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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.
And how do you play to thrwart the license key system that Half Life/Counter Strike used?
More than enough BS
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
You probably didn't mean that. Or maybe you did. No matter.
Thing is, unlike the RIAA, which is fighting to maintain an artificially high pricing structure for music in the digital era, the game publishers and developers are really operating in a pretty fair and free marketplace. I.e., games are retailing for $50+ dollars because they are actually worth it. Not all games, of course, but a game like HalfLife 2, which could potentially provide hundreds of hours of entertainment, and incurring development costs in the tens of millions of dollars, certainly seem to justify a large retail price tag.
A very good strategy for buying games is to wait a few weeks -- not necessarily for the price to drop -- but rather for the unbiased, unsponsored (i.e., not payola) reviews, and to download the demo if it exists. That way you can be pretty sure you are going to get a return on your $50. If it is a console game, read the reviews and rent it first.
But definitely don't steal it via P2P. Remember, most of us probably _want_ gaming to continue to get better -- more games of the caliber of HL2 are a great thing. And as earlier Slashdot articles have pointed out, there is a low-end gaming market as well for those of whom who have neither the money nor the time to spend on a $50 game.
That said, someday there will likely be a body as stubbornly obstinate as the RIAA for games. But until then, don't hurt the industry via piracy. Ethicality aside, it is just defeating of your own self interest.
Serial crack works fine for single player but it wont work on Mutiplayer.
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.
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.
I guess you didn't read the thread/forums/article, because you can do just that (buy the retail game in a box with a manual/disc)
You know, you don't have to buy the collector's/special editions of games/movies/whatever. No one's forcing you. The whole point of a special edition/limited edition is offering things the standard version doesn't have! That is why you're paying more.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
How much do you pay for movies? They're generally about 2-3 hours of entertainment too.
Imagine if they told you that "X" Half-Life 2 expansion was coming out within six months and that it would be $30 on its own but would come automatically with a Steam subscription. So, you decide to go with the Steam subscription figuring that you would pay $60 over six months and get both HL2 and this expansion pack instead of paying $50 now (meaning when it comes out) for HL2 and $30 later. Fast-forward six months and you find out that they are having QA problems with the new release so it's still in testing. They're going to release it as soon as they can. Every month of delay is another $10 you would be paying for product(s) that you can't even play. Again, I'm not saying that Valve would plan to do this but sometimes $@#! happens.
I'm not against subscription fees on their face. I've paid $10/month in the past for one game in fact (EQ). But in the case of Half-Life 2, unless they're going to cripple the online experience somehow without the subscription, I'd need to see at least a year of consistently on-time, solid releases from Valve before I'd even consider paying them $10 a month in lieu of $50 up front.