[slmclarengt]

Depending on the country you are interested in discussing legality of non-steam servers, the illegality varies.

In the U.S., the main law non-steam servers violates is the DMCA (provision of not circumventing DMCA enforcement).

In other countries, it may not even be illegal per se to operate non-steam so much as it is to operate Steam. In fact, some countries operate on an 'open' infrastructure where things must be open to modification and not tied to a specific entity (VALVe). Europe operates this way in some areas of software (re: lawsuit requiring Microsoft to release non-competitive Windows without IE/WMP), but not with Steam.

Some countries Steam just probably does not want to support or has some motive not to support.

Bail and others (particularly ones located in the U.S.) feel that since something is illegal in their place of residence, they will not support it anywhere. Funny thing is, STEAM is legal in the U.S. but not in other countries so if you ran STEAM, you could be charged in that country with violating whatever law it violates there (anti-trust or something of the sort maybe), but running non-steam is fine with them...

Hope that clears things up.

Slmclarengt

[fezh]

Originally Posted by slmclarengt Some countries Steam just probably does not want to support or has some motive not to support.

Totally Agree.
For example, in my country (Argentina) Non-Steam is more popular than Steam for the simple reason that is free. Since the last years, Steam is more popular in Argentina, previously the people don't know about the word "Steam"

[Speed!]

Originally Posted by fezh Totally Agree. For example, in my country (Argentina) Non-Steam is more popular than Steam for the simple reason that is free. Since the last years, Steam is more popular in Argentina, previously the people don't know about the word "Steam"

i think im able to say that, for every thousand (or even more) non-steam player there are 1 steam player here in argentina...
its totally depressive... and its annoyng, its just 10 bucks damn :S i am sure that 99% of people playing non steam would be able to pay steam...