Just can"t wait to play the Half-Life 2 game? You can pick it up the moment it goes on sale, without leaving your home. Many fans already have 3.3GB of the game loaded on their systems, thanks to game maker Valve Software"s new online distribution method, and are awaiting only a small activation piece to play the full game upon its release (which should be at about the time you read this). Users don"t pay until they activate the game.
You"ve been able to download software patches, shareware, and some programs and games for some time. Many multigigabyte programs, however, including Microsoft Office, have been considered too large to download even with broadband. For its 4.5GB game, Valve gets around the issue by offering its downloads in stages: As of early October, roughly 200,000 eager gamers had loaded five parts of Half-Life 2 using Steam, the company"s online distribution system.