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Half-Life 2's Multitude Of Purchase Options
Thanks to ShackNews for their post explaining the multiple ways consumers can buy Half-Life 2, summing up a confirmed email/forum post by Valve's Gabe Newell following much false information. The options are summed up as: "...a single-player only mass market version ('sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world'), a traditional single/multiplayer version for places like EB Games, and a collector edition's version ('with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff')... [and] Steam pricing plans", which will include one-time download fees, or "...pay a monthly fee and have access to all Valve titles", including Half-Life 2.
I'm going to use the P2P "purchase" option.
Will HL2 for Xbox have an extra fee on top of Xbox Live subscription fees? Seems possible, but I would not be surprised if Microsoft saw having HL2 on Xbox as important enough to give Valve a good deal on XBL revenue sharing, thus avoiding the extra cost.
Frankly, I'm not that keen on the new system. We don't know what the one-time cost is going to be for the game without the subscription. It could be $60. Also, what happens if/when the service shuts down in four years or so? How do you play on a laptop on the road?
Combine consumer confusion over the various products with subscription fees and requiring an online connection to play the single player game and requiring that LAN parties provide internet access to check in with STEAM and it just sounds like a huge tangle that won't set the world on fire.
While I don't have the quote handy, the old Valve approach was that you could share the HL CD with up to four other people at a LAN without problems. As I recall, it wasn't discouraged and was almost encouraged. As a result, everyone loved the game and bought it by the truckload. The new system sounds onerous enough that some enthusiasm will no doubt be dampened.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
So, let's see. I can pay a monthly subscription fee, and get all the stuff that Valve releases in the future for free.
And it only took them...what, six years to go from Half-Life to Half-Life 2?
Sounds like a deal to me!
I can see it now. All these CS hackers that have to buy a new copy to get a new wonid when banned can just pay another $9.95 instead. Yay.
Suck it!
Right, so if this game is out at the end of this month, is there any way to get a demo of it?
Probably not, if they have 26 more days to get it to market and they're still playtesting and pondering issues like this.
But how about a one level test? By this I mean - not a demo to get people to buy the game, but rather something running on the Source engine to see whether or not this stupid thing will even run on your system. Make it one of the scientist guys taking you through a tour of some of the things the engine will do, and maybe he could even reccomend ways to uprade your system for better performance. Hell, ATI or whoever could sponsor it.
I just don't want to buy it and then discover I have to upgrade to run worth a damn.
Schnapple
what ever happened to putting it on a dsc, putting the disc in the box, and giving the customers a simple package with a working, non-crippled product in it? this is utterly rediculous, in my opinion.
this is going to confuse the hell out of parents and grandparents buying the game for the upcoming holiday season.
also: is anyone else utterly sick of collectors editions of movies and games? at least they're putting this out at the same time, but still, I don't want to have to choose between a crappy bare bones version and a fancy version with hordes of extras and such.. if anything, make the game you get in all the boxes the same, and put a soundtrack cd, a t-shirt, a map, a pewter ordinator figurine, whatever in the collectors version.. not extra game content.
as for the mod community: I seriously think that with the various rediculous distribution methods, this will kill the mod community for HL2 before it even has a chance of being born.
Ok, I'll try answering the questions. No, there will not be an 'additional monthly fee' for xbox half-life 2. The monthly subscription thing is NOT for halflife 2. It is for forthcoming games using the half-life 2 engine that Valve will develop/publish. This will include expansion packs like Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and things like Team Fortress 2. The subscription fee is just A WAY TO RENT these games, instead of paying for each one at the store.
Valve has said there will be a HL2 benchmark released before the game, so you can test your hardware against it. But there will not be a demo before release.
The new pricing model is actually pretty cool. The moms and dads who shop at wal-mart for christmas games for their kids will be able to buy the single-player version for a discount price. Game enthusiasts will be able to buy singleplayer + multiplayer for normal price. And in the future, people who want to try out expansion packs or new multiplayer games for a month or two without having to buy each of them at the store will be able to pay 10 bucks to play all of them for a month.
For some reason people have been getting pretty confused about how this works, and the inevitable "Valve is trying to screw us!" keeps popping up. If anything, the new pricing model gives people more value for their money, not less. Some people don't LIKE multiplayer, they should have an option to pay less and only purchase single player. Some people will want to try out expansion packs and TF2 without having to pay full price for each of them, they should have the option to do so. It's all about more options.
I don't really understand why they would sell a single player only version at walmart and then sell a regular single/multiplayer version at "gaming" stores. Just sell the regular version everywhere..
The majority of the copies are going to be sold through places like Walmart. What does this do to the online community? Screws 'em.
Even Microsoft learned that it was a bad idea to make multiple versions of their flight simulator games (eg: FS 2002 and FS 2002 Pro) because it was damn irritating and confusing to the more casual simmer. So they stopped this practice with FS 2004.
If Valve (sorry, "VALVe") follows suit, by releasing a version without multiplayer - they've just killed their multiplayer community for HalfLife. Many people will just buy whatever version they get their hands on first, only to find out later there's no multiplayer. In the meantime, there will be a far lower server population and less servers.
HalfLife's success came from the free mods - Counterstrike in particular. To start trying to charge for the basic ability to play an online mod for a game isn't going to be productive, less so when they actually want to charge for something like Team Fortress 2 when the prequel was available for free.
First, the date everyone keeps mentioning in the thread (and here) as being the end of September for the release? According to ebworld.com, the currently listed release date for hl2 is 11/18/03. Which, needless to say, isn't this month. Second, nobody has available anywhere on their preorder pages (at least that I can find) any information about collector's edition vs. standard vs. 'lite' versions of Half-Life 2. I do wish that the information about the 'extras' was a little more clear. If the extras are simply a 'autographed' manual, a little Gordon Freeman figure, a soundtrack CD, and a bigger box, big whoop. I don't care. But if the extras are 'extra player models, additional maps, a tf2 preview / playable demo' or things of that nature, then the collector's edition becomes more appealing.
If I recall correctly, the demo for the first Half-Life came out a bit after the final game was out, but it was also a seperate mission that didn't appear in the game.
A pretty good trade off, if you ask me.
This is news. This is kind of a big deal.
This is Sierra using the MMRPG model for a type of game that has traditionally been supported for free. Sure patches and whatnot will still be free, but other things that were free aren't gonna be anymore (Counterstrike). I dunno, I think this is weird. Maybe I'm just not grasping the whole thing, but I don't see a ton of people subscribing to Half-Life (steam, whatever).
If this was MS changing Office to subscription based sales (or even offering that option for non corporate users) everyone here would be going ape shit.
As another poster stated, It was what, six years between games? That's $720 right there. ENOUGH FOR A DECENT NEW MACHINE. I am truely baffled by this.
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
... if they price it the way I hope they will.
A new game on average costs 50 euros where I live. If the SP-only game costs 40 euros or below, and the MP-enabled one costs 50 euros, all is good and well. Also, I'd like the ability to upgrade my SP version to MP and mod-enabled version for 10 - 15 euros; I'd rather not pay the price of an entirely new MP version just to play multiplayer.
The forty euro option would be excellent for gamers who don't really bother with multiplayer and usually don't have time to try out the multitude of mods (like me, for instance). However, there should be the option of upgrading inexpensively.
If they implement it this way, here's one sale for one SP only version.
The Steam subscription version could be useful for gamers who usually play through a game in a month or so and then move on to other games. If you play it through once a month you could play it for X dollars in October and then another X dollars next July on your holidays to see how well Duke Nukem Forever's graphics match up with HL2's.
Why don't they tell us what is included in the collectors edition? With it being such a short time before the box is released, I don't want a vague "lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff" surprise type stuff. I want to know if it is worth buying ASAP.
Then there is the problem with how they decide to anounce all the diffrent versions, you have less then 30 days to try and secure a collectors edition that was just announced.
If it includes say a special box, a music cd and/or a figure I might buy it even though it will not run on my machine.
Do any of you really do your choice video game shopping at Wal-Mart? If you do, and refuse to shop elsewhere, you deserve to get screwed.
... No. See, it doesn't work like that.
And for all the whining about selling access to mods? So what? It's nothing new for a company to sell add-ons to released games. You don't complain about that, do you? Look at Morrowind, they've got two addons! They're trying to screw the customer! *gasp*
All the complaining I'm seeing here is that official mods, which they pay to have produced, are being charged for. Everyone does that. All this means is that the door is open for a new team to come out of nowhere and blow the doors off of Counter-Strike with their own free mod. Seriously, what's with this obscene devotion to the brands that makes people say "Oh no, it's just not right!"?
I mean, I'm an anarchist and socialist. I think it should all be free. But given the system and how it works, this is absolutely nothing new at all. Old hat, even.
Jeffool.
I have a feeling that all Steam is going to be is a bunch of hot air. Gimme the box and the CD.
I think I'd like to know exactly what they would be releasing for the $10/month subscription fee. For $120 dollars a year, I could buy 3 other games at full price (give or take), so if Valve releases 4 new games that year, it would be worth it (I already own Half-Life and some of the expansions).
However, if Valve doesn't release anything beyond the game and a couple of expansions, then it doesn't make any sense to go the subscription route.
Am I missing something fundamental here? Unless Valve increases the number of games it releases in a year, the subscription method seems pretty worthless.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
I will use your Steam downloading service for $2 a month. Maybe with a $10 - $15 first time user fee... Maybe.
Do yourselves a favor. If you're going to jumpstart a new method of pay-to-access media distribution, do it slowly and intelligently.
You will make a large profit because that many more people will hop on board who could care less about a $10/month subscription fee, like myself.
what about all the kids who are gonna get the GAY singleplayer only package?
Wow, they have just made the announcement of more then six diffrent versions and now have added a gay singleplayer edition!
Here is hoping they are doing a busty babes singleplayer edition. Heck, they might get a lot of sales if they did a goatse singleplayer edition for trolls!
Did you get this inside infomration from Nerdsahoy?
If it is a Snark then I have to get the collector's editon.
Let's say we weren't talking merely about Valve's relatively small product line here, but a large publisher, like all of Sierra. Buying a subscription for a month or two would allow you to play through and enjoy EVERY game in the collection at least once, like a rental without the middleman. When you finish, you let the subscription expire, and then if you want to go back to one of the games you can buy the boxed version and keep it forever.
I think it's a wonderful idea, personally, though Valve is taking a risk in trying it with so few products to offer...
But someone had to be first and I'd say they do a good job business-wise even though they're a little frustrating when they do things differently from any other industry company. Anyone else, if we exclude 3drealms and DNF, would have had HL2 out in a year or two.
Keygens won't work for multiplayer and two people can't use the same key at the same time in multiplayer over internet (there is a limit of 3 ppl with the same key on LAN I think). There was a time you could use the 1234-56790-1234 key. But I don't think it still work (even without internet connection). A trick I heard about to allow people without key to play Q3 over the internet is to set up your own game server and set your DNS so it can't resolve the master server so it can't check the keys. I suppose it may work with HL too.
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
I, for one, am fed up with pompous game companies that turn up their noses at game demos. I don't want your namby-pamby fake benchmark program to tell me numbers. I want to run around in one of your sample levels and test the 'feel' of the engine myself. Yes, it may say that it will do 60fps on my system, but if I buy the game only to find out that it can drop to 15 fps during many scenes (or it plain out sucks), I have no recourse! Once the software is opened, very few companies will simply take it back if it's not 'broken' - they're too scared of software pirates.
How quickly they forget that demos are what convinced people to buy their products in the first place.
No demo, no sale.