Now I see what all the fuss is about. Many of you have talked about your annoyances with DRM, which is a sentiment I share on a conceptual level. To be clear, I'm against piracy and the game-makers have a right to not be ripped off. They've gotta eat too. They can't make more games for us if they're out of business. If we want a product, we should pay it. I have no objection to buying a legit copy with a legit serial number. That's fair.

What's not fair, in my opinion, is that you PAY for a game, fair and square, but it's not really yours to keep. You can only play it on one computer. The license expires after a limited time. You have to be online to play it. Forget replaying it years later. Whatever the restrictions happen to be. It seems you're basically RENTING it instead of buying it--but they didn't advertise it as a rental. You placed it into your shopping cart as a purchase. It didn't say anything about a limited rental. That's not right.

Well, up to now this is not something I have really personally dealt with, because every game I've ever played I purchased as a disc. I owed the disc and, as long as it was compatible with my OS, I could play it on any computer I owned. My computer. My game. That's fair.

Unfortunately, its getting next to impossible to even buy a game on disc. It's getting to the point that you have to download it and/or play it online. Therefore, I was pleased to come across GOG (by accident). Yes, you have to download it, but once you do, they treat you fairly. You can store it digitally or on DVD and replay as often as you like. And, admittedly, you do have the added advantage of having fewer compatibility issues on older games, at least at the time that you purchase it. (i.e. - At the moment, I have two recently purchased DVD-ROM games that I can't pay because they're only compatible with XP - an annoying waste of money. It seems this is less of an issue with GOG games, because GOG seems to re-engineer the games for current computers - and that's a nice feature of the site. I appreciate that.) So, you don't have to feel like you're being ripped off.

So, that brings me to the point of this post: Over the last twenty five or so years I've played a number of the Star Trek games, beginning with 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites, later DS9 Harbinger and The Fallen, both Elite Force games, Star Trek Legacy, and so on. But they had pretty much stopped offering Trek games in recent years, with the exception of Star Trek Online - and I really have no interest in playing a game online (not to mention with "made up" characters we've never heard of), having to constantly make further purchases to continue playing and so forth. That just didn't interest me whatsoever. Well, along comes this new "Abramsverse" Star Trek game (simply titled "Star Trek") which *appeared* (maybe I misread?) to be marketed in a more traditional way (i.e. a game that you purchase on a physical disc and play as a single player (with multi-player options if you *wish*, but I don't) on your own computer in your own time as you see fit. Okay, a "non-online" Trek game. I'm for that - I'll buy it (*after* the ridiculous $60 price tag goes down. I knew it would eventually.)

Alas, the price did finally come down to something reasonable. About eight to ten bucks for a download. But, if possible, I wanted a disc - but the only disc available (I guess they only burned a limited number of hard copies) was a UK import for about $14.00. Okay, that's not bad. I'll pay an extra four bucks for a disc copy. Sold.

Well...it seems I've been had. Not by the retailer. They were very prompt and friendly. I'd be happy to do business with them again. No, I've been had by the game manufacturer. I thought I was PURCHASING a GAME on this DVD. But, apparently, NO. As far as I can tell, there is NO GAME stored on this disc. There are NO "STAR TREK" PROGRAM FILES on this disc. The only program on this disc is essentially a LINK TO WEBSITE called "Steam.com" - and in order to play the game, you HAVE to create an account with them and DOWNLOAD THE GAME!!!--from THEM. I might as well have downloaded it in the first place. But once you pretty well sign your life and all of your rights and privacy away to become a member of this website (Steam) I've never heard of (apparently they're a pretty big deal, but I've never heard of them), you then have to jump through numerous hoops to figure out "where the hell is my game?"--it wanted to sell you all of these other games, but there was NO SIGN of the Star Trek game I had already PAID for--all this BS before you can even go through the process of *downloading* the game. And then it let's you know that you can only play the game through them--online. You can only launch the game through them--online. They let you know that you do not own the game--you're renting it for whatever indefinite amount of time. It's unclear if you're going to have to make more purchases to play the game. And when this company no longer exists in six months (I made that up, but we all know how these things are constantly bought and sold and/or go defunct) I'll no longer be able to play the game? And of course they specifically use the term DRM is association with this setup.

So, I've now discovered, fist hand, what DRM is all about. Thanks for nothing.

I appreciate GOG for not being "those guys."

Ha sounds like me when I finally caved and bought Civ V. Welcome to the revolution, buckle-up and get ready for a bumpy ride!

if it's any consolation the Star Trek game you bought (presumably the cinematic tie-in one) is notoriously bad and panned by the majority of people who've played it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/7247-Star-Trek

Yay! Another joins the ranks! (that said, Steam is a great place to rent games for cheap during holiday sales and HumbleBundle.com sales)

Steam is probably the most unobtrusive DRM you will encounter. Valve always said that if they were going to shut down the servers that they would unlock the games and you would have them forever.

hscott2hughes, you can just put Steam into offline mode. Download your game, then start Steam in offline mode. Voila, no more authentication.

A few years ago I went to the store and decided to buy Grand Theft Auto IV. I got it home and (for whatever reason, I didn't have an internet connection at the time) I put the disc in and realize that it requires some kind of online authentication - I had to make 2 or 3 trips to my brothers house, and finally I get it working to realize that it played like complete crap on the PC I had at the time. Never again.

FWIW, steam is really easy to use.

Yeah, if you have endless bandwidth and live near or in "civilization".
For the rest of us it's shit.

First of all: Now that you have Steam installed regardless, get Star Trek: Online from it for free. I can guarantee you that you'll have a much better time with it than with the new game :-P Star Trek: Online is not only a flatout better game, as in with better gameplay, it's also much more ... Well ... Much more Star Trek. And its free-to-play model is really fair as well, you honestly don't need to purchase anything off the store to enjoy the game. And yes, you can just ignore other people and play it alone.

Furthermore, take care to notice whether or not a game tells you that it requires online activation - because if yes, chances are it'll need you to install Steam. As for Steam itself, just... Meh, it can make life easier if you learn to deal with it. I've never had issues navigating it, so that's a new one - if you're still looking for your game, after installing Steam client, click Library->All Games. It should be greyed out in a list below. Just double-click it to start the installation process. When you're done with that and launch it once, you may run Steam in offline mode (Steam -> Go Offline...), which will ensure that you don'T have to be online to play the game. If you want to play the game. It's shit :-P

Oh and just a little reassurance: Steam is now around for over 10 years and is the biggest online distributor out there. They are developing their own operating system and a console, branching out and trying different publishing models. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Hi, you may please excuse me as it is the weekend and I'm having some rum, with ice cubes and coke, 3rd glass.

I can't help to read that line you wrote, and my ribs hurt.. From laugther, I am really sorry.. :(

But I don't mock you! Relax... To ease your worries, Steam is seemingly the head of digital stores, and it has been stated if they ever go out of business, you / we will have a way to keep our purchases. Also, there is an offline feature in their client.

For me, the only game I had felt offended by DRM was Captain Morgane from GamersGate,with 5 limited activations. Cheers and enjoy your game anyway, Trekkie! :)

That's pretty much the same way most of us here feel. Yes, a disc is something that can be lost or get damaged, but so is everything else I own and it's my responsibility to care after my belongings. It's the companies I have no faith in. That's not entirely correct, they don't have access to any game's code. All they can do is apply various tweaks and tricks to get the game working. In the case of DOS games they simply bundle it up with a pre-configured DOSBox, and Windows games on OS X are bundled with a preconfigured Wine. It's still a really nice though to know that a game you bought will be compatible with your OS.

Yes, 'it had been stated', somewhere, at some time. I am yet to see any form of official announcement. Really, don't rely on that.

How does downloading GOG games work for you? I play Steam mostly offline, but I have a shitty download speed as well, ~400kb/s.

Yeah, ever since I've had to switch to wireless from wired connection to my router, I have to deal with 1,5 mb/s. Terrible.

Oh wait, nevermind, I'm just bragging.

I highly doubt they are going anywhere after 10 years, but you never know. Unfortunately you are going to have to get used to it. More and more things are going to digital distribution only.

Hmmm, maybe I was misinformed. I was told than many, not all, but many of Steam's games require Steam to be active to play which means being logged on. If I'm way off base here let me know so I can stop making an ass out of myself. :P