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

Server performance

[glassesmonkey]

It really gets me steam-ed when it takes half-my-life to download the latest patches

Half-Life petition

[Andy Smith]

Vaguely on-topic. This is the first petition I've ever signed...

Protest of Half-Life 2's requirement of an internet connection for Single Player and Lan Party games.

I'm waaay out of the loop with the Half-Life scene nowadays so I hope I'm not spreading FUD by posting this link. But if Valve do seriously intend to require an Internet connection for single-player and LAN games (apparently NOT just one-time product activation) then I think it would be a very bad thing.

Thanks to Blue's News for the link.

Re:BitTorrent please? (for 400MB file)

[sirvulcan]

http://insomni.ac.nz/Steam-HL.and.CS.Install.Files .rar.torrent

An animation that show my feelings

[Hackie_Chan]

Here is an animation that describe of what I think of the Steam service so far...