Steam To Begin Hosting Game Mods

Valve made a brief announcement on Friday that they will be allowing the download of user-created game mods directly from Steam. "Once installed, these MODs will appear in your 'My Games' list and will receive automatic updates just like other games on Steam. Also, these MODs now take advantage of Steamworks, which provides stat tracking and tighter integration with the Steam community." Mods will be available for five different games to start, and more in the future.

Comments

Double-edged sword

[winphreak]

I can see the benefit of free hosting to this, but I also sense it'll be a while before all the mods take advantage of this new system.
I'd like to think that Garry's Mod 10 counts as the first MOD to try this approach, and as long as I've been playing, it seemed to work pretty well.

Re:Double-edged sword

[SCPRedMage]

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/index.php

About time

[JimBoBz]

It's about bloody time. When i bought Half-Life 2 i assumed that the popular MODs would make it on to Steam. I hardly play any of my Steam games anymore however being able to install and play MOD without having to search them out is just the ticket for a casual gamer like me...

Steam is a good example

[jer2eydevil88]

Valve Games sold through Steam are a good example of what can go right with PC gaming. I am sure they are going to do great things for the modding community as well. Oddly I initially hated Steam when they launched HL2 thanks to the bugs and speed of that product but since that time they have really improved the system. With companies like EA putting more and more DRM into games like Spore I am glad that Valve released Team Fortress with the same lax licensing that accompanied all their previous launches. I also look forward to what http://www.gog.com/ will be bringing to the table in terms of competition for Valve older release title bundles.

Re:Steam is a good example

[Shadow of Eternity]

Steam's the only DRM I'll ever accept, because in exchange for requiring me to inconvenience myself to use a product I OWN they offer me great services while still leaving it pathetically easy to get to my product without using their system.

I don't think it's an accident that it's so easy to run legitimately bought games with steam-free hacks.

Re:Steam is a good example

[Anonymous Coward]

The DRM in Steam exists to protect the game content from unscrupulous people pre-launch. For the non-Steam users: when games are launched on Steam, you can usually preload them (ie download the game content) before the release date, so on release day, all you have to do is open the game and away you go!

The DRM in Steam is not there to say, "Hey, you already installed this 3 times? Too bad! No game for you!" In fact, it works in the opposite way: all your purchased games are available for download all the time, everywhere. I have Steam installed on my laptop and my desktop PC, and I can login to Steam on both (not simultaneously) and play whatever games I've bought. It's awesome.

Re:Steam is a good example

[gehrehmee]

Nonetheless, it's still the sort of DRM where:

• The owner gets to know when, where, and how you use the product
• If the owner dissapears or goes bankrupt, you'll be unable to use your purchased content

Re:Steam is a good example

[syntek]

Actually no, that's not true. If you save your account credentials (by going to file>settings and un-checking "Don't save account credentials on this computer" you can login under offline mode and launch and game. You just would not have access to the Steam community. The only thing the Steam Community is used for is friends, stat tracking and server finding in Valve games. Other games like CoD4 don't use the Steam Community for server finding and you could still /connect in console on your CS to connect to a server. For finding a server for CS or Valve game, there are tons of websites that track that. Also, as far as I know Valve doesn't make a practice of spying on your game usage and probably doesn't really care except to get other companies to sign on. "We have x amount of users playing x amount of hours per week on game x, you should sign up with us as more people buy games via Steam then they do by going into their local Wal-Mart or GameStop for PC Gaming." The only downfall(and it's not really a downfall) is VAC(Valve Anti-Cheat). Once you're banned, your banned for life (the current policy) and have to jump through a million hoops to reverse that. Although they were instances of False Positives, but the accounts affected by that were reversed. Also Internet Cafe's or Lans use a different version of Valve so if someone somehow put hacks on a computer and all users who logged in on that computer were VAC banned, then it's a different story. Overall though, it's great that I can buy/download/install a game in less then 3 hours (CoD4 took 2 hours from buying to playing) and have the game for life and play from any computer in the world. Considering Steam was also running a special the weekend I purchased CoD4 I got it cheaper then if I had purchased it from the store. Also no waiting in lines (which if you go to wal-mart you'll likely wait in line for at least an hour, if they have it, and most GameStops and EB Games selection of PC games is quite pathetic) So yes, Steam is the superior way to purchase PC Games (consider they have Most big titles, GTA, CoD, Crysis, Raindbow6, etc etc.)

Re:Steam is a good example

[hab136]

Steam's the only DRM I'll ever accept, because in exchange for requiring me to inconvenience myself to use a product I OWN they offer me great services while still leaving it pathetically easy to get to my product without using their system.

I'm going to have to slightly disagree with you there - as someone else said, "Steam is easier than piracy". It's not cheaper, but it is way easier to click on the game, type my credit card number, and blammo, as fast as I can download it, it's there. New computer? Just login and all my games are downloaded again, for free. Staying at my cousin's house for a month? All my games come with me. It's actually easier then jumping on TPB or DC++ and looking for a seeded copy that a) works! b) isn't full of keyloggers/viruses/etc.

Steam doesn't prevent me from doing anything except using the same copy of the game on two computers at the same time, which is not something I legitimately want to do. Other copy protection schemes require me to lug around a physical disk (this is loads of fun when you have 30+ games), or install system drivers that screw up my system.

I don't think it's an accident that it's so easy to run legitimately bought games with steam-free hacks.

I think Valve really designed Steam as a way to sell products first and foremost, which means they thought about what the customer wants, then worried about copy protection. At least it feels that way. Most DRM systems assume you're buying and try to screw you over when you try to actually *use* the product; Steam provides a nice alternative way to buy.

BTW, If you legitimately own the product, there's also an offline mode built in, no hacks required. It might require reactivation if you move to a new computer, I don't remember.

Re:Steam is a good example

[V!NCENT]

"If the owner dissapears or goes bankrupt, you'll be unable to use your purchased content"

Simply not true. Valve has tested in-house patches for when they go bankrupt. They will work with the retail dvd's you purchased in a RL shop. I don't know if this works with backup game content (option in Steam to back up the map of your games) through Steam.

Dystopia Please!

[Kneo24]

http://www.dystopia-game.com

Far far better than the other mods. Nuff said.

Steam Saved Games

[Robmonster]

I remember reading a while ago that Steam was going to also act as a repository for saved games, so you could in effect backup your saves automatically.

Did this ever get implemented? I cannot find anything about it on the Steam pages.

Re:Multiplayer among gamers in one household

[NemosomeN]

Every single Halo game supports 4 players on one machine.