Slashdot Mirror
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 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..
Right, so if this game is out at the end of this month, is there any way to get a demo of it?
No. Valve has previously stated there would be no demo for HL2 prior to release.
something running on the Source engine to see whether or not this stupid thing will even run on your system
Valve has also stated that they will be releasing a benchmark program for people to use and see how their system will fare with the Source engine, as well as to see what upgrades they may want to make. I'd guess that it'll be a tech demo with no interaction that'll measure frame rate and such, but that's just a guess. It should be out RSN -- Valve has said "September" several times and stated that it would be available before the game was.
I don't recall if it was to be generally available or not -- they may only release it to benchmarking sites, but that'd seem odd to me.
I have an Athlon 2100 w/ 512M and a GeForce4 Ti4200. I plan to replace the GF4 w/ a ATI Radeon 9800 (non-pro). I think the rest will be fine. I haven't bought the card yet though because I'm waiting on the benchmarking to see what the whole story is.
Games are $50 because the production cost of a video game is many times that of getting drunk band members into a studio to schlop out 60 minutes of guitar abuse.