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Darwinia To Be Distributed via Steam
Nuskrad writes "Independent developers Introversion Software, creators of cult hacking sim Uplink have announced a deal with Valve that will see their highly acclaimed title, Darwinia distributed on the Steam platform from December 15th. It is hoped that the deal will help boost sales of Darwinia, and the profile of Introversion Software, which has been struggling against the 'big boys' of the industry."
The whole idea with Steam, and online distribution in general, is to put control back in the hands of developers, and take it away from distributors. Why should Best Buy or WalMart get to decide what games we can buy?
Cut out the middleman, and let the market choose.
Game Company Database
One of the reasons the Steam deal was made was to expose the game to a large community of modders, so hopefully we'll be seeing lots of new content for the game.
Actually, it isn't.
Actually, you're wrong.
Actually, you're even stating you don't know what you're talking about, sheesh!
No Comment.
That's your choice, and you are welcome to continue to live in the 1990's for as long as you can. However given that every argueement other than the "Valve can take their ball and go home" one has been shot down, the only real reason you could have is that you just don't want to buy games online.
Meh. "Valve can take their ball and go home" hasn't been shot down; it's been (and is being) practiced by lots of folks. The "average" gamer will take the spoonful they're handed; people drove Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, and N-Sync to the top of the charts because that's what they were forcefed. Good sheeple :)
I have plenty of reason not to choose Steam for my games. Don't want their stuff snooping around on my system. Don't want their permission to play a game I've paid for.
It ain't "1990's." It's called "consumer choice." No subscriber-model apps for me, thanks. I like to own what I buy.
Do you know what would happen if Valve suddenly just upped and turned everyone off? The next day they'd be buried under class action suits and the week later they'd have turned the servers back on and potentially permentantly unlocked the software.
Heh! Wrong. First, their license agreement protects them from harm anyway -- they really can just shut you (and anyone else they want) off for any reason they choose. Read it again until you understand this. Second, you don't get buried under class action suits -- the whole point of a class action is to take a mountain of lawsuits (you do get buried under those) and combine the complainants into one big action. Third, such action would take years to resolve, not a week. They ain't gonna unlock all the software permanently because a lawsuit gets filed if they actually do shut things down overnight.
Do you know what would happen if Valve suddenly just fell off the surface of the Earth? The next day people would have posted the work arounds to setting up your clients to work permentantly without the servers.
...and they'd be criminally liable for violation of the DMCA. Sigh. Oh, and those workarounds already exist today anyway.
And you know what, neither of those things are ever going to happen. So worrying about them is about as productive as wondering what will become of the world when Bill Gates wakes up and realizes that the true path to happiness and heaven is in humility and a life of public service.
*chortle* Okay, that was funny. Still, they very well could happen. Companies are motivated by profit. The moment Steam becomes unprofitable and its products stop being profitable, they will vanish in lieu of something that is profitable. Corporate America's history is liberally peppered with instances of the consumer getting fucked when a company decided it wasn't profitable to keep a product alive anymore.
Welcome to 2005. Orwell was wrong.
Nah, he was just a few years off. Looks like we know which side you'll be on when the day finally comes, though...
Read my stuff.