Valve Announces "Steam" Content Delivery System

Greg Brown writes: "Valve just officially announced Steam, its new content delivery system that works automatically over the internet. While this has been in the works for a while, including a semi-public testing period, it has slowly been refined to the point that it is faster and more convenient than other methods. Valve is also planning on licensing it to other developers to use to distribute their games online. Looks like the game-publishing heavyweights (EA and Sierra) may be outdated. More info from Gamespy and ShackNews."

Comments

What happens to Sierra?

[zapfie]

What does Sierra think of this, considering Sierra publishes Valve's stuff, last I checked? It seems like this is the kind of service that could be offered up easier by a larger company than a smaller one. Is Sierra going to be a part of Steam, or is Valve going to cut the middleman?

Re:What happens to Sierra?

[Martin Blank]

Consider the cost of bandwidth now. This makes some sense, in a theoretical way, for a new method of delivering content. How long does it take to go to the store, get a game, come back, and install it? I would estimate around an hour. Many people with broadband can fairly easily download about 280MB (averaging 80KB/sec) in an hour. Additional sections of the game could be downloaded while playing faster than the player is likely to achieve such advancement.

Of course, broadband isn't available for everyone, and Sierra would still have a role publishing games on CD for those of us who do not have fast connections or who choose to have physical media in hand. What this does, though, is put some power back in Valve's hands, allowing them a much faster method of distributing patches and anti-cheats and cutting distribution costs. The only remaining issue is how much Sierra loses from this.

Perfect.

[ender81b]

This is how things are supposed to work. The RIAA and MPAA should take a lesson from these guys. Wow, pay for good content (program) get to use it as much/wherever you want and completely bypass the middleman = savings for the consumer.

Absolutely ridiculous that the music/video industry is refusing change or developing a new distrubution system like these guys are. I mean, consider what this will mean for small-time game developers. They get to keep a large share of the profits, reach a broader audience, and not have to deal with the bullsh*t that is typical of most game publishers. As for the consumer, you get cheaper games plain and simple.

Seriously, imagine this applied to the recording/music industry and I guess I realize why they are so afraid of the new digital medium.

Re:Perfect.

[AstralSeeker]

I'm not so sure about that (in the game industry)

The publisher is often necessary, because he's the one fronting the cash so you can develop your game. Until you've published a game that was sucessful enough to pay entirely for the next one, you're dependant on your publisher for the money to pay the bills and salary (unless you have other funding). It's true that it could remove the cost of the middlemen, but you need somebody to start you up unless you already have the money. This would typically be a VC/Publisher since a bank probably won't loan it to you since it's too expensive and too risky. So you still end up with somebody taking a cut in the middle and wanting a big return since it's a high risk. Most game projects do not make any money.

Re:Perfect.

[The Cat]

It's true that it could remove the cost of the middlemen, but you need somebody to start you up unless you already have the money. This would typically be a VC/Publisher since a bank probably won't loan it to you since it's too expensive and too risky.

Take the VC out of the list too. They want 20% annual growth. Will NOT happen with game developer.

So you still end up with somebody taking a cut in the middle and wanting a big return since it's a high risk.

Oh, they get more than that. Publisher wants 85% of the take, PLUS they want the copyrights and trademarks to the whole project, including the characters, merchandising, sequels, etc. Better to just fill out an application and at least get some benefits.

Most game projects do not make any money.

That explains the record profits made by the game industry last year. Game projects don't make money. Game *publishers* make billions, all the time whining "ehhhhhhhhh, we can't make any moneyyyyyyy"

Re:Perfect.

[Stormie]

Most game projects do not make any money.

That explains the record profits made by the game industry last year.

Most game projects don't make money. The ones that do, make so much more money than the other ones lose, that the industry as a whole makes great profits.

Hype?

[Pilferer]

During his presentation to GameSpy, Newell showed Half-Life running off a broadband connection. Mind you, no game files were installed on the client machine . After launching Half-Life from Steam, it downloaded the necessary files (which took hardly any time at all - actually it was faster than using a CD ), and before you knew it, the introductory cinematic for Half-Life was running.

Wow! where can I get broadband that fast? ;)

"There is 3% CPU utilization by Steam client," Newell said. "92% wire utilization, 4:1 compression and about 50% cache hits."

And 100% buzzword utilization.

Re:Hype?

[RedWizzard]

You and the other reply have both made the same mistake - you've assumed compression for the down-the-wire stuff but not for the CD based stuff. My baseline CDROM does 40x so with 4:1 compression it'd be 160x. Last game I bought - Diablo II - came on 3 CDs of which one is movies that definitely won't get 4:1 compression anyway. And of course everyone will want to get the game the second it's released so good luck in getting that 200KB/s.

So I'm dubious about both the 4:1 ratio and the viability of transmitting that amount of data to large numbers of people when they want it.

Re:Hype?

[kuiken]

ok please explain this to me,
my cdrom is 40x150KB/s= 6000KB/s (granted it does not actualy achieve those speeds but hdpram -t gives me 2867 KBS/s )
my cable modem gets 4Mbs max thats 512KB/s ( fast mirror would get me about 300KB/s)
so even if you take in acount the 4:1 compresion that would only effectively get me 2048KB/s
(thats using the maximum modem speed vs effective CDROM speed)

So what are they only installing a minimal version of the game and downloading stuff as needed ?

Re:Hype?

[q-soe]

I dont know.

After messing around on the software trying to get it working and posing some questions about it i finally got it up and running.

I run a P111 900 with 512mb ram and GeForce 2 MX 64mb over a cable modem linl. Install of the game took about 1 minute and then i was in and it runs as smooth at 1024x768 as it ever did off my pc (but i wish they could get rid of that fscking opening movie - ive seen it enough)

The interesting thin is file size. I run a firewall on my xp box (only zone alarm but it works) and it shows i donwloaded 80.1 mb. The size of the Cache directory is 565 mb. Thats some very interesting compression.

As it stands it works and i would pay a MINIMAL fee for the service is the speed would be the same. Bearing in mind im in australia and im guessing the server is not local to me its not bad and the game runs solid with about the same level change slowdown as it does off cd.

Re:Hype?

[Aqualung]

The interesting thin is file size. I run a firewall on my xp box (only zone alarm but it works) and it shows i donwloaded 80.1 mb. The size of the Cache directory is 565 mb. Thats some very interesting compression.

If you read the forums/FAQ's on the Valve STEAM beta support site, you'll see that the cache file is much larger than it needs to be, during beta... the cache file is created locally and up-front by the STEAM client, and doesn't have much to do with how much you actually transfer. I'm assuming they'll lower the cache file size before they do a commercial release...

As for the payment options, Valve has said they'll continue to offer updates to existing customers free via STEAM... but as a distribution system it supports much more variable payment methods, such as a flat rate subscription fee (game-of-the-month club, or an EverQuest/UO/AC/DAoC type game), one-time fee (buy online, no shipping fees), possibly even a pay-per-play system (online video arcades!)

Add to this the fact that it will address some of the update distribution systems... no more waiting for five hours on FilePlanet because Popular Game X released 80MB patch Y! I'll be interested in seeing if it works as promised, but this is fairly a fairly progressive system... I'll be interested to see what results from this.

Re:Hype?

[Kanasta]

Well, maybe he's only using a 2x CDROM

Not used for what you think

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

This "Steam" content delivery system raises my eyebrows, and it should raise yours as well. We live in a world driven by advertising, especially through media such as the web and TV. I wouldn't hesitate to think that some bright executive would get the idea in his head to use this for marketing purposes.

From the article:
With it, we can market and have direct communication with customers, sales and distribution

This doesn't sound like directly downloading games. This sounds like the company taking over your computer and forcing you to watch an advertisement for their product, then "allowing" you to purchase it with a single click of the mouse.

At present, the amount of advertising on the web is becoming increasingly intrusive, but we still have one advantage- we can choose (for the most part) when we want to be abused. I have pity for people whose employment requires them to surf the web as they have no choice when they are forced to endure such pop-up banner misery. With "Stream", the Internet may very well turn into what the modern day telephone has become, a boon for telemarketers and con artists alike. They can choose when they wish to interrupt us, whether it be from a family meal or our favorite TV shows, to allow them the high likelyhood that we can be reached, as the demographics have clearly been researched on such common behavioral patterns.

I, for one, will take this new technology with a grain of salt. It may just step over the fine line between spyware and trojans, and while on paper it may look like a great idea, I would caution those who think being early adopters would be a rewarding experience.

Re:Not used for what you think

[Tribbles]

... then "allowing" you to purchase it with a single click of the mouse.

Wouldn't Amazon complain about this?

Re:Not used for what you think

[Sarcasmooo!]

I would agree 100% if it weren't for the fact that Valve was introducing it. I still share your concerns, but I was part of the half-life community from the start, and I know more about Valve than any business I've ever been a customer to. Here's to hoping that they'll actively combat abuses while they're out licensing it to third parties.

Re:Not used for what you think

[VoiceOfRaisin]

I would agree 100% if it weren't for the fact that Valve was introducing it.

ya, i feel much better about a company that has only released one game about 5 years ago and has repackaged and resold it in about 5 different packages. is there any more milk in halflife to milk?

Re:Not used for what you think

[Aqualung]

ya, i feel much better about a company that has only released one game about 5 years ago and has repackaged and resold it in about 5 different packages. is there any more milk in halflife to milk?

<sarcasm>Yes! Yes! Who cares about gameplay anyways? It's old, so it must be crap... give me my new buzzword-laden engine! I don't care if it's space invaders, as long as it's got pixel-shaded, alpha-channel-blended, motion-captured spherically rendered space invaders! </sarcasm>

I have offered 'Steam' for years...

[teamhasnoi]

It hasn't been received very well.

A little skewed, perhaps?

[SimplyCosmic]

"In the latest survey by Speakeasy, over 75% of players use broadband..."

Aren't the majority of Speakeasy's business built primarily at targetting "power users", such as gamers who seek broadband? That makes their statistics not exactly a snapshot for who's actually the majority of their players.

One of the main reasons CounterStrike (and therefore Half Life) seem to be still selling well is the number of low end systems, such as those found in "internet cafes", that can comfortably run it, which doesn't point to the majority of the players being broadband enabled.

Regardless, isn't Valve pretty much only about CounterStrike and other Half Life (ie Half Life, but this time you play as one of the Black Mesa janitors) knockoffs these days? At least, Team Fortress II seems to have fallen off all our radars.

Re:A little skewed, perhaps?

[arkanes]

I know a suprising amount of people with low end machines hooked up to really fat pipes - broadband is generally considered a smaller cost than a new, high end computer (~$200 setup/modem/etc for broadband, ~$800-1000 for a new machine). Alot of these people, while not "power gamers", do play alot of counterstrike, half-life, quake 2, etc.

Security Issues?

[cybergibbons]

With Steam, all of your authentication information is stored server side.

Surely this is not a good thing? It is in reference to a re-install - initially I thought each copy of Steam would contain some form of authentication with the servers, but if you have just done a complete re-install, Steam will be gone as well as your half-life CD key.

It could be something as simple as a password, but game developers aren't noted for their skills in the security world - simply gaining access to someones "account" could gain you access to every game they own

Of course, that is what Kazaa et. al are for

Been Done, by sega no less

[DA-MAN]

Sega use to do this way back when. They used to have the Sega Channel, an adapter that hooked up to a Genesis and would let you play games. I wonder what's so revolutionary about this time around. Doesn't sound to different based on the info provided on the links, well except that it installs in less time than a cd.

Re:Been Done, by sega no less

[MisterBlister]

The new thing with this system is it streams game content as needed. So you can be playing level 1 while its downloading level 2 (simple example). The Sega channel would just download the full Genesis ROM image, put it in RAM, and then play it.

Coming up next: Pay for play

[fahrvergnugen]

This is obviously a ploy aimed squarely at turning the online Half-life community into a pay-for-play revenue stream, at least over the long haul. The 'shack article alludes slightly to this, although Gabe Newell makes it sound a little more palatable, and wants to be our friend. He promises not to charge us twice for the same product. All who believe him, raise your hand.

While the features mentioned (automatic patches, etc.) are very cool, they're also merely the bullet points needed to sell the software to developers and clients.

Gamers are likely eager to jump on the technology if they can get the latest patches and maps without having to take an active role in the proces by going out and downloading them proactively.

Developers are likely to use it because then they don't have to worry about producing media, documentation, or those other annoying things that soften the pain of paying $50 a pop to most gamers.

Valve wins 2 ways: First, they can move all of the userbase over to a subscription model and start making little hats out of money. Second, they can get a piece of each sale from other developers' work that hits their content distribution system, and make little money shirts to match the hats.

Think about it. Half-Life came out 5 years ago. A lot of us have plunked down our $50 and have been playing away happily ever since at Counterstrike, DOD, Existence, and many other wonderful mods without giving Valve a penny.

Now, the case can easily be made that Valve DESERVES more cash. They've continued to pump money into the Half-life community, making Counterstrike into a commercial product, releasing the classic quake and team fortress classic mods, releasing patches and feature upgrades these many years, and constantly improving the product.

This works fine while your game is in the top seller lists through constant re-release. It breaks down when you hit market saturation. Who does Valve turn to when Half-Life isn't in the top 20 anymore, and Team Fortress II is no longer even a twinkle in Gabe Newell's eye?

It turns to you, the purchaser of the original product, who is brazenly continuing to enjoy the it long after anyone thought you would still pay attention to it. Your brazen audacity shown by not becoming a consistent revenue stream will be corrected once and for all!

In fact, if you buy a game over Steam, who's to say that the content provider can't just turn it off a few years down the road when the sequel's released? With constant enforcement of new patch downloads, what happens to purists who might enjoy the gameplay of an earlier revision? What if I want to install a custom hack such as a Tribes 2 HUD or build my own decal in Half-Life, only to have these changes constantly overwritten by the autoupdater?

Control over how I can execute my software should be left in my hands, not in the hands of a subscription service or remote authentication server. The current system isn't broken, and steam doesn't really address any significant problems except Valve's diminishing bottom line.

Consumer savings doubtful

[AHumbleOpinion]

... completely bypass the middleman = savings for the consumer ...

Doubtful. The consumer has demonstrated a willingness to pay $50 or so for a game. The business model used by the developers will probably be based on this fact and they will try to collect about the same amount of money in the end, it may not be all up front.

The good news may really be that the developers get most of the money and this will probably result in a greater percentage of your $50 being reinvested in the game via more content, expansions, new versions, etc.

Re:Consumer savings doubtful

[Dark Paladin]

Oh, I don't know.

Look at it this way. Suppose that the actual game costs, $20, while the manual/box/cd-case/cd/etc costs another $10, so they tack on $10-$20 for profit.

Now, Valve says "We'll charge you $25 bucks for Half-Life 2 through our streaming server, and you can download the manual in PDF format. If you want a print copy, we'll mail you a copy for $5, and if you want a CD with that, it's another $10.

Now Valve is still making a good profit, and we have a choice in either printing a manual (in the case of most First Person Shooter games, the manual is basically "how to install, shoot what moves, in the case of a RPG, I might either spring $10 for the manual, or just buy the "help guide" for $20 (which would include the manual).

It's an interesting idea, and I give Valve credit for experimenting. Maybe it won't pan out, like Stephen King's e-Book idea, maybe it will (yes, I know it made money, shut up). But Valve can try it out, and if it takes off, we could see a *very* interesting shift in the balance of power between developers and publishers. Publishers would still be necessary for financing, but wouldn't have the total power of distribution they have now.

Just my opinion - I could be wrong.

Nothing new at all

[CathedralRulz]

Kind of funny to read about this on Gamespy - as they have a product, the Gamespy arcade, that does EVERYTHING that this "steam" product does.

It uses broadband? Well so does Gamespy.

Besides, haven't they learned that it's the GAMES that drive the platform, not the other way around.

I hope they take care of the problems with

[t0qer]

downloading patches from servers full of banner ads and click me's and X-10 camera ads. It's annoying as hell these things, they make me want to reach through the computer screen and get very angry with someone. Lets hope they take an approach similiar to this article.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/20/0143 24 8&mode=thread

More Important is What They're Not Telling You

[ewhac]

This is, of course, the Holy Grail of the "content" industries: Never even pretend to sell anything again, just rent access to it. Steam looks like it's the first cohesive attempt to do exactly this.

First, the scenario they describe to make Steam seem appealing ("You need to re-install Windows from scratch, but you can't find your Half-Life CD key! What will you do!?") fails on two major points:

• The need to re-install Windows at all. This is due to perennially shoddy Microsoft engineering, and it's a damn shame Valve is spending precious R&D dollars trying to compensate for it.
• The illusory need for a CD key.

Cut out either of those issues, and Steam's appeal to users is diminished.

Second, I challenge the claim that, with nothing stored on the local disk, Half-Life starts up quickly. Half-Life is fscking enormous. Single maps are at least 1M in size, with 3M being entirely common. Do the math yourself. Even at 1.5Mb/sec saturated, that's still 20 seconds just to download the map. Then you get to download the player models, sound effects, music tracks, etc. etc. Unless they've done some massive engineering to achieve "just-in-time" downloading (this is still a major area of ongoing research), I don't see how they could have made this an acceptable alternative over storing the files locally.

Third, if they're saturating the link to download the content, what's left for actually playing the game over the network? Many people get broadband for the lower ping and higher rate, resulting in smoother, more responsive game play. What happens to that experience when some other process is consuming the lion's share of the link?

Fourth, not having a complete copy of all the bits needed to run the software makes me extremely queasy. What happens when the master index server craps out? What happens when my Steam client gets toasted by the latest Outlook virus?

Having all the bits stored locally is also what's helped bootstrap and maintain the Mod community. There, on your disk, are numerous examples of maps/models/art/music that can be taken apart by users, studied, and used by creative people to come up with new maps and Mods. But what happens to all that when Steam enters the picture? The bits aren't on your disk. Will Steam hand you a copy of the bits, or will it refuse, claiming you're not a, "trusted application?"

Fifth, I don't see the "daily update to thwart cheaters" as a feature at all, much less a realistic goal. The two primary things standing in the way of this are:

• Proxies on separate machines can still be written, nullifying local attempts to thwart hacks;
• Release testing for Windoze takes at least a month. Regression tests against Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME Harder, Windows NT4, Windows NT5 (2K), Windows XP, and all the various forms of hell that is DirectX practically guarantees that the notion of quick-tweak-and-post-to-server just ain't gonna happen.

Finally, I'm concerned about all the stuff they're not telling you. There are obvious privacy/security concerns here:

• How is billing performed? Can I pay in advance by cash or check? Who will have access to my credit card number?
• How does Steam know it's "me"? Are login sessions encrypted so no one can obtain my password without my permission?
• Once I'm logged in, how much data is Steam gathering about me in the background? Are they sniffing around in my machine? Are they tracking which games I'm playing, when, and for how long? What will Steam do with that information once they obtain it? (Any why do they imagine this would be any of their damn business?)

Personally, I'm all for developing new facilities that help cut out the middleman and get more dollars directly to the creators of digital works. Perhaps it's my aging, cynical brain but, as a software consumer, I just don't see any advantage Steam provides for me.

Schwab

Re:More Important is What They're Not Telling You

[Sabalon]

Good points. Also:

What happens when my cable modem is down and I wanna play, or I go to a LAN party with no outside connection? I get into the game and all of a sudden "could not connect to Steam server for texture x."

I have a cable modem so I have extra bandwidth. If I want to download some big file while playing and streaming an mp3, I can do it. Forget it if this is using 90% of my bandwidth!

Huh?

[The_Shadows]

Content delivery system? From Valve?

This is what has been staving off the release off Team Fortress 2 (and Half-Life 2, for that matter)?!?!?

Valve: I want TF2! Make with the gaming!

Re:Ok, let's start with the... Yes BUT

[q-soe]

Its free but it asks for credit card details and there is no indication on the site or information about why they want it.

Plus they ask for special offer code which you dont have of course.

Why do they need my credit card? why wont they tell me why they need it ? I dont give my card number out to anyone for any verification process, its bullshit and a company the size of valve should not need it.

I wanted to try this out but i wont be doing so as i wont give them my credit card - this is a BETA test. At this point it reminds me of the famous Lindows pay $99 to beta test our software but you cant tell anyone about it or show it to anyone.

Something smells fishy here.

Re:Ok, let's start with the... Yes BUT

[q-soe]

Apologies i missed the bit about key generator in the setup BUT i still want to know WHY the credit card

Re:Custom ads, in game textures

[zapfie]

Ouch.. no, no no.. I can already see it happening. Then you'll have the radio communications contain ads ("Our PlayStation 2 Command Center is under attack!").. then next thing you know, you'll be wielding the McHamburger Blaster 2000, and using it to feed hungry McDonalds customers in a non-violent, family-friendly game...

Maybe I shouldn't post at 5 in the morning..

Re:Coming up next: Pay for play

[Anonymous Coward]

How?

No one forced Valve to make HL so mod-friendly. And if they didn't, developers would simply go to a different game. Indeed, Valve already is getting more money than they theoretically should, all because of third party mods.

What's more, third party mod developers (Well, the good ones) are often drafted into gaming houses because of the fact that they've displayed they know what they're doing, unlike most people being churned out of universities.

Oh, I agree with the rest, but there's no real case for Valve being owed more money for what they've done - they're reaping benefits already from being mod-friendly.

Half-Life in 45 seconds

[rufusdufus]

I just installed their beta; took less than 10 seconds of download to get the steam code. I installed Half-Life and it took 45 seconds to install, and I was in the game.

The process is beautifully seamless.

Re:Half-Life in 45 seconds

[Contact]

Sorry, could you expand on this?

Did you have Half Life installed at all before starting Steam up? If not, what sort of connection are you on?

45 seconds of "normal" broadband (around 50 kbytes/sec) comes out to about 2.25 Mb of content - Doom was larger than that, so forgive me if I'm a little sceptical that Half Life can be retrieved that rapidly.

If not, what exactly was being retrieved here - the CS 1.4 upgrade? If so, did you have CS 1.3 installed already, or was this a full download? In either case, 45 seconds would be impressive - the CS 1.3 full installer was around 100 Mb, and the CS 1.1 to 1.3 updater was about 35 Mb.

Cheers.

Tim.

Re:Half-Life in 45 seconds

[rufusdufus]

I have AT&T broadband. Also, just because Gabe says 4x compression, some types of data, like 3d map data, can compress up to 50:1.

Steam is going public?

[FuShanks]

(Hm. I suppose since they made a public announcement NDAs don't apply...)

I thought the Steam delivery system was just for the beta testers. I hate the bloody thing. Runs in the background, downloads maps as you need them, requires you to log on to play, etc. I figured it was a necessary evil as a beta tester; I'm not going to put up with it as a gamer. Is there some way to boycott this? First PowerPlay and now this shit. Valve isn't a game company - game companies make games.

FUD! Taco's objections apply to EverQuest etc too

[Behrooz]

Most of the objections raised by Taco and others posting here can be applied equally to EverQuest and all of the other pay2play MMORPGs, or gaming in general.

-Mod support: This requires an active contribution from the developers in any case. Modifying a game that hasn't had mod support written in and documented by the developers would be ridiculously difficult. If developers don't want people to modify the game, they can QUITE easily make it prohibitively difficult to do so. If the developers don't want people modifying the game, it doesn't matter if it's on Steam or not.

-"They can choose when they wish to interrupt us, whether it be from a family meal or our favorite TV shows, to allow them the high likelyhood that we can be reached, as the demographics have clearly been researched on such common behavioral patterns": This is a problem with *any* application you run with priveliges to access the internet. If you don't like what an application does, don't run it. The distribution method is irrelevant.

To bounce around some other threads in this discussion:

-Account Security concerns: Once again, this is a problem with *anything* dealing with identity, authentication, and money on the internet.

-"i still want to know WHY the credit card information": Why does EQ want your credit card #? So they can charge you money to gain access to their servers, obviously.

As for concerns about advertising... *why*? This is obviously being modeled as a continuous revenue stream-- monthly fees. Ads that annoy and alienate players are a net LOSE for their bottom line.

Quite simply, Steam is a response to the realization that online multiplayer is *the* market segment to be in for gaming.

I also think that this is a great idea. I'd *love* to be able to download games for a nominal fee ($10) or so, and not renew the service after the first month if it wasn't worth it.

Bottom line: The scary parts of Steam aren't anything new, and the good stuff might mean a revolution in content distribution for gaming. From a distribution and support perspective, this is brilliant! Imagine clients being patched without user effort and bugs being reported with the system specs instantly available to the support systems. Imagine being able to get a refund for games that simply refuse to run on your system. Imagine raising the bar for the difficulty of cheating so high that it ceases to become an issue. Imagine the mod-distribution possibilities! It's *difficult* to pay attention to all of the half-life mods that are available, let alone download them and get them working.

All-around, this is hardcore win-win for gamers and developers.

What IS their reason for doing this?

[cca93014]

Although I am a little suspicious of Valves long term strategy for Steam, I am prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

The main concern of a pay-to-play model seems unfounded; Valve are doing very well at the moment as it is. Steam is going to give them even higher profit margins through the removal of the majority of the supply chain.

The argument that the current system isn't broken is completely flawed. The CS community is almost at breaking point with regard to cheating. IMHO this is the killer app of Steam. I dont mind waiting an hour to download the latest CS update, and I certainly wouldn't pay for the removal of this inconvenience, but I WOULD pay 5 pounds a month for a guaranteed cheat free counter strike. Most people I know who play CS would do the same. Cheating is endemic and hopefully this will be the silver bullet.

Valve seem to understand the gamer pretty well. They have heavily backed the modding community (a risky business decision as they net no revenue from existing HL customers) and have come out winners. Just because they are a capitalist business doesn't mean they are stupid. They know how fickle gamers can be and they know that their position could easily become tenuous if they start installing spyware all over the place.

Sometimes you need to have faith in a company and give them your support (read $$$ or £££ or whatever) for them to create a revolutionary product.

I'm going to support it. And I applaud Valve for setting this thing up. Sure, if they start spamming me to hell or intruding on my game I'll reconsider, but I think we have to give this sort of project a break and wait and see what happens...

You have a very fast cable modem...

[ergo98]

I get up to and past 500kb/sec on my broadband connection.. With 4:1 compression, a 650 mb cd becomes a 162mb download. That's about a 324 second download, or roughly 5 1/2 minutes. Faster than a lot of CD installs I've done.

500Kb/sec = approximately 50 KB/second. Therefore 162MB = 162000 KB / 50 KB/s = 3240 seconds/60(m) = 54 minutes. If, on the other hand, you actually have a 500KB/second (or 5000Kb/second) cable modem, then you are a very lucky, and very rare, person : Most of us are capped at either 1.5Mbps or 2.0Mbps.

I truthfully didn't read the article, however my presumption from the Slashdot post was the CPU and network utilization was during transferring, so it's basically saying "We easily maxed out the pipe with our proprietary compression technology, and could run many multiples faster if the net connection allowed it, given the low CPU utilization. Regarding CD installs, it is interesting to consider that a 1x CD is about 176KB/second, or just a bit faster than a T1.

Re:You have a very fast cable modem...

[ergo98]

Well adding in the overhead of Ethernet, IP, TCP, and then presumably FTP : The general number that I've come to trust is /10.

Are P.C. users smart enough. . ?

[Fantastic Lad]

People who use PC's are, by neccessity, aware of how the guts of their machines work to a degree, especially on-line gamers. THIS means that 90% of Steam users will worry about the two following items:

1) Invasion of privacy. What else is Steam doing in my system?

2) Pay-per-use Data. "You mean I don't own what I just paid for? Games are not movies. You want to access them many many more times than once or twice.

People who use PC's are not quite as sheepish as game platform users. --That is, platform users are less likely to understand why something like Steam is invasive and ecconomically corrupt.

This is just another 'softener' for the eventual establishment of virtual money, bio-metrics and similar attempts at massive population control.

Has anybody else noticed that this so-called, 'Beta Testing' phase is in fact a mass distribution effort? "2000 more users a day???" This is not a beta test. The program is already in the bag. This is wide scale marketing, and people are falling for it.

-Fantastic Lad

Re:Sierra is still a heavyweight?

[glwtta]

wtf?? can someone please explain to me the concept of trolling? for instance, why is wanting to know why Sierra is still considered to be a heavyweight even though I haven't seen a game from them in years, considered to be such?

Re:Coming up next: Pay for play

[majcher]

Now, the case can easily be made that Valve DESERVES more cash. They've continued to pump money into the Half-life community, making Counterstrike into a commercial product, releasing the classic quake and team fortress classic mods, releasing patches and feature upgrades these many years, and constantly improving the product.

Hell yeah. Over the years, I've probably gotten more gameplay from single-player Half-Life, deathmatch, Team Fortress Classic, and Counterstrike alone than any other recent game in memory. We're talking solid *months* of engrossing, well-produced, *fun* gameplay. Also, over the years, I've gladly bought two or three replacement Half-Life CDs for those that were lost or lent because, well, they damn well deserve it.

On the other hand, you have something like Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Bland single-player, unimaginative and buggy multiplayer, not really worth playing for more than a few hours, if that. (IMHO) Borrowed a friends copy for "evaluation purposes", and was immediately disappointed, and very glad that I didn't drop $65 at a local retailer for it. I will gladly spend that $65 on a game from someone like Valve.

I must be a l33t hax0r

[xenocide2]

'cuz I don't even have a credit card, and Steam runs just fine without me entering one.

At any rate, I'm guessing that the credit card number is there because they'll be offering "subscriptions" to other 'software content' at a price. Give away counterstrike to get people looking, and then make a half-assed attempt at selling people on other games.

Re:Ok, let's start with the... Yes BUT

[q-soe]

A further Update.

I apologise - in a conversation with tech support on the forum i have discovered that their keygen had an issue and didnt work properly thats why it asked me for the CC number.

It does that without the secret code as its a full working version of the client they will be using.

I have now downloaded the software and played half life, i have a post in the same story about it an i can say that it appears to work as advertised.

I was wrong.

I apologise.

Re:Sierra is still a heavyweight?

[Martin Blank]

Because Sierra is one of the biggest game publishers on the planet. Consider:

Half-Life
Aliens vs. Predator 2
Tribes 2
Die Hard
No One Lives Forever
Arcanum
King's Quest 8
NASCAR Racing series
Empire Earth
Homeworld

Those are only a few selected games out of their much larger total list of software published. They're nowhere near gone.

They can't even make Half-Life auto-update work

[PatJensen]

I just want to say something here about Valve's new content delivery system. This comes from the guys that can't even get a Half-Life or CounterStrike update to you, without using 20 non-working mirrors in Japan at 4k/s. Who here has downloaded the latest 38 files to upgrade CounterStrike to be playable? How many sites did you have to click on, and how many banners did you have to click through after you tried all 20 non-working mirrors?

I'm a cable user, and trying to get updates are a joke. The updater software that ships with their products doesn't even work, out of the box even. Jesus, these guys can't even get patches out for their own games. I wouldn't trust them to do game distribution.

-Pat

Vaporware?

[jcc]

(Score:5, Funny)
Steam? Sounds like vaporware to me!

Team Fortress 2

[Tom7]

Ah, good thing they've been holding off on Team Fortress 2 for YEARS in order to create this masterpiece.

Back to work, Valve!

Re:Ok, let's start with the... Yes BUT

[SuperRob]

THIS, my friends, is one of my biggest complaints about the Internet. The uninformed can start bashing anything to their hearts content. Here is a case where someone started baching a product he hadn't yet used. Then he used it, and bashed various parts of it without fully reading the notes on what he was using. Then, he finally figures it all out, and posts a "retraction" ... that few people will ever read.

People are so quick to "have their say", they don't stop to think whether or not what they are saying is factually based or not.

In this particular case, Valve has done more for PC gaming (and Internet gaming) than most companies ever dream of. Half-Life is indeed an incredible value, as is just about everything of Valve's I've touched.

I have no reason to beleive that Steam doesn't work as they claim (people are using it and says that it does indeed work just as Gabe claims), or that there is some huge ulterior motive here. Just more Slashdot conspiracy theorists, needing something besides Microsoft to bitch about.

Hell, there's a post above where someone managed to take a shot at MS (something about needing to reinstall Windows and losing your cd-key for Half-Life) in addition to Valve. That takes talent of a sort.

The Internet has given everyone a voice. And everyone uses that voice to BITCH.

Steam has been great

[Chuckaluphagus]

I've been a beta tester for Steam since mid-January, and I've been immensely pleased with the software and the gameplay. In order to play any game, you have to go through an initial download of compressed files, and it all takes up about half a gigabyte on your hard drive. This can take a while, but it's a one-shot deal, so I'd pick up a book or make myself dinner for twenty minutes. After this first delay, all updates are handled automatically at login, and they're transparent- unless you bother to check, you're never going to notice that some small patch has been installed to the software.

Login is a simple name(e-mail address, really) and password. This may certainly change, but that's how it stands now. There are no ads beyond a mention of Speakeasy.net, the company hosting the Steam servers, I gather.

The interface for game selection is excellent, as is the "Tracker" software, a combination IM/Gamespy Arcade applet that helps you find servers. The software does seem to improve on a near-daily basis, with fixes to minor bugs, improving ping times, etc. The staff has been great about communication on both the forums and through e-mail.

And one of the best things about Steam was watching all those people who have based their entire game of Counterstrike around bunny-hopping fall flat on their faces. CS 1.4 was first demoed over Steam, and it removed bunny hopping. Bloody crack rabbits getting capped left and right, swearing about how horrible the game is now. Brings tears of laughter to my eyes...

Advertising, sure, but there's a larger issue...

[artemis67]

Namely, the push into subscription-based models for ALL games. If we could imagine a scenario where all game publishers are using Steam to deliver games, sooner or later (probably sooner), one of the suits is going to suggest that they could make a heck of a lot more revenue selling subscriptions to games rather than selling the actual game.

Yes, they are saving money by not selling shrink-wrapped CD's. But those savings are going to be short-lived as everyone starts competing in online distribution. And once they realize that they have cut game prices as low as they can to compete, the next logical step is subscriptions for everything (single-player games included).

You won't be able to "relive the good old days" without whipping out the credit card first. :-(

all hype

[mshurpik]

So you play online games, right? You play Counter-Strike? Team Fortress Classic?

No, not really, just Starcraft.

You hate cheaters? How about downloading patches?

Starcraft downloads patches automatically.

It uses a high-performance distributed file system for fast, scalable content delivery.

I think the bottleneck is probably still the Internet.

This is only a small glimpse of what Steam will be able to do.

So, as usual, you haven't written any code yet.

Here is a familiar scenario: You reinstall Windows on your PC. You then start to reinstall your favorite games, only to discover you can't find your Half-Life CD-Key! Doh! What are you going to do?

I'll put my CD key in a textfile called cd-keys.txt (and maybe I'll even print it out!)

With Steam, all of your authentication information is stored server side.

"With Hitler's Third Reich, all your racial/ethnic information is stored in Berlin!"

After launching Half-Life from Steam, it downloaded the necessary files (which took hardly any time at all - actually it was faster than using a CD)

broadband = T5 in this scenario?

92% wire utilization

Wow, you saturated my connection. Doesn't *every* packet-switched application do this?

GameSpy will have more updates about Steam as it becomes available.

Go, code monkeys, go! Work that emacs buffer!!

ummm

[asv108]

Shouldn't they be spending more time on TF2? I preordered it from ebworld.com in September of 98, it was suppose to arrive on my doorstep in late November of 1998 and I have been waiting diligently on my doorstep every day since for my TF2 add-on pack.

Re:Cost of bandwidth

[Sloppy]

I was under the impression that the bandwidth was costly enough for a 'simple' game server. But they are proposing that you download the whole game (runtime file at least) every time you want to play? Or simply every time there is a new version available?

One idea (although there's a slimy aspect to it) would be to take the Napster approach and shift the bandwidth cost back to their users. Instead of serving multimegabyte files, just be a directory that refers requests to other people who have already downloaded it. When you connect, you would become a server for whatever you've already downloaded.

Remember when Valve made GAMES?

[nobodyman]

Half Life is five years old. That's an eternity in terms of software. Since that time they have developed a grand total of zero games. none. Since that time they have re-released half-life countless times, paid OTHER DEVELOPERS for add-on packs for half-life, and purchased the rights to half-life mods and commercially released them.
And don't get me started on Team Fortress 2 which has been in development hell for roughly four years.

I mean, good god... five years and no game? This makes John Romero look like a fucking workaholic.

It seems all they do now is figure out ways to pimp out the half-life engine. Personally, I've had it with the hero worship of Valve software. Half Life was great, but what have they done for us lately??

Re:Coming up next: Pay for play

[McSpew]

While I don't doubt that Steam gives Valve a mechanism for eventually offering pay-per-play games, they've so far shown that they're far more interested in mining the obscenely huge video game market in a less insidious way. After all, they saw what a huge success Counter-Strike was and decided on their own to pour money and resources into making it a high-quality mod because they knew even if CS was free, it'd drive sales of Half-Life. Sure, they created a multiplayer-only version of HL based on CS and sold it separately, but everybody who'd bought HL when it first came out could get a commercial-quality multiplayer game based on HL for free.

It seems that Steam's development explains why Valve has been utterly silent on TF2 for the last year, though. They've clearly decided not to roll out TF2 until Steam is completed.

Valve and Evil and Pimping

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

Steam does sound a lot like it is a tool that could be turned to the side of evil (i.e. you don't own anything, you pay by the hour to play, la la la) but it is being released by Valve, who's shown that they do understand what the people who play their games want out of them, and what they won't stand for.

I am actually very happy that they've spent the last few years pimping the HL engine rather than making new games- the HL engine is actually still Pretty Damn Good. It's showing its age and has a few large, nagging problems (especially numerous audio bugs) but all in all it works for mod designers.

So, Valve has worked up the credibility to experiment a little. Let's see what comes out.

Who says they're paying for any bandwidth?

[Convergence]

Who says you're paying for any of the bandwidth you're supposedly going to use to their servers to download the games.

Because if I was implementing Steam, I'd make it peer-to-peer. IE, break it up into 256kb blocks, which individual users can download from each other.. Then the central server just says 'hey, download blocks 1,2,3,4 from foo and 5,6,7,8 from bar', then it passes out signed MD5's of the blocks (to detect corruption) and away things go.

Then they merely seed a few dozen users with a game and/or updates, and then pay for no bandwidth after that. If they're not idiots, they'll do this.

Anyone want to take a bet as to whether they're idiots or not?

Anyways, I don't think that the bandwidth argument really flies. This is just pay-for-play...

Re:Who says they're paying for any bandwidth?

[Martin Blank]

It may well become pay-for-play. But the bandwidth costs out of decent datacenters is dropping rapidly. I work at a datacenter myself, and I see the difference between what a T1/DS1 costs from the phone company and what we charge for a T1-equivalent out of our own connections. I know of a couple of larger companies that are getting even sweeter deals than we are, and I expect the numbers to continue to drop. Bandwidth, assuming Valve gets a nice clean connection to a major backbone provider, will be a much smaller piece of the distribution costs than CDs now are.

you don't understand the technology

[Khopesh]

not 500mb in 3 minutes.
i used to work for the first company to develop such a technology (Into Networks - they power the Real Networks RealArcade). basically it works like a virtual CD, mounted over the internet. you don't need all the data at once, just whatever your system needs to process at one time. there was normally a pre-load for the times when you would need data faster than your connection could handle (mostly for movies or engines), like the 3 minutes you wait for Steam.

Let me repeat that: you download things as you need them! those resources, textures, sounds all come to you later. the maps come when thay are the one you are playing.

I tested this kind of software and even on first person shooters, so i think i can assure you that this technology works, and i've known for quite some time now that this IS the future of online gaming - think of how hard it is to cheat now!

Re:Ok, let's start with the... Yes BUT

[q-soe]

I apologised for my error and i didnt bash the product - i have bought every one of valves releases and until i contacted them i had no idea what the issue was, the documentation on the site wasn' good enough.

If you do some investigating on this subject you will find another post by me in which i support and proclaim valve for the quality of the product.

I apologised and used my logged in name for it thus risking losing karma. I have never karma whored and worked damn hard to build it up BUT the right thing to do is apolgise if you make an error.

As for the conspiracy theory stuff, read some of my other posts - im not a linux zealot, i often post supporting MS.

But i love the last line about bitching

Pot meet kettle

Re:Sierra is still a heavyweight?

[Martin Blank]

OK, you've got a point there. But having one's HR department semi-randomly hack up the rosters and being "gone" aren't the same thing.