This may sound like heresy to Tex fans who've played every Tex Murphy game since the year one, but I get mad all over again every time I even look at Chris Jones now and I seriously doubt I'll get over that and buy the game 'again' from GOG.
If, by some miracle, Big Finish decides to honor their word to backers who don't use Steam and send me a useable code from an alternate site, I will inform them that I honored mine to Steve at Big Finish and gave the Steam key away so I can't accept it.
But I'm not holding my breath.

Gil.

You can't get Tesla from Humble. My point was that Humble offered Steam Keys for Blackwell or you could download that game from their site. The choice was yours you did not have to deal with Steam if you do not wish to. They will be doing the same for Dreamfall for those who backed the game on Kickstarter. I illustrated that to point out how Telsa missed the boat that is what Big finish should have done.

Buying the game from GOG will effectively double your costs. I thought you could get a DRM free game from Steam. If the game is really DRM free what is the issue? Do you have to use their client or something?

oldmariner, the version from Steam is indeed DRM free, which was what they promised. You need to install Steam to get the game and then you can delete Steam. If you use ccleaner or anything like that it would remove it completely with no traces.

There is a video here with instructions.

Ana

You have to download the Steam client and agree to their TOS, old mariner, then you can download the game and they say you can dump the client afterward and never have to use it again.
Well, that's just ducky.
I am not about to be bullied into downloading a third party client in order to play a game I had already paid for and could get elsewhere if codes for alternate venues were provided "as promised".

You were right in your previous email.
This is horrible PR for both Big Finish Games and Kickstarter.

Gil.

*EDIT* Ana I fully agree with you after following your link. Please understand KS backers have a legitimate complaint. Big Finish completely messed this up. Being forced to open an account with a third party when promised this is not a requirement will upset a lot of people.*
End of EDIT

I don't have a Steam account. I bought the game from Gog without any issues. I was asking after reading all the complaining by people who do not wish to deal with Steam. Accepting the Steam version is DRM free, it does not absolve Big Finish from their promise. It sounds like a public relations debacle by Big Finish. They clearly stated when asking for backing the game will be available at GOG and Steam. That implies you as a backer could get it at either place. Nowhere in their promotion did they say Gog was not an option for backers to use when downloading their promised game. I fully understand why people are angry.

To say you can uninstall the Steam client and that version is DRM free is all well and good. However, being forced to open a Steam account, download their client to obtain a game you bought under false pretenses may not satisfy many people. Big Finish created a major marketing blunder. It raises the question "Can I believe the next developer at Kickstarter when they make a promise." Rest assured those burned by Big Finish will be asking that. It certainly gives me pause when considering any support through Kickstarter if the developer can avoid delivering the game as advertised.

Humble on the other hand did it right with Blackwell. There you have a choice take the key or download the DRM free game bypassing Steam. Humble told me distribution will work the same way for Dreamfall. So as a Kickstarter supporter of Dreamfall I expect to receive a direct DL of a DRM free game. Yes, if that happened with Dreamfall I'd be complaining very loudly.

I'm in the same position as you traveler. And I also thought of giving away the Steam key, but I won't do that because it would mean yet more business for Steam. I'll never accept their TOS or register there, so I would be playing Tesla now if only I hadn't backed the game. Indeed if BFG would handout the gog codes (that have been sent to them) now I would probably play it next year or so, when the foul taste has gone.

BTW someone at the kickstarter forum described the drm-free process pretty accurately:
downloading Steam, installing it, registering with a fake id, installing the game, finding and moving the installed game off some obscure directory, zipping it up, deinstalling steam again with the hope nothing which can call home resides, unzipping it finally into our c:\games, and THEN playing the game.
To which I might add and repeating all that when there are updates.

I have no objections to steam, in fact I purchased another key code from steam just in case I didn't get a steam code, now I have 2 + 1 on gog which resulted ftom the beta access. I simply moved the tesla folder from steam apps/common & copied to documents & sent a shortcut to the desktop. works fine.

Just like games from big fish you need the installer, & itunes you can't download from there without itunes software.
Steam is just another platform to allow the download only difference is you can delete this platform when you are finished.

Big finish had full intentions of providing the codes from GOG just like the beta keys but when GOG couldn't find the time a decision was made to access all the codes from steam. When GOG did find the time it was too late. (no point shutting the door after the horse has bolted)

No matter how many times Big Finish and some people at different forums repeat how Tesla Effect is DRM-free through Steam it doesn't become more true. True DRM-free means that you buy the game, download the installation files and then are free to use those installation files on any computer and without running any form of client and without being connected to the intrenet. It's yours to do whatever you want with. Games purchased through GOG work like that. As I understand it Tesla Effect through Steam does not. If you download the game using Steam and immediately get rid of the client the game will not start. The installation needs to be activated by the client calling back home over the internet. The fact that you after such an activation may move the game to a different folder or whatever doesn't make it DRM-free.

Anyway, I will never ever register for an account with Steam and I became a backer only after feeling confident, through promises made by Big Finish, that the game would indeed be DRM-free. The fact that it isn't qualifies as nothing less than a scam and Big Finish needs to address this and at least explain themselves immediately. I have paid something like triple the money for a game that I will not be able to get, while people who didn't back the project can choose to get the game in true DRM-free form through GOG for 20 dollars.



This is the first time I hear of this and I've been following this issue closely on many forums, including Big Finish's own. May I ask for a source?

this is one of the posts early 5/7
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21372568/keys.jpg

tesla file will not start for you if its copied into program files and not documents & you need to create a new desktop icon from the exe in the tesla folder by right clicking & sending to desktop.

You keep saying that.
Well, since we're bringing the Mutant League forum here, I'll quote this from a post made on Thursday at 23:36 if you'd like to check.

"I e-mailed Atlus customer support about the GOG codes earlier today and I have just received this reply from the QA Lead at Atlus U.S.A., Inc.
"We sent the GOG codes to Big Finish for distribution just recently. You should check with them about this matter."

Edit: As for it's being too late, I doubt the backers who refuse to use Steam would mind terribly if those keys were distributed even at this late date.
Will it make us any happier if Big Finish sits on them?

HandsFree, I completely understand your reluctance to give Steam more business and I thought of that when I gave that key away.
Truthfully, I don't understand how anyone could "not mind" Steam but the guy I gave it to already has games on Steam so he's not going to add to their numbers.

Gil.

frazap, as I posted above the game is 100% DRM free and and you can see the the video on how to properly do it here.

It is easy to blame BigFinish and insist that GoG did everything right when just like in other situations, you weren't there, you don't know what happened and I'm sure there was a good reason for BigFinish to handle it the way they did. Just because GoG delivers DRM free games doesn't mean they walk on water. It's kinda like parents who think their children do no wrong, we are all not perfect beings and sometimes those we love, do bad things.

That said, I am sorry that those that backed the game did not get what they wanted. I know there are lots of websites I wouldn't allow anywhere near my computers no matter what so I do feel your pain.

Ana

I didn't see anything in that video that demonstrated that the game isn't locked to that particular computer. Just because you don't see some sort of activation notice pop up on the computer doesn't mean it didn't happen during the download/install.

You can run Big Fish games without using the Big Fish client once you've downloaded, installed, and activated. However they only run as demos when the game files are transferred to another computer.

This isn't just about Big Finish reneging on a promised reward. It's about the viability of Kickstarter and similar crowdfunding sites as a whole. If a developer can back out of a promise without even trying to fill it, and Kickstarter lets them get away with it, why would anyone risk their money on a Kickstarter project? You need to have trust for the Kickstarter model to work.

Tex Update:

Thank you, Ana, for letting us know!

Hmmm. I don't understand all the negativity about the Steam site. I've had no real major problems with Steam and I have around 15 games in my library. To tell you the truth Big Fish is more of a pain to me than Steam. I have to wait for Big Fish to open up then wait for the game to load and put up with advertisements from Big Fish about their specials that only apply if I join their "club" and then when I close the game I have to wait for the game as well as Big Fish to close. Now I put up with, what to me, is an inconvenience because their are some games that I want that are on the Big Fish site and/or it is a good price. To take advantage of Big Fish benefits you have to join for a nominal fee and I don't purchase enough games from them for the fee to be of benefit to me. So I just pay the regular price for games from that site.

As far as this game is concerned, as I see it, Big Finish was trying to get the game in the hands of their backers as soon as possible and Steam just happened to be the first codes they had available so they sent them out immediately. It is now 2 days later and the GOG codes are available. I for one did not want to wait for the GOG codes and used the Steam codes the first day. I now have two (free copies) of the game, one from Steam and one from GOG.

Also, as an aside, I installed my game from Steam and closed the Steam app and the game works just fine without Steam. So you do not need to be connected to Steam to play the game. The advantage of Steam is that if there are patches or updates, Steam will load them automatically where with GOG you have to re-download the game in the event of patches/upgrades.

***link to niccolo999 Post #63 in Big Finish thread***

That's certainly good news for those backers who don't want to deal with Steam. But why didn't they just say that to start with?

"The codes for the GOG version have been delayed, but we're working on getting them for you if you don't mind waiting."

would have been a lot better than replies like the one Mad got:

"But I do not have any GOG codes to distribute, and I’m not aware of any plans to distribute GOG codes in the future."

Hi Ana. Although I've yet to recieve my gog key i believe this issue has been resolved now. Just wanted to say that the video you link to tells me nothing i didn't already know. You can move the game to a different folder on the same computer, yes. Fine. But only after having activated the game (or "installed" as that girl/woman says) through steam. And I have yet to hear someone confirm that you can move the game to another computer and run it without having to activate it again through Steam.

As I understand it, it works just like Gamersgate's "DRM-free" games. It only means there is no DRM in the game executable itself, but everytime you want to install it you need an internet connection and the install executable phones home to Gamersgate to activate the whole thing. If that fails the game won't work. That's just as bad as any DRM. You basically rent the game.

So please, in all kindness, don't try to tell me what is DRM-free and what isn't. Games on GOG truly are. Games on Steam are not. And Big Finish promised options for those of us who don't have and never will get Steam. And here I am three days after the release of the game having paid three times the selling price and still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.

I will never back a game by BFG again, that's for sure.

oldman, there is no fee for BigFish, you get one game credit a month and you can save them up. In two months you have enough for a Collector's Edition.

Ana

frazap,

I totally concur with this one difference: I will never again back a game by any developer on Kickstarter.
As I said somewhere else, I've been burned twice now, to my shame, but it won't happen a third time.
I will hope games I'm interested in get funded and made but I won't contribute to the making.
I'll wait until a game is released on GOG, pay less than I would have pledged and play it before the backers.

AFAIC, BFG's reply, trying to throw blame on GOG and/or Atlus when they had plenty of time to arrange for both GOG and Steam codes beforehand...and after a couple of days of dead silence...is too little, too late and shoddy.
It will be a long while before the "foul taste" HandsFree mentioned is gone from my mouth.

Gil.

Anna I was referring to the Big Fish Game Club which charges $6.99 per month. I have bought several games from Big Fish without being a member of the Game club and have never received any credits and have always been informed that in order to get any credits I had to be a member. Perhaps I am confused but I have several games to my credit and am registered but have no game credits.

• Enable viewing of hidden files.
• Locate the game exe, right-click, and send a shortcut to the desktop.
• Use this shortcut you made to start the game.

You never have to see the ads or view the game manager again -- unless you want to download and install another game, in which case you need the Big Fish client.

oldman, the 6.99 is not a membership charge, you get a credit for one game with that. 1 credit gets you any regular game and 2 credits gets you a Collector's Edition. You can let the credits gather until you find a game you like.

Ana

glad this all sorted out now as I previously posted the fault was there with gog & not big finish.

As someone here posted they didn't believe someone could transfer the tesla file to another pc only the same one it was downloaded on, this is incorrect as I did it on my home pc. transferred the file to external drive & then coped to another pc & played the game!

big finish also tested it on their own pc's.

Thanks plumgas!

Ana

Well I am absolutely disgusted with the whole issue !!

Whoever is at fault the matter could have been sorted before now and in a much more professional manner.

As it is, I received yet another email today from Big Finish Games telling me that I can only use the Steam code I was sent.

I don't WANT to download from Steam so if push comes to shove I will cut my (Kickstarter) losses and go and BUY the darn game from GOG