Steam - The Future is Now

[TheCatt]

Yeah but wht about his example... he finds it in the basement in 20 years and wants to load and play it, but Steam is gone... since he can't register, he can't play?

This stuff has been discussed on the Steam forums and I know there are workarounds. Besides, in what fantasy world do you live where a person can pop a 20 year old game into his PC and just start playing?

I was playing this a few months ago.

And I killed another weekend play this one.

22 and 12 years, respectively.

[TheCatt]

I think there are 3 working Ataris left, but people can still play their whole library via the magic of emulators. So, in 20 years I'm sure his game will be available via free download that won't require a registration.

How?

I should note that his game also won't play if the CD gets broken. Is that Steam's fault too? If he becomes homeless and can't afford a PC to play it on, is that Steam's fault?

You're starting to get crazy

Besides, Steam IS going to be around in 20 years.

And you're overboard. Just can't buy into that for another 15 years... maybe more.

[GORDON]

Yeah but wht about his example... he finds it in the basement in 20 years and wants to load and play it, but Steam is gone... since he can't register, he can't play?

This stuff has been discussed on the Steam forums and I know there are workarounds. Besides, in what fantasy world do you live where a person can pop a 20 year old game into his PC and just start playing?

I my world, I recently turned an old pc into a Win98 machine that could run DOS so I could play Ultima I.... that's 20 years old, isn't it?

[TheCatt]

Wikipedia says yes.
Technically 26 years old, but re-written/re-released in 1986.

Some really solid games were written back in the 80's, I think because people weren't so damned concerned with getting every little blood-drop's physics right for rendering on 1% of the computers in the world.

Back in my day, we used to have to walk both ways uphill to play computer games. And write them ourselves, with pieces of wood.

[GORDON]

Actually, "writing them ourselves" isn't far from the truth.

Before the C64 I had an Atari computer for about 5 seconds (before the keyboard stopped working) and I had no form of storage device. So I ended up keying a bunch of programs out of the manual when I wanted a small game to play.

Several times.

[GORDON]

Now that I think about it, I could fire me up some Duke Nukem on that Win98 box. That game's about 10 now, if memory serves.

Good thing 3D-Realms didn't use some propriatary online activation scheme for it, that's all I know.

[GORDON]

ACTUALLY........... now that I think about it, when Quake was first released they had a brand new marketing scheme that I tried out. You bought the first level in a store for $5 or $10, then you could unlock the rest of the game for $50, if you wanted, to play the full version.

Now, I only had a dial-up modem in those days, so I want to say that I must have dialed some number at iD to unlock this game. MAYBE I had AOL. Don't remember the time frames... though I'm pretty sure at that time AOL still charged you by the hour for access.

That was 10 years ago.

Think I could grab that CD and unlock the game again, right now?

[Leisher]

I boycott EA because they kill games and game companies in the interest of making money. They buy companies that make good quality fun games, and kill both the company and the game. EVERYTHING they do is in the interest of making money. Too many startups with the GAME being the priority were bought, eliminated and their games modified for maximum profit. Etc.

While I don't boycott their games as actively as Cake does, I'm with him on EA sucking. It's not that I'm a gainst their corporation, it's that their corporate environment and suits have killed all the creativity in their products. They killed Origin and Westwood and, in turn, Ultima Online and Command & Conquer.

Steam killed Counter Strike. Counter Strike was the most played online FPS ever. HUGE number of servers. LARGE community. Many add-ons that made cheating damn near impossible. Many variations of the game to choose from (War Craft mod was wacky). Then EA bought Valve, got rid of WON, made everyone load Steam and NONE of the anti-cheat software worked. 9 out of 10 servers I tried had cheaters. You were FORCED to upgrade to the latest version of CS even though the version just prior to that was far more popular. You couldn't play it any more. (The latest version added shields and changed many of the gun physics, etc) No more War Craft mod, etc. Granted, all those issues might be fixed now. I don't know. I uninstalled Half Life and just don't care enough to try Steam. It was buggy, FAR too invasive, and I won't participate because they didn't do it for ME, the end user. They did it to make sure their wallets got fatter. CS started out free. They did it for free. And it was damn damn damn good. Then EA bought it and made sure they made money from it. Made it too hard to play. Had to play THEIR way. Not the way 100's of thousands of people were already happy playing it.

I have all kinds of problems with this whole paragraph.

-Let's start with EA does NOT own Valve. One of the reasons Steam was created was so Valve wouldn't have to give most of their profits to a distributor such as EA.

You may see an EA logo on a game, but that doesn't mean they made it. Distributors get to put their logos on products too.

-Steam did NOT kill Counter-Strike. The community is very much alive and well and playing via Steam. Sorry to burst your bubble.

-Cheating is completely impossible through Steam. It might have started off with exploits, but they are gone.

-Ditto for the "FAR too invasive" stuff and the bugs.

-While they did take away your free CS, they have given their users dozens of mods (professional and amatuer) and other free games like CS. They have done so all through Steam, all on the company's dime.

-And Steam does help you and your PC Gaming habit. If it has helped stop piracy, if it takes profits out of ditributors' pockets and put it back in the developors pockets that is all money that goes back to PC gaming. That's money to make games that the big corps like EA would never make because it's not a sports game or sequel. Proof is in who is distributing games through Steam, the indy development houses and the smaller ones and they're doing it to get around giving most of their money to distributors like EA. Now isn't the enemy of your enemy supposed to be your friend?

We can all talk about how EA is evil because they kill small companies, but those companies sold out because they couldn't turn down a big money offer when they don't really have the means to bring their products to market without giving away so much of their product AND creative control to distributors. Steam was created to solve this problem.

And if you hate EA, and you hate Valve (for Steam and because you think EA owns them for some reason), then shouldn't you also hate Blizzard? Blizzard has turned their back on PC Gamers shunning them by taking Starcraft to consoles. Then their was the huge failure in the Diablo II launch (the multi servers), the rampant cheating on the Diablo servers, and the enormous failure of WoW's launch.

And how about hating Origin and Westwood for selling out in the first place?

Chris Taylor sold out and lost us a great series in Total Annihilation.

Interplay sold out and is in ruins. Bioware screwed up something recently too, but I'm not remembering the details at the moment. Vivendi is owned by the French and have put anti-American sentiment in games recently (really).

That leaves only two groups, the small developers and Microsoft. Microsoft is Microsoft and they have a love/hate relationship with gamers.

But those small developers who are making games for you are best friends right now with Valve, and yes, Steam.

So again, you and I may hate it (especially when it launched), but the reality of the situation is that it is here to stay and it does do us some good.

I'm just trying to stay positive on the whole thing. I think after the initial pains, Valve has really gone through a lot to make the service a lot better. Had EA made this thing (and they hate it) they would have told us how it's going to be and they wouldn't have helped to distribute all the free content that Valve has.

Boycotting Steam is like try to stop a sun from going supernova by giving it a dirty look.

[GORDON]

And how about hating Origin and Westwood for selling out in the first place?

Chris Taylor sold out and lost us a great series in Total Annihilation.

I do in fact hate them for those very reasons.

I've always said that as soon as the accountants get control in a game company, that game company sucks for ever more.

[Leisher]

How?

Many game companies (Valve included) have released their older content as free downloads and even upgraded them to run on newer systems. Rockstar does it every time they come out with a new GTA and LucasArts did it for Sam & Max.

You're starting to get crazy

I was being sarcastic. The example of the guy firing up a 20 year old game is the same as programming a game's physics for the small percentage of PCs that can pull it off.

You can't make all the people happy all the time.

And you're overboard. Just can't buy into that for another 15 years... maybe more.

No, I'm not. TV was a fad. D&D too. Movies. Popcorn. Rock & Roll.

The simple fact is that Steam is a new distribution system. Not only have many companies embraced it, but others are even looking into making their own Steam-like programs. So even if Steam goes away, something else will replace it, like say X-Box Live which is Steam for X-Boxes and will be compatible with Vista.

The future is here.

I my world, I recently turned an old pc into a Win98 machine that could run DOS so I could play Ultima I.... that's 20 years old, isn't it?

FYI, Nearly ALL the Ultimas, including I, have been updated to run on Windows XP, some have even been totally recreated with 3D grahics like ultima V.

I believe I have a CD somewhere with all the Ultimas and they all run on XP.

(P.S. That also answer's Catt's "How?" from above.)

Think I could grab that CD and unlock the game again, right now?

Try it and see.

Although, I think a quick look at ID's website would probably have a solution to your problem if you couldn't.

[Leisher]

I do in fact hate them for those very reasons.

I've always said that as soon as the accountants get control in a game company, that game company sucks for ever more.

Agreed.

The worst part is that Richard Garrott and Chris Taylor know they fucked up. I've heard guys from Westwood say the same thing. However, they all cited the fact that they couldn't get out from under distributors like EA. And those distributors took enough of their money and got involved in theri products so the easiest thing to do was sell out.

[GORDON]

Well, you give a lot of probably definately maybe's.

As I said, since I'm taking a gamble with it not working forever, I'll wait until Steam games are in the bargain bin so I'm not putting as much cash on the blackjack table.

And, when the occasional garage-based company surprises us all with a great game, that's where my money will go.

Valve got full price from me when I bought Half Life. New-and-improved Valve will not get full price from me for a HL2 license. Period. That's it.

[TPRJones]

Mainly I don't like Steam because I can see where it's headed. It won't be long before you can no longer buy any software at all, but rather have to deposit money with Steam (or a similar company) and rent it by the hour/day/month/year. There is the advantage that you don't waste as much money on crappy products, but the disadvantage is that you can't just buy a copy of anything and have it forever.

If I want to rent games, I'll get a damn console and a Blockbuster card.

[Leisher]

Mainly I don't like Steam because I can see where it's headed. It won't be long before you can no longer buy any software at all, but rather have to deposit money with Steam (or a similar company) and rent it by the hour/day/month/year. There is the advantage that you don't waste as much money on crappy products, but the disadvantage is that you can't just buy a copy of anything and have it forever.

That's why I hate it too despite Valve's guarantee that they always want to have a shelf presence.



Edited By Leisher on 1143776838

[Cakedaddy]

My bubble wasn't burst. . . I just wasn't clear enough in my rant. I should have added a 'for me' in there. I knew the masses wouldn't shut down like I did. I place alot of value on 'principle'. I did say 'probably been fixed' though. I know CS isn't dead, etc. It's dead to me. My problem with the whole thing was, it wasn't boroken, why'd they 'fix' it? And I forgot about the fact that you have to pay for CS now! I was just talking about how it was made by fans, for fans, and it was free. Then a company bought it, and put a bullet through it's head (even though it didn't kill it).

Yes, I'm upset that many people sold their products to EA and then the product died. But, as has been pointed out, I'm not sure they had a choice. Garriot did. Fuck him. Chris. . I do think his hands were tied. He's continued to make quality games, I hear. Haven't played them for no other reason than I just haven't taken the time. I blame EA more than I do the people that sold out.

I saw EA's name on Half Life and figured they bought it.

I'm disappointed in all the other companies (Blizzard, WestWood [sort of. They were chat room nazis that would ban you for saying something in their chat rooms even though a character in their game said the same DAMN thing so fuck them and their forcing you to use their chat room crap to multi], Chris Taylor, etc). But, I don't hate them, and could forgive them. EA has a STRONG hold on the game market.

I'm not really boycotting Steam. I just don't like it and choose not to participate. And do I think EA cares that I'm boycotting them? No. But, you're not going to laugh at me and dare me to not buy your stuff anymore when I have a legitimate complaint, and expect me to ever give you another dime again ever.

[TPRJones]

Well, shit. Portal requires Steam. Finally a game has come along that I really really want to play, but would have to do it through Steam.

Quandry!

[Leisher]

I found it interesting that id is now selling games via Steam.

[GORDON]

Wasn't Half Life written on the Quake 2 engine?

[Leisher]

A heavily modified Quake engine, yes.

However, despite using id's tech for their first game, Valve now uses their own and has surpassed the original "masters" at id.

The gaming media has created a natural rivalry, but apparently its not that big between the entities themselves.

Maybe Carmack is concentrating on mobile gaming too much?

[GORDON]

And this is the kind of bullshit I have always been worried about:

http://consumerist.com/consume....690.php

According to reader Todd, there are quite a few customers are finding their "Orange Box" games have been deactivated by Valve because they bought them from a seller that wasn't authorized to do business with US customers.

The seller made the mistake, but the gamers are paying the price.

Todd says:

This complaint is about Valve, a PC video game company which makes games like Half-Life 2.

This effects many thousands of customers.

They recently released a product called the "Orange Box", which is a bunch of games.
All their products are activated online via unique serial numbers through the Steam service.

Many of us bought the product (and hence, the serial numbers) legitimately online via well known international game stores, as they sell them significantly cheaper than American stores.

We were able to activate the products without a problem.
One week later, Valve, via the Steam program, inactivated all Orange Box games (after they had already been active for some time), stating that they are in the "incorrect territory."
There was no warning or anything, just completely inactivated.

The thread that was started on www.valve.com has been removed by the operators there.

I think this is absolutely reprehensible customer care. We paid for our products, and they just go and remove it without warning from our computers.