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[jimi_dini]

Why is the perceived "size" of a developer or publisher even relevant to this conversation?

Because we can be absolutely sure that Rockstar has enough money in the bank to for example get proper music licensing. They are not short on cash.

That's another thing that's unacceptable. Selling their games digitally, but licensing the music only for a few years. But at the same time wanting to sell their games way longer than that. Rockstar is literally swimming in cash.

They still represent a very small minority of publishers and developers that have done something like this.

Valve has no issue with this. That's another major issue by itself.

I'm pretty sure Valve could even start with a "have to remove DRM after 5 years or so" clause and companies couldn't do much about it. Can they afford to not be on Steam? I don't think so.

And of course I'm aware it has happened before on Steam and other services, it is still most assuredly a minority.

But you don't know which of the companies will screw you over at some point. Giving anyone money on Steam means that every single one of them can screw you over. Even when it's a larger company like Rockstar.

That's the actual major issue. In case Valve would simply completely throw out companies, that do something like that - I mean you already said "it's just a very small minority" and and also refund every single customer and charge/sue Rockstar in that case, I would be absolutely fine with Steam.

But they don't and that's a problem.

I mean doing so would also stop such companies from doing things like this.

And the retail argument is even more preposterous. I've lost countless of my old games on consoles from og xbox, wii, ps3, etc thanks to withdrawal of service, and lack of server or content control.

DLC is distributed digitally. That's what my point is. Don't buy anything that's downloaded and where you are at the mercy of some company. Did you lose GTA:SA? Maybe in case you bought it digitally. If you bought it physically and lost it, then you lost the physical disc yourself and that's your personal fault. That's like losing your Steam account password + ID.

GOG for example is okay in my book, because you download a game and it's not crippled by DRM and you can do whatever you like with it.

Day one patches exist for every platform and if you take the decision to stay "vanilla" and stop updates to play your retail copy offline only and not have any content changed, also denies you the additional content that is to come, updates, patches, community etc. Damned if you do damned if you don't.

Hmm, I can't remember a single day 1 patch for any Nintendo games.

Sure, Wii U knows when a certain game requires an update and won't let you play it until it's updated. That could be abused as well, but until now it wasn't. Unlike the Steam update "feature". If it is, I would stop buying games for that system, because it's not acceptable.

Anyway, the whole thing is about trust. For digital purchases you have to really really trust the company, that is responsible for the store itself.

Getting screwed over once in such a way makes that platform unacceptable for me in case the platform owners don't do a thing about it.

Its all a matter of trust in your platform provider and the pub/devs.

Exactly.

Currently from a Steam user perspective going on 10 years soon, I have lost 0 games despite then licencing issues that result in games being removed from sale and this is the first game that I own to have essentially removed longstanding content.

In case you bought GTA:SA on Steam, then you "only" lost a bit of content right now as soon as you let Steam update that game.

Edit: and let's not forget at least via PC and Steam, users can have backup copies of this now lost content

Does Steam allow the user to "backup" games? Are you able to transfer that "backup" to other PCs? Is that a feature inside Steam or is it some non legal method?

and a fix is already available for all the issues thanks to the community support for it. Obviously not the ideal solution, but one that consistently remains possible for the majority of games

Doesn't make any of that acceptable.
That's like for example PSN on PS3 closing down and everyone losing the ability to download their games, but then people saying "oh well, someone has 'backups' so it's not that bad".

 

[Diablos]

I was expecting more songs to be axed, but that's ridiculous. All of the other stuff is dumb too.

Indeed, this is a downside to digital distribution.

 

[Oemenia]

What's sad is that this patch isn't so much a planned patch, but a quick release. SilentPatch is trying to fix many of the issues the PC version has, and the issue of this patch more or less forced him to simply work with a newer executable aimed to still offer these fixes. That man has arguably turned every PS2 era PC GTA release from passable to being the definitive versions, which you couldn't even say about GTA III and VC just two or so years ago. When he's done with San Andreas, one will probably never be able to argue between the PS2 or PC release. Even today, you can make major arguments against the PC version to go with the console version, and that just goes to show how bad the PC version is under the hood. The PC versions were so lazily done by Rockstar, actual assets are missing from the base game, and the game has less animations than the PS2 version did. III, VC, and SA all suffer from this.

To show you how poor the PC version is, if you crash into any vehicle, the vehicle simply takes damage in the spot where you car takes damage. That means if you hit the back of a car with the front of your car, the car you hit will only take damage in the front, not the back. The PC version is fucking bathed in these types of oddities.

You got a complete list of the changes in the PC and XBOX versions. To this day each version has its advantages and disadvantages and the ports of the game have always really fascinated me.

 

[Asparagus]

It was foolish of me to sell my retail copy...

 

[LiquidMetal14]

A 400 MB patch that creates a mountain of new issues...and yet here's a 180 kb patch that fixes all of that, save for the music. It also fixes a number of other issues Rockstar never cared to fix.

I am legit concerned about GTA V. Every GTA game has had a fucking awful PC launch and it's been up to the community to fix every release. Hell, San Andreas is still getting fixes in 2014. The potential DRM makes this a very concerning issue for V.




HAHAHA, no. Rockstar gonna Rockstar.

You're concerned about 5 due to this news?

I'm more confident than ever.

 

[Yagharek]

So i spent £55(!) on the PSN version of the remastered GTAV and in a few years (if licences have expired) they could remove content from the game?

Fuck!

In principle yes.

 

[Ulumsk]

I guess it's between OG Xbox and the PC version on disc if you want to pick it up today.

 

[paperspace]

That's really shady. I guess you could say my trust in Rockstar is completely gone at this stage.

I really have no idea what they are doing these days. Did they migrate with Ubisoft?

Hell, even Ubisoft knows better than this.

 

[Portugeezer]

What a bullshit "update"

 

[Spaghetti]

this is dumb but thankfully because it's on PC a lot of this stuff can be rolled back with fan patches.

ideally i want to keep native 360 pad support, get the music back in, and have the resolution fixed so i can play in 1080p. is there anything out there that lets me do all this? i know about rolling back to version 1.0 for the resolution.

 

[scitek]

I did my part as well. Also spent some time finding similar negative reviews helpful.

I feel like an email to the companies involved expressing your discontent would do more.

 

[JC Lately]

Digital Future. You all wanted it, and called me an idiot Luddite for questioning it in the long term.

Reap what you've sown.

 

[Falifax]

Digital Future. You all wanted it, and called me an idiot Luddite for questioning it in the long term.

Reap what you've sown.

Next time speak louder.

 

[paperspace]

Digital Future. You all wanted it, and called me an idiot Luddite for questioning it in the long term.

Reap what you've sown.

This is not an issue with digital distribution, it's an issue with Rockstar.

They could let current owners keep the content, while future buyers will get the updated version without these tracks.

 

[Lum1n3s]

I was wondering about this yesterday, I saw that GTA San Andreas was downloading a patch and I thought to myself that that was weird seeing as how it was like 700+mb. I couldn't find anything online so I thought it was an important update so let it be. Now I'm kind of sad about losing those songs .

 

[JC Lately]

This is not an issue with digital distribution, it's an issue with Rockstar.

They could let current owners keep the content, while future buyers will get the updated version without these tracks.

That's just it. They could. But they don't have to. So they won't.

 

[UnrealEck]

All the PS2 (and xbox) GTA3 era gamess have widescreen options.

Ohhh. Nice. Might need to give it a shot some time then.

 

[Nzyme32]

That's just it. They could. But they don't have to. So they won't.

And again this remains a rockstar issue rather than being endemic with all the other games with and without similar licencing constraints via digital distribution on multiple platforms

 

[Pakoe]

I thought the steam version sucked anyway? I remember downgrading was needed or else none of the mods would work or something. I already turned auto updates off.

 

[Felix Lighter]

Within the limitations of how Steam works, could they have added the removed songs as DLC, not for sale, and gave a license to that DLC to all those who owned it originally? New purchaser wouldn't have access now that they no longer have the rights but existing owners would have the content. I'm just curious, I'm sure they wouldn't have put that much effort into it.

 

[Valnen]

Digital Future. You all wanted it, and called me an idiot Luddite for questioning it in the long term.

Reap what you've sown.

One incompetent developer does not represent the entirety of digital gaming. Not even 10 would. Try harder.

 

[Nzyme32]

Within the limitations of how Steam works, could they have added the new songs as DLC, not for sale, and gave a license to that DLC to all those who owned it originally? New purchaser wouldn't have access now that they no longer have the rights but existing owners would have the content. I'm just curious, I'm sure they wouldn't have put that much effort into it.

They should have created a sepearte sub for it and prevented the old one from sale while having the new one on sale with removed tracks - which is what they did for Vice City minus the controller support and resolution downgrade. It would have let the old owners keep their content and be open to receiving new content separate to a new version with removed music

 

[BigDug13]

And again this remains a rockstar issue rather than being endemic with all the other games with and without similar licencing constraints via digital distribution on multiple platforms

The overall point is that digital distribution strips the consumer of their rights which doesn't happen with physical media. Rockstar is not capable of making these changes to their physical product.

 

[fokkusu]

Vice City treatment coming too?
https://steamdb.info/app/12110/history/

 

[Nzyme32]

The overall point is that digital distribution strips the consumer of their rights which doesn't happen with physical media. Rockstar is not capable of making these changes to their physical product.

Which is true only of games that are much older titles. If you were to try that by staying "vanilla" and not updating with today's games you will limit the feature set that you able to use such as online, updates, patches, dlc, community, streaming etc etc. Not to mention things like day one patches themselves adding missing functionality and fixing issues. Then there are the issues with older games that are now "out of service" and have partially lost functionality. Retail and digital ownership of games are both practically mute. It is completely up to the faith you have in your platform provider and the developer/publisher of the games you choose to purchase

 

[Hip Hop]

So the camera doesn't work with the right stick on the 360 controller?

Can't get it to work.

 

[fokkusu]

So the camera doesn't work with the right stick on the 360 controller?

Can't get it to work.

I had to change controller setting to 'Joypad'.

 

[Sentenza]

I disagree, I would like to have the stuff working out of the box, and not having to fiddle around with which vanilla songs are unavailable, putting them into the correct radio station, etc.

There isn't really much "fiddle". Every PC version of GTA since VC had a custom radio station and all you have to do is to drag ANY mp3 you want to listen in game into a folder.

You preferred having those songs out of the box? Understandable, but it's hardly a major setback regardless of how you look at it.
THAT, at least, for people who *actually* care about having those songs back and aren't making this just a "matter of principles".

Still, it's a bad move from Rockstar and I can't help but wonder if they had any right to do so, since people bought the game when these songs were part of the license.

 

[Falk]

The overall point is that digital distribution strips the consumer of their rights which doesn't happen with physical media. Rockstar is not capable of making these changes to their physical product.

Just wait till some game that comes on a disc requires installation on PS4/XB1 and subsequently requires you to patch the game to play it.

And before you argue that you can disconnect your console or choose not to update, that's analogous to running Steam completely in offline mode (not practical if you use it for more than that one game) and analogous to how Steam did give you the option to update or just play.

Not to mention you don't own a game just because you bought a physical disc. You own the right to play that game, and you own the physical media the disc is on. Same reason you can't make copies, use for commercial purpose, or alter the contents of the disc without breaking EULA.

But hey, the problem is specifically digital distro right there somehow. Hurr.

 

[UrbanRats]

Still, it's a bad move from Rockstar and I can't help but wonder if they had any right to do so, since people bought the game when these songs were part of the license.

This is what annoys me personally.

Realistically speaking, i'0m probably not gonna play San Andreas ever again (just like any GTA prior to GTAIV) because i don't think they hold up well at all.
But it is annoying on principle.

 

[industrian]

I updated it. I expected it to be an official patch that re-added 1080p or something. You'd think that a patch that actually removes content would be smaller than 400MB.

But I have a backup of the previous version on another hard drive.

And I own the original PC release (the one that came as a book).

 

[Beer Monkey]

I feel like an idiot for not buying the PS2 classic for $3.99 before it jumped back to $14.99.

 

[BigDug13]

Just wait till some game that comes on a disc requires installation on PS4/XB1 and subsequently requires you to patch the game to play it.

And before you argue that you can disconnect your console or choose not to update, that's analogous to running Steam completely in offline mode (not practical if you use it for more than that one game) and analogous to how Steam did give you the option to update or just play.

Not to mention you don't own a game just because you bought a physical disc. You own the right to play that game, and you own the physical media the disc is on. Same reason you can't make copies, use for commercial purpose, or alter the contents of the disc without breaking EULA.

But hey, the problem is specifically digital distro right there somehow. Hurr.

Well yeah, today's gaming product pretty much sucks across the board for these reasons. They've figured out a way to strip our access from even our physical products. But this thread is specifically discussing San Andreas. And Rockstar has found a way to also retroactively fuck people over on that older game as well.

 

[Why would you do that?]

This is not an issue with digital distribution, it's an issue with Rockstar.

No, it's really a problem with the implementation of Steam's digital distribution.

Before DD:
Rockstar actually gimped San Andreas in the past, after the Hot Coffee fiasco. Notably, they made PC versions harder to mod. However, all Rockstar did was release new versions of the game on DVD containing the update, and they released downloadable updates on the web for disc users with the older versions to optionally download and install. Users with easily modable versions of the game aren't out of luck, and they can still forever play the original game they purchased.

PS3's DD:
Brütal Legend on PS3 apparently has two updates, 1.01 which fixes nasty audio bugs, and 1.2 which introduced a bad save bug, which will remain unfixed. Thankfully, with all the flack that Sony gets for for their update system on ps3, you can actually choose not to install patches when downloading a game from PSN, and you can even install only some patches (though that's not a straightforward procedure). And you can delete patches, I think, too. So Brutal Legend players aren't out of luck.

Most other DD systems:
Personally, I can't play Garry's Mod anymore because version 11 ruined compatibility with a lot of the mods I've installed from their web site. It's really a shame, because I put so much time into it, and Steam wouldn't let me play GM without updating it. Couldn't even cancel the update. And let's not even mention Android / iOS, where features are added and removed all the time, whether it is an ad update here or a move to freemium there, or hiding features behind a pay wall, etc.

In short, I think a digital future can be great, but as it is right now, where an update at any time can remove features and things you paid for, I'm rather disappointed by it.

 

[Foffy]

You're concerned about 5 due to this news?

I'm more confident than ever.

Not due to removing songs, no. But due to the fact every GTA release on PC that wasn't 2D has been a pretty poor port and it's been up to the community to fix major oversights.

GTA V having DRM potentially makes the possibility of the community getting into the game a very non-starting endeavour, meaning that if the port is really as lazy as every other 3D GTA port has been - and they all empirically have been - you better smile with what you can't tinker with, and if it doesn't work, deal with it.

You got a complete list of the changes in the PC and XBOX versions. To this day each version has its advantages and disadvantages and the ports of the game have always really fascinated me.

I don't have a full list, but I can give you a number of fixes to the game that show you how deep it goes. There's SilentPatch, which I've already linked before and fixes a lot of issues like no alpha blending and a lot of things under the hood. There's various map and vehicle fixes. To show you how bad and lazy this shit really is, there's even a fix for parachutes, which have no animations in the PC version when in use.

 

[Falk]

Well yeah, today's gaming product pretty much sucks across the board for these reasons. They've figured out a way to strip our access from even our physical products. But this thread is specifically discussing San Andreas. And Rockstar has found a way to also retroactively fuck people over on that older game as well.

I'd say infrastructure has sucked and relied too much on being relevant to the 'present' for some time, not just in recent memory. Another similar example in a field not directly related to licensing is how DS/Wii network functionality has pretty much been axed due to the infrastructure not really being future-proof.

The big difference is that on the PC platform, it is totally within the realm of possibility for the fanbase to un-shit things just due to the more open nature of the environment.

It's something that the archivists and various video game preservation societies need to figure out. Our culture (not just video games) and its preservation are much more important than satisfying a bunch of outmoded copyright legalese which barely make sense anymore.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Vice City treatment coming too?
https://steamdb.info/app/12110/history/

No no no no. I can't stand losing any of those songs.

I guess I'm going to download and backup Vice City after work like I did for San Andreas a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Polioliolio]

This is some shit here.

So the only reason they aren't invading our homes and replacing our game discs, is because it'd simply be too much trouble for them..

 

[Hip Hop]

I had to change controller setting to 'Joypad'.

Thanks.

that worked.

Now my audio is all messed up I noticed. Only thing I hear is ambience noise, gun shots, or tire brakes. I just can't hear myself. Footsteps, jumping, car engine, etc..

Music works fine it seems.

 

[paperspace]

No, it's really a problem with the implementation of Steam's digital distribution.

I don't see how.

You can have two different versions of the game on Steam. You can even have two different updates, and let users choose which one they want to use.

Rockstar chose to apply an universal update for everyone.

 

[Dorsal Axe]

San Andreas has been continuously gimped by Rockstar for many years now. This is really nothing new unfortunately. I recommend that everyone who plays this game stick with or downgrade to v1.0 and use Silent Patch. GInput appears to blow this patch's implmentation of xinput out of the water, so use that if you want proper controller support. Lots of excellent work has been done on GTA Forums fixing this game and cleaning up after Rockstar's mistakes. Tons of fixes can be found there.

From what I recall, licensing usually applies to distribution and isn't retroactively updated like this. Given the precedent with Vice City and unrelated games, I'm inclined to think that affecting the existing copies is a careless mistake on Rockstar's part (or deliberate dick move since they seem to have something against PC users).

As long as you owned the music files. But you would still have to actually put them back in the game, which I'm not sure anyone has figured out how to do yet.

Erm, you simply replace the music stream files with the old versions and replace the file that keeps track of the songs. An easy fix.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

when did the patch go live? I DLed it last week. do i still have the music. how to check?

 

[Easy_D]

Over here: http://www.rockstarnexus.com/articl...ated-on-Steam-removes-songs-and-reverts-fixes

There's a patch that corrects some of the issues.

So a modder with no access to source code fixes shit that shouldn't have been happening in the first place. Clearly Rockstar is fond of their PC userbase.

 

[Blizzard]

I also mourn the loss of Michael Jackson zombie.

Updates that remove content are bullcrap.

That was a Thriller reference, wasn't it? I didn't even realize it got removed, presumably after his death.

 

[aaaaaa]

When Plants vs. Zombies had to remove the "Thriller" zombies, they did it the right way -- they called it some sort of special edition and released it as a separate entity.

 

[Easy_D]

No no no no. I can't stand losing any of those songs.

I guess I'm going to download and backup Vice City after work like I did for San Andreas a couple of weeks ago.

Imagine if they remove The Outfield.

 

[diaspora]

Over here: http://www.rockstarnexus.com/articl...ated-on-Steam-removes-songs-and-reverts-fixes

There's a patch that corrects some of the issues.

The picture in the OP encapsulates how I feel about R*

 

[Escalario]

It always sucks when updates cuts content from a game because of licensing. Time to disable automatic updates for it~

 

[madjoki]

Vice City treatment coming too?
https://steamdb.info/app/12110/history/

Vice City got this treatment a few years back. There hasn't been any real updates. Those on top was made by Valve on ~every game on Steam.

Seems like Rockstar licenses tracks for 10 years. Expect same happen for GTA IV and V in 2018/2023.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/GTA-Vice-City-Longer-Steam-Due-RIAA-Copyright-Claim-49372.html

 

[hidys]

Erm, you simply replace the music stream files with the old versions and replace the file that keeps track of the songs. An easy fix.

Oh, it's really that simple? That's a relieve.