LAN Center Controversy

[Spoonman]

Think of it as "corrective news posting." And you know... since we're a CS fan site and all... we post CS news here.

[^.j()$h.^]

hiroya wrote..

I heard they charge a monthly fee for EACH computer in the cafe? I think that's a little too much. A lot of Cafes die because they don't make enough money etc.



OK I didnt some research and it costs 10 dollars per computer. So if you have 60 computers that's $600 going to Valve per month.



$10 x 20 PCs = $200 a month x 12 months = $2400 yearly



$10 x 30 PCs = $300 a month x 12 months = $3600 yearly



$10 x 50 PCs = $500 a month x 12 months = $6000 yearly



$10 x 75 PCs = $750 a month x 12 months = $9000 yearly



$10 x 100 PCs = $1000 a month x 12 months = $12,000 yearly

Surely someone running a business has the money to pay for the license. Even if not, let's figure an average LAN Center has thirty computers and charges $5 to $6 a hour. That's $300 a month for the license. The center probably makes more than that in a day. What are you complaining about again?

[Mr. Poophead]

The thing is that the software lisence states that you cant buy the game and put it on 12 computers and charge other people to play (back before Steam). That's like buying a movie and charging people to watch it on your big-screen TV. If the LAN peeps didnt like it, then they should have clicked the "I do not accept" box instead.

[[GH]-Paladin]

Mr. Poophead wrote..

The thing is that the software lisence states that you cant buy the game and put it on 12 computers and charge other people to play (back before Steam). That's like buying a movie and charging people to watch it on your big-screen TV. If the LAN peeps didnt like it, then they should have clicked the "I do not accept" box instead.

I fully agree with you, a local lan center in Rhode Island has licenses for every game, he may not like it he's pretty open about it, but he'd rather run a legit business which i give him props for.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

hiroya wrote..

OK I didnt some research and it costs 10 dollars per computer. So if you have 60 computers that's $600 going to Valve per month.



$10 x 20 PCs = $200 a month x 12 months = $2400 yearly

...

$10 x 100 PCs = $1000 a month x 12 months = $12,000 yearly

If you're running a successful business, you're typically pulling in several hundred thousand dollars yearly (before expenses) if not more. Those expense numbers are pretty low, really.

^.j()$h.^ wrote..

Surely someone running a business has the money to pay for the license. Even if not, let's figure an average LAN Center has thirty computers and charges $5 to $6 a hour. That's $300 a month for the license. The center probably makes more than that in a day. What are you complaining about again?

Most LAN centers around here are charging in the $5/hr neighborhood, so you're looking at 2 hours of CS on each computer to cover the licensing fee. Everything beyond that goes into your normal budget for recovering the cost of the computers, upgrades, staff, building rent, utilities, and such.



If you aren't able to bring in enough customers to make these licensing fees seem like a terribly minor inconvenience, then you're simply not running a successful business.



There is also the aspect of not installing CS on every computer you have, you know, have the Battlefield 1942/mods section of computers, the CS computers, etc... with only some overlap. You don't have to have 60 computers with every game known to man installed on them, heh.

[Wwv]

Not all lan cafe's are in the US you know, some are in poor former soviet states.

you NUBS think the world revolves around the US.

[^.j()$h.^]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

Most LAN centers around here are charging in the $5/hr neighborhood, so you're looking at 2 hours of CS on each computer to cover the licensing fee. Everything beyond that goes into your normal budget for recovering the cost of the computers, upgrades, staff, building rent, utilities, and such.

Yes, you can easily raise the money for the license in a set of two hours. After that, the rest of your money will help cover your bills, staff, and other things.

[Buddah]

Wwv wrote..

Not all lan cafe's are in the US you know, some are in poor former soviet states.

you NUBS think the world revolves around the US.

The world does revolve around the U.S. Just the rest of the world is too primitive to know.



Besides many of these LAN cafe's overseas don't pay for the licensing to begin with. Just because a copyright protects Valve's product here in the U.S. doesn't mean it has any legal weight in BFE.

[Millerboy]

I can see where Valve is going with this. But all the cyber-cafe owners have to do is license Valve's Steam on a small amount of computers. That way the people who don't have CD-keys can play without a hassle. And then the rest of the computers in the store will not have Steam accounts installed. So on the computers that don't have Steam accounts, the customers will have to use their own CD-key.



And everytime a customer plays CS and then leaves, the user's account name and password can be automatically erased with the use of Symantec's GoBack software (http://www.symantec.com/goback/). It takes only 2 minutes for a computer to be rolled-back to the original condition; especially when the only change was a log-in with a Steam account. Then the next customer will have to have a Steam account to play or he won't be able to play CS.



So in theory, Steam can always be installed on the computer because of Symantec's GoBack program erases the CD-key information. And anyone who wants to use their own CD-key can do that. And Valve won't see any people playing their games without owning a CD key. And for the people who don't have CD-keys, the cybercafe will have to use Valve's commercial licensing for the a small percentage of their comptuers. Let's say they have 10 computers that have Steam accounts on. And 30 computers that don't have access to Steam without an account. That would cut down on their costs a lot but still provide users with access to CS if they want to play.



So Valve has a right to charge cybercafes for profiting off their software. There has to be provisions too, like a cybercafe has to commercially license a certain number of computers just to have Steam's software installed at all. So if they don't license software from Valve, they can't put CS on their computers. As a single-user license is only meant for personal use. If a third-party is making a profit while you play CS at a cybercafe, then Valve has a right to charge them money.



The same logic would be, "Would it be legal if I set up a movie theater, allow people to bring in their own DVD's to watch by themselves (i.e. no friends/family), and then charge them an hourly fee?" Technically, they own the DVD movie but I'm making money off of the exhibition of someone else's work. So that would be illegal. Therefore, this case of cybercafe's complaining about licensing is unfounded. They have a choice of paying a commercial license to have Steam installed on their computer or making a deal with Valve that they have to license a certain percentage of computers while they can let the rest of the computers to not have Steam accounts. That would be the best scenario and would make everyone happy.



And then if Valve wants to make more money off the cybercafes, they can slowly increase the percentage of computers that are required to have a commercial license. So when people are used to this scheme, they can nudge it up to 100% if they feel like they have lots of influence in the gaming community. Because people don't like change, its good to slowly introduce new licensing schemes to them. Gives them more time to adapt- good business sense to let the customers feel comfortable.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

I think the point that many people miss is the fact that you can run a LAN center without CS on the machines. CS may be the most popular online action game, but that's in part because of the relatively low system requirements. A lot of people go to a LAN center to play the latest and greatest on faster machines than they can afford.



Considering how many recent games require no licensing fees (some even distribute to LAN centers for free to promote their game), there are plenty of alternatives for the cash-strapped LAN center. If they want CS, though, they have to pay the price. It's their choice.

Wwv wrote..

Not all lan cafe's are in the US you know, some are in poor former soviet states.

you NUBS think the world revolves around the US.

Last time I checked, Kazakhstan wasn't enforcing US copyright law. Hell, take a country like China, and you'll see a nation with rampant piracy. I mean, you're talking about a pirated copy of CS1.5 running on a pirated copy of WinXP running on local-made chipsets using copyrighted designs stolen from American chipmakers.



The point is, VALVe can't control distribution or illegal use of their software in any other country that doesn't have some sort of agreement with the USA, but they can exercise their legal rights here in the States. As such, the discussion is primarily about what American LAN centers charge (and to a lesser extent, some Western European nations).



Get over your pathetic "I feel outraged because I believe all Americans don't know where my country is on the map" attitude already.

Millerboy wrote..

(snip)

It's a nice idea in theory, Millerboy. I don't know if you've ever actually gone to a computer other than yours and tried to use your account number to get CS up and running, but I can tell you, the process is anything but quick and convenient.



The main problem is that, as far as I can tell, Steam isn't content to download all of the necessary cache files just once, and store them for everyone in one location, merely unlocking them on a per-account basis. This would be easy and convenient, as all you'd have to do is log on with your account name/password, and you'd be good to go (aside from some minor config stuff).



So basically you have to do a full install every time you log on a different user. That takes more waiting time than is practical when you're in a pay-to-play environment. If I'm paying and have to wait more than a minute or two to get into the game, I'm going to start looking for some other place to play.



So yeah, nice idea, but in all likelihood it wouldn't work out when you actually tried to implement it.

[Deletable_Man]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

So basically you have to do a full install every time you log on a different user. That takes more waiting time than is practical when you're in a pay-to-play environment. If I'm paying and have to wait more than a minute or two to get into the game, I'm going to start looking for some other place to play.



So yeah, nice idea, but in all likelihood it wouldn't work out when you actually tried to implement it.

Um I log into my account on other computers daily. Even if I haven't done so before, as long as someone else on the machine had downloaded Counter-Strike, I am playing Counter-Strike on the machine within seconds. Usually more time is spent rebinding keys than anything else. This is why steam keeps its cache files in the folder before the "email" folders.



On a random other note, I wish Steam knew how to share custom maps between users, because its annoying when I know my friend's computer has a jillion custom maps, but then I log into my account and have to download maps from whatever server.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

At the LAN center under Millerboy's idea, none of the computers would have an existing account on it already, so you'd have to do a fresh install unless I'm missing something...

[Wwv]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

'A LOT thinking someone listened'

[Pharlap]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

I mean, you're talking about a pirated copy of CS1.5 running on a pirated copy of WinXP running on local-made chipsets using copyrighted designs stolen from American chipmakers.

youre mentioning piracy as if its a bad thing



not sure about the "pull random comment out of your ass" bit about the chipsets though pls give some references if you read this. hardware companies always "borrow" ideas from others (in the form of IP of course), but mask it pretty well. both legally and physically.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Well, the US Department of State USPTO's comments on IP theft in China are somewhat telling, but I was thinking about some other things I've read about in the news lately...



Meh, not a perfect example (IP theft from a company in Taiwan, but the suit is filed here in the USA), but TSMC filing suit against SMIC is a fairly good example of a trend that seems to be overlooked by the Chinese government.