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Computer gaming's Steam-powered war

Posted by malebolgia on 14 November 2004 - 02:57 · 27 comments & 8082 views

For weeks now, bits and pieces of Valve Software's "Half-Life 2," one of the year's most hotly anticipated computer games, have been trickling onto nearly 2 million computers around the world.

Along with Tuesday's release of "Halo 2" for Microsoft's Xbox, the game is one of a series of sequels that the game industry is betting on for a record sales season. "Half-Life 2" won't be out until next week, but Valve's new broadband content distribution network, called Steam, has been slowly loading players' computers with the game so they'll have it at their fingertips the moment it's released.

The network, which has been used to a lesser extent over the past few years to distribute updates and less-anticipated games, is getting its toughest market test with "Half-Life 2." By selling the games directly over the Net, the company is experimenting with a model that could substantially transform the video game business, which now rivals Hollywood in annual revenue.

News source: C|Net News.com

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(7 replies) #1 Posted by eilegz on 14 Nov 2004 - 05:19: steam s*cks its so frikin slow and eat too much resources

#2 Posted by DeMo_BR on 14 Nov 2004 - 07:05: Yeah.. everybody hates Steam, but it's a major step for Valve ahead of other developers.
Because they are cutting the supply-chain by (almost) eliminating the need of making a contract with a Publisher.

Of course they still need a Publisher (like VUG) to put the product on the store shelves. But by selling the stuff via Steam they can offer better prices and the money goes directly into their pockets... not the Publisher pockets.

#3 Posted by kl33per on 14 Nov 2004 - 07:22: Steam is not slow, and has many good features (direct access to buy Valve games, auto-updating, etc.). However, I will admit its a bit of a memory hog. Other then that, the system works amazingly well (considering the complexity required to first program the system, set up the hardware, and get the co-operation of content servers).

(1 reply) #4 Posted by Dale on 14 Nov 2004 - 07:54: what if the steam server goes down? i just gotta wait till it goes back up to play my half-life 1 single player?!!

steam is far from perfect. i miss how half-life used to be, everything was just built into the game.

(1 reply) #5 Posted by beardly on 14 Nov 2004 - 10:15: <insert generic steam sucks comment here>

#6 Posted by 56kmanV3 on 14 Nov 2004 - 15:01: Steam is fine.

#7 Posted by Xtreme $niper on 14 Nov 2004 - 15:51: Nice article... I like how I posted it about 4 days ago in the forums, and no one cared. :p

#8 Posted by i like chips on 14 Nov 2004 - 17:55: didnt' like it when it first came out but it's pretty good now.

(1 reply) #9 Posted by T-Grey on 14 Nov 2004 - 18:26: steam used to be a steaming pile of ****, but now I think it works perfectly. I wouldn't mind if I bought/played all my PC games this way

#10 Posted by wog boy on 15 Nov 2004 - 00:58: hey, at least this way Valve are getting more then 7 dollars for each game sold. The rest goes to vivendi games which is a load of streaming ****

(3 replies) #11 Posted by Stef Nighthawk on 15 Nov 2004 - 07:42: Wasn't Valve the company that was complaining and whining about losing millions of dollars because it's source code was stolen?
And now we see articles about record sales??

Guess I need to re-educate myself in modern economics.
More whining and complaining before release = more sales/profits upon release?

#12 Posted by Kamika007z on 16 Nov 2004 - 04:38: honestly all steam is is a purchasing station. you buy your games from there quicker and have it in a list to choose from. I'd rather buy it from a store and have it on physical cd's and be able to play without the need of "registering". In another sense, it does keep away all the little warez kiddie hackers so registering with them is not bad. All in all steam isn't what I thought it would be, which was a constant check on hackers and have the ability to have a live update feature that constantly ran, blocking even the newest hacks found for these games.

#13 Posted by Mando on 17 Nov 2004 - 10:35: could someone tell me please after you install HL2 etc do you need steam running all the time in your sys tray? (even when not playing Vavle software?)

If so i reckon this is out of order as i rather not have a resource mem hog app lying dormant in my taskbar.

If i want to update software ill do it manually (and yes i disable autoupdating of windows also as im a IT engineer and can be trusted to keep up to date.)

#14 Posted by Mando on 17 Nov 2004 - 10:53

QUOTE

I just don't see where you came to the conclusion that "More whining and complaining before release = more sales/profits upon release."

Wouldn't you whine and complain too if you had just put millions of dollars into a project and some f*ckwad comes and steals it?

A company losing money over stolen source code, and the money they make when the product is released are two seperate things. Perhaps they were mad because the source code to the engine they were going to sell to other companies was just stolen, and that is why they were "whining and complaining" about lost profits. I know I would be mad...

your missing something why was it the f*ckwad was able to access the restricted files to begin with. That was their techies problem (and responsibility) for not locking down the systems so that no leaks could happen. we all seem to be missing this about the so called "leak" I personally think it was all a poor publicity stunt (maybe im too cynical)

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