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Postal 3 isn't developed by Valve. So unless there's specific confirmation that the PC version of Postal 3 will be available on Steam and only Steam, this confirms nothing about Steam for Linux. Notice that neither of the previous games were released on Steam.

Well, that means nothing. The Postal series is highly controversial and back when Postal 1 came out Steam didn't even exist. Postal 2 was a crappy game and based on the Unreal engine (so the license for that would have to lie with Activision and they surely won't give up IP using it's tech to Valve). Postal 3 is a Source title, the IP is held by Running with Scissors and it's a somewhat more "attractive" game to sell. Even if there is no Steam for Postal 3 ... it will be on Linux. To me that means Valve Games on Linux ... and I can't imagine a Valve business strategy NOT involving Steam at this point.

To be quite honest I couldn't care less about Steam. There is a Source engine port coming and I can't imagine how they would NOT use that to sell all their other Source titles on the platform as well. Since Valve's main business is the Steam platform it would be utterly senseless to get a licensed Source port to Linux and not cater to the platform via Steam. I believe it's safe to assume that the work done on Source for Linux will flow back into Valve's pool of technology. The next logical step then is to sell other Source titles and preferrably through your own distribution network.

You are right to some extent, so far there is no official confirmation for a Linux Steam client but to me all the evidence points into this direction.

Valve will reset the key to your account if you follow the instructions on this page

Also, you should go back to the store you bought the game from, ask to see the manager, and tell him one of his employees is stealing CD keys from the games.

The Postal 3 dev listed Linux as a confirmed platform for the Source Engine in 2009.

Postal 3 isn't developed by Valve. So unless there's specific confirmation that the PC version of Postal 3 will be available on Steam and only Steam, this confirms nothing about Steam for Linux. Notice that neither of the previous games were released on Steam.

"Gamers" do not all fall in the stereotype of the single guy who has tons of disposable income, and spends it all on hardware. Did you miss the section of text you quoted from my post? I'm a gamer, and it's been so long since I upgraded my machine that I'm still running single-core.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Today, only 11% of gamers who play Valve's games have a quad-core processor. 35% are still running single-core, just in case you were to counter that most gamers still go for high-clocking dual-core machines rather than relatively lower-clocking quad-cores.

Some gamers have school or a family to pay for and can't afford new hardware, or have other hobbies and would rather put their money towards cars, sports, or music.

The only online distribution service I use is Steam, does Steam not work for you?

According to Anandtech, currently Creative still has the best game compatibility, because the game devs write to their cards, but Asus' Xonar line has better sound quality, and nearly the same level of game compatibility. I know if I were to build a new machine I'd take their advice on that, what with Creative's driver troubles, especially on x86-64.

http://anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3497&p=5

Based on Valve's stats, it looks like only about 3.5% of Steam users have an X-Fi card. I do know of a large portion of people who were weary of the X-Fi series though, and kept buying Audigys, and people like me who kept their "Creative Live!" cards, which are likely a good portion of that 33% with "other" sound devices.

GP is right though; most people are perfectly happy with onboard sound. This is especially true in the laptop market, which last I heard was now well over 50% of total computer sales.

You implied Steam was a failure (wikipedia link). How does 1 million+ customers signed on to this service make it a failure?

You should be able to play offline quite easily, although there are a few steps to take to ensure that you can. Personally, I think Steam's DRM is unobtrusive enough and it doesn't bog down my system. But more importantly, Steam is where PC gaming growth is happening, along with quite a lot of innovation. DRM is a fly in the otherwise rich gaming soup that is Steam, but I can live with it. Valve seem to have a much better view of DRM than most other gaming companies. I'd rather support them than some big gaming store chain. I would prefer games to come without DRM and gamers to pay for their games, but until that happens, Steam is the best there is.

Take a look on Steam. They do this, often with insanely awesome packages. I mean, hell, they've got the iD Super Pack (Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D/Spear of Destiny, Doom, Doom II, Final Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen II, Quake 1-3, Doom III) for $70. In the New Year's Sale, when I bought it, it was $34.99.

And BioShock is $19.99 on Steam.

-FishWithAHammer (what the fuck is with this 25 posts per day bullshit, Slashdot?)

Take a look on Steam. They do this, often with insanely awesome packages. I mean, hell, they've got the iD Super Pack (Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D/Spear of Destiny, Doom, Doom II, Final Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen II, Quake 1-3, Doom III) for $70. In the New Year's Sale, when I bought it, it was $34.99.

And BioShock is $19.99 on Steam.

-FishWithAHammer (what the fuck is with this 25 posts per day bullshit, Slashdot?)

I know it isn't free as in speech, but Half Life 2 Deathmatch is free to all nvidia card owners.

It's also free to ATI card owners:

http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/

so between the two that'll covers most bases - or Windows-using ones anyway.

Well, I was wondering if what you were saying was true, and so, lacking any other way of determining which games are most played, I decided to have a look at Steam Stats and guess what? Most players on that list are playing games that would work on a GMA 950. Heck even WoW works on it! Compare Fallout 3 to Counterstrike Source, and we'll see who's segregated themselves from the norm.

I really don't understand your obstinate opposition to an Intel integrated graphics card. Everything that I've said is easily corroborated by other sources.

PS: Just so you know, some sources say that 75% of all laptops have integrated graphics.

If anything, it shows that all there's all kinds of ways to market your game and if it is enjoyable, people will pay for it.

Now, looking at this year's possibly popular indie games, I think Crayon Physics Deluxe will be a hit, and I hope Fez (video here), which I haven't heard of since February 08 will post some news, and finally there's Braid again, which is coming on the PC!

Additionally, if you include game mods as indie development, I'm looking forward to Neotokyo, a total conversion mod for HL2 that has its inspiration in Ghost in the Shell, and Black Mesa Source, another total conversion for HL2 which is the original Half-Life ported onto the Source engine.

If you take a look at the web page for the game it's pretty clear why it isn't selling so well on Windows.
The game looks awful for a start, perhaps this is a good choice given the available games on Mac/Linux it's more appealing but for Windows it looks like the kind of Half-life (one not two) mod you'd expect to get for free and play for few hours at most.
Not only that but it sells for $19.99 I have no idea if this is a good deal for a Mac/Linux game but running through what I can get for the same price or less on Steam it's pretty clear why it isn't selling on Windows.

I'd bet that the reason we don't see another monkey island or similar is due to piracy.

That is not true. Adventure games, like Monkey Island, have been deemed not popular/profitable enough to make. The big publishers only want to turn out shooters, war sims, and the occasional fantasy/RPG title. It isn't just adventure games either...when is the last time you saw a decent flight sim? Or, more specifically my personal favorite - space flight sims.

Piracy is being used as a digital bogeyman to explain anything and everything that publishers dislike.

Music/Game sales slipping? Must be piracy, there's no way people don't like what we're selling or how we're selling it. Find new talent? Embrace on-line distribution? Why do that when we can just prosecute?!

Producing games is expensive. Nobody wants to just break-even these days, they all want the next ginormous hit. So everyone is trying to copy the leader... That's why you get eleventy-billion Halo clones and GTA-alikes. MMORPGs, similarly, were seen as a cash cow. For a while there we had new MMORPGs being announced weekly.

My hope is that someday it will be feasible to simply host the game on some server and deliver all the content over the net

It already is, and in such a way that it's actually a boon to both the producers and the players.

Steam is good for producers because you've got centralized tracking of game registration/authorization. And people are hesitant to mess around too much with a game on Steam because it can get their entire Steam Account (and all their Steam games) banned. Sure, it can be cracked/bypassed... But it works at least as well as SecuROM does, and it's less invasive to the player. Plus you can distribute your game digitally, so you save on packaging.

Steam is good for players because all you need is your username and password to re-install anything you've ever purchased on Steam. Lose the CD? No problem! Reformat your entire computer? No problem! Just log in to Steam, kick off the download, and wait. You also get all your game updates distributed automatically, built-in profile/achievement/friends/community support, and a very simple and easy-to-use on-line store.

But distribution methods like Steam don't fix the problem. It doesn't matter how you distribute your games/music or how you protect them - if people don't feel that they're worth the price you're asking, they won't buy.

Some people are going to pirate no matter what. There's no way they'll ever pay a cent. It might be the thrill of doing something "illegal"... It might be some kind of weird political statement... But they're just never going to pay.

But then you also have folks who are just unwilling to pay $60 for yet-another-scifi-shooter that is a crappy imitation of Halo with only 5 hours of gameplay. They may be willing to pirate a copy of it just to see what everyone is talking about. They may be bored enough to play around with it for a few hours. But they aren't willing to shell out $60 for a piece of crap.

You aren't the only person who likes adventure games. If EA was willing to put the time and resources into turning out a decent adventure title it would sell. But you (and the other adventure fans out there) can't buy what they aren't making.

Similarly I would buy a decent space flight sim, if they'd make it.

Hopefully recent titles like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge mean that EA is finally willing to try something new... But I'll believe it when I see more than one or two interesting titles.

No, they don't. Only a handful of games allow you to give duplicate games as a gift, and even then only through special circumstances, as detailed here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4502-TPJL-2656
quote:
Extra copies are a special promotion for users who:
1. Purchase the "Left 4 Dead Four Pack" on Steam
2. Own "Half-Life 2" and/or "Half-Life 2: Episode One" and then go on to purchase "The Orange Box" or the "Valve Complete Pack"
3. Own "Half-Life 2: Episode One" and/or "Half-Life 2: Episode Two" and then go on to purchase the "Half-Life 2: Episode Pack" or the "Valve Complete Pack"

No. You can't really sell.

Also theres the question of finding a buyer. The cost of a "second hand era" game on Steam is quite cheap - eg Half-Life 1 is $10, Half-Life 2 is $20.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/

Theres not really much point selling my Steam "second-hand" games collection for me anyway. All the old games (HL1 and expansions) I'd want to sell are avaliable in the "Half-Life Anthology" pack - for $15.

You could buy everything I have installed in the "Valve Complete Pack" with the exception of GTA4 for $100.

So I guess it inflates the cost of older games slightly. I'd probably prefer to buy HL1 "new" from Valve for $10 - rather than messing around with HeadCrabHumper23 on ebay to save a couple of bucks tbh.

It doesn't seem to be possible at this time. Only these games can be added using retail keys: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-WUSF-3601#which

Steam has that major feature. It's called Steam Cloud and was initially implemented with Left 4 Dead.

According to the Steam Hardware Survey last updated October this year, about a quarter of it's user base have a primary resolution of 1024 x 768. Surely there are some that set certain games to higher resolutions, but I would expect the percentage of those people in the 1024 x 768 bracket to be similar to the percentages in the other brackets. Except those at 1920 x 1200, naturally.

Just because it doesn't have 10 billion players, like Counter-Strike doesn't mean nobody plays it. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/ then click "View Steam players per game". As you can see, it is 9th on the list. It's definitely not unpopular! There was only a bug-fixing update a few weeks before the Verizon US$100 000 duel tourney. Valve have basically Left HL2: DM 4 Dead.

G'day, I'd like to point out that Valve isn't usually this quick. Take for example Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, the multiplayer component for the famous single player game. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248425 http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=76660 These two links list quite a few bugs. There hasn't be a decent update for HL2: DM in about 2 fucking years.

I have a Steam account, I got HL2 bundled with a graphics card a while back. You're talking about offline mode. You have to authenticate online at least once before being able to enter offline mode. Also, each game must be activated online, you can't install games to an offline Steam client.

As with any online activation based DRM, even store-bought steam games get reduced to coasters once the authentication servers are gone.

Have a look at the Steam subscriber agreement. It pretty much says that games are tied to accounts, and that Valve can terminate any account at any time for no particular reason, without any recompense.

No, really, I wouldn't spend my money there.

One of the first topics in the forum that caught my eye was this one. If you don't feel like clicking out, the OP reads:

The fanbois with quad-cores are bragging about the 50+ fps the benchmark utility gives them. However they are refusing to acknowledge that the fps sinks like the titanic whenever there is substantial action on-screen. Feel free to refute me with a youtube video that clearly shows your FPS. YOU CANNOT. The benchmark utility is useless and gives NO indication of real performance. Why don't you backup your statements with a video?

It took until page eight before someone posted a series of videos that appeared to be convincing. Before that it was seven pages of people posting screenshots and claiming that it proved their steady FPS. I find the general rage there to be hilarious, but at the same time, I'm very understanding, because nobody expects a major company to botch a release that badly. Kudos to Steam for offering refunds.

Yes. They have the balls to call the rightful, legal recovery of your money 'payment fraud'.

Note that I did say "apparently". That was meant to imply "someone said", not "I know for a fact". I saw it mentioned in a forum post relating to Left 4 Dead I believe.

I couldn't find the original forum post I read it in, but found this moderator comment related to GTA:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8603413&postcount=22

even better - over Steam you can buy a package with all Valve games (including left 4 dead and one free pass of HL2, guest passes, etc..) for only $99.99 US. (gosh, I sound like 2am TV)

Putting aside the fact that most people aren't running multiple monitors (which may or may not be true)

According to the steam survey... (an opt-in survey of steam gamers).. 3.47% run multi-monitor setups.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

This is pretty consistent with what I've seen in the real world. There are a few professions where multi-monitor is more common, but most people aren't.

How do you figure this?

See the 'grip bar' in the corner? Put your mouse on it, click and pull. That is how you resize windows.

vs

'Hover your mouse over the border, it might turn into a multi-arrow-head cursor, if you grab a left/right edge its left-right and you can resize horizontally, if you grab a top/bottom border, its up-down you can resize vertically, if you grab near enough to a corner its diagonal and you can resize in both directions. Some borders don't work, the arrow won't change, and there is no way to know in advance. Oh, and some windows also have a grip bar, so you can use that too if its there.'

The Apple solution is simpler. There really is no question about it. The apple solution is consistent, and the functionality is always visually represented (instead of showing up only when the cursor is in the magic spot.

Now, having said that, I agree with you. I LIKE the windows solution better, because its more flexible and more powerful. But there is no question that the apple solution is simpler, easier to explain and understand, and more consistently implemented.

This isn't too surprising, it's been known since the demo and already there are people who have written up tutorials on how to get it running. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=745113

Well, I'd say the 295 people using 8 core machines are probably mostly Mac Pro users booting into Windows to play games. As one of those 295 people (0.2% of survey respondents) I can say we do want a Steam client for OS X.

You don't get games like that anymore

Actually, you can.

Steam does an awesome job of making old games work with Dosbox. Just download and start fraggin' those lobstermen, man. Men.

If you haven't played it already, take a look at Minerva. You can get it from its own website or even as featured mod on Steam.

Half-Life costs only 98 cents for a few days as celebration.

So you're in the 9.37% of people that buy the latest and greatest, why are you complaining about being in the minority?

Most people don't have anything over a Geforce 6000 and gamers are the people that keep their hardware upgraded the most.

Not even gamers buy sound cards anymore. I bet Creative's sound card business is small fries compared to their consumer electronics business.

So who was the Valve employee that literally put the gun to your head?

The sniper.

Look at Steam. I hate Steam with a passion on principle, because Valve forced people to install it, and it always ran on the computer even when Valve's games did not.

I wouldn't say they 'force' you, considering how easy it is to disable Steam from running at startup.

Indie games can be quite fun for a while and often are cheap (eg Audiosurf is just $10, and Defcon is $15).

Unless, of course, you want it for Mac-- in which case, it's $25. Actually, you can get all three of Introversion's games (Uplink, Darwinia, and Defcon for $33.20 for Windows/Linux, but Ambrosia charges $25-28 each for the OS X versions.

And people wonder why everyone games on Windows.

Indie games can be quite fun for a while and often are cheap (eg Audiosurf is just $10, and Defcon is $15).

Unless, of course, you want it for Mac-- in which case, it's $25. Actually, you can get all three of Introversion's games (Uplink, Darwinia, and Defcon for $33.20 for Windows/Linux, but Ambrosia charges $25-28 each for the OS X versions.

And people wonder why everyone games on Windows.

Sounds like an attempt to milk the cash cow to me

It probably is, but then again I own the game and I've gotten more than my moneys worth of fun out of it. It's a genre I really enjoy, decent graphics, decent gameplay... It was money well spent.

I haven't checked out the contents to the micro-expansion yet, but I probably will when it gets released. It'll depend on the content and the price most likely if I buy it, but I haven't been disappointed by the Stardock titles I liked yet.

I suspect the only way these micro expansions will work out is if they also come with a micro price.

Most likely. If the price is too high they'll probably have a lot of people waiting for all of the micro-expansions to be available at a discount. That, or they just won't sell a lot.

The micro-expansion model of selling content seems to be picking up momentum, and it could be a good thing just as well as a bad thing. Personally I'd refuse to pay for something like a map-pack, and I'm pretty sure most people feel the same way, but if it adds value to gameplay or extends the storyline I'm pretty sure a lot of people would be interested if the price is right.

If it's somewhere between $10 and $15, I'd personally consider it a good price.

On a complete other note, I've recently been discovering Indie games to be quite entertaining from time to time. Indie games can be quite fun for a while and often are cheap (eg Audiosurf is just $10, and Defcon is $15). Sure, they're not as fancy as a million dollar budget game, but some of them are quite original in gameplay mechanics and can be damned fun as well.

Sounds like an attempt to milk the cash cow to me

It probably is, but then again I own the game and I've gotten more than my moneys worth of fun out of it. It's a genre I really enjoy, decent graphics, decent gameplay... It was money well spent.

I haven't checked out the contents to the micro-expansion yet, but I probably will when it gets released. It'll depend on the content and the price most likely if I buy it, but I haven't been disappointed by the Stardock titles I liked yet.

I suspect the only way these micro expansions will work out is if they also come with a micro price.

Most likely. If the price is too high they'll probably have a lot of people waiting for all of the micro-expansions to be available at a discount. That, or they just won't sell a lot.

The micro-expansion model of selling content seems to be picking up momentum, and it could be a good thing just as well as a bad thing. Personally I'd refuse to pay for something like a map-pack, and I'm pretty sure most people feel the same way, but if it adds value to gameplay or extends the storyline I'm pretty sure a lot of people would be interested if the price is right.

If it's somewhere between $10 and $15, I'd personally consider it a good price.

On a complete other note, I've recently been discovering Indie games to be quite entertaining from time to time. Indie games can be quite fun for a while and often are cheap (eg Audiosurf is just $10, and Defcon is $15). Sure, they're not as fancy as a million dollar budget game, but some of them are quite original in gameplay mechanics and can be damned fun as well.

Although they had a few Half-Life 2 metions in the article. They failed to mention the fact that Steam was made mainly for the purpose of creating and maintaining a MOD community for Half-Life.

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/index.php

I've said this a few times before, but Steams' subscriber agreement says no such thing. Games on Steam are sold as single payment subscriptions. I don't own the orange box, I subscribe to it!

I'm not really worried about it though, Steam is such a valuable asset that even in the very unlikely event that Valve goes under whoever bought it would keep it running. It is a bit annoying how this'll kill off the second-hand market but I guess in future all the decent old games that today you'd get in second-hand will be available at GOG!

Not people that have paid for them. ;)

Presumably GameSpy is either counting the myriad of mods for the old hl1 pre-steam-cracked version and/or bots.

Steam has the worst possible DRM. If you went into a brick and mortar store and they said they reserved the right to take your "purchase" back at any time would you still buy it?

From http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase.

I've read that Bioshock still carried its own SecuRom DRM when released through Steam. See post #18 on this thread.

That's apparently no longer the case, according to same thread, but I'm definitely going to be careful about reviewing possible future Steam purchases before I buy.

I believe you can still buy all of those games still as part of a collection or second hand.

All Doom games, Heretic, and both Hexen games are available on Steam individually, as parts of the id Super Pack, or as parts of the Doom and Heretic+Hexen packs. You don't need to play them as packaged on Steam, of course (they just packaged the original games into DOSBox) - just buy them, take the .wad files, and use with ZDoom.

I believe you can still buy all of those games still as part of a collection or second hand.

All Doom games, Heretic, and both Hexen games are available on Steam individually, as parts of the id Super Pack, or as parts of the Doom and Heretic+Hexen packs. You don't need to play them as packaged on Steam, of course (they just packaged the original games into DOSBox) - just buy them, take the .wad files, and use with ZDoom.

I believe you can still buy all of those games still as part of a collection or second hand.

All Doom games, Heretic, and both Hexen games are available on Steam individually, as parts of the id Super Pack, or as parts of the Doom and Heretic+Hexen packs. You don't need to play them as packaged on Steam, of course (they just packaged the original games into DOSBox) - just buy them, take the .wad files, and use with ZDoom.