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[Stumpokapow]

Man, PC publishers are so confusing.

Nordic Games
Dreamcatcher Interactive: Canadian company that publishes games.
Dreamcatcher Interactive starts "The Adventure Company", a company dedicated to retail publication of adventure games.
Both companies get bought by JoWooD, an Austrian company that publishes games.
Metaboli, a French company, launches a service called GamesPlanet, for subscription-based gaming. They have a subset of this service called The Adventure Company web store which sells games for The Adventure Company.
JoWooD goes under and sells all of its assets to Nordic Games.
Metaboli buys GameTap off Ted Turner (?!) and runs it in parallel to GamesPlanet.
Nordic Games later buys chunks of the THQ auction.

ZOO Games / Strategy First
Destination Games, an American company, publishes games.
Zoo Entertainment, another American company, buys Destination Games.
Empire Interactive, a UK company, publishes games.
Empire Interactive opens a division called Xplosiv to publish games.
Strategy First, a Canadian company, publishes games.
Strategy First is bought by a holding company called Silverstar Holdings.
Empire Interactive is bought by Silverstar Holdings.
Silverstar Holdings goes into bankruptcy
Silverstar Holdings sells Empire Interactive's rights to New World IP
New World IP sells Empire Interactive's rights to Zoo Entertainment
Zoo Entertainment becomes indiePub

Devolver Digital
Gathering of Developers is a Texas company to help independent devs.
GoD is bought by Take 2
The founders of GoD create GameCock to do the same thing.
GameCock is bought by SouthPeak
The founders of GameCock start Devolver Digital to do the same thing again.

Apogee/3D Realms
Apogee is a Texas company that publishes games.
Apogee opens the 3D Realms label to publish / develop 3D Games.
The company changes its name to 3D Realms for most public cases but is still legally called Apogee.
3D Realms creates a spinoff company called Apogee (not to be confused with 3D Realms, which is still legally called Apogee)
3D Realms becomes functionally bankrupt.
3D Realms is revived as a publisher, still legally known as Apogee, but not to be confused with Apogee, the company that spun off of 3D Realms

Other
cdv Entertainment: German
dtp Entertainment: German -- also they went bankrupt last year ???
Kalypso: German
Deep Silver (Koch Media): German
bitComposer: German (publishes Jagged Alliance, which was earlier published by i-deal games [Russian] and Strategy First)
Microids: French, later bought by Anuman, also French
Focus Home Interactive: French
1C Company: Russian
Meridian4: Canadian
Viva Media: American

Almost all of the companies listed above publish each others games in different regions. Crazy Machines is published by both dtp entertainment and Viva Media. As is Grey Matter. The Whispered World is published by Deep Silver and Viva Media.

*boggle*

 

[gabbo]

Devolver Digital
Gathering of Developers is a Texas company to help independent devs.
GoD is bought by Take 2
The founders of GoD create GameCock to do the same thing.
GameCock is bought by SouthPeak
The founders of GameCock start Devolver Digital to do the same thing again.

I did not know Devolver Digital was the latest incarnation of GoD/GameCock. Their releases make sense, a lot of gambles, but.. it's good they didn't go away after Gamecock, even if that situation turned into a fucking mess.

Apogee/3D Realms
Apogee is a Texas company that publishes games.
Apogee opens the 3D Realms label to publish / develop 3D Games.
The company changes its name to 3D Realms for most public cases but is still legally called Apogee.
3D Realms creates a spinoff company called Apogee (not to be confused with 3D Realms, which is still legally called Apogee)
3D Realms becomes functionally bankrupt.
3D Realms is revived as a publisher, still legally known as Apogee, but not to be confused with Apogee, the company that spun off of 3D Realms

Even written out like this, I don't understand the Apogee/3D Realms thing.

 

[Sajjaja]

So guys.... I just experienced dat feel of 120fps...... Was at my friends house and he has this crazy pc, 4770k, gtx 770, liquid cooled etc etc and damn.....so slick.... Sad thing is.... he only plays Flight Simulator X.........wat..... He's new to PC gaming and plays Battlefield on PC with a controller.......I don't...I couldn't even....

 

[drizzle]

So guys.... I just experienced dat feel of 120fps...... Was at my friends house and he has this crazy pc, 4770k, gtx 770, liquid cooled etc etc and damn.....so slick.... Sad thing is.... he only plays Flight Simulator X.........wat..... He's new to PC gaming and plays Battlefield on PC with a controller.......I don't...I couldn't even....

Was he using a 120hz monitor? Do you know which kind?

 

[Sajjaja]

Was he using a 120hz monitor? Do you know which kind?

Uhhhh it was an Asus 24 inch monitor. I don't know the exact model.

 

[SteveWinwood]

So guys.... I just experienced dat feel of 120fps...... Was at my friends house and he has this crazy pc, 4770k, gtx 770, liquid cooled etc etc and damn.....so slick.... Sad thing is.... he only plays Flight Simulator X.........wat..... He's new to PC gaming and plays Battlefield on PC with a controller.......I don't...I couldn't even....

Does he have a sister?

 

[Sajjaja]

Does he have a sister?

Yup. Why?

 

[drizzle]

Uhhhh it was an Asus 24 inch monitor. I don't know the exact model.

I'm just asking, because hitting 120fps on a 60hz monitor doesn't really matter. He probably ha a 120hz monitor, those are not so unusual nowadays.

Too bad there's no 120hz IPS monitors...

 

[poopninjamvc3mk]

So guys.... I just experienced dat feel of 120fps...... Was at my friends house and he has this crazy pc, 4770k, gtx 770, liquid cooled etc etc and damn.....so slick.... Sad thing is.... he only plays Flight Simulator X.........wat..... He's new to PC gaming and plays Battlefield on PC with a controller.......I don't...I couldn't even....

lol wut

 

[Dice]

I feel like 120fps would only make crappy mouse movement resolution more apparent. I mean I guess you could use smoothing, but smoothing to 120fps sounds like lag city. To me this (accepting inconsistency between movement smoothness and look smoothness vs accepting input lag) is the biggest catch 22 with high performance gaming. Thankfully it's not an issue with fighting and racing games.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Yup. Why?

You know what you must do.

 

[Sajjaja]

You know what you must do.

His sister is 10.

 

[SteveWinwood]

His sister is 10.

The answer was wait. Wait many years. Wait a long time.

 

[Khronico]

The answer was wait. Wait many years. Wait a long time.

Smooth recovery.

 

[Binabik15]

I have a quick question. I saw a tgrhreadead about a better program to use a Dualshock 3 on pc than Motionjoy. But I can't find the thread anymore.

I want to play some games, but my current desk is too cramped for proper mouse controls. I have enough action games that play well without kb+m, luckily.

 

[Sajjaja]

I have a quick question. I saw a tgrhreadead about a better program to use a Dualshock 3 on pc than Motionjoy. But I can't find the thread anymore.

I want to play some games, but my current desk is too cramped for proper mouse controls. I have enough action games that play well without kb+m, luckily.

Well there is BetterDS3 which uses the MIJ drivers but without the malware which is what I use. And the there is xpadder which I'm not to familiar with.

 

[toddhunter]

I have a quick question. I saw a tgrhreadead about a better program to use a Dualshock 3 on pc than Motionjoy. But I can't find the thread anymore.

I want to play some games, but my current desk is too cramped for proper mouse controls. I have enough action games that play well without kb+m, luckily.

Well there is BetterDS3 which uses the MIJ drivers but without the malware which is what I use. And the there is xpadder which I'm not to familiar with.

What you are after is this http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=59385385&postcount=102

It'll make your PS3 controller plug and play as a 360 pad. No motioninjoy, no messing about.

 

[Sarcasm]

What you are after is this http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=59385385&postcount=102

It'll make your PS3 controller plug and play as a 360 pad. No motioninjoy, no messing about.

Can you use this with a xbox wirelss receiver ?

 

[JaseC]

What's up with Topware Interactive releasing a half-dozen old games today? Who owned the licenses for those games before today?

The reason seems to be two-pronged:

- Gorky 17 and Septerra Core were brought over from GOG
- WW2: Panzer Claws, WW3: Black Gold and KnightShift were all developed by independent outfit Reality Pump, with TopWare assuming publishing duties, so it would seem that they're simply releasing on Steam before GOG (they've been available at GamersGate for yonks)

 

[Robert J. Sullivan]

A quick question: how did you play it, keyboard or gamepad? And which do you think would be best suited for the game?

I used a 360 controller, the game sometimes requires you to slalom between bullets and jump over cars so I preferred to have a joystick. I haven't tested KB controls.

 

[Mavromatis]

I leave for 6 months and SteamBox, SteamOS happens. Guess Steam hates me.

 

[ashecitism]

So, it's safe to say the majority of reactions to Valve's announcements have been negative, yet there's this narrative that just because it's Valve they're getting a free pass. Huh?

Not to mention the so called Valve fanboys are among the more reasonable people in those threads and they actually bothered to read the announcement from start to end.lol

 

[jaundicejuice]

Tried out Big Picture Mode for the first time today. I was playing DmC, had a controller, thought I should check it out. It looks nice but I'm not used to the flow of the BPM user interface and had difficulty navigating through all of the tabs. I find the desktop client easier to navigate and use. That said, if I buy a Steam Box for my tv down the road, I don't think I'd mind using BPM.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

So, it's safe to say the majority of reactions to Valve's announcements have been negative

I don't think that's safe to say at all. I just think (like with all other things) that the voices of negativity ring louder than those of "can't wait!".

It's also three different announcements, which have not been shown. Hardware, an OS and a picture of a very radical controller. Nobody has even tried or seen or felt them. Nobody knows price or anything yet. So nobody can really say anythin out from an announcement.

 

[jaundicejuice]

I'm interested to see where these announcements go. Valve kind of has to try and address the changing market with this OS and hardware. Fewer and fewer people are buying desktop PC's, it's a contracting market. Windows 8 did not revitalise the PC market the way many hoped and kind of needed it to. The only real growth is in enthusiast hardware and that's a niche at best. Casual users needs are being met by their phones and tablets.

The hardware and OS are very interesting long term bets that we won't really know the results of for years. The controller is something we can all probably sort out sooner rather than later.

Personally I don't see myself stopping building my own PC's. But if it's priced appropriately I may get a Steam Box as a secondary device to use in my living room. Or maybe I'll just build an HTPC instead, been thinking about it for a while. It depends what the price and specs of these boxes are.

I am interested in buying the controller tho and giving it a shot. Pretty happy with my wired 360 pad but it won't last forever and if the Steam Pad (or whatever it's called) gets lots of support from pubs/devs, I'll try it out.

 

[Copons]

So, it's safe to say the majority of reactions to Valve's announcements have been negative, yet there's this narrative that just because it's Valve they're getting a free pass. Huh?

Not to mention the so called Valve fanboys are among the more reasonable people in those threads and they actually bothered to read the announcement from start to end.lol

Fact is, majority of negative reactions are "don't care" reactions.
A reaction that I think was taken into account by Valve in the very annuncements, when they said and repeated hundreds of times that if you don't want OS/Machines/Controller, just no problem, everything will work perfectly the same with Win, a normal PC, K/M and whatever controller you like.

Btw I really can't understand people who just aren't intrigued by these announcements.
I don't know. I went 100% PC gamer in the last 3 years, coming from 15 years of full console gaming (and mixed PC/console from late 80s to late 90s) so I shouldn't give a fuck about console announcements, but still I look with great interest to new console features, new controllers and such, because even if they don't affect me directly, they affect gaming world as a whole and they are inevitably important to its future and (in)directly to me.
So yeah, I'm founding very ignorant that people are shitting on Valve's announcements just because they only play with a console or they have a long hdmi cable to connect their gaming PC to their living room TV.

 

[Wok]

Planetary Annihilation is now sold for a mere 55 euros. It is like winter sales, but it is only due to the transition from alpha to beta. Wait for the daily deal.

 

[Anteater]

Tried out Big Picture Mode for the first time today. I was playing DmC, had a controller, thought I should check it out. It looks nice but I'm not used to the flow of the BPM user interface and had difficulty navigating through all of the tabs. I find the desktop client easier to navigate and use. That said, if I buy a Steam Box for my tv down the road, I don't think I'd mind using BPM.

I don't really like the scrolling in big picture, I kind of wish I could use a controller with the desktop client though, I think it's not possible for everything but I think the tile view should work great with a controller.

 

[epaturun]

as some one that has just got into PC gaming (steam) i'm intrigued by the promised Steam OS/box Setup.

I've not gamed once on my PS3 since setting up DS3 on my PC. So impressed with the gfx and fluidity of games, tried the PS3 skydrift and didn't like it and then got Skydrift via Kalypso Humble Bundle and felt something new and ive only got 5670 GGDR5 1Gb and the old quadcore Q6660 - currently playing Bastion, Sine Mora (so difficult) and Sonic All Star Racing

I keep thinking that if SteamOS and box become popular we will see less reduction on game prices

 

[epaturun]

does the BPM use up more background resources (mem & cpu) then just running client

 

[Copons]

I'm interested to see where these announcements go. Valve kind of has to try and address the changing market with this OS and hardware. Fewer and fewer people are buying desktop PC's, it's a contracting market. Windows 8 did not revitalise the PC market the way many hoped and kind of needed it to. The only real growth is in enthusiast hardware and that's a niche at best. Casual users needs are being met by their phones and tablets.

The hardware and OS are very interesting long term bets that we won't really know the results of for years. The controller is something we can all probably sort out sooner rather than later.

Personally I don't see myself stopping building my own PC's. But if it's priced appropriately I may get a Steam Box as a secondary device to use in my living room. Or maybe I'll just build an HTPC instead, been thinking about it for a while. It depends what the price and specs of these boxes are.

I am interested in buying the controller tho and giving it a shot. Pretty happy with my wired 360 pad but it won't last forever and if the Steam Pad (or whatever it's called) gets lots of support from pubs/devs, I'll try it out.

Lines I highlighted.
I think those are some of the most important points in this new scenario.

1) It seems that people really underestimate the power of tablets and similar "low-power" devices. I think that nowadays a full fledged PC is useful just for gamers and for IT professionals. Leaving another couple of years for upgrading and empowering tablet office suites, and I honestly think that most of the people just won't need a PC at all.
So Steam OS and Machines will actually be important in a PC gaming scenario where PC will be every year harder to find and buy (also, just look right now in malls and similar, the huge space they give to phones and tablets and the tiny corner for pre-assembled PCs).

2) All of this is a long term bet. Period. It seems so obvious to me that I actually find it difficult to explain without feeling dumb.

3) Machines aren't targeted to people who builds their own PCs. I don't know shit about hardware and stuff, and still I remember the huge satisfaction I got last time I built a PC. Machines mostly will be for people who don't know, don't want or just don't care to tinker with hardware.
Or maybe even for them, considering that they'll be upgradable, but still, hardware enthusiasts won't be the main target of Machines.



And on a side note: while it's true that the more dev support for the pad the better, Valve said it will work with every game ever. Both because you can obviously map buttons to it, and more importantly, because they'll provide an interface for the community to exchange button mapping for every Steam game. So if I don't know (or don't want or don't care) how to map a game for the Steamtroller, I just need to go to that game community hub and get an already mapped configuration and I'll be good to go.

 

[Glass Rebel]

The Steam Controller is probably my favourite announcement of the bunch. But that's mostly got to do with me being a tech junkie and wanting to try out something with haptic feedback.

 

[ashecitism]

I tried BPM to get the badge I game on my notebook, and my tv isn' that big anyway. One question to those who use it properly. Do games' UI and menus scale to the big screen in BPM?

 

[JaseC]

I don't really like the scrolling in big picture, I kind of wish I could use a controller with the desktop client though, I think it's not possible for everything but I think the tile view should work great with a controller.

I'm rather fond of BPM's UI in general, particularly the library scrolling -- even if you have a lot of games, you can jump to different letters of the alphabet using LB/RB rather than quick-scrolling through everything, which would take some time.

I tried BPM to get the badge I game on my notebook, and my tv isn' that big anyway. One question to those who use it properly. Do games' UI and menus scale to the big screen in BPM?

BPM doesn't affect the scaling in actual games, though as you might expect, there is a BPM flavour of the Steam Overlay, so there's that.

 

[ashecitism]

That might be problematic for mostly strategy games. Devs probably need to come up with a new UI for the big screen.

 

[NIN90]

So I want to upgrade from Win7 32 bit to 64bit.
I got my Windows installed to one partition (C and my Steam games and other stuff to another (D.
Do I need to format both partitions? That's what I always did when I upgraded from one 32bit OS to another 32bit OS but this time I don't want to download all my Steam games again.

Will there be any conflicts? I guess the 32bit exes will still be in place so that could be a problem?

 

[Mavromatis]

That might be problematic for mostly strategy games. Devs probably need to come up with a new UI for the big screen.

I guess Paradox will lead at that point, since they are the first ones to support Steam on Linux.

 

[JaseC]

So I want to upgrade from Win7 32 bit to 64bit.
I got my Windows installed to one partition (C and my Steam games and other stuff to another (D.
Do I need to format both partitions? That's what I always did when I upgraded from one 32bit OS to another 32bit OS but this time I don't want to download all my Steam games again.

Will there be any conflicts? I guess the 32bit exes will still be in place so that could be a problem?

Just format your Windows partition. You don't need to do touch your Steam drive at all, though I'd recommend reinstalling the Steam client (you can just re-install it over the top of your existing installation) as you may otherwise run into some issues.

Edit: Oh, and as has been mentioned, your games won't care that you're running a 64-bit OS.

 

[TheD]

So I want to upgrade from Win7 32 bit to 64bit.
I got my Windows installed to one partition (C and my Steam games and other stuff to another (D.
Do I need to format both partitions? That's what I always did when I upgraded from one 32bit OS to another 32bit OS but this time I don't want to download all my Steam games again.

Will there be any conflicts? I guess the 32bit exes will still be in place so that could be a problem?

You don't need to format the drive with your OS on when upgrading OSes, let alone all the drives.

 

[didamangi]

So I want to upgrade from Win7 32 bit to 64bit.
I got my Windows installed to one partition (C and my Steam games and other stuff to another (D.
Do I need to format both partitions? That's what I always did when I upgraded from one 32bit OS to another 32bit OS but this time I don't want to download all my Steam games again.

Will there be any conflicts? I guess the 32bit exes will still be in place so that could be a problem?

No problem at all, just format your system partition and leave the steam partition alone. the games will not be 64 bit exes just because you upgraded to 64bit, that's not how it works.

 

[derExperte]

So I want to upgrade from Win7 32 bit to 64bit.
I got my Windows installed to one partition (C and my Steam games and other stuff to another (D.
Do I need to format both partitions? That's what I always did when I upgraded from one 32bit OS to another 32bit OS but this time I don't want to download all my Steam games again.

Will there be any conflicts? I guess the 32bit exes will still be in place so that could be a problem?

No.

A 64bit OS can run 32bit programs and there aren't a lot that are 64bit anyway.

e: Triplebeaten, the worst kind of beaten.

 

[Deques]

So I want to upgrade from Win7 32 bit to 64bit.
I got my Windows installed to one partition (C and my Steam games and other stuff to another (D.
Do I need to format both partitions? That's what I always did when I upgraded from one 32bit OS to another 32bit OS but this time I don't want to download all my Steam games again.

Will there be any conflicts? I guess the 32bit exes will still be in place so that could be a problem?

No need to format the secondary partition. Even if you did format it, you will download 32-bit games anyway.

edit: beaten by above

 

[zoku88]

I guess Paradox will lead at that point, since they are the first ones to support Steam on Linux.

Hmmm? They weren't even close. Their first game for the Linux version of Steam came in February 2013 (Crusader Kings II).

I think Serious Sam 3 linux version followed closely the Steam for Linux launch (might have been at the same time.) I feel like those people were the only non-indie dev at the time with Linux ports in Steam.

 

[epaturun]

just downloaded Scribblenauts unlimited - there is no joypad support :-(

is there anyplace that I has joytokey mappings for games like these?

 

[NIN90]

Thanks guys!

 

[Maxwood]

So guys.... I just experienced dat feel of 120fps...... Was at my friends house and he has this crazy pc, 4770k, gtx 770, liquid cooled etc etc and damn.....so slick.... Sad thing is.... he only plays Flight Simulator X.........wat..... He's new to PC gaming and plays Battlefield on PC with a controller.......I don't...I couldn't even....

I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed at 120FPS, feels gooooood.
I bought a high-end pc a couple of months ago, and since i've experienced the joy's and comfort of a high framerate (etcetera) I barely touch my consoles anymore.

I used to be quite into Flight Sim's, long time ago, but my PC could never really handle it. Should do a re-install of 2004! Thanks for reminding me.

 

[JaseC]

just downloaded Scribblenauts unlimited - there is no joypad support :-(

is there anyplace that I has joytokey mappings for games like these?

Nope. Not only was Scribblenauts not built with controllers in mind, which, given the nature of the game, would make emulating mouse movements via a stick cumbersome, but the only on-screen keyboard the PC version has pertains to special characters -- the regular in-game keyboard was given the flick since it was made redundant by the physical keyboard the player has.

 

[jediyoshi]

What are the odds

 

[Knurek]

Wrapping up Alpha Protocol, god, the PC version is a glitchy mess.

• The game doesn't work with non-x360 controllers, even with x360ce you can't use the radial menu to switch skills/gadgets
• Constant hangs while reloading saves,
• Which you must do, because the 'resume from last checkpoint' option does not respawn enemies, making a lot of missions unwinable
• Mouse sensivity is all over the place, making hacking minigame pretty much unwinable - I managed to beat it maybe once or twice during the whole playthrough, had to resort to using EMP grenades

It's certainly impressive what Obsidian has wanted to achieve with the game, I give them that. The end result... shall we say leaves something to be desired. I can't imagine playing the game with different skillset thank the recommended Stealth+Pistols combo and having any fun.

 

[Milamber]

I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed at 120FPS, feels gooooood.
I bought a high-end pc a couple of months ago, and since i've experienced the joy's and comfort of a high framerate (etcetera) I barely touch my consoles anymore.

I used to be quite into Flight Sim's, long time ago, but my PC could never really handle it. Should do a re-install of 2004! Thanks for reminding me.

What's your specs? Brotherhood is chugging along at 15-45 fps for me. I maxed everything except AO at 2x. Granted my specs are...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor
6 GB DDR2 RAM
MSI GTX 770 OC Edition