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Assassins, Bullies, and Messiahs
Some interesting news for a few upcoming game titles. Firstly (to no one's surprise), Assassin's Creed is coming to the 360. It will also be available for the PC. Secondly, Valve and Ubisoft have announced that Dark Messiah is coming to Steam when it releases in October. Chris Grant's commentary: "Ubisoft is acknowledging the demand for digitally distributed AAA content and using the largest platform they can find to promote it. We're still waiting on government-distributed protein pills and personal submarines, but the third pillar of our future vision is now realized." Finally, Rockstar appears to have partially bowed to public pressure over their 'Bully' title. In Europe, at least, Bully is now known as Canis Canem Edit, which means 'Dog Eat Dog' in Latin. To which I respond: Semper Ubi Sub Ubi.
The first I heard of "Steam" was when Half-Life 2 came out. I never bought HL2 (not into FPS), and so my association with Steam was "something that came with HL2 that nobody liked". Now I'm reading about various games "coming out on Steam" or something, and so I've been trying to figure out what it is. Apparently you download games on it, which sounds pretty good (although in the old days we used something called "FTP" to download things), and then whenever you want to play your game that you purchased, you have to connect to Steam? How is this a good idea? What if you don't have net access when you want to play? Am I misunderstanding it?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
In deliberately incorrect Latin, Omne tuum castrum sunt insunt nobis. In correct Latin, Omnia tua castra insunt nobis.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I've been hoping that no other companies would start using Steam. I decided to give them a chance, and didn't jump on the "it's DRMed to hell and you don't really own the game" bandwagon (though I see where they're coming from). I bought HL2. It's fun, and so is Counterstrike:Source, but dicking with Steam is WAY too much work for something that I just want to play every now and then. I occasionally want to play a round or two of CS:S, but since my last format+reinstall, I've just not cared enough about it enough to install Steam. I *know* that, if I could just pop in a CD and install it, I'd have done so months ago, and gotten hours of playing in. Knowing that, I'm beginning to realize how much of the value of a game Steam destroys.
:(
I've been eyeing those HL2:Episode 1 boxes at the store, and I'd kind of like to play it. The reason I haven't picked one up and taken it through the checkout? Steam. I don't want to install it again. It's just too damn annoying. I don't know how many other people feel this way, but I'd bet that they've lost a fairly large number of sales--people like me, who'd pick up the game and buy it at the store, don't do it, because Steam makes it feel like the process of purchasing their product is continuous and never-ending, rather than being a 5-minute wait in line at the store that you never have to worry about again. Maybe they're still making more money this way, selling through Steam, in spite of this kind of thing. I don't know, but I hope they're not.
I like the ability to get some mods through Steam. That's about the only thing I've seen in it that I like, but a similar system could be made without most of the other crap, and without making it a requirement to play the game at all.
I fear that, if Steam takes off, it'll offset all of the great things about PC gaming. That may force me to go 100% console. What a dark, dark day that will be.
(Not hating on consoles, I like them, but almost all of my top 20 or so gaming experiences have been on the PC, and many would likely not have been possible or not been as great on a console, for a number of reasons)