because you like/don't mind them doesn't mean everyone else is wrong.

EA stated that they pulled a lot of games from Steam due to unreasonable demands on pricing, DLC usage and contact with users (something like that anyway), which is a complete steaming load. They just happen to have an alternative digital download platform which they just launched to grab a piece of the digital market when these complaints arose. Not to mention the fact that if those unreasonable demands where accurate, they'd have had no problem pulling their entire catalogue from Steam.

@Neo: Yeah, you're right about UAC. I didn't mention it because I have it disabled. It caused havoc with my setup a while ago so I've always disabled it. Likewise, I didn't know about Origin wanting superuser privileges.