Agreed with that, Ledge. Some sound like Half-Life 2 is there life, and that they sit impatiently on their chair tapping their feet.. and 3-2-1 GO when it's released.
Duh, jeez, imagine playing it a few hours later then others :S
If you actually have a life, it's no big deal.

Furthermore, Ray, I'd love to help a developer survive. That's ok and we should all agree. But still, it shouldn't be the equal price as in the stores. Atleast a few dollars cheaper. Period.

Half Life2 - preload = waste of time. 1 gig of useless data sitting on my PC, no thanks. Ill rock up to the local geek store when its released. People playing it a day earlier than me ? no big deal, no sleep loss there ....

Been seeing pics and/or scans of magazine ads showing a HL2 logo and simple statement "Its [sic] Done"

Some more fuel to the fire

You cannot make anything fool-proof. The fools are too inventive

Actually, I paid for Lineage 2, I was able to start playing it at midnight that morning it came out; while everyone else had to wait 8-10 hours for thier local store to open.

CS:CZ could have been similar, but it wouldn't unlock until some had it in thier hands.

phantom - "we salute you!!"

__________________________________________________
"put it in a bottle, throw it out to sea... I dont trust nobody who dont trust me...
I'd rather run with Ramsey, swim in quicksand... shit by a tree, fuckin live off the land..."

Ray Marden, a few corrections

-Half-Life 2 will be out on Steam the same day it's out in stores, not a second sooner. Valve isn't about to piss off it's publisher and all the retailers by providing it on Steam before it's available in stores.

-Half-Life 2 will cost the same ammount on Steam as it will in stores. Again, Valve isn't about to offer a more tempting package in comparison to what their publisher and the retailers of the world are offering. The only benefit for getting it through Steam (Besides if you live in a po-dunk town that takes weeks for anything new to get here) is that more of your money goes straight to the developer than to the publishers and retailers.

-Buying HL2 in a store and using it's cd key for your steam account will provide you with the same "use it anywhere" benifit.

-Valve has said that everything available in the Collectors edition (At least software-wise) will be availble through steam as a "Special Edition"

Steam is still a new concept.. I wouldn't expect to see any major benifits until it's been around for more than a couple of years.

This comment was edited on Oct 19, 2024, 06:06.

I work for $WeMakeLegalResearch software. We are a small corporation, comprising about 1/100th the employees of our competitors. We provide a superior product, and have one crucial difference - we are CD-ROM based. When a customer purchases our product, they are free to use it for as long as they see fit.

When I hear about Steam, I think of our competitors - who have abused their subscription based content. Price hikes, incomplete data, incompetent customer handling, and mis-billing all come to mind. A subscription based product, represents a revocation of any rights a user may have.

I can still play Half-Life. This will not happen six years from now with Half Life 2. I am already encountering problems renewing my subscription (Read: Activation) based Windows XP product -as my system is constantly changing. The last time I called India, she told me that this would be the last time I could change my system. Thank you.

Here at $WeMakeLegalResearchSoftware - we stay in business because of other incompetent subscription based systems. They rarely work out in favor of the end user.

Valve is completely within their realm to do whatever the fuck they want with their product. I will still purchase it, only I will expect that I will get let in to the theater to view my video game but one time - and never again.

I don't write this to change things, as the end of a golden age is inevitable. It is un-preventable. The mass-market world has found our niche, and is crowding in with their spectacularly gleaming child eyes and razor teeth - tearing down everything I watched growing up.

I have more, but I will cap it here. Nobody really cares what either side has to say. You're either A-OK with having your moral rights removed, or you're shaking with anger. Nobody in the middle gives a damn either way.

Well, I do not know if Valve has announced pricing yet. If it has, I am ignorant of it. If Valve has any brains, it will offer some type of discount, though I I wonder how big of one it will be. If not, it will really only be appealing to gamers like myself - the "I already know that I will be paying $50 for the game, give it to me now!" types.

As for paying more for "less," I can be somewhat forgiving of that if it helps some smaller developers survive. This is taking things to extreme, but how much longer would LGS have survived if it was receiving 80% of the actual sale price? Just like how some movies factor in the projected DVD sales into their budgets, maybe we could have some games that go above and beyond what a normal retail-only game could do?

In an abstract way, I give games credit for having essentially no inflation (or even deflation.) Excluding something like Doom 3, those of us in the U.S. (don't get me started on the crazy international pricing...) have been paying $50 or less for years and years now. If anything, there are more $20 and $30 games that there ever were before. Good ones, too.

If Valve/other developers stick it to the customers (we still pay the same, Valve spends a few more bucks on bandwidth, but gets X times as much extra money in return...,) then I fully expect a crowd to storm the developer's offices.

There are all sorts of interesting things, though. Ideally, this helps empower the developers by not making them quite as reliant on the publishers.

Alternately, who can say what the local retailers will do? I am hoping that HL2 comes out on Steam at least a week earlier than it does the local retailers, but it would not surprise me if it came out at the same time, maybe even later. Steam basically kicks the local retailers to the curb and they are not going to appreciate that; you can bet they are applying their own pressure. You will note that id no longer releases major games as paid-activation shareware CDs. Honestly, I expect HL2 to be more of less evenly split between Steam and local retailers and, presuming HL2 is as successful as HL was/is, for Valve's next game to really push the Steam delivery. Here is to hoping Valve has guts and proves me wrong.

Lastly, Valve is split in a sense. Obviously, it is pushing Steam. At the same time, there is obviously going to be a CE version of HL2. Which one does Valve want us to get? Steam, but not CE items? Get the CE, compeltey bypassing Steam? The best way to promote Steam is to give people a significant reason to actually use it...

Blah blah blah...digital entertainment and online delivery are the future. As for when or how it happens, that is what makes it fun.

Only having two more Futurama episodes to watch :(,
Ray

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A locked copy of Half-Life 2 is now on your computer.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
I love you, mom.

You're assuming that Steam is there for the benefit of the consumer when it's not. It's there for the benefit of Valve's pocketbook.

I havent read the whole thread here but are you telling me that if you buy HL2 through Steam you dont get it for cheaper than buying it in the store? That would be total bs if its the same price as the store copy since they would be saving about 10 bucks on materials such as box, cds, manual, ect.

K Ray I admit I was a bit stubborn or however you call it, at midday when I posted that last message..

but still what I want to say is that it's just not right that you pay the same for 'less'. Ofcourse the game is everything but when you buy it in the store you do get all those lovely diddledeedoos for the same price as downloading.

And I do wonder if the game isn't in stores the same time it goes online on STEAM. That's all to be seen. If it is, it's the first game till now (right..?).. and I must say that would be a possitive thing about STEAM then.

PS: with calling your point 2 bs I was referring to the price thing, not the manual part.

Changing the control system? Where did you hear/read that? Next you'll tell us they're locking us out of remapping the keys.... no, that is silly. no one is that dumb. except for... well you know who.

No, they're not but it was an example of something that might require people to read the manual, thus require Valve to include the .pdf of it, if they hadn't already. Which they will. My point was that Steam users almost certainly will get a manual.

Alternatively just get the torrent file...

Will this be OK without a Steam account? That is to say, can one choose to get the file via torrent first, then set up a Steam account later?

I think it's a smart and stupid idea to have HL2 preload to allll users, because right now I tried to pre-load it and it's telling me there's way too many people trying to download it already, I fkn pre-ordered there should be some priority here :-P

Edit: for all those peeing their pants about the lack of a manual, is it not possible that if Valve have decided to completely change the control system away from every other FPS (WSAD) then they'll include a .pdf manual? Or even a readme?

What are you talking about? Who wouldn't include a pdf of the manual? That became standard years ago. Changing the control system? Where did you hear/read that? Next you'll tell us they're locking us out of remapping the keys.... no, that is silly. no one is that dumb. except for... well you know who.

November would be the 6th anniversary of HL's release so I wouldn't be surprised. That said, it could be anything.

Really enjoying DIII now, btw, that Monorail level is great.

Edit: for all those peeing their pants about the lack of a manual, is it not possible that if Valve have decided to completely change the control system away from every other FPS (WSAD) then they'll include a .pdf manual? Or even a readme?


This comment was edited on Aug 27, 12:07.

My vote? January of '05!

Don't try this at home. Don't try this when you're alone. Don't try this at home. You're gonna hurt yourself. http://www.laptopic.com

Ebgames.com has HL2 listed as 11/01/2004 now. Guess good old gabe got it wrong again. Oh well, guess it's back to DOW beta.

"...or get their parents to come and pick them up."

Ahahaha.

How is point two "bs?" Looking through my current game collection, I have only needed the manual for one game.

There are two parts to the money aspect - decreased production cost and increased revenue from the sale (no longer losing big chunks of the sale to the retailer.) This could all lead to decreased cost for the gamer, increased production capability for the developer, increased lifespan for the developer, continued lack of (or even negative) inflation, additional benefits like developer-run servers, etc.

As for point three, mistakes happen. Does anybody aim to lose something? No, but it happens from time to time. Ok, let us say you do not lose it...let us say it was broken somehow. What if it gets scratched? Damaged somehow? You do go to that friend's house and forget the CD? Other than having to download it again, it is not a problem. That is much better than the few or non-existing alternatives I have now.

I am surprised that you were playing Doom 3 on the gold date. Where are you located? Oh, unless you were not. Same thing, play a game now after a one to two hour download or wait a week (or more) to play it with a CD/DVD in the drive?

For a game I like, if I have no need for the manual, I could really care lessa bout the box/poster/CD. When Doom 3 went gold, I want to play the game, not look at a poster or figurine that I had already seen. In fact, those came in a different box (how about a "Pay now, get some trinkets, and play the game early" deal to make you happy) and I gave those away already. What did suck was waiting for the game to be produced or not being able to play while the idiotic pirates were downloading it.

What if it is midnight and all the stores are closed? No problem with Steam - barring outages, it is going twenty-four, seven.

Yes, if you cared more about the poster/box than the game, I could see Steam being pointless.

It is not for posters.

It is not for figurines.

It is not for boxes.

It is not for Cds/DVDs.

However, it is for having realatively easy access and immediate access to games at all times of the day and at any number of locations.

Guessing that makes me lazy :|,
Ray

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A locked copy of Half-Life 2 is now on your computer.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
I love you, mom.