Slashdot Mirror
Valve Has No Plans to Charge For Downloadables
In an interview with Eurogamer about the upcoming Team Fortress 2, Valve's Robin Walker discusses Valve's philosophy when it comes to downloadable content. In short, when you buy a game from them you buy 'all of it', even the downloadable maps that will be released after the game launches. "'[In multiplayer games] the content you're playing is being created by the players you're playing against, so the more people that get into the game, the more content you're going to have,' Valve's Charlie Brown concurred. Valve's strategy is roughly in line with the traditional PC model, but in recent years services like Xbox Live Marketplace have popularised microtransactions as a means of continuing to extract development capital from completed games." Relatedly, the company annouced last week that there will be no Black Box release for Half-Life 2, Episode 2. The original plan was to have a retail release of just the three new games (Episode 2, Portal, and TF2); now only the orange box with the complete HL2 experience will be available on store shelves. Gamers can still purchase the new content separately from the Steam service.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
So, have they made any announcement with respect to Steam-only pricing of Episode 2, Portal, or Team Fortress 2?
Canthros
I'll believe it when I see it. I still remember the words "Nobody plans to build a wall", though those were said in German...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
you won't be missed, because the gains they get from online registration in terms of reduction in casual piracy far outweighs the 0.01% of their audience who feel the way you do.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
You know what, steam is possibly one of the best systems I have used. I mean seriously, there is absolutely no problems with reinstalling games you own, using games you own.. there has yet to be a day where I was unable to play my games on steam. Saying steam should not be used for distribution is a lot like saying that CD drives are evil and should not be allowed. I presume that you think 'registering with the mothership' by making a steam account, which as far as I recall does not even require personal information, is a horrible thing. This is the best implementation of a next gen distribution system I can conceive. I simply do not get why so many people bring so much hate against it.
No sig for you, two weeks!
Anytime there is an article having anything to do with Valve, there's always a couple of you that feel the need to complain about Steam. Guess what... we all know there are a few of you who don't like it. Fine, we get it. Its not going anywhere. The number of people who like Steam far outweigh you.
Personally, an agent that keeps my games up to date, lets me purchase new hardware, and reduces the number of cheaters out there is something I like. I don't care if it authenticates my copy of HL2. Go ahead, I paid for it, it doesn't impact my experience negatively at all.
I can still play offline. I don't have to let it update games as soon as a patch is released. I don't have to run it all the time. I can play games offline.
Plus, it allows Valve to sleep at night while I don't have to deal with a monstrosity like Starforce, which acts as a device driver and really screws up your CD and DVD ROM drives. I think Starforce is ten times worse than anything Sony did for anti-piracy, hands down.
Microsoft feels about this. Doesn't it make them look greedy and well, childish? I mean, the Live microtransactions always did sound like nickel-and-diming to me, coming from a PC gaming background. And here's good old Valve promising to avoid such a strategy, but will Microsoft try to pressure them in the coming months? I remember them charging for those Halo 2 multiplayer map packs when, in the face of a very underwhelming multiplayer game, one might say they already owed those to the community anyway. Say what you will about Steam, but I really like Valve's style.
You know, all this is comming out on the xbox 360... which doesn;t require the internet at all to play!
downloadable content for games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2...
Grammar police!
However, one day Steam will not exist. How will we play HL2 then?
Not everyone buys "booster packs" and expansions for multiplayer games. This forces many servers to keep new maps out of rotation. Consequently, new maps are limited to a few dedicated "NEW MAP!!!" servers, some of which are located in different continents. I noticed this with Battlefield 1942 in particular. Its two expansions were solid, but, if I remember correctly, only a small handful of servers had the new maps. Because of this, I was never compelled to buy an expansion that few people actually played online, especially if I was dependent on just one server. Contrast this with the free maps DICE/EA gave us. Battlefield 42's Coral Sea map is still played today, oftentimes with a full 32 players. Everyone downloaded the map because it was freely included with a new patch. The great thing about free multiplayer content: everyone gets it, so it'll actually be played online.
Did the writer intend to write "Valve has no intention of charging for (downloadable content for games) like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2," using CS and TF2 as examples of "downloadable content?"
Or did he mean to write "Valve has no intention of charging for downloadable content for (games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2)," using CS and TF2 as examples of "games?"
It could be either (but I'll bet it's the latter).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Valve has announced that if they go out of business, they will release one final Steam update that disables the need to authenticate.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Yeah, and I could "announce" that I'm the King of France, but that doesn't make it legally binding! When Valve puts it in writing, in the Steam customer agreement, let me know.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oh yeah, which company was it that got put out of business due to piracy? There is absolutely NO evidence to support this claim. If you doubt this, just go try to find it. You won't even bother looking though, of course, because such evidence DOES NOT EXIST.
And how come you seem to think that everyone would copy Half-Life (blah, I'd rather play something good anyway) but they wouldn't copy EA games? You do realize that you sound like a complete idiot, right?
The Farewell Tour II
There is a Black package, but not in retail stores. If you want to buy a boxed copy, you'll need to spend the $50 and buy the full Orange Box. You'll still be able to buy a bundle of EP2, TF2, and Portal through Steam.
Well it kinda sucks because if I want to hook up with some friends for lan play, they all have to buy the game. In counterstrike/ hl1, you could just copy the directory. Theres also the fact that if you ever pirate ANY valve game and they somehow findout, you lose access to ALL your other paid for games. Its nice to be able to go to a friends house, put my l/p in and have it auto download and update the client on their pc, but you do lose some freedom for that convenience.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
And any time there is an AC who trolls about Steam, there are a bunch of you that feel the need to reply to a comment that no one will even read. But at least you get mod points for it ;)
(and I, of course, agree that Steam works fine and I have not had a single problem with it)
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Valve is working on a way to fix that by using guest passes.
You mad
Even if they don't release that update, you still have all of the game resources available through tools like GCFscape. At the very least, people are able to make hacked versions despite Steam, so that at the very least the single-player experience is available. If Valve were to go out of business and not update Steam, I'm sure someone could even make a patch so that the multiplayer games would be available.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Besides...
;)
I could "announce" that I'm the King of France, but that doesn't make it legally binding!
What do you think the Paris Commune did in 1792?
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
So? It still doesn't change the principle that I shouldn't have to get permission from anyone else to use my own property!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Feel free to play in offline mode, so you don't have to authenticate. Personally, I'd rather give up a few of my rights in this particular area in order to play on nearly cheat-free servers. Remember how CS got its reputation for hackers? That was back in the days of WON and VAC1. Now with Steam and VAC2, I don't really see that, but I still do in other games, like Q3A, COD, etc.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
I know that I personally have never bought a game from EA, but I've played nearly every FPS that they've come out with.
;)
Not only that, you seem to be in the minority of not liking HL. Storyline too deep for you?
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Team Fortress 2 updates (new maps, patches, etc.) will be free. Team Fortress 2 itself will not be free.
Ahh, the Third Amendment. The cornerstone of today's societal freedoms.
:-D
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
What a great nation we live in.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
yeah, that will last, what 5 minutes? please, and if they are in backruptcy, they WON'T be allowed to give away the assests.
So they can say that all they want, but it is completly against all evidence of what happens to a company that fails.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Easy solution for a LAN game using one account:
.gcf files from the "host" machine to the Steamapps directory of each other machine.
1. Install Steam on each computer.
2. Copy the appropriate
3. Login as that user one at a time on each machine, and run the game, then log out.
4. Disconnected from the live network, have each user login as that user, and each Steam client will go into offline mode.
5. Start the game.
This is no more difficult than the "old" way of installing tons of games on tons of machines at a LAN party.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
sweet, veryone has their price, and your is exactly 1 game.
way to hold out there, comrade.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We're not talking about my right to self-defense, or my right to privacy, or anything major like that. We're talking about my right to cheat in an online game. I'm willing to give up that right if it means it's taken away from you.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
One weekend I invited all my friends over to have a LAN and play Counterstrike and HL2 Deathmatch. The Valve servers happened to go down that weekend due to the storm in Washington. No big deal, I thought, we are just playing on a LAN afterall and we can just use offline mode. Turns out that when we tried, the game wouldn't give us an option to play in offline mode. It ticked me off to no end that I couldn't play the game that didn't require any Internet component at all, and it wasn't playable for several days until Valve fixed their servers. This is not acceptable.
The problem is that for some reason you can't always play your games offline. Remember the incident when the Valve's servers went down all weekend? See this story. I had a LAN party planned that weekend and we were unable to play our legally purchased games on a LAN, even when we disconnected from the Internet. The game didn't allow the offline mode for some reason during that time. It's crap like this that Valve does that makes us complain.
Great. I already have 2 copies of Episode 1 (needed an extra seat for a deathmatch lan party).
Awesome. Now I can have another copy of Episode 1 to put next to my AOL disks.
What percent of their customers are like me -- people who buy the game and can't make it run?
I couldn't get on World of Warcraft for almost 3 weeks (inbetween two patches). I always got "World server is down" and other errors; I could just not use their servers anymore. I tried to notify this through their website, forum, everything I could try. I also lost stuff inbetween server restarts; stuff like 240g at a time; which the user also has to grind for and PAY EVEN MORE for because all that time is wasted, just because that piece of software decided to die at the wrong time (and wrong place).
...
They tell me they are not responsible and they will not return me the money or time which I was unable to play in; while this is an error caused by this company. I even wonder such business tactics are legal; if a webhosting company would disconnect me 3 weeks from the Internet with my sites I'd be crying havoc!
As a note: Blizzard removed the forum posts; they seemed not to like the fact that I have screenshots and "accountant" installed. They returned to their normal technical blahblah where you need to check proxy settings etc.. while the problem was *SURE* not the proxy/network or computer because it did not work on 2 computers at that time; AFTER the patch was installed. They seem to be in a defensive stance not being able to help their customers on a normal way; while I'm already Blizzard customer since their early games, Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo,
I feel screwed to say the least; I still wonder if this is legal (in Europe)...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Its not the right to cheat. Its the right to use it the way you want. Have people already forgotten all the banned steam accounts because of the no-cd "patch", making every game they had ever bought from steam unusable. I hate to always have to put in a cd just to let the program read it once and then read all other content from a hard drive. There is no reason why it should do so. I have already typed in my cd-key, waited 2 hours for steam to decrypt all the content. And the people who bought the game from steam didn't have to go through this. Was it just to get more people to buy online?
What if I don't have an internet connection?
:D
Maybe that would have been valid a few years ago, but now? May as well complain about that annoying requirement for electricity too. "If I can't play by candlelight, I won't play period!"
And the rest of your argument seems to concern the charging for extra content... when this whole story is about Valve promising NOT to charge for any of it. Hmm.
They announced the new order... and then they killed everybody who disagreed (not to mention many who agreed but were suspected of secretly disagreeing).
Check out StarDock Central. It offers online purchases and instant downloads. You can download any game you've purchased as many times as you want. It updates all those games for you as well.
In short, it's just like Steam, except:
It doesn't run all the time, hogging resources. It only runs when you tell it to. Update your game, then close it. Buy a game, close it. You don't need it if you just want to play a game. So if StarDock ever goes out of business, there's no chance of you being screwed like with Steam.
There's no ridiculous "offline" mode that breaks and locks you out of your games. It's not required to run the games you've purchased or the demos you've downloaded. Single player games don't require Internet access.
It doesn't force updates on you. You can choose to update or not, you can choose to apply beta updates. You can make an archive any installed game you have, update it, roll it back if you don't like the update. You can burn the archive to a CD (it's basically just a zip file of the game directory).
StarDock Central is the way Steam SHOULD have worked. Too bad Valve got greedy. I know where my money's going to be spent. To a company that trusts their customers and treats them with respect, that's where.
Also a big steam fan here. I bought a few titles via ign's direct2drive and when a patch was released for one of the games the only way to apply it was "reinstall". I never bothered downloading that gig of data over their slow connection, I just abandoned my account. Steam seems to work closely enough with content developers to avoids this kind of disconnect.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Insignificantly small would be my guess, given Valve's tendency to completely ignore you and the two or three other people who experience the same problems. If you mattered to their bottom line, they'd do something to help you out.
everything in moderation
I'm going to have to guess that you and your LAN pals had never validated your game installations online, becausse after you do once there's no problem playing in offline mode ever again. It's almost sounds as if someone tried to install one copy of a Valve game on more than one machine for a LAN match. But I know you and your friends would ever try to do that, so there must be another explanation. EBKAC maybe?
everything in moderation
Oh yeah. I bought a game a couple years ago, but before I installed it I found out it had StarForce on it.
It's still sitting on my shelf, unopened. I never bought another game from that series or that publisher.
No one was ever banned for just a no-CD patch. I've used them for years on Valve games with no problem. But it's funny that you complain about steam requiring a CD in the drive for a game bought on CD when steam gives yout the choice to buy the game online with no CD ever needed, unlike all those other publishers/games that don't give you that choice.
everything in moderation
Yes, that does suck if you were counting on buying 1 copy for more than 1 person to share and play simultaneously. But since that's how the law and the license both currently work, it's not clear how this is a "Steam problem" instead of a "Steam benefit" (from Valve's perspective.)
everything in moderation
First of all, let me make it clear that we each have our own legal copies of the games and our own Steam accounts. I used to think that although I don't like Steam, I'm willing to live with it because since I've validated my accounts online once, I can always play in offline mode. I was DEAD WRONG. It turns out that this isn't how Steam works at all. We all had validated our accounts long before this incident happened and we've played regularly, usually connecting in through Steam each time we play the game.
When we launched the game to play a LAN on that particular occasion, it detected that we had the Internet so it tried to connect to the Steam servers. The servers were down obviously, and after sitting there for a while it asked for our Steam account usernames and passwords. I thought, that's unusual, normally it just asks me if I want to play in offline mode. So we all re-entered our usernames and passwords, but it wouldn't work. I guess that in some circumstances when it can't contact the servers, it's like the activation token gets disabled. So it wanted us to authenticate from scratch, but we couldn't because the servers were down. We were completely locked out of all of our Steam games, no single player, no multiplayer LAN, nothing. You would think you could play a game you paid for single player anytime you want. That's why Valve and Steam tick me off so much! Thanks a lot Valve.
Valve got the situation under control a few days later and all our accounts started working again right away, but the point is that the supposed "offline play mode" failsafe completely failed us, and I'm ticked off enough about it to consider not being a customer of Valve at all.
Interesting anecdote. This has never happned to me, even when steam is down, so I guess my anecdote cancels out yours.
everything in moderation
And let's not forget that all the privacy ranters are playing a closed-source game which could be spying on them ANYWAY.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
I asked myself the same thing. I think it is legal if they distribute the earnings from the game over the period where they are still making content for it.
Too further parent comment, If Valve is like most large corporations, they might be putting the update in escrow with explicit instructions to release under X circumstance?
That reminds me of France's promise to England during WWII that, in the event they were forced to leave the war, they would put their navy out of the reach of Germany. However, once France actually was at the mercy of Germany they weren't able to make good on the promise. Their navy was one of the few remaining assets they had that Germany was interested in. England ended up having to find the French capital ships themselves and blast them to bits (with their earstwhile allies still aboard) to prevent their later use against England.
If Valve were to go bankrupt, it would be at the mercy of its creditors and the courts. Steam may be its only remaining asset of any value. A promise such as is quoted above in that situation means absolutely nothing.
Steam, I said I'd never buy a game which used steam and I never have. I'm an FPS junky I loved HL and CS and it would have pained me sooo much to do it but I stuck with my guns. Then I got HL2 from a friend (ATI deal back in the day) so I can review steam.
Pros: Updates, Security is simple, some kind of centralized download service.
Cons: Fewer anti-cheat services (They don't work, this leads to cheaters ruining games and me getting banned for "cheating." Super), crappy browser and friends service (people are using x-fire but the best ever AllSeeingEye is constantly broken and seems to be going out of business while GamespyArcade is growing, a crappy product), goes down OFTEN and you can't get online, purchasing system doesn't seem to work.
Overall things have gotten worse,
If you're at a LAN party, then the host can physically login himself on each machine, without revealing the password to anyone.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
After this incident they decentralized their authentication servers, so that if Seattle floats into the Pacific again, Steam won't be down for good.
Not only that, I think (but I'm not positive) that they revised their auth system after the incident so that even if the auth servers can't be reached, offline mode might still be available.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher