I disagree. There's plenty of places in the US where there isn't broad band available. And that ignores folks that go on business trips or are in the military.
Not necessarily in rural china though. There are still quite a few places where you're able to get away from the broadband connections. I know the US has quite a few places where there is no broadband at all. I highly doubt that is a reflection of the people's lack of interest in either broadband or gaming. It just means that the telecoms don't feel like connecting it.

Keep in mind that the US is the 3rd largest country by both population and land mass, but unlike other countries with relatively low population density, we're not all in cities. There's plenty of folks in the middle of nowhere.

A bit of a tangent, but the point is that even in the US you find these places where there isn't connectivity good enough for Steam. Steam sometimes insists upon pulling damn near the entire release over the net, even for disc releases.

The infrastructure problems of the US are well known. (And I think were one of the presidents major "to do"s after that bridge collapsed.) The first world was rather late to the "broadband party", but that is more our problem than that of game publishers. Write your congressman about the lack of broadband. That is a issue that need to be adressed and fixed, and not circumvented.

Eh, to TBH, I really don't care that much. I just dislike the notion that it's a small number of people. Because the reality is that globally it's a huge number. And regardless of cause, I don't like having to worry about being bitten like that because at some point I choose to move or take a vacation.

Locally, I tend not to care about folks in those areas as those folks tend to be pretty aggressively opposed to any government intervention that might change the situation. And morally, I'm not really sure whether or not forcing it on them is really OK.

The bigger concern is that folks in more urbanized areas are still sitting on a 1.5mbps connection while other parts of the world are up to 100mbps and more and expect that sort of speed. Those people are really going to hurt us in the future.

People who don't own internet connection are rather not huge buyers for gaming industry, so I don't know why they should bother?

What makes you draw that conclusion? As I've already stated, there are plenty of places in which one only has access to a dial up connection. I don't personally see why living in such a place suggests that these people would be less likely to game.

I've known farmers and quite frankly, when they're not working there's very little to do.

Yes yes i have. Just paid a visit to my local best buy not to long ago. Half the story was walking in fear for i am a walking skeleton to them and the other half though i was death. Hmm, maybe i should not bring a scythe with me the next time i go out. When in, looked at the ds games and found the ds game i was looking for. Yu-gi-oh 5d world championship 2011 over the nexus. Based off a interesting anime and if i dare say great anime. You most likely won't understand most about the plot or story of the game with out watching the anime. Paid for it and then when back to my evil lair. Open the box got my game and the three yu-gi-oh cards inside. I bough and paid for this game with out the internet. And the best buy i when to had many ds and games for consoles.

edit: Still can buy games with out use of the internet in my area. Not sure about others but you can here.

You can get internet and tv around here.

I should have commented on this earlier, it's getting a lot more common for computers to come without optical drives. My laptop only has an SD card slot, as does my mothers. I'm probably not going to even bother getting one for my next desktop as even MS allows one to install windows these days via thumb drive if I'm not mistaken.

Is this store located in a town where noone has internet connection / it's not possible to have one?
But it's not a reason to sell games on usb drives instead of cds. Just like it's not a good reason to sell games DRM free because some people don't have inet connection.

USB drives is understandable, always on connections and ones that require more than just the initial installation connection are not.

Which is the point. If the DRM just required it at activation that wouldn't be that big of a deal. One could just go to a cyber cafe if need be and get it done. Having to do that regularly because the publisher is being a dickhead is hardly a reasonable reason to have to have a good internet connection.

i rarely use offline mode, but it has always worked for me, so i don't know why it wouldn't for you. most of the complaints about offline mode come from people who don't know how it works and how to set it up.

It really disappoints to see a otherwise great community go full retard even when someone mentions Steam.
Hacking away at the interview like this is really childish and immature for most of the age group here.

As Magicka is the biggest offender here, did it occur to anyone that Steam functions as something different then DRM there?
It uses Steam and VAC as a multiplayer platform as well as a distribution platform.

As a student project it saves a lot of time and money having a finished solution for your game, so it's a developer decision and not a publisher imposing DRM.

I understand that, but still it's one thing you can't deny - it uses Steam, and some of us don't want to use Steam.

The problem is that it's largely luck of the draw and you have to know that you're going to need to play offline. So if you find yourself randomly without an internet connection you can easily find yourself without the ability to play the games.

Offline mode itself was an after thought and even if you do follow the appropriate steps you can find yourself without access to those games.
Of all the DRM companies in existence Valve is the worse. They have something that's subtle enough that most folks don't even notice that they're no longer able to resell their games or play without approval. Many of them even believe that it's good for them to have Valve looking over them.

Yeah, I need steam like I need a hole in the head. I'll use it to buy things that are priced no more than $5 and always at a deep discount. The problem is that Valve is getting more and more exclusives and increasingly the choices are Valve, piracy or do without. None of which are particularly appealing.

i'm not going to claim it works flawlessly as i simply don't have enough experience with it, but if you have your credentials saved, and if you have started the games you'd like to play offline at least once while online, offline mode should work even if you loose your connection unexpectedly.

for example, i've set up Steam while online on a laptop i rarely use. i recently had to use the laptop while offline. Steam recognized that and offered to start itself in offline mode. it worked without a problem from there on.

now, you don't know what you're saying, either because you have no experience with other DRM systems or because you choose to ignore them. but there is no way in hell that Steam is worse DRM than Tages, SolidShield, UbiSoft GameLauncher or StarForce.

the argument that you cannot sell your games anymore with Steam isn't quite valid, either. PC games have used CD keys and online accounts for years, which has always made selling your games problematic. as soon as a CD key is involved, the second-hand buyer has no way of knowing whether the original owner will hold on the key, making 'his' game unplayable online. there's a reason why electronics stores have stopped taking back PC games years ago.

I am always surprised by how far behind large portions of the US is in regards to broadband connections. I've been on 100mbit connections for roughly 8-9 years now, and before that I had a 10mbit connection which i got back in 99.

And even if you can't get a connection like mine, how about a mobile internet connection? Or don't your telecom companies offer that?