Atomic Systems

I'm a little concerned about the pending developments with Steam Workshop. I can see huge benefit for people who want to distribute stuff for free but there appears to be zero controls in place to stop someone buying legitimate third-party add-ons then uploading them to Steam Workshop for free, passing them off as their own.
Of course there's always going to be piracy, but typically you have to hunt for pirated content on usenet, sketchy websites or the torrents and you have to be of the frame of mind to do so. Steam Workshop will unwittingly enable piracy to go wild because totally law-abiding gamers who'd never consider piracy will be able to 'browse' and see stuff they assume is legitimately free, right inside the game they're playing.

Does anyone have any idea on how this is going to work? As developers, are we going to have to police Steam Workshop ourselves 24/7 looking for pirated copies of our payware?

RSC have been pretty quiet on this issue so far....

What's to stop Pete the Pirate from finding a dodgy download of ACME TrainSims' latest release and uploading it to UKTS and passing it off as his own? I can't see it being any better or worse regarding piracy than any of the community run websites around - although there is the rather sizeable deterrent that anyone found to be uploading pirated items would have their Steam account cancelled

An awful lot of assumptions there Chris. Steam Workshop does not "unwittingly enable piracy" whasoever.

Has anyone told you personally that there are zero controls?

Good points Chris but I suspect a tad premature given RSC have released no information on how Steam Workshop will work for them.

What we don't really need is a 100 page thread of speculation, assumptions and conspiracy theories prior to RSC announcing how it will work. However, given the way some members here like to see the worst in every new development I suspect the moderators will have to act and at some point lock down this thread as it grows wildly and each new post is repeated against and against eventually becoming a "fact" even though it is just opinion.

My own experience of Steam Workshop with Portal 2 is generally positive but I must admit I did not read the agreement fully since I don't care what happens to anything I happen to dabble with in Portal 2.

I got the impression that stuff uploaded to the workshop granted Valve a licence to distribute it so if you already own the copyright then you could take action against Valve but I suspect that would have to be in a court in the USA. I am not a lawyer so I will leave it at that.

FoggyMorning wrote:What's to stop Pete the Pirate from finding a dodgy download of ACME TrainSims' latest release and uploading it to UKTS and passing it off as his own? I can't see it being any better or worse regarding piracy than any of the community run websites around - although there is the rather sizeable deterrent that anyone found to be uploading pirated items would have their Steam account cancelled

In the case of UKTS - files that have been detected as uploaded without permission have been rejected. When files have slipped through the library moderator who has limited experience of Railworks then as soon as they are reported and reasonable investigations indicate the reports are correct then the files are pulled. Some members are no longer able to upload due to transgressions and total lack of confidence that they are uploading their own work or work derived with permission.

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Darpor wrote:An awful lot of assumptions there Chris. Steam Workshop does not "unwittingly enable piracy" whasoever.

Has anyone told you personally that there are zero controls?

No they haven't so you're right - that's a bit unfair. But I've seen the ease by which 3rd party content can be uploaded and downloaded on other games that have Steam Workshop enabled.

Easilyconfused wrote:Good points Chris but I suspect a tad premature given RSC have released no information on how Steam Workshop will work for them.

What we don't really need is a 100 page thread of speculation, assumptions and conspiracy theories prior to RSC announcing how it will work. However, given the way some members here like to see the worst in every new development I suspect the moderators will have to act and at some point lock down this thread as it grows wildly and each new post is repeated against and against eventually becoming a "fact" even though it is just opinion.

That's true but I think it's good that I at least got the debate started. I hoping it will provoke some thought on the matter rather than a rampant flamewar. In Nirvanaworld, RSC would read these topics - maybe RSDerek? - and perhaps give us some insight, or even see some comments and think "good point - hadn't considered that".

Let the system be implemented first, then assess their EULA and study their procedures, then start this thread again.

I have just split off a number of posts from this thread, due to their confrontational tone, and due to some claims that I believe to be untrue. Please do not make such claims, and please do maintain a friendly atmosphere to this thread.

Thankyou,

haddock1000

Quite simply, we don't know. So any assumptions, vitriol or amazing claims are pretty pointless anyway.

The only upload which has been mentioned at the moment is scenarios, and I'd actually quite like to know the legal position re copyright etc of something created entirely with the game tools.

I sure hope it does inclued more then scenarios as it would appear as of right now..
Because if it will only be scenarios that you can download from the workshop, it will fail right away.

Mackan wrote:I sure hope it does inclued more then scenarios as it would appear as of right now..
Because if it will only be scenarios that you can download from the workshop, it will fail right away.

? That makes little sense.

The whole point of the Steam Workshop is that anyone can upload, as they don't have it yet, they cannot have uploaded them?

Darpor wrote:

Mackan wrote:I sure hope it does inclued more then scenarios as it would appear as of right now..
Because if it will only be scenarios that you can download from the workshop, it will fail right away.

? That makes little sense.

The whole point of the Steam Workshop is that anyone can upload, as they don't have it yet, they cannot have uploaded them?

I think its a very good question, seeing how they only presented and showed us how it works with downloading scenarios and how its integrated.
I am very well aware of how Steam Workshop works, but so far all they have been talking about has been scenarios.
If they decided to go that way, they could very well limit it to scenarios, and leaving us where we are now, having to hunt around the web for loose items without any clues as to where they may be found.

I still don't understand mate.

It would be nothing like it is now, the whole point is that the scenario downloads from within the game and plays instantly. If you don't have the stock, it doesn't play, you go searching for nothing.

Darpor wrote:I still don't understand mate.

It would be nothing like it is now, the whole point is that the scenario downloads from within the game and plays instantly. If you don't have the stock, it doesn't play, you go searching for nothing.

Well, In order for the system to have any real use the stock must be available throu the workshop too, if its not, the workshop looses its use.
Its there to optimise the user experience, and help the user.

For example, what if you download a scenario, and non of the stock is on the workshop or is in the game already, then you have to find all of the stock by your self, most likley without and reference to the site.
Personaly I feel that would only work as intended if the stock is to be inclueded at the Steam Workshop to, and that is what I want to know.
Do they plan to have rollingstock on there to, or only scenarios.