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News Origin, Steam downed by alleged DDoS attacks

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 3 Jan 2014.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    Well, if it's really an attack, the people behind it are idiots.

    Probably best to change your password just in case.
     
  3. Cogwulf

    Cogwulf What's a Dremel?

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    Or children.
     
  4. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Most likely both.
     
  5. Dave Lister

    Dave Lister Minimodder

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    Iv'e noticed the slow speed of steam especially today, although I did just assume it was caused by people rushing to buy games in the last day of the sale !
     
  6. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    It was working enough this morning to pop up a message saying I had a new item in my inventory, but the store and inventory pages are just timing out. I can at least log in, though, which some couldn't at the height of the troubles.
     
  7. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    I never understand what these groups that lay claim to DDOS attacks hope to achieve.
     
  8. Dave Lister

    Dave Lister Minimodder

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    That's pretty much how it was for me to, I could log on but the store or anything apart from my games list wasn't accessible.
     
  9. Cerberus90

    Cerberus90 Car Spannerer

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    I can get to the store and seemingly everything apart from my inventory. Which is bugging me, as it says I've got two new items there and I don't know what they are, :D
     
  10. smc8788

    smc8788 Multimodder

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    Steam's working fine for me, no issues at all.

    Attention. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame whether it's good or bad, for some this is probably the best chance they've got.
     
  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Still mammaries-skyward for me.

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    I don't want to turn this into a steam lovers versus steam haters thread but obviously a lot of people don't like steam, for whatever reason, so an attack was probably inevitable and it does show the weakness and vulnerability of a system like steam.

    I've not used steam that much so I'm no expert on it but I've read conflicting answers about having to be online to play some games, someone wrote that when their internet went down steam wouldn't let them connect to offline mode, it turned out that you must be online first to select offline mode, :duh:
    Steam may be fine for buying some cheap games but if that system prevents people from playing those games when you have payed for them it's obviously flawed, it also highlight the problems of one company having the monopoly for online games, yes there's Origin and a few others but they don't have the market that steam has.
     
  13. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Highest played game on steam is Dota 2 which is free to play. Highest played on origin is bf3/4.

    Unless your on about users who shop there. Valve made less cash than EA at last check last year.

    No game company posts where they sell games at or the distribution. Can't really say they have a monopoly without those facts. They can't give those figures due to none disclosure so it's all estimated.

    Companies have reported anywhere from 40 - 80% of there revenue from steam.

    Every game on steam is available in elsewhere except the valve only games. Similar story with origin.

    Major benifits is that they offer developers 70% margin vs 50% at retail that's what an online store offers in reality. I have fm 2014 on my laptop and it works with no internet due to my traveling I'm a lot of the time without it or on 3G Internet.
     
  14. Cerberus90

    Cerberus90 Car Spannerer

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    Mines got even worse now, can't access store, community or profile related stuff.
     
  15. SirFur

    SirFur PC Gamer and LAzy B0nes

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    I would very much contest that claim. We can't prove what either company makes, and neither will they disclose it.

    Steam has got its paws in so many places its pretty darn unbelievable at times. Dota 2 may be F2P but I can assure you it rakes in a lot of cash for them. The sales of dota items on the community market, the inagme sales from its own store, the purchases of tournament passes...

    Steam community market has been a massive ploy to help steam rake in more money from these F2P services without anyone actually paying steam that much directly.

    Origin has released some big games this year, and they may well be 'making' more money. But what steam has done and the 'overall expense' is minimal in terms of the benefits they are reaping. Wait till they release an actual Valve title in the year, on top of everything else they are doing to broaden their wings, with Steam OS and SteamBox. They have even started selling software.
     
  16. Panomama

    Panomama I once signed up on uniform dating

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    Well, someone wanted a game that didn't go on sale!
     
  17. Bede

    Bede Minimodder

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    EA is a publicly listed company with publicly available financial reports (available at http://investors.ea.com/). Their financial reports, executive compensation and a whole host of other interesting bits and pieces can be read by all. For example, FIFA digital revenue was $145m in the last quarter. That seems quite impressive to me, I suspect they make at least as much money from F2P games as Valve does.

    Valve we have almost no info on because their shares are not publicly traded.

    Edit:

    To take this a bit further. If you scan through EA's FY2013 report you come to an interesting summary on p.89 of how important certain titles are to them. FIFA, on a Battlefield year, is responsible for a similar proportion of revenue (FIFA: 13%, BF3: 11%) and on a non-Battlefield year is a full 17% of EA's revenue.

    What EA describes as 'Research and Development expenses' basically comes down to the cost of employing thousands of game designers. In FY2013 this was $1.153 billion.

    *NA and the EU are still EA's largest markets.
    *DICE employ close to 550 full-time employees. They're also the only unionised employees EA has!
    *EA have reduced their yearly AAA game production from 36 titles in 2011 to 11 in 2014. Concern about quality means that they intend to focus more resources (ie people) on fewer games.
    *Retail is still key to EA. In NA 61% of sales were made to just ten wholesalers. In the EU this drops to 30%.
    *60% of sales were for consoles.
    *Reading between the lines, the major sports franchises have EA over a barrel. EA needs the licenses because it is such a major part of their yearly revenue (whereas other titles are less regular).
    *EA stock is highly volatile in price - it's been as low as $11 and as high as $28 within the last couple of years.
    *EA are set to pay out $27m to plaintiffs in a class action alleging anti-trust violations in the case of various sporting franchises.
    *The stock is distinctly underperforming the rest of the S&P500.
    *They are engaging in the rather sensible practice of minimizing profits in order to minimize tax exposure, and I suspect that large losses in 2009, 2010 and 2011 mean that they have substantial tax credit available to them. But seriously, they lost $1bn in 2009.

    All good, clean interesting stuff. Say what you like about the financial markets, but the rules they have in place for disclosure and accounting mean that there is a great deal of information about publicly traded companies available.
     
    Last edited: 4 Jan 2014
  18. forum_user

    forum_user forum_title

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    The odds are that both (assuming the story is correct) Valve and EA will have been blackmailed by cyber crooks for cash or else the companies servers get trashed with requests.

    Or.

    Cyber crooks are aiming for the credit card details.

    Going back 20 years I remember a retailer had to pay regular sums to well-known terrorists in order to prevent the stores being bombed. Modern day crooks are going to be a much bigge pain in the backside.
     
    Last edited: 4 Jan 2014
  19. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    Exactly how does a DDoS attack gain you access to credit card details?
     
  20. forum_user

    forum_user forum_title

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    Nothing has been officially confirmed yet. You can't be certain it was DDoS.
     

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