Something that Should Scare You About the Industry's Future

V

Vortac

Member
#1 thing to worry about:

Pay for play with methods like Steam is nearly inevitable...

You think publishers are happy that gamers rent or pirate games and don't shell out the big bucks? You're going to be sorely disappointed, the only thing you can do to prevent this is buy a lot of games now and don't buy any if they ever try stuff like this...
 
Can someone briefly outline how Steam works and if it's been circumvented at all? Haven't been following it much.

Anyway, my understanding was the Steam system was not received very well by fans. If it were a game less popular and long-awaited than Half-Life 2, it probably would have had much more of an negative impact on sales. I don't see this becoming a trend quite yet as I think it turns consumers off.
 
steam didn't bother me in the slightest, but I bought HL2 silver about 3 weeks to a month before the game came out, and preloaded it so I didn't have to deal with any of the stuff people who bought the retail box had to. I personally think it's a really good idea with a lot of potential, and it's less annoying to me than the really shitty copy protection programs that more often than not fuck up with legit copies of the game and get cracked for warez like a day after they're out.
 
Steam explained, poorly:

You get an account registered as you would with any other online service, and then you either buy packages or plug in CD keys for valve games you already own. After doing this you will be able to download the files for the games you've bought at any time, anywhere, and as many times as you need. You do not need to have any CDs in the drive unless you bought HL2 retail. In addition to this, it can automatically download and apply patches for those games. The only conditions are that you must log in to activate an installation for later offline play and that just one computer can be online with your account at any one time. Also, all of this, including playing games, is done within the Steam program.

At any rate, it may not be what you'd like in videogame setup, but it's not pay-per-play.
 
I thought he meant that Steam having pay for play was inevetable hence my PSO comment. Eh whatever. I'm not too worried about it. Console makers aren't too excited about putting HD's in their systems next gen (probably due to pirating) so I wouldn't worry about it too much, at least on the console side of things.
 
I had to wait fricken forever at an EB because some mom couldn't understand why she needed internet access to play the game. Damn you Valve!
 
Yeah, other than tech issues (i.e. when it doesn't $%&#$& work), I don't mind Steam at all. I certainly don't find it terrifying, anyway.
 
Movie industry tried that shit with DivX, and it didn't worked. Hopefully it will be the same here, and they'll realize there's more money to be made through the regular retail sales, despite the piracy and all.
 
More efforts need to be made towards battling piracy instead of circumventing it. As a whole, the U.S. economy thrives off retail and people take "pride in ownership". Services like Steam will never be able to penetrate mainstream unless the savings is passed on to the consumers (and these savings need to be quite substantial, not a measly 5 or 10 dollars). The console business is pretty safe though.
 
But if Steam becomes the norm, how are we supposed to post picks of gigantic game collections with shelves and shelves of titles. :(
 
Mr Nash said:
But if Steam becomes the norm, how are we supposed to post picks of gigantic game collections with shelves and shelves of titles. :(
Click to expand...


'dude, check out my profile! i got tons of games'


and how will you be able to sell back games you dont want anymore..
 
Steam seems like a good and honest solution to a real problem for pubs. They might lose some fans, but if they can keep a substantial core of loyal, paying fans, they'll be fine. And they don't need to make it pay-per-play, although I imagine there'll be a Steam Premium service or something like that in the future, which will be the beginning of the PPP system. PEACE.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and that's why I might never play HL2. :lol
 
I don't have a problem with schemes like Steam. As long as the pricing is reasonable and the pipes are fat enough that downloading the games isn't a huge hassle, then I'm all for it. I'm even open to pay for play or paying flat fees for access to a library of games.
 
If you buy hl2 retail you gotta download somethign before you begin right? a person i know said it was like a 100 mb file, don't they think they're alienating sales? so on 56 k it would take hours just til being able to play.
 
I think steam benefits the gamer in two ways:

1. Developer has an efficient way of reaching its consumer without getting ripped off by publishers, that means more $$$ for the developer.

2. Games are unpiratable, less piracy means more revenue means more $$$ for the developer.

Both cases mean increasing profit margins, which should eventually mean decreasing game prices. (Of course that may never happen, but still..)

and how will you be able to sell back games you dont want anymore..
Click to expand...

This is a real issue, they really should enable people to give over rights to a cd-key to some other user without having to sell their whole steam account. AFAIK it's not yet possible..
 
Higher profit margins don't mean shit if there are a lot fewer sales. Not every game has the hype and anticipation that HL2 did and would not survive using the Steam business model. HL2 is the exception and not the rule and Valve blatantly used that to their advantage. HL1 made 100 million dollars for Valve so what's with all of this "fuck the publisher" nonsense. I'm not pro-publisher (or anti-developer) or anything but I do think they have their place and can benefit smaller developers like Valve. If HL2 was privately funded by Valve why did they even go to VU for publishing? The answer is they'd get added exposure and marketing, not to mention, the retail channels that VU has established that Valve has not. Now, I'm not happy with how VU handled Valve but that's a different story alltogether. I'm just saying that not all publishers are evil and treat their developers like shit.
 
You're probably right but when I think about publishers, as a gamer whose primary system is the PC, the first name that comes to my mind is EA and the only thing I will remember EA of adding to PC gaming is rushed shitty games with tons of bugs left in with the "we can always patch it later on, sell them bitches now!" mentality..
 
Steam is utter sh!t.

I shouldn't need an Internet connection to play a game unless it's integral to gameplay.

I shouldn't need to download, decrypt and install extra bullsh!t after I installed the game.

I shouldn't need additional apps running to play a game.

I could go on and on...
 
I doubt companies want to limit their userbase to people with online conenctions. This idea will work only when the amount of people that have TV sets is the same amount that have online....and by then, we'll just have to deal with it. Everything will be online activated, but I doubt it'll be pay per play. People like owning shit, and unless you can convince them you are paying for a service...they aren't going to pay to play anything as long as there is competition that doesn't force you to
 
Here's an odd perspective that will probably be very difficult to imagine for most of you:

I live in a place where due to stupid local distributors original copies of games may take ages to hit store shelves and even when they do they usually do in few quantity and little variety. For example, Half Life 2 will not hit the shelves until February here (although Doom 3 was launched on the same day as it was launched in Europe.. go figure..) As a result, most gamers have to buy pirated copies of the games and by the time they are around they are not interested in the purchase anymore (whether they would buy them if they were promptly available is a whole different question that I think the answer to is 'probably not', regardless..) I purchased Half Life 2 through Steam and am absolutely delighted with the chance to own an online-enabled original copy of the game without having to wait for the local distributor to start selling it or paying shipping costs to get it from abroad. As a result, Steam allowed Valve to reach at least one user it hadn't reached in the past..
 
Steam is utter sh!t.

I shouldn't need an Internet connection to play a game unless it's integral to gameplay.

I shouldn't need to download, decrypt and install extra bullsh!t after I installed the game.

I shouldn't need additional apps running to play a game.

I could go on and on...
Click to expand...


I strongly agree!

I've probably logged more hours in on the first Half-life than anyone one. Every night before I close my eyes and I'm laying there looking up at that dark ceiling, I say to myself "Hmmm... I wonder what the G in G-Man stands for.". YEP. I'm a HUGE HL fan, but the fact of the matter is, until Valve addresses the above, I'll be spending my money on other games that are 100%-bs-free out the box.
 
PanopticBlue said:
I want to hear the whole story. :)
Click to expand...

That is the whole story. I waited for 5 minutes till she fricken accepted the fact that you need an internet connection (how someone could own a computer powerful enough to run HL2 yet not have internet boggles the mind), she left, and I bought my game. No magazine racks pushed over, no employee attacking the customers. Just boring christmas crap.
 
DaCocoBrova said:
Steam is utter sh!t.

I shouldn't need an Internet connection to play a game unless it's integral to gameplay.

I shouldn't need to download, decrypt and install extra bullsh!t after I installed the game.

I shouldn't need additional apps running to play a game.

I could go on and on...
Click to expand...

No it's not.

The internet connection was required to curb piracy. You think Valve would let you preload the game months in advance, and give you the key ??

You should have to download extra shit. Either way you would be moaning:

Scenario A: "Ohh Valve my game doesn't work why haven't you got a patch out already you wankers?"

Scenario B: "Wow the patch fixed my problems hours after Valve leaned about it... But I was forced to download it... moan moan moan"

You don't need additional apps to play a game. But if you want to play something Valve made, you have to access it through steam, which face it, is the easiest way to keep all your Valve games up to date and the quickest way to get new stuff.

Get over it.
 
Burger, nice post :|



just for the hell of it:

I just came back from EB with a early copy of HL2...oops! Steam won't let me play the game until I register...oops! the registration servers are down and it took forever for steam to realize that...hey! Steam will let me still play the game...oops! now I need to decrypt the game... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... .. ... ... .. ... ... .*comes back from gas station* ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... .. .. ... .. ... ... ... .. ... ... .. ... .. .. . . .... ... ... ... .. ... ... .. . .... ... ... .. .. ... .. .. .. .... ... ... .great! now I can play..oops! my performance isn't as good as it should be...let me close this absolutely useless and conter-intuitive steam bullshit so I can utilize the 33MB of memory it's currently occupying...oops! now I can't play HL2


I love you steam!!
 
Gattsu25 said:
Burger, nice post :|



just for the hell of it:

I just came back from EB with a early copy of HL2...oops! Steam won't let me play the game until I register...oops! the registration servers are down and it took forever for steam to realize that...hey! Steam will let me still play the game...oops! now I need to decrypt the game... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... .. ... ... .. ... ... .*comes back from gas station* ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... .. .. ... .. ... ... ... .. ... ... .. ... .. .. . . .... ... ... ... .. ... ... .. . .... ... ... .. .. ... .. .. .. .... ... ... .great! now I can play..oops! my performance isn't as good as it should be...let me close this absolutely useless and conter-intuitive steam bullshit so I can utilize the 33MB of memory it's currently occupying...oops! now I can't play HL2


I love you steam!!
Click to expand...

Nobody could play HL2 early, that was always clear.

Absolutley useless ?? How is that ? If I load Steam I know that it very well could be patching all my games, without me even lifting a finger. It can burn backups of my games onto cd's (name another game that does this). It delivers new games, addons and content to me the second it comes out. I had Halflife 2 Deathmatch running within an hour of it releasing, and it took 2 mouse clicks.

Steam can also download hardware specific upgrades for my games when they become available in the future.

My copy of steam has a 9.8 meg footprint. If you are worried about 33megs then you should probably open your wallet and upgrade. I can't imagine that 33megs would have a difference on a 512meg config, let alone 1gig.

Conventional:

Load up UT2004, play game, oh no patch required, exit game, load firefox, goto some website, search ut2004, do I need patch 3405 ? oh well i'll try, 24meg download, save to desktop, wait, run, select ut2004 directory, wait, exit, goto desktop, delete patch file, load ut2004, play game.

Steam:

Double click steam. Double click game. Wait.
 
I just find it interesting that the consumer is actually punished for buying the retail version of games now instead of getting it over Steam.

From what I can remember, the CD check built into the HL2 CD was a vivendi thing, so valve can't do anything about it due to their agreement of sorts.
 
haven't actually read the thread here, but steam is pretty sucky. best thing about it is that you don't have to worry about updates/patches because it does all that for you. other than that, it's a pain in the ass.
 
Burger, I just gave you my experiences with steam (and that's ALL I’ve done with the fucking thing...I couldn't care less about patching a game that worked perfect (though only after I lowered the sound quality)...I had no interest in HL DM which led me to have no interest in HL2 DM as well, and I despise CS. Even though there is zero reason for me to go online with this game, I still needed to verify my copy with their authentication server. That, IMO, is unnecessary and counterintuitive…though I guess anti-piracy schemes that make things harder on the paying fan-base is forgivable, right? What really pissed me off about the whole process was how long it took for the 'authentication server is down' message to show up and the unfuckingbelievable nerve they had to waste my time decypting the fucking game after godknowshowfuckinglongtoinstallthemotherfuckingshit

My Steam weighs in at 33.9M, though I guess following your logic I should turn a blind eye, forget that I don't feel any compelling need to run this bloatware, and not worry as I have RAM to burn


Optimal:
Run Game. Want to do useless bullshit (browse company products, etc)? run mini-browser. Want to update? Click the Update Button and launch the Update program. Want to Play? Press "Load Game" button. Want to make backup copy of disc? Run A120%
 
Optimal:
Run Game. Want to do useless bullshit (browse company products, etc)? run mini-browser. Want to update? Click the Update Button and launch the Update program. Want to Play? Press "Load Game" button. Want to make backup copy of disc? Run A120%
Click to expand...

I strongly agree!

Some games that I buy, if they run without huge errors right out the box, I don't bother with patches. If I want a patch, I'll visit their website or click the update button at the autostart screen.

IMO, Steam might be a great idea if you have tons of bandwidth for your internet connection (although, people with such are still having problems judging by past threads), but for 56k-Joe who is only interested in the singleplayer aspect of the game, it's a living hell.
 
I <3 Steam. The measures taken to prevent piracy make sense. Offline mode works fine, should my connection go down for a bit. I had Half-Life 2 on the release date, which I can't say about any other console or PC game in the past few years.

I'm all for more developers doing the same thing.
 
Hitokage said:
Steam explained, poorly:

You get an account registered as you would with any other online service, and then you either buy packages or plug in CD keys for valve games you already own. After doing this you will be able to download the files for the games you've bought at any time, anywhere, and as many times as you need. You do not need to have any CDs in the drive unless you bought HL2 retail. In addition to this, it can automatically download and apply patches for those games. The only conditions are that you must log in to activate an installation for later offline play and that just one computer can be online with your account at any one time. Also, all of this, including playing games, is done within the Steam program.

At any rate, it may not be what you'd like in videogame setup, but it's not pay-per-play.
Click to expand...
the danger is that this could turn into a subscription or pay for play service. that's the direction microsoft types want to take software.

i do tend to think that highly regulated distribution is not the way to go (although network distribution clearly is)
 
fart said:
the danger is that this could turn into a subscription or pay for play service. that's the direction microsoft types want to take software.
Click to expand...
And that's the day I turn in my gamer license. Either that or go retro-only. God knows theres a ton of games I haven't played yet (including imports). Although I wouldn't welcome the day when the pay-2-play business model becomes the industry standard, my wallet sure would.
 
Mr_Furious said:
And that's the day I turn in my gamer license. Either that or go retro-only. God knows theres a ton of games I haven't played yet (including imports). Although I wouldn't welcome the day when the pay-2-play business model becomes the industry standard, my wallet sure would.
Click to expand...

IAWTP
 
Which industry? Does a system like Steam even have a prayer of taking root in Japan, where things are still very cash and brick and mortar oriented?

Right know, I can only see it becoming a standard for major PC games.
 
Steam worked great for me although I'm against the very idea. I won't want a different download client on my computer for every game publisher, and I like having a box and cd case.
 
Marty Chinn said:
Maybe I'm not totally up to date, but how does it stop piracy when HL2 has been pirated already?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I really don't see how Steam will stop people from pirating single player games that they play entirely on their own computers. As long as someone can get their hands on the program, and as long as they have everything they need to play the game on their own computer, there will always be someway to break the protection on that game.
 
Marty Chinn said:
Maybe I'm not totally up to date, but how does it stop piracy when HL2 has been pirated already?
Click to expand...
It only prevented early, unfinished copies from being leaked.....oh wait, no it didn't. To me, Steam is the bi-product of greed. Valve made a 100 million fucking dollars off of HL1 that fully funded HL2. I firmly believe that Valve is trying to play "big brother" to their, no wait, YOUR game that YOU purchased with YOUR hard earned cash by force feeding their Steam "police-were". The term: "if you don't like it, don't buy it" is exactly what I've exercised to show I will never knowingly subscribe to such a service or concept of "big brother".
 
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