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.

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."

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.