Link broken.

it still works for me, but here, try this http://i.imgur.com/vqDFO.jpg

So all they have to do is:

1. Invest massive amounts of cash
2. Invest a bunch of labor
3. Compete with "free"

Really, that's it? Sounds so easy.

Whoa dudes, the gaming industry is really going places with this genius business model. We can expect a lot of great titles in the future!!! Thank you piracy, you rock.

Wait ... what? Is HBO GO available for subscription by itself outside the US? (i.e. you don't need a cable subscription to HBO to get it?)

You do. Well, my parents have that. I use HBO GO at my place, they use HBO at theirs :P

But yeah, it should be avaible separately... it's not.

Same in the US :)

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6848173/the-secret-of-hbo-go

I agree and I imagine that if it were up to HBO, HBO would indeed make a separate service that one could pay for (even just for HBO shows if they couldn't get movie rights). But their parent company is Time Warner and while Time Warner is also an ISP, it is a cable company and does not want to see a major portion of its revenue leaving (never mind bandwidth considerations). This is almost certainly a case of conflicting interest between parent company and subsidiary.

Or they are just greedy bastards :P But HBO GO is an outstanding service :P

Although it lacks Season 4 of True Blood in Poland for some reason -.-

Although I think HBO would make more money if they could sell subscriptions to HBO GO separately - even keeping it free for HBO subscribers. Right now they offer it at as a free service to those already paying for an HBO subscription which means they operate it at a loss unless you can show that people wouldn't own HBO on cable if it didn't also have HBO GO for the internet. Even if that doesn't change (offering HBO GO for free to HBO cable subscribers when also offering HBO GO as a standalone service), they might get a lot of people who don't have HBO subscriptions paying for HBO GO and for those that cut the cord, they'd still be paying money to HBO through HBO GO. I suspect HBO might come out ahead or at least break even if HBO GO was a standalone service in addition to a free service offered through buying cable.

But HBO is pretty tied in with the cable infrastructure both through its parent company and historical business model - that's my guess as to why HBO doesn't offer HBO GO as a separate service. In conclusion, I think if they are greedy bastards and had their way, HBO GO would be separate service. :)

HBO GO is indeed a very nicely delivered web service other than not being separate.

An asshole that didn't like Kane & Lynch! >:(

Nah, seriously now: first time I heard about him was after he was fired from Gamespot - apparently it's official by now that it was in part caused by his "negative" review (6/10) of Kane & Lynch which resulted in "threats" from Eidos. But apparently we wouldn't have Giant Bomb now if it wasn't for that. But in all seriousness, I don't like his reviews. :P
Who cares? The show got awful during season 3. :P

But I paid for it, so I want to have a legitimate right (lol) to say it sucks... :P

There's nothing to fix. The current approach *is* the non-broken way to do it.

Essentially, Steam Cloud support means that your Steam client stores saves etc. on the Steam servers (the exact definition of a "save" depends entirely on the game developers, so if something like graphics settings get saved to the cloud, that is entirely the fault of the game developers, not Steam.)

When you first upload to the Steam Cloud, your client says "Hi Cloud, I have these save files here", and the server says "Okay, I'll store that in a box called revision 1 and mark it with the current date/time". This process gets repeated for subsequent changes to the save files, except the box is clearly labeled differently, and we still retain some amount of knowledge. Essentially, you end up with a chain of revisions, and if all goes well, any one of your computers will have files corresponding to a single point in that chain.

When you start the game, your client goes "Hey, I have these save files, do you have anything newer?" and then the server will either say "Nope", "Yes, here you go", or "Wait a minute, I haven't seen those files before!"

That last case is what happens when Steam pops up the conflict dialogs (Upload/Download/Cancel): something has happened to cause one of your computers to carry save files which aren't part of that chain. There is no correct answer on what to do: either action risks losing progress, and the user is the only one who has a chance of knowing what should be done. It's not possible to merge the two in any sensible way, so you have to pick one or the other.

Let's say, however, that Steam let you ignore the problem. What's going to happen when you're done playing? It can't upload your new saves, because that might still clobber your progress. If it just leaves your current saves on the computer, then the problem still isn't fixed.

There are only three ways this could be different:
1) You could allow individual computers to not use the Steam Cloud - but if you start doing that, you're kind of removing the point of having the Cloud there to begin with
2) Remove all automation and have the user decide when to sync to and from the Cloud - and that introduces a long list of issues which ends up making it easier to copy the files manually
3) Allow multiple branches to exist simultaneously - and that's only going to confuse users in the end

Ultimately, you need *some* kind of conflict resolution, and postponing it will only make things worse - so the most sensible thing to do is to not allow you to proceed until you handle it.

not sure whose fault is it then but:

being forced to download your graphical settings along the save game is unacceptable in my opinion. is it valve's is it game dev fault?

no idea. but it is broken. there should be separate option for saves and for graphical options and whatever else is updated.
No. it is not. that is the worst thing. It makes steam worse than pirate copy of the game because a pirated copy would not stop you from playing the game.
steam does and this is very very wrong.

If cloud is enabled for the game, it forces you to pick one of the two options. But you can disable the cloud on a per-game basis.

Given that the game this happened for was Team Fortress 2, would you like to reverse your position on how well Valve handles the situation?

IMO it's all bullshit. Valve has been so successful with Steam because they made PC gaming incredibly convenient and easy to use, thereby basically copying the piracy model, except for an additional payment step. it works.

but then again, UbiSoft have been throwing stones into PC gamers' way for years now, yet - surprise - their games also sell incredibly well. you'd think that a system as annoying as UbiSoft's DRM and account thingy would put people off. think again. it doesn't make a difference.

good games sell with or without DRM. the "DRM-factor" is an illusion. to the average gamer it simply doesn't matter. most gamers don't even know what DRM is or what different kinds of it there are. people want to play games that look interesting, and that's all there is to it. the honest folks will purchase those games, the less honest ones will pirate them. there is no science behind it.