Civilization Comes to Steam

Gamespot reports that yet another publisher has joined the ever-growing stable of Steam fans. 2K games is working to bring some of their games to the service, with Civilization III and IV coming to Steam this week, and other titles to follow. From the article: "Also included will be the high-seas adventure Sid Meier's Pirates! and the alternate-history real-time strategy game Shattered Union ... According to a statement released today by Valve, Steam currently has some 10 million customers for both its 'core' products--which include advanced shooters such as Half-Life 2--and casual games, such as PopCap Games' Bejeweled and Zuma. "

Comments

High prices

[LotsOfPhil]

Civ 4 is $50 and Civ 3 is $30.
The latter seems quite high for a 5 year old game.

Steam & Shadowgrounds

[tcopeland]

If you've got Steam, give that Shadowgrounds game a whirl. It's old-fashioned 2D and is very nifty - lots of weapons, lots of stuff to kill, just fun to play all around. And only $20, so, hey.

Sadness..

[yamamushi]

Am I the only one who finds this disappointing?

Re:Sadness..

[pandrijeczko]

No, you're not (and let the Valve/Steam fanboys mod me down, I've karma to burn anyhow).

If some games players want an easy life and not to have to worry about applying updates manually then good luck to them and I hope Steam gives them what they want.

But Steam has also been shown to be as intrusive as spyware in what it "phones home" about in regard to what it finds on your PC - sure, those at "Steam Central" may not be able to do much with any information to any specific individuals but that information is still probably useful statistically and may even be used to justify even tighter restrictions on we consumers further down the line. No, I've nothing to hide whatsoever (apart from my own personal data on my machines) but I also work in operating system and server security - Steam is just another closed server/client application that has the potential to be misused or cracked and is therefore not running on any PC I own - it's that simple.

What's a real shame is that the original Half-Life (and its expansions) is my favourite game of all time and I would like to play Half-Life 2 and the new Episodes - yes, and like everything else I play, I'll happily go out and buy the full retail version. But I decide what I run on my PC and I simply will *NOT* allow any power-hungry company ride roughshod through my PC for the sake of a game.

It's even more annoying that I'm also a big fan of the Civilization series and have played them all up to Civ 3 - Civ 4 was going to be a game I was going to ask for a Christmas present from the missus. Hopefully, I'll still have the choice of buying the boxed version and downloading the updates to install manually, otherwise I'll be choosing something else for Santa Claus to bring me.

But to end on a positive note, at the other end of the scale I think Stardock deserve some real praise with the way they have handled Galactic Civilizations II. Not only is it a superb game (if you're a Master Of Orion fan like I am) but once you've installed it and registered your license key with their web site, you don't even need to put the game disc in the drive to play it - plus they even tell you how to export you registration to another machine so you can have it installed simultanously on a desktop and laptop or so that you don't need to go through the registration process again after a rebuild.

No Warlords?

[DarthBibble]

I thought maybe they would include Civ 4: Warlords in a bundle.

Old PC Games

[Jesterboy]

This is all well and good, but what I'd really like to see on Steam is the "ancient school" games that used to run on Win95/DOS running under Windows XP and available $5-$10 a pop. It seems like an ideal situation for Valve; small download sizes, minimal work, and I would think a high demand. As for the gamers, we could get games like the original System Shock running no hassle under WinXP, with possibly some minor graphical improvements (i.e., unlocking higher res video modes in this example).

I know games such as these are widely available on abandonware sites, but I would gladly pay for true support. Referring to System Shock again, I managed to get it to run fine on my old laptop with Windows XP, but my current system is unable to play it reliably, despite trying to use Dos Box, VDM Sound, etc. I would gladly pay for these games if I could easily run them, and would like to support the developers who made them. We could have Lucasarts Adventures, classic DOS games, and older FPSes at our fingertips without delving into a legal quagmire such as abandonware. Is this just a pipe dream?

Re:Old PC Games

[secolactico]

but what I'd really like to see on Steam is the "ancient school" games that used to run on Win95/DOS running under Windows XP and available $5-$10 a pop.

I'll say! I would gladly pay (again!) for a chance to play "Master or Orion", the Ultima series (incl. Worlds of Ultima) with no hassle on modern hardware/OS.

Still, this is a good idea. I never bought CIV III or IV, so I guess I'll give them a whirl.

When worlds collide

[Dr. Eggman]

I've already got Civ 4, but it would be very nice if I can use the CD code to run it off steam. For some unknown reason, my CD Drive trips a copy protection on Civ 4, causing a switch to low priority on my machine. I can reset it to normal, but it doesn't stay for long. It's incredibly frustrating. All tech support could say is "update your CD drive drivers" but apparently my drive's company doesn't support this drive anymore. This drives' not even supposed to work on XP!

It's really nice to see higher qualities coming to steam. It's even scheduled to have an Unreal Engine 3 based game. The Pop-caps games are just annoying to see advertised; maybe Civ 4 can class-up the place alittle.

Steam questions

[batmn42]

I like the idea of Steam, but I have an issue with it that has kept me from buying anything on it (I have tried the Darwinia demo, and liked it, but didn't end up buying the actual game).

My question is: what if Steam goes away someday?

I really want Episode One (and for sure will get Episode 2 when it comes out-- Portal is sweet). But if I buy them over Steam, and then my computer dies, and Steam dies someday, I've got nothing left. If I go to the store and buy a disc, then at least I'll be able to reinstall the game and play it even if I don't have a connection to Steam (or is that even possible?). But if I download the whole game on Steam, aren't I losing any chance to play it, should Steam ever disappear?

I have already bought Half Life and HL2 (in the boxes), and play them over Steam without any problems. But I've been staying away from actually buying things through Steam (even though I'd buy Episode I and Civ III in a second) because of these issues. Any answers?

Re:No its rather recent

[vertinox]

I assume you are reffering to the problems that came about from the launch of HL2 (assuming as you do not elaborate at all).

Recently, I saw Red Orchestra at Target and bought it as an impulse buy because I really liked the Mod. However, to my dismay, I could never get it to run because it could not connect to Steam.

Even tried connecting directly to the internet without a router and turning off firewall and hacking the WinXP TCP/IP, but to no avail that game would not work.

I would have reformatted the machine, but it was my room mates. *coughs* My main computer is a PPC mac *coughs* and they were disproving of me playing games on it anyways.

Still... I thought it as money towards supporting an indie game dev, and eventually I'll have a Intel Mac so it will hopefully work.

But doesn't mean I will shy away from games that use Steam.

Re:Does anyone know

[Anonymous Coward]

Civ4 is supported in Cedega, not sure on the others.
There is also a Civ4 demo available

Re:How do I sell a game?

[InsideTheAsylum]

You sell your steam account (which is against the Steam ToS). Basically, I'd create an account for each game that you purchase and then barter that account away somehow.

Re:How do I sell a game?

[toejam316]

Actually, You can sell your games. Simple as hell for the seller, but it can be a nightmare for the buyer. You simply sell the DVD/CD, CD Key and thats it. The whole damn thing, done. And for them to play it? They have to send in the CD Key and $10 to Valve and say "Hey! This game is registered to another steam account! Mine is ****@***.***, Register it to this please!". Then, they get the game. Simplish. ish.