IMO, all these folks bashing Steam, should read <a href="http://www.mobygames.com/developer/shee ... perId,127/" target="blank">Warren Spector's</a> recent comments:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/18 ... 20449.html
(and while I am referring in this post to the comments he made about the business model for games and whatnot these days..., I especially liked these words as well...
"....according to one industry pundit who I will not name, because he may have been lying, and I may be lying secondhand, 4 out of 5 games lose money. Despite the fact that we go for the sure thing, we do licenses, we do sequels, we focus-test boxes, we focus-test concept, we focus-test this, we focus-test that--frankly if we just trusted the creatives a little bit more, could we do any worse? So why don't we trust the creative folks anymore?"
... and I think they could be somewhat applied to mod dev as well.)
Comments appreciated.
Don't like Steam?
He's right you know - I never kew I wanted Chaos until I played it on the UT99 GOTY disc. One blat around that military compound being chased by proxies and I was hooked: Up until that point, I never knew anything different than Doom. I never looked back since.
Equally, I bought HL2 through Steam, have kept it updated since, and have never had any problems with it; I go into shops and I see HL2 discs sitting on the shelves doing nothing but take up space; then I think about everyone who bought one and think (roughly) "suckers!", mainly because I got so much other stuff with it, all free, all online and all without having to deal with the sales-droids at my local Game..
UT and Epic are good people - they pay attention to the people who actually buy and use their software. I fhtey didn't, they wouldn't have nearly as much repeat custom...
Admittedly, Steam does still have a few kinks to work out, like mod distribution - I want to be able to steam them up too, rather than go to their site and DL/manual install; that is sooo last century...
However, if the issues can be dealt with and the dream of cross-developer support is realised, I for one, would love to see UT2K6 SteamPowered!
Equally, I bought HL2 through Steam, have kept it updated since, and have never had any problems with it; I go into shops and I see HL2 discs sitting on the shelves doing nothing but take up space; then I think about everyone who bought one and think (roughly) "suckers!", mainly because I got so much other stuff with it, all free, all online and all without having to deal with the sales-droids at my local Game..
UT and Epic are good people - they pay attention to the people who actually buy and use their software. I fhtey didn't, they wouldn't have nearly as much repeat custom...
Admittedly, Steam does still have a few kinks to work out, like mod distribution - I want to be able to steam them up too, rather than go to their site and DL/manual install; that is sooo last century...
However, if the issues can be dealt with and the dream of cross-developer support is realised, I for one, would love to see UT2K6 SteamPowered!
I bought half Life2 thru valve +Steam and was very happy with the way it worked.Now direct 2 drive was not the best experience very hard to read your id# to tell if a 0 is a number or a letter.For that matter Steam to.I had to reformatt and i had same problum with the id# there to,But they get you the game pretty fast.A little work and i think you will be seing more + more of this kind of buying games online. 
Head Shot (ooooooooooooh i love that)Ha Ha Ha Ha.
I would agree however I did not find an easy way to reinstall HL2/CS. I forgot about its back up feature so when I reformted my HDD, I had to re-download HL2/CS again. So other than that (which was my fault) Steam has been very nice.Pepito wrote:I third the movement. Steam is Great for me. no problems. and reinstallation is a snap.
However I do remember what it was like when they first used it...needless to say its much better now
Jb
And of course keep in mind, that the real issue isn't so much what we think of Steam itself. But rather, that something(s) had to be done, and at least Valve/Steam is making an attempt.
I think maybe more gamers should be more open minded about attempts to improve the 'broken model' - or at least discussing them realistically (ie: as opposed to the inanane MS is Evil stuff that is regurgitated so roboticly around the net).
I think maybe more gamers should be more open minded about attempts to improve the 'broken model' - or at least discussing them realistically (ie: as opposed to the inanane MS is Evil stuff that is regurgitated so roboticly around the net).