Blog FeedI’ll take a HL2, digital… not boxed
As some of you may or may not know I am a strong advocate of digital delivery for video games and other software. I fully support Steam and Gamespy’s Direct 2 Drive (even though they do not yet have much to offer). I believe that digital delivery will definitely be widely used in the future and is a convenient and excellent method for obtaining software.
The reason I am so thrilled at this software is because of my habits as a person. I know Cyrris and a few others differ in opinion and feel more comfortable with discs. I, however, have a horrible time with discs. I lose them, or I lose 1 disc to a set of 6. I can never find the one I need. I also like how Steam will let you download the game anytime you want as long as you’ve paid for it once. So if I end up somewhere else for a month without my PC I can just log onto Steam and download the games I want to play and get to it. As I also frequently reformat my HDD, this saves me the trouble of locating all my discs.
Steam itself warrants a fair deal of my praise. Not only have they offered their product online but they have made purchasing it online a greater “deal” than waiting for retail. The Steam packages contain things you wouldn’t be able to get in stores and you also do not have to pay any tax. Right now I can stare at a nice little box that says “Half-Life 2 Pre-loading is complete. When the game is officially released, you’ll be able to play it immediately.” A feast for my eyes indeed. But as I hunger over soon to be played games that Steam taunts me with, I start to see a possible drawback to digital delivery.
Steam is a fairly complex program. In order to play Counter-Strike: Source or Half-Life 2 when it is released I will need to have Steam running. So if all games burst into the digital realm how many programs am I going to be stuck with running as a “service” to play games? I can imagine it now: Logging onto EA…. logging onto Epic net… logging onto whatever. I am sure every major publisher will have his own “launch pad” type of program for this since to offer up the download with no strings attached is just asking for increased piracy issues. (I’ve heard rumors that retail Half-Life 2 will need to be “unlocked” through steam or by telephone if the user does not have internet access. An interesting take on game security indeed.)
Steam is fine on its own because it is the only program of that type I have. But overcrowding my computer with various programs, passwords and accounts to access seems a bit unpleasant. Perhaps things won’t be so bad but it has added a tad of bitter to the sweet thought I had of digital delivery.
21st October | Reply
Isnt there a lawsuit running against steam? I dunno. Anyway, I definately see the advantages of downloading games like this, at least for those with broadband
The thing is that I somehow feel more comfortable with a CD or a DVD, because then I feel I actually GOT something for my money. Else it just feels like warezing, only its costing me money too. and thats just wrong.
21st October | Reply
Having many developers writing their own Steam-like apps is something I’ve thought about before. It would kinda suck, to be honest. I had to switch to Trillian because I couldn’t stand having ICQ, MSN, AIM, and IRC all running at once with different programs. And now Steam also has it’s own messaging client, which isn’t quite the same, but I really do wish we had standards that meant we didn’t need so many different programs to do the exact same thing, only for different people in slightly different circumstances.
I would be happy if all the developers came under one big umbrella and all used the one steam-like program, but it would be an unwieldly beast. I wonder, though, if publishers like Vivendi would ever force it’s developers to make their games compatible with the one Steam-ish client. For instance, Blizzard and Valve are both VU companies. Can you picture them both using the same program for similar purposes? It’d make things easier for me, but I’d imagine it’d be a nightmare for the developers.
It seems that once again, new ideas and technology which is meant to make life easier and things like this more convenient ends up making the whole thing more complex.
22nd October | Reply
Cyrris, that’s as may be, but (ideally) once it’s been standardized, there’ll be one set backend for the Steam-esque program that developers can integrate into their games. It’d be just like battle.net for the blizzard games, or in this case, Steam for HL2. As long as you write your game engine to accomodate for Steam (which shouldn’t be that hard - these people are game developers, after all), then there shouldn’t be much of an issue. Just something else to take into consideration.
22nd October | Reply
But the thing is, Sheps, is that even when Steam is only supporting a handful of different technologies (really just HL, and the Source engine), there are updates for the Steam client itself every few days. If Steam had to support 10 times as many game engines, as well as updates for all the offers (not to mention promotions) and accounts and such, it would become an unwieldly beast that I would not want to have on my computer.
So yeah it could be standardised, I suppose, but then it would have to be stripped down in terms of features to make it function smoothly, or it would be all bloaty and crap. Perhaps, there could be a core steam client, and then developers could load on modules for their own games, a bit like how extensions are done in Firefox?
27th October | Reply
One thing that caught my eye was that you said you can download your game again from anywhere, once you’ve payed for it? Is that right? I thought game companies were anal about that kind of thing, ’cause many to buy additional copies of games or phone in their story for permission when they wanted to, say, play the same game on two of their computers…
…suddenly it’s all swish? I don’t get it… but then, I haven’t bought a PC game in maybe 4 or 5 years, so I could be talking out of my arse.
28th October | Reply
You can download a copy of Half-Life 2 from any computer as long as you’re logged into it with a Steam account. Infact, I think you can download the HL2 files without even paying - you just need to pay before you can have those files unlocked. Not entirely sure about that one though.
28th October | Reply
Yes, the way it works is that you can download the HL2 game files anywhere, and play them on your steam account. Because the game is connected to your account though, you can’t play it on two computers at once with the same steam account, and that’s where they get you. The same principle applies to retail copies, which is why you have to register with Steam on HL2 retail install.
9th December | Reply
With the recent crash of my silly computer, I experienced one of the downsides of this Downloadable entertainment. All my iTunes purchases went down the proverbial crapper.
Fortunately the chaps at Apple were nice enough to allow me to download my music again, while letting me know I should backup (I do, but this time it was all so sudden).
In the end, I’m with Doe on this one. Call me old fashioned, but I want something I can touch for my money.