Civ 5 Shouldn't Be Allowed To Use Steam Otherwise We're Not Buying

We think it's frankly an outrage that Firaxis and 2K Games have chosen to use Steam in their upcoming title Sid Meier's 'A Civilization Five'

DRM is bad. We don't feel that publishers have a right to protect the millions of dollars they invest in game development, and since we didn't used to have DRM, introducing DRM when it didn't used to exist is some kind of infringement on our Human Rights.

Worst of all is DRM made by a different company to the one that made the game, or DRM that also provides features that some of us might not use. Like multiplayer and whatever else Steam does that we're dimly aware of.

Most of all, we oppose usernames and passwords and taskbar icons! If third-party software is installed silently and its only mention is buried in the EULA then that's totally fine. But if we're forced to think up a username and password, or worse still, we have to see a 16x16 icon in our taskbar, then this crosses a line and we must fight it with every inch of our souls.

So we brave few, members of this group, will promise not to ever buy Civ 5, not like those silly MWII boycott people in that screenshot that bought it anyway. For we may have been awaiting this game's arrival for years, but by golly if we have to install a small unintrusive app that a lot of people really like created by some crazy evil corporation renounded for not being one of the more lovely of publishers in the games industry, then it's a small price to pay to not play the game we've awaited more than any other.

So our demands are this:

1) Firaxis and 2K should be obliged to release Civ 5 with no DRM, intrusive or no. We promise none of us will pirate it and our word should be good enough for them!

2) Firaxis and 2K should spend an additional 6 months, delaying the release of Civ 5, to develop a propriety matchmaking system for multiplayer gaming, so that we are not forced to install software that doesn't have Firaxis or 2K wrote on it. We pay our money for Firaxis products, not other people's names!

3) RAD Tools, Gamebryo, Speed Tree and all other middleware they choose to use is fine, AS LONG AS it doesn't have an icon or demand I devise two 8+ letter strings to use, so therefore is not evil.

We demand you listen, Firaxis and 2K. For if you don't, then at least 0.000002% of your potential market will perhaps not buy Civ 5 immediately, or at least until this all blows over a bit and we forget all about it.

SO PLEASE sign up to Steam and JOIN THIS GROUP. Make your voice heard! Make it known that Steam is NOT WELCOME here.