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Half Life 2 Retail Sales Hit 1.7 Million
blueZhift writes "It looks like PC gaming is not dead yet! GamesIndustry.biz reports that retail sales of Valve's Half Life 2 have topped 1.7 million. There aren't any numbers available for online sales via Steam, but these are impressive numbers for any platform, console or PC."
There were a lot of Graphics cards sold with Halflife 2 prommisory notes in them, and I suspect most of those didn't get collected.
when the servers go down. Technology is great.
I doubt that will happen.... It's worth it even with the steam problems. They've moved their back collection onto steam and they spent alot of money into getting steam to work, so i doubt they will dump it for a few people that don't have an internet connection.
The days of .com economics are back!
I purchased via Steam to avoid having to do a CD check as well as the Steam sign on (as with the retail version).
I paid $60 for the silver version which includes the Valve back catalogue.
The main HL2 game certainly was a lot of fun, although the load times could be annoying and the overall game was kind of short. In particular the last levels where a large amount of time is spent on the cool but non-interactive ride, followed by an ending that is more "huh?" than "woah!".
The long term value is arguably good. I myself can't get into Counter Strike and the added on HL2 deathmatch becomes dull quickly. I am looking forward to the mod community's releases to extend the value of the game.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
So 1.7 million people are going to be really pissed in like 5 years when Valve gets bought out by EA and EA discontinues the Steam servers making everybodies HL2 game unplayable.
-Dipster
Figure $55 a game (current rate), that's Over $90 million for all involved. Sierra gets a cut of that, but still looks pretty good for Valve, even factoring in the promissary notes.
And if that doesn't include the on-line sales (like mine), then the total is sure to be incredible.
The folks at Valve won't be living off of Ramen anytime soon. Hollywood would love that kind of return on a major motion picture.
Um... 1.7 million units @ $50 a pop = $85 million.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Halo 2 sold 6 million copies on a closed platform and as I type this there are roughly the same number of people playing HL2 online for free as playing Halo 2 online as part of a pay service.
Its not dead, but PC gaming is staggering in a standing 8 count right now.
Mod away, but it won't change the numbers.
They've moved their back collection onto steam and they spent alot of money into getting steam to work, so i doubt they will dump it for a few people that don't have an internet connection.
;-)
The offline mode for Steam certainly needs a lot of work, but I think overall the system is probably a positive move for the somewhat fickle PC games industry. I bought HL2 over Steam, and it's worked absolutely fine (beyond a corrupted GCF in the original download, which was the subject of a FAQ and easily fixed) - I can fully imagine buying further Valve stuff using the system. They'd better come up with some further single-player content soon, though!
I'm going to have great fun designing stuff with the SDK, too - I'm still learning my way round...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
more like so-many-god-damned-ant-lions dept. curse them and their protective hides!
There are 2 types of people in the world, those who find that stupid binary joke funny, and those who don't.
Because, obviously, you have no connection to the internet.
We don't know about the Steam numbers, but if these are only retail sales then figure closer to $25 a pop or even less. Most media is 50 points.
Did i miss something in the last few weeks? Why would pc gaming be dead?
This surely explains why the Steam servers were refusing logins for a HUGE number of people all day Saturday, locking us out of our OFFLINE, single-player games.
The resulting frustrated masses also battered the Steam forums all day trying to figure out what was going wrong...
It's a great game, but why do I have to prove online that I am not a thief before I can play? I'm glad my car manufacturer doesn't treat me the same way.
How many times do I have to post this in this thrread and yesterday's "Steamed" thread!? Ugh!
You can start Steam in offline mode just fine!
You can play HL2 without an internet connection once you've done all the authenticating!
In other words, in 5 years, Valve could be dead and gone, Steam could be history AND I WILl STILL BE ABLE TO PLAY HL2.
Funny, but if I turn off my internet connection, and start up Steam, it asks me if I want to "try again" or "use offline mode". If I use offline mode, guess what? I can play HL2 single player just fine.
Where people encounter problems is when they use firewalls to block the game from communicating. That's the not the way to play offline... offline means NO INTERNET CONNECTION. And it DOES work.
Also, "only" ? Heh.
You have to get an "offline ticket" from the servers. The bug/problem right now is that if you don't know that Steam is down and leave your ethernet cable connected-- you'll get the "cannot connect to steam" message and your offline ticket will be erased. Which means that you can't play offline until you can get online to get your offline ticket renewed.
Once you've seen the error message, it's too late, and you can't play online or offline until the servers come back up.
And you can't just get a ticket and leave the cable unplugged forever, either-- the ticket expires on its own.
They could fix this easily by simply not disabling the offline ticket until after the connection attempt is finished-- but right now, a failed attempt with you still connected to the internet will disable your game until the servers come back up.
Terrible.
Sure, the OP has a connection to the internet - that's true. But why should the program need to phone home anytime you want to play? And what happens if Valve goes under? Will the game no longer be playable because it can't get validation? I'm all for stopping piracy but not at the expense of the consumer and this is too big a hit to take. I refuse to buy HL2 as well.
And fuck you for not being able to discuss the subject intelligency but instead reducing it to the most basic and stupid observation. It is people like you that have ruined Slashdot.
There are HDTV capable consoles (Xbox and Gamecube) but you have to buy the HD plugs and obviously have a HDTV. Whether the keyboard/mouse combo is better for FPSs is debatable as well as based on personal preferance. Also the Playstation 1 has a mouse but it was used for like 2 games, an early showing of Sony's commitment to add-on parts (remember how the PS2 was supposed to connect to external Zip drives?)
True, but this is more of a hardware and pricing problem over software and console designing. A top-of-the-line video card will cost at LEAST $300 if you bargain hunt/search online/etc, thats more than any console and thats not counting processor, RAM, etc. Unless you can convince Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft to build and support a $500+ to produce console (a low end pre-built ready to go Dell computer goes for around $600 so I'm being generous here), consoles will NEVER catch up to PC level graphics.
Not quite. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can write a PC game. But to write a console game, you need to get a development kit from the console maker, and pay them royalties on every game made.
True, but how many PC games do you think are 'copy-cat' games? And don't say Halo and Halo 2 are copy-cat games because then we can rule out every PC FPS excluding Doom, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament as 'copy-cat' FPS games. Gaming started on the PC, but gaming sure as hell left the crib.
As for consoles not getting RTSs is a matter of RTS games being TOO complex for the general gamer. Joe Average doesn't care about upgrading his troops (Warcraft), setting up ambushes (Starcraft), making aerial flanking manuevers (C&C:Generals), planning out a huge overall strategy that requires early planning (Rome Total War) or have to deal with individual units that cannot be easily sacrificed (Silent Storm). PC gaming is for people who love to twist and tweak every piece of software and hardware they can get their hands on (Gravity gun only with 1 life servers with custom skins, models, sounds, maps and HUD anyone?) Consoles eliminate all that and simplify it for the Joe Averages of the world.
It doesn't bother me at all, but then I don't overreact at stupid things like steam. You don't like the way they are running things, so you didn't buy it. Good for you. However 1.7 million people disagree with you. As for ruining slashdot, I'd say anonymous cowards such as yourself who resort to profanity to make your arguments have done a pretty good job already.
... that can't play their game when Steam isn't working!
In conclusion, fuck you and never post to Slashdot ever again asshole.
OK, I won't.
Oops!
I'm a software developer and I think it's a pretty good idea as far as anti-piracy measures go. I think it's a simple, elegant solution to a difficult problem. It doesn't require CDs to be inserted, which is a big bonus. It pretty much ensures that nobody is running cheats or hacked clients. It makes sure everyone's up to date with the latest client so any dangerous exploits are quickly fixed. I guess I'm just not as paranoid as you.
In conclusion, I disagree with you, and I think you're a belligerent idiot who seems to think my entire argument is based around my original sarcastic one-liner. If that's how you're going to judge me, so be it, but don't think you're going to e-thug me off slashdot as I really don't give a damn what you think.
(Different A.C.)
"It makes sure everyone's up to date with the latest client so any dangerous exploits are quickly fixed."
Uh, exploits in a single-player, offline game? I'd say that running steam all the time and letting it connect to the net opens a big fat attack vector where there wasn't one before.
Absolutely, counter-strike source and HL-DM should have an auto-updater. But it should be a: possible to disable it (many people dislike later versions of CS for instance) and b: only active when the game is running and the option to play online is selected. It should not lock you out of the offline game if the login server is down. Steam is not required, and it has convinced me to not purchase HL2 - copy protection measures should not be taken so far as to lose you legitimate customers!
Oh yeah... and console gaming is so felite too. Oh and I love Halo 2 MP. It's so awesome that I haven't touched it in over a month because Half-Life 2 is light years beyond anything Bungie could pull out of their asses and have the guts to call it a game.
In 5 years Half Life 2 will be but a memory. Half Life (1), even under the Source engine, is primitive and almost childlike with cheesy (by today's standard) graphics. It only serves as a nostalgic look at what WAS. Half Life 3 in 2K10, if Valve doesn't /DS, will probably make HL2 look like a bad cartoon due to advances in engine coding and on-board physics coprocessors. (HL2 probably won't work on 256-bit clustered phase-array optical processors anyway)
As far as future-proofing yourself from Steam dependency, search G00gle for "steamless". Add "Half Life 2" to the search if you don't get it. Once you've found the info on running steamless, save the info, files, whatever, for the event of a Valve-less/Steam-less future.
Let's try and think this through, shall we? 5 years later you will more than likely have a new computer and HL2 will probably not be installed. For the sake of argument, let's say you try and install it. What happens after it is installed? It wants you to sign in to Steam to authenticate your purcase. Woe is me. Steam is no longer functional and cannot authenticate your purchase! You don't get to play the game you bought! Now HOPEFULLY you will see why people are pissed off at Steam.
for every time I wish I had a mod point.
--- "End Of Line" - MCP
$50 (US) buys the Half-Life 2 Bronze package. Are you saying that about 4 and a quater gigs of data take $50 to transfer? That's rediculous. Bandwitdth is cheap . . . except in Nebraska.
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
It doesn't require CDs to be inserted, which is a big bonus. Unless you bought the DVD version in a shop. Oops. I'm not convinced that this will stop cheats as well. This update on connection thing is common with MMORPGs and they still seem to have cheaters. I can see how it has use for slowing piracy, collecting usage statistics, and direct marketing of valve products. Steam doesn't make me that angry or stop me playing valve games for moral reasons, but it does seem to be a high handed move.
What a landmark this is!
And it's 'ridiculous'.
HL2 works just fine when you start Steam in offline mode. Just load steam with no active internet connection and it prompts you to run in off line mod where upon you can launch and play Hl2. Obviously CS Source does not work but HL2 plays just fine.
What about The Sims?
A chance to flame both Stream and the "PC Gamorz are dead d00d!" crowd.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Good consumer.