Catan on Live, PopCap on Steam

Two interesting bits of news on the casual gaming front today. GI.biz reports that PopCap games has signed a deal with Valve to have their games offered on Steam. The casual Xbox Live Arcade will also be getting some new visitors, though of a much more hard-core variety. Classic German boardgame Settlers of Catan will headline a trio of titles for Microsoft's downloadable games service, Gamespot reports. From that article: "Outpost Kaloki X is about to have some genre company on Xbox Live Arcade, as all three titles will call on strategic thinking from the players. The announced games include the civilization-building Settlers of Catan, the tile-based city-building game Carcassonne, and the Arabian-themed stock-market game Alhambra set to be available through the Xbox."

Comments

Do they know what they're getting into?

[MMaestro]

Steam/Valve isn't exactly associated with 'casual' gaming, what does PopCap have to gain from this deal? Red Orchestra and CS:Source aren't games you associate with alongside Bejeweled and Bookworm.

Re:Do they know what they're getting into?

[Bieeanda]

They could be a good excuse for more people to leave the Steam launcher sitting in the task tray, especially since they've finally got Steam's IM functions working again. Right-click the icon, pop the games launcher open almost instantly, and play a bit of Chuzzle. If someone you know wants to drag you into a CS match, you can switch over with ease.

Steam is associated with shooters and action games right now, but there's no reason why it has to stay that way. Its distribution system would be ideal for Popcap, because their games are small enough to download fairly quickly on dialup, and all of the authorizations are stored on the server side. Go over to a friend's place (or work) and download the Steam client, then download the games you've already purchased licenses for. Popcap doesn't have to worry about mailing media out, or people passing installer discs around to their friends, which saves on expenses.

The two services' pricing structures are already rather close. There are several expansions, episodes and mods available for less than a twenty, which is the same general range that Popcap games fall into. Near-instant gratification for a fairly low price is a very good way to separate people from their money.

Re:Do they know what they're getting into?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Interesting. I find I've been playing through the steam games quite often now, especially the non-shooter ones. I've always been fond of the Jagged Alliance series, and I figure with enough positive reaction on steam it might force whoever owns the IP to finally finish up that Jagged Alliance 3. I think Steam's biggest issue to overcome now is advertising. Right now they have plenty of games for sale but except for the occasional slashdot story, if you don't already have steam you'd never know what they have to offer!

Re:Great...

[whm]

This whole thread is sort of like Al Gore explaining Santa Claus...

Alhambra a stock market game?

[hibiki_r]

The gamespot editor seems to care very little about boardgames. You can call Alhambra many things, but it is NOT a stock market game. Its theme is palace building, and the main mechanics are tile placement and set collection. I mean, in which stock market do you try to arrange your 'shares' to build the largest wall?

Oh, and Alhambra is located in Granada, Spain. Sure, it was built by muslims, but it's not what I'd call arabian.

Re:Never in a million years...

[Maffyew]

Winning Eleven and Pro Evolution Soccer are exactly the same series, just given different names in different locales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Evolution_Soccer