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There is no holdup...and very little DRM crap..

http://www.direct2drive.com/
http://www.steampowered.com/

-Sj53

Don't know why it's in the developers section... Here's my list, don't know why TFA didn't list these, so I came up with 10 for you guys.

steampowered.com
Wikipedia.org/CounterStrike
CSS Fraggers Forum
Filefront?
GameFaqs (never link directly to a faq, kids)
CSBanana
Counter-Strike.net
Planet Half-Life
Sierra: Half-Life
CS Nation - The future of CSS

Choose one or more:

• Because iTunes has an expansive catalog of Music from several artists and various labels. Steam supports only Valve's games, it's not worth the hassle for a catalog of 4 or 5 (or even 10 or 20) games. Call me when I can order ANY game on steam.
• Because iTunes realized that people would see less value in a "digital" only copy of the music, and thus charged significantly less for the digital music than you would normally pay for a CD in the store. Valve charges (practically) the same price for a digital only game as it does for a game with a box, permanent CD, and a printed manual. Stupid.
• iTunes works, period. Steam was buggy and painful at release.
• Songs require significantly less bandwidth than games. iTunes has instant gratification for people with broadband. I can order a song on iTunes and listen to it in a minute or two. Steam on the other hand is unusable by those without Broadband and is still pretty slow for those of us with fat pipes.
• Even if not a single one of the items above is true, the market perception is that every item above is true. Thus Valve was unable to overcome the market perception of an inferior product for the same price. Apple on the other hand was able to defeat this market perception. Don't tell me "it's not fair", because it's Valves's job to overcome these perceptions if they want to succeed, they did not.

I'm sure that if I had more than 5 minutes to post, I could easily have come up with twice that many items, but it should at least give you an idea.

Notice that other game developers have used internet distribution and overcome these obstacles, but they also realized that digital only content has less intrinsic value and more difficulty for the end user than real content that one can purchase from a brick and mortar store, thus they charged less for their digital only games.

Basically Valve said to their customers: "We would like for you, the customer, to take the burdens of distribution on yourself, have a lower quality gameplay experience, have a lower quality distribution medium, and we would like for you to do it with no tangible benefit for yourself. Ohh btw, thanks for saving us all kinds of cash in distribution, we think u r so h0t!" The customers replied: "Uhh WTF?!" I'm a pathetic lefty liberal hippy that doesn't believe in the crazy Libertarian/Republican propaganda that the "free market" always triumphs, but this is a clear case where the free market kicked Valve's ass, and rightfully so..

So Steve did a great job by using the Internet to skip standard distribution channels for music ... Why this didn't work so well for games? http://www.steampowered.com/

Alexandru

Nowadays people own more RAM then you can probably believe. Check the below survey - yes, those are gamers PC's and office PC's probably have 256 or max 512 MB but if you think that Longhorn will be released late 2006 I strongly believe a vast majority of desktop and office PC's will have at least 512 MB RAM.

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

This is also a very interesting survey for other information. For example, look at how many users run Windows _without_ a service pack, or look at the HD stats.

Actually, it's a known problem with the Geforce4 and under series of graphics cards. EA knew this when they game was being developed. This means that at least 20% of PC gamers who can play Half-Life 2 perfectly cannot play the graphically inferior BF2 (According to Valve's hardware survey). BF2 uses pixel shader 1.4, Geforce4 cards only support up to pixel shader 1.3. EA has officially announced that they know about the problem and will not be doing anything about. They claim that the "obsolete" geforce4 will not render the game at an acceptable level of quality. This, in my opinion, is complete bullshit, since the game supports the SLOWER Radeon 8500, just because it supports ps1.4.

There is a community hack being developed to attempt to get the game to work, but it's very much just a kludge at this point.

All the same though, I don't buy EA anymore anyway. I even hear there is already an expansion pack that's nearly ready for release! I was laughing when I heard that, typical EA product life cycle. Launch, patch, patch, expansion, patch, expansion, launch new game, stop support of old game, patch, patch, expansion...

So how long until I don't have to physically get off my fat ass and buy a game, instead I simply download it and pay for it to suck?

Three years ago.

It'd be great if the numbers were reliable. They apparently aren't for Valve's games: http://www.steampowered.com/status/game_stats.html Of course Valve might inflate their own games, but at least technically they should be able to determine pretty much exactly how many people are playing currently.

Actually, cheaters caught on VAC servers are banned for 1 year, not life. So they could buy another account, and then in a year give one to a friend I suppose.

That being said, I've seen a good number of cheaters in VAC servers. I went to the steam forums to find out what to do (since they refuse do anything about cheaters on non-vac servers). They say to tell the server admin. I'm about to become a server admin again and I don't know what to do about cheaters.

HL2 units are CDs and booklets, nothing more, and valve can mass produce them like crazy.

Hellooo, Mr. Ieshan, 2005 called. Remember that Steam thing?

My copy of Half-Life 2 is just bits and bytes, and my authorisation details in a database somewhere. No physical packaging whatsoever - and I believe this is how many of the ATI vouchers were redeemed.

If the cost per unit allows them to hire talented people and take as long as they like on Half-Life 3, just like 2 was funded by the sales of the original game, then I'll be happy. Plus I've had excellent value for money out of the game so far anyway... ;-)

I, for one, would pay a lot of money to get copies of my old games that Just Work on my newer machines.

I've often thought that the way to do it would be through something like Valve's Steam You pay for the game you want, it gets downloaded and it just works. Once you've paid for it you can always download it again, even if you move to a new computer.

The hardware survey that valve does its quite enlightening. I was surprised by the percentage of XPSP2 installations. This is only from steam users, but provides a good indication of harware/software use amoung the average gamer i would think.

JSYK, only 2-3% of the HL2 players are known to be using 56k.

Here is the current hardware etc... information.

No, it's not.

This story is about Steam, and thus Valve's entire online game library. Or did you just think you bought Half-Life 2 with Steam's Silver and Gold packages?

This survey covers all of Valve's online gamers. It is no longer possible to play Half-Life and it's respective mods through WON.

People still play three times as much original CS as all Source engine games combined...and they do it all through Steam, unless it's local.

Care to retract your statement?

To all the above

Here is the evidence from a survey by VALVE, supporting a massive switch over of people from 9x to XP.

Agreed its not everyone, but that is a figure of speech Commander Data.

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

Where is your evidence?

http://www.steampowered.com

People have discovered that the ability to run offline expires after a month or two. Once that happens, you must log back into steam to play again.

That got fixed a while ago.

Steam's offline mode is still a bit crap, but it's not as bad as it was. And updates are coming thick and fast...

People have discovered that the ability to run offline expires after a month or two. Once that happens, you must log back into steam to play again.

That got fixed a while ago.

Steam's offline mode is still a bit crap, but it's not as bad as it was. And updates are coming thick and fast...

To back this up there is a steam survey which clearly shows how many people have broadband and a measly 1.71% still have 56k. http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

This is basically what Steam does.

Steam? As in Valve's distribution mechanism? That Steam, at least, doesn't do anything like that. There is no P2P mechanism in steam, clients are pure clients. Updates are downloaded from a network of mirrors distributed geographically ("Total Available Bandwidth: 14,635.00Mbps"). Come to think of it, I wonder what protocol is used to transfer data from the content servers... it might be some Steam-proprietary protocol, but chances are it's simply HTTP or FTP.

Anyway, maybe you're thinkink of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. They used to rely heavily on BitTorrent to transfer the beta client and major updates. These days, it seems that all updates are downloaded from the servers, at least from the looks of it. Maybe that will change with the next major update. (And maybe it's different in the US, I'm in the EU.)
That was a disaster for me and many other people, because Blizzards were too dumb to limit the upstream either manually or by some sort of algorithm, which lead to extremely slow downloads on asynchronous connections. You could extract the .torrent file, though, and download with your favorite client, which I did getting, oh, about 1000x the download rates.

Well, some people would say steam deserves it, but shooting Ash is just wrong.

Thanks folks, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waiterbot.

Does the word "Steam" ring any bells for you?

aha!

Good point. I am blind after all.

fairly baffled by that one, though by my experience, maybe he needs 16GB+ in order to run Steam without his system taking a massive dump. /me resentful of Steam

I think he was referring more to a Lineage II model, where you download the game for free and then pay the monthly fee for it.

Seriously, 9 out of 10 people throw the box they bought the game in away anyway. And I'd much rather have the game for free download (especially on a Steam-like platform) than have to go to the store and get the thing in a box - as if that is somehow worth it.

And in some ways it's beneficial. I didn't have to muck around with copy protection or having the CD in the drive at all when I bought Half Life 2 off of Steam. Plus, it doesn't give Vivendi Universal a dime.

And we all know how many /.ers would love to not give the RIAA a dime.

you still need some media to transfer the original data. the CD will remain.

Perhaps you haven't noticed these growing new trends.

Steampowered's thread on closed accounts

3. The accounts will be closed and we have been informed that PayPal / EBay will *NOT* help since no merchandise physically changed hands.

I'm probably reading into this too much, but it sounds an awful lot like PayPal and E-Bay don't believe you "own" HL2, either :).

I have had no connection problems to steam tonight, and looking at todays connection status history most people arnt either. Anyone who has sifted through the stupidity on the steam forum knows that the news writer was most likly a whiney 8 year old who didnt get personal tech support from gabie himself...

Yes as is pretty clear from what you've read or from the fact you can't get Steam started, something isn't quite right at the moment. Some accounts are able to log in right now, and some aren't.

Please be assured that if you are having problems, it is only temporary and your accounts have not been lost or damaged or otherwise compromised.

I have received word that it's being worked on, and the Steam crew hope to have things back to normal for those with problems very soon.

PS
I turned off forum search to help with the load. We're being slashdotted right now plus obviously a lot of you are coming here to see what's up. We'll turn it back on soon.

Their server status still says STEAM IS ONLINE.

At least *acknowledge* you fucked up, Valve.

Steam - Error
Unable to connect to the Steam network. 'Offline mode' is unavailable because there is no Steam login information stored on this computer.
You will not be able to use steam until you can connect to the Steam network again. To check the status of the Steam network please visit http://steampowered.com/status

Steam - Error
Unable to connect to the Steam network. 'Offline mode' is unavailable because there is no Steam login information stored on this computer.
You will not be able to use steam until you can connect to the Steam network again. To check the status of the Steam network please visit http://steampowered.com/status

It's probably time for them to add "complete lack of functionality" to their Full List of Features...

No-one buys PC Games unless they're forced to. That's why Slashdotters hate the XBox so much.

Although let's face it, they really hate the XBox because playing on Live reveals their speech impediments and mouth-breathing to everyone.

"Xbox Live online gaming service has set a new standard for online gaming with more than 1.4 million members around the world."

steam claims over 2.5 million unique users a MONTH (4.565 billion player minutes/month). Xbox live hits 1.4 million in its (already long) life and it's a new standard for online gaming? please.

"[World of Warcraft] has also shattered all previous concurrency records in North America, achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players during the holiday period."

Um... this is just plain wrong. "Shattered" concurrency records with over 200,000?! The page linked below shows that Valve's Counter-Strike has reached a maximum concurrent user mark of 214,074. So, at over 200,000 concurrent users, WoWC has at best "met" or "slightly beat" Counter-Strike's record. Not "shattered".

See for yourself:

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

MMORPG. It's of a contradiction in terms, because under the current paradigm, increasing the scope of a MMO game reduces the amount of game that is actually available to any given player. For several years I've watched new MMO releases with anticipation, hoping that someone will find a way to break the flawed mold. It hasn't happened, and I've given up hope that it will happen in the near future. Creating real game content in the current MMO paradigm just isn't cost-effective.

Give me a real RPG anytime, with actual story and some way to empathize with the characters in a meaningful way. A game where your decisions have some tangible effect other than "Ooh, this sword gives me +3 damage". The only recent RPG I've played that is worthy of the name is Vampire: Bloodlines, IMO one of the best games of 2004.

Powerleveling? Treadmills? My god, people! Those terms should not be complementary to anything pretending to be a real game. The only thing that current MMO games have going for them is social interaction, and even in that respect they fall somewhere under the quality of IRC.

How do I know this? My roommates play World of Warcraft. One of them has been playing since the release, and has levelled to the high forties. My other roommate just bought it. What do I hear when they're playing at the same time? "Goddamnit, this is so boring when you guys are all too high level to play with me!" Their screens look the same... usually a perspective of a couple orcs hacking at a large spider-like thing for a while until it dies. It's not a game, it's a screensaver with slightly complicated clicking patterns!

Get off the MMORPG treadmill. Buy some of the incredibly good single-player games that have recently been released, like Half-Life 2, Vampire: Bloodlines, or Rome: Total War if you're a strategy fan. I have a feeling that it's going to be a very looong time before MMO games have even the potential for fun factor and immersion of high-quality PC games.

The MMO genre is only a few years old, is based on incremental improvements, and has longer development cycles than conventional design. Worse, evolutionary considerations for MMO games favor the least common denominator of complexity and involvement. It should come as no surprise that they still suck, even though I keep hoping otherwise.

Engine blueprints are not like software and tt is not always in the best financial interest of a company to charge for traditional products.

You mentioned:
This is like saying GM should open-source the blueprints for all their car engines. It's ridiculous. Valve put untold millions into HL2 development, and there's absolutely no incentive for them to just open the source, and there's a strong disincentive...

But then you turned around and said:

To ignore the economic constraints of development is breathtakingly naive.

Form those of us who've actually developed software and taken classes on economics, these statement are very naive. For all projects, the return on investment varies throughout its lifecycle. This contraint is often overlooked by shortsighted money grubbing middle management in the pursuit of next-quarter's margins. As mentioned in the article, which you obviously did not read, game software that once garndered much money for each small (post-release) investment reaches a point at which few profits can be obtained with even large investment.

With your competitors producting higher quality engines (for which you are getting zero royalties) and using newer storylines, you product cannot compete. In this situation, it makes sense save yourself the cost of distribution while ensuring people see your logos and discover the quality of your work. Corner isle loss leaders at supermarkets are the same idea. In the case of software, you are getting free adversiting, marketing and publicity from an existing product by releasing the source code.

If you had read the article, you would understand that companies such as Valve are moving away from selling cars like Half-Life 2 to renting fleets of vehicles with systems like steam. For GM, keeping a blueprint seceret is not possible since the engine has to pass safety inspections. Very few peices of software have such mission critical natures. GM pays an engineer to make and sign off on their blueprints, but so do software companies that make 911 telecom software. Once built, it is very easy to reverse engineer a car engine. For the purposes of patents and publishing rights, the detailed methods of engine operation may be widely published with only a working prototype. Binaries of game software are easily encrypted and copy-protected. Usually such protection is kept until it interferes with enough of the customer base and generates enough bug reports to warrent removal.

According to modern studies 95% of all in-house software fits the criteria for F/OSS release policy. Those fortunate enough to adopt service models, like content distribution via Valve's Steam or support offerings like RedHat's Enterprise Linux, are getting continual revinue which scales very well. (I'd much rather pay the taxes on $0 million in sales now and $4 million in income over the next 5 years than $500k from sales now with nothing to show for the next 5 years.)

Out of the blue, he heard from Gabe Newell, the managing director of Valve Software, based in nearby Bellevue, Wash. Valve is developing what gaming experts anticipate will be a blockbuster video game, Half-Life 2, but it is also creating an online distribution network that it calls Steam. Because of Mr. Cohen's expertise in just that area, Valve offered him a job. He moved to Seattle and started work in October (2003 !).

False again. It is against their EULA.

They even emphasize it on their forum:
Warning: Do Not Purchase Steam Accounts On Ebay
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.p hp?threadid=171740

Looks like someone is boasting that they've found a way to discover Steam usernames and passwords in this page here.
And they offer many examples.

You guys are such jackasses.

You'll bitch about non-support for an un-supported OS (Linux), and then when you do manage to hack something together to get it to semi-run, you complain when it stops working all of a sudden.

Why don't you guys read the Steam forums? This isn't some conspiracy theory against you guys. It's called developing and supporting the platforms you intend to support; namely WINDOWS.

No worries, this person is just trolling. The issue is a non-issue.

Who cares. That will affect like, what.. 2 people?

I'm running it in Windows XP and loving it. Not a complaint.

Oh, and you might want to check the forums, this isn't some huge conspiracy against Cedega.

Are you nuts? Valve's DRM system eats up 25-30 megabytes even when HL2 isn't running. Do you have any idea how much Lego costs these days? :)

...but isn't Steam synonymous with Power Play?

Right, so now that Half-Life 2 Deathmatch has been relelased, I'll shut up now.

I downloaded the update for HL2 DM over steam last night around midnight and after it said everything was done, I tried to launch the game, but nothing would happen. Then I tried running HL2 and CS:S, neither would run anymore (tried restarting steam, rebooting machine, etc.). Then I headed on over to the steam forum and noticed that I wasn't the only one having the problem. Was this simply a matter of steam secretly continuing to download the game even though it told me it was done? Or was it some major bug they didn't find? I realize that whatever the problem was, it was fixed just a few hours later, but it seems like even if it was still updating the game, it shouldn't have any bearing on your ability to play other games.

Offtopic I know, but Valve just released the HL2 full SDK as well as deathmatch mode! Available on Steam now.
http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news&id =364

My PC is not a platform for a third party's content. Period.

I haven't bought HL2. I won't buy it until there's a non-steam version of singleplayer, or a reliable crack. Two weeks ago, I'd have bought it retail from Vivendi and sent $20 to Valve on principle.

I'm sufficiently disgusted with the way Valve has handled the situation that (when the nonsteam release, or the reliable crack, comes out - whichever comes first) I'll buy it retail from Vivendi - also on principle.

For anyone who still thinks steam's cool, try going into offline mode, setting your date forward a year, and rebooting. Whether you got it out of a Vivendi box or a Valve download, you haven't purchased HL2 singleplayer - you've rented it.

If I wanted to rent games and play them on a PC-based console system, I'd have bought a Phantom from Infinium. (You Steam fans do all own Phantoms, don't you?)