Activision, Double Fine Join With Steam

Gamespot reports on the expected arrival of Double Fine's Psychonauts on Steam, and the unexpected announcement that Activision is now offering games on the service. Titles from the company include Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2, and Gun, which was developed by Neversoft. From that article: "Whenever Valve does open the digital spigot on the four Activision games, they will join an increasing number of third-party titles available on Steam. This week, Majesco's critical hit Psychonauts was made available on the service, and Ubisoft's Dark Messiah of Might & Magic will launch on the service later this month."

Comments

Valve is becoming a publisher

[yincrash]

Valve is on it's way to becoming a bigger publisher of other people's games. It's a new avenue of offering games that is definitely in use.

Re:Valve is becoming a publisher

[chroot_james]

It's almost like steam coming out of a valve!

Re:Valve is becoming a publisher

[NekoXP]

Having pissed off their previous publisher because they wanted to do things the publisher hated, and hating everything the publisher did anyway, and knowing that every other game developer hates the way the publisher treats them, being a Good Publisher should be very easy for Valve.

And at the end of the day, giving them a feature list:

* We are not assholes like Vivendi or suchlike.
* No box costs! No crappy CD copyprotection breaking the game for 25% of your users! Automatic patching so you can keep the games notbreaking for the paying public! You get more money!

I think that is a compelling set of two-ish arguments to put your game on Steam and rake in some well-earned cash.

As much as I don't like Steam...

[SaidinUnleashed]

If Psychonauts gets more recognition, I'll be happy. I picked up that game for :10bux: at Half-Price Books and have felt bad about it because it is such an awesome game and well worth the original proce of 50bux. Go buy this game. It is GREAT.

Just wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam is THE reason that I pirate these games. Honestly, I love the HL series enough to buy HL, HL2, and even EP1, but having to run Steam to even play the games, I'd rather get the games from another source.

It insists on running upon startup. You have to start it to play any game, at which time it calls home and checks for unnecessary updates and (of course) let's the publisher know that you're still playing their games.

What happened to the days when product sales actually let the industry know how many people were playing/enjoying their games?

Re:Just wonderful

[SScorpio]

If you right click a game in Steam and select properties you can uncheck the box that says "Keep this game up to date". Unchecking the box stops Steam from automatically patching the game.

The whole calling home thing is the copy protection to make sure that you are validated to play the game. At least this way you don't have to put up with CD checks like Starforce that can mess up your system. The only issue with this method of distribution is the whole selling of used games. With a CD check you can just sell the whole disk to someone and they can go play. With Steam you have to pay Valve a small fee to transfer the license to another account. With Half-Life 2 this was $10. With many games being sold on Steam for $20 this kills the resell because you'd only make $10 or the buy can give all of the $20 directly to Valve and not have to deal with you.

Re:Just wonderful

[Keith Russell]

It insists on running upon startup.

It defaults to running on startup. You can turn that off in the Options dialog.

checks for unnecessary updates

Back home, we call those "bug fixes".

let's the publisher know that you're still playing their games

Well, I haven't gotten a nastygram from Valve for not playing enough Day of Defeat:Source, so no harm, no foul.

What happened to the days when product sales actually let the industry know how many people were playing/enjoying their games?

What happened for me? Deux Ex: Invisible War. Bought it, played about two hours of it, and got sick of the console-based dumbing down, tiny zones, and constant barrage of lecturing from NPCs on the radio. Put it back on the shelf. All Eidos knew was that a particular shipment to the Best Buy on McKnight Road sold out after n days on the shelf. There's a big difference between "Sales are OK, but tapering off, and the critics aren't too happy" and "According to our aggregate numbers, everybody's giving up before the plot moves out of Seattle."

Some can't get broadband, you insensitive clod

[tepples]

And at the end of the day, giving them a feature list:

• In order to buy even single-player games through Valve, players need to sign up for residential high-speed Internet access. Many geographic areas can't get this at all; others charge $480 for the first year of service.
• In order to buy games suitable for everyone or for teens through Valve, players need to be 18 or older.

Automatic patching so you can keep the games notbreaking for the paying public!

Widespread humiliation in the gaming press when differences between the publisher's idea of "notbreaking" and the players' idea of "notbreaking" result in dramatic changes in the game balance.

Thats not all

[crabpeople]

"The whole calling home thing is the copy protection to make sure that you are validated to play the game."

Thats not all that they are doing with steam. With episode one (and im sure everything else) they actually track such things as how many times you die, by what, what you were doing at the time, how much time it takes you to pass different parts, etc... This is kind of worrying to me, because if they are tracking that, what else are they tracking? Do they log keystrokes too? would they admit it if they did?

Don't get me wrong, episode 1 and halflife 2 are great games, but when I heard about the level of data logging that they do, you cant help but be a bit scared.
I didn't know about the resale BS.. This is why I avoided steam for so long, but HL2 is such a compelling title that I sacraficed security for a gravity gun. Its really sad how easy it was for me to compromise my security for a little bit of teh shiny..

eye heart steam

[spyrochaete]

I used to be the biggest naysayer of Steam, but now that I have a stable internet connection I just love it. I purchased Psychonauts for $20 this morning and all 3.5GB were downloaded in under 3 hours. I can't wait to get home to play it without requiring a CD in the drive.

Thus far Valve is a great publisher\distributor and I have no qualms about giving them my loyalty as a conusmer. However, it's a little disturbing to see in the EULA that I do not own any of the games I've paid for - I only rent them. I admire 3D Realms for shipping boxed copies to anyone who bought Prey over the now defunct Triton online distribution service, and I sincerely hope Valve will provide at least a means of playing games the sad day Steam evaporates.

Don't forget GUN!

[twistedsymphony]

Psychonauts is an awesome game, I bought it for the Xbox when it came out.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Gun is equally an awesome game that didn't get much recognition. For those who haven't played it it's an "old-west" action game some RPG and GTA style elements thrown in, the graphics aren't the greatest but the game has a solid storyline and is damn fun with lots of stuff to explore for plenty of replay value. Most people I talk to either haven't played it/don't know anything about it, or have and loved it.

the COD games are excellent as well but I don't think they need any introduction

Re:Internet access is sold by the year

[jascat]

Maybe some DSL providers require a service contract, but not a single cable company I have used has required it. Besides requiring a phone line, contracts have what kept me away from DSL. That and cable tends to offer higher speeds. I can deal with a few blocked ports and a non-static IP.