Valve Releases, Tries To License Steam

Thanks to Blue's News for pointing out that the non-Beta version of Valve's Steam has been released, and a valid Half-Life-related CD key is required to install the online content delivery system and play Half-Life engine games online. Since launch this morning, Planet Half-Life are noting: "we said, 'the transition over to Steam is bound to be a little bumpy,' and hoo boy, did that turn out to be an understatement", as many are experiencing installation problems and slowness at the Steam servers. Elsewhere, a Wired News article discusses Valve's plans to make the Steam software base available to others: "Valve is also actively licensing the commerce software that manages the game's download and purchase process to other developers, publishers and Internet service providers in exchange for 5 percent of their gross sales."

Comments

Re:Server performance

[BrookHarty]

Hehe, would really suck if you had a bandwidth cap, and you download the game with all your available cap. Doh! I could see some people get VERY mad. (Doesnt BT have a 2gig bandwidth cap?)

petitions

[sirvulcan]

what i find amusing is that theres all these petitions about wanting to drop steam and go back to the 1.5 cs and below install style, do they seriously think valve will drop a product after beta testing it since jan