Running on Steam - bit-tech.net Forums

Tim S · 28th Jun 2007, 08:45

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/06...ing_on_steam/1

Love it or hate it, digital distribution has become a huge part of the gaming industry and will stay that way. So we decided to take a sit down with the guys at Valve to hear where the biggest platform - Steam - is heading.

DougEdey · 28th Jun 2007, 09:02

I thought that legally, details of transactions had to be stored for a set period of time?

will. · 28th Jun 2007, 09:23

nice article. I've never had any problems with steam, its definitely the way to go. I don't care paying a little more for games, in my opinion the games you get over steam are a far more permanent solution than a CD/DVD which just break.

WilHarris · 28th Jun 2007, 09:28

Can someone change the FP image? That is seriously fugly

Neat article though.

Jamie · 28th Jun 2007, 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by WilHarris

Can someone change the FP image? That is seriously fugly

AGREED!

Fod · 28th Jun 2007, 10:07

yaaaay steam!! it's awesome! <3

Mankz · 28th Jun 2007, 10:16

It doesn't work in offline mode at school! Waahhh!

Nice article. Steam is a very good, well worked bit of kit and is really a pleasure to use!

Fod · 28th Jun 2007, 10:24

hugo, you can burn backup discs of the games you downloaded. steam generates ISOs for you, so you don't have to download it all again.

capnPedro · 28th Jun 2007, 10:53

It's even nice enough yo make either CDs or DVDs, so you can backup Counter-Strike: Source to DVD (like I did) or onto 6 CDs if you really wanted...

The thing that gets me is the lack of a printed manual. I love to jump straight into the game, but there's nothing like reading the manual in bed later so the next day I can really play properly cos I... ya know... actually know about stuff. Hate reading PDFs though...

Tim S · 28th Jun 2007, 11:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by WilHarris

Can someone change the FP image? That is seriously fugly

Sorry for the delay (it didn't look too bad on my ThinkPad this morning), I was having fun with Orange down in Camberley... Now I'm actually using a monitor with a decent res, I agree that it looks ugly. I've changed it

BadHead · 28th Jun 2007, 12:53

Hi,

I have no problems with steam and I buy most of my games through whenever possible. However, a gripe and a warning of what may be in the future arose with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. TR:A was available to download through Steam in the US, but was unavailable in the UK or, as I believe, any European country.

Is this what is going to happen? A splitting of contents between the US an Europe with some titles being available of there but unavailable of here? Hope not.

Da Dego · 28th Jun 2007, 13:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadHead

Is this what is going to happen? A splitting of contents between the US an Europe with some titles being available of there but unavailable of here? Hope not.

Hey BadHead,

Unfortunately, that's not really Steam's decision. Publishers control those launch dates with an iron fist as part of a DRM tactic to promote sales. Personally, I think it promotes more piracy than anything, but that's just me. Most things that come out in one part of the world eventually find their way to the other, though.

p3n · 28th Jun 2007, 15:04

P2P ... eww.
The WoW updater that uses bittorrent has very little options, and so uses 100% of your upload bandwidth making your PC a rather large paper wight when it comes to 'doing something else whilst this downloads'.

I hope valve/steam pull it off better.

cjmUK · 28th Jun 2007, 15:37

I've long been a fan of steam, even in the early days when every was raging against it.

However, now (which it's been accepted generallY) I'm finding that some of the gloss has worn off.

Two main issues spring to mind:

- Firstly, we do a roaring trade in second hand games on here (as do many other forums and ebay). I also lend games or give games to my nephew. Unfortunately we can't do this with Steam games - the games are tied to your account, and AFAIK it is not possible to trade a game on. There are a number of games on my steam account that I would like to sell on/give away but I can't. The only alternative I can think of is to create a Steam account for each game you buy, but this largely defeats the object.

- Secondly, Steam games are often cheaper outside steam. For example, I got X3: Reunion for around £8 which was much less than the price on Steam, but they won't allow me to use my serial to download the game through Steam (and thus easily keep it patched etc). This stance appears purely to be an 'encouragement' for you to buy through steam rather than get the best price.

I'll be getting TF2 and Portal through Steam I'm almost certain, since I'll probably play TF2 for quite a while. But I'm not sure I want to gamble on another game if I'm going to be stuck with it.

g3n3tiX · 28th Jun 2007, 16:52

I hate how Blizzard has resorted to P2P just to save money : when I downloaded a trailer (SC2 of course) Blizzard uploaded NOTHING to me! No upload, only the .exe client => huge savings, as if they didn't have enough already.
As far as Steam is concerned, I love it !! It works ver well, I can't wait for the new features to see what they made for us.

Hells_Bliss · 28th Jun 2007, 16:57

steam is good, i have bought several games through there that I otherwise wouldn't have known about, or are no longer distributed (HL1 and series etc), I also like how if you buy a game through the store and activate in steam, you can then download it from steam at a later time. No lost discs problem

cyrilthefish · 28th Jun 2007, 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by g3n3tiX

I hate how Blizzard has resorted to P2P just to save money : when I downloaded a trailer (SC2 of course) Blizzard uploaded NOTHING to me! No upload, only the .exe client => huge savings, as if they didn't have enough already.
As far as Steam is concerned, I love it !! It works ver well, I can't wait for the new features to see what they made for us.

I much prefer the idea of P2P patch downloads instead of server download queues, bytes/sec download speeds and so on.

WoW got so much better since they moved to P2P patching, before that the servers used to crash without fail every single patch day due to the load and leave you with several days of server crashes/lag spikes and high ping responses untill most people got the patch downloaded...

Agreed the blizzard downloader is a little basic, just needs an upload limiter setting on it. you can extract the torrent file from the downloader and use your own client if you prefer though

DXR_13KE · 28th Jun 2007, 17:24

it is cool, but, i would like to see it improved, i would like that you could play them offline even without activating the offline mode, that you could send a game that is in your account to another account (with some security features in case they hack your acount), in this way a person can sell or exchange games with other people or even give them away.
the P2P thing is a nice idea... if the end user has some kind of control over the upload quota, for example, if you chose that only 25% of your upload is for steam, it will respect that but it will also lower the amount of p2p traffic you get, meaning that, for example, 20% of your download is from p2p and the rest is from steam servers limiting his way your download speed, when ep2 hits there will be tons of people downloading it and i think steam would be better with p2p or else people will only be able to play it next year.

Amon · 28th Jun 2007, 18:54

Steam is great. But, if there is no direct competitor, Steam can get away with controversial product prices.

Side note: I will buy X3: Reunion via Steam.

cjmUK · 28th Jun 2007, 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amon

Side note: I will buy X3: Reunion via Steam.

Why? I've just told you that if you buy it on Steam it is more expensive and your can re-sell it....

28th Jun 2007, 08:45	#1
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Running on Steam http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/06...ing_on_steam/1 Love it or hate it, digital distribution has become a huge part of the gaming industry and will stay that way. So we decided to take a sit down with the guys at Valve to hear where the biggest platform - Steam - is heading. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

28th Jun 2007, 09:02	#2
DougEdey I pwn all your storage Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Southampton Posts: 13,933	I thought that legally, details of transactions had to be stored for a set period of time? __________________ Burnout: Paradise Stats!XBL: DougEdey Bindi PSN ID: DougEdey Twitter

28th Jun 2007, 09:23	#3
will. A motorbike of jealousy! Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Yorkshire! Posts: 4,404	nice article. I've never had any problems with steam, its definitely the way to go. I don't care paying a little more for games, in my opinion the games you get over steam are a far more permanent solution than a CD/DVD which just break. __________________ work \| play \| blog PS3 & 360: willblack Flickr my twitter. Last.FM Check out my Last.FM & iToggle & Nav-o-Matic jQuery plugins.

28th Jun 2007, 10:07	#6
Fod what is the cheesecake? Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: London Posts: 4,905	yaaaay steam!! it's awesome! <3 __________________ "Sesame Street is brought to you by the letters P, W, N, the number 3, and the letter D." I'm a pretentious git with a camera. ISPs want to spy on you. Join the fight against phorm XBL/PSN/Steam ID: FodT

28th Jun 2007, 10:24	#8
Fod what is the cheesecake? Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: London Posts: 4,905	hugo, you can burn backup discs of the games you downloaded. steam generates ISOs for you, so you don't have to download it all again. __________________ "Sesame Street is brought to you by the letters P, W, N, the number 3, and the letter D." I'm a pretentious git with a camera. ISPs want to spy on you. Join the fight against phorm XBL/PSN/Steam ID: FodT

28th Jun 2007, 09:28	#4
WilHarris Just another nobody Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Oxford Posts: 2,671	Can someone change the FP image? That is seriously fugly Neat article though.

28th Jun 2007, 10:53	#9
capnPedro Deaf forever to the battle's din Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: North-East England Posts: 2,985	It's even nice enough yo make either CDs or DVDs, so you can backup Counter-Strike: Source to DVD (like I did) or onto 6 CDs if you really wanted... The thing that gets me is the lack of a printed manual. I love to jump straight into the game, but there's nothing like reading the manual in bed later so the next day I can really play properly cos I... ya know... actually know about stuff. Hate reading PDFs though... __________________ ASUS M4A785TD-M Evo \| AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE \| D-Tek FuZion 4GB Corsair XMMS3-10666 \| Corsair TX650 Point Of View 8800GTX \| EK FC-8800

28th Jun 2007, 12:53	#11
BadHead Modder Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Inverness, Scotland Posts: 61	Hi, I have no problems with steam and I buy most of my games through whenever possible. However, a gripe and a warning of what may be in the future arose with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. TR:A was available to download through Steam in the US, but was unavailable in the UK or, as I believe, any European country. Is this what is going to happen? A splitting of contents between the US an Europe with some titles being available of there but unavailable of here? Hope not. __________________ BadHead --- OS: Windows XP Professional SP3, Motherboard: Asus Crosshair (BIOS Revision: 1103), CPU: AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core 9850 Black Edition, RAM: 4Gb (2x2GB) Corsair Twin2x 4096-6400C5DHX, GPU: Asus ENGTX280 nVidia 280, Sound: ASUS Xonar D2 High Fidelity

28th Jun 2007, 15:04	#13
p3n Hypermodder Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 736	P2P ... eww. The WoW updater that uses bittorrent has very little options, and so uses 100% of your upload bandwidth making your PC a rather large paper wight when it comes to 'doing something else whilst this downloads'. I hope valve/steam pull it off better.

28th Jun 2007, 15:37	#14
cjmUK Old git. Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: UK Posts: 1,939	I've long been a fan of steam, even in the early days when every was raging against it. However, now (which it's been accepted generallY) I'm finding that some of the gloss has worn off. Two main issues spring to mind: - Firstly, we do a roaring trade in second hand games on here (as do many other forums and ebay). I also lend games or give games to my nephew. Unfortunately we can't do this with Steam games - the games are tied to your account, and AFAIK it is not possible to trade a game on. There are a number of games on my steam account that I would like to sell on/give away but I can't. The only alternative I can think of is to create a Steam account for each game you buy, but this largely defeats the object. - Secondly, Steam games are often cheaper outside steam. For example, I got X3: Reunion for around £8 which was much less than the price on Steam, but they won't allow me to use my serial to download the game through Steam (and thus easily keep it patched etc). This stance appears purely to be an 'encouragement' for you to buy through steam rather than get the best price. I'll be getting TF2 and Portal through Steam I'm almost certain, since I'll probably play TF2 for quite a while. But I'm not sure I want to gamble on another game if I'm going to be stuck with it. __________________ P180B, Q6600 [with Thermalright HR-01+/Noctua NF-P12], 8GB OCZ Reaper PC2-8500, EVGA GTX 260 SSC, 3.75TB worth of Samsung F1s, running on Windows 7 RC

28th Jun 2007, 16:52	#15
g3n3tiX Resident frenchie Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: localhost Posts: 591	I hate how Blizzard has resorted to P2P just to save money : when I downloaded a trailer (SC2 of course) Blizzard uploaded NOTHING to me! No upload, only the .exe client => huge savings, as if they didn't have enough already. As far as Steam is concerned, I love it !! It works ver well, I can't wait for the new features to see what they made for us. __________________ I also have a MTBF.

28th Jun 2007, 16:57	#16
Hells_Bliss Supermodder Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: NC, USA Posts: 548	steam is good, i have bought several games through there that I otherwise wouldn't have known about, or are no longer distributed (HL1 and series etc), I also like how if you buy a game through the store and activate in steam, you can then download it from steam at a later time. No lost discs problem __________________ Asus P5N32-SLi Extreme, Intel Conroe E6600 @ 2.4GHz, 4GB Corsair XMS2 @ 1060MHz, eVGA GeForce 8800 GTX @ 621MHz, 2 WD 250GB 7200RPM HDD's, Creative Soundblaster Fatal1ty pro

28th Jun 2007, 17:24	#18
DXR_13KE Madeira's banana is the best!!! Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Madeira ; Portugal Posts: 6,473	it is cool, but, i would like to see it improved, i would like that you could play them offline even without activating the offline mode, that you could send a game that is in your account to another account (with some security features in case they hack your acount), in this way a person can sell or exchange games with other people or even give them away. the P2P thing is a nice idea... if the end user has some kind of control over the upload quota, for example, if you chose that only 25% of your upload is for steam, it will respect that but it will also lower the amount of p2p traffic you get, meaning that, for example, 20% of your download is from p2p and the rest is from steam servers limiting his way your download speed, when ep2 hits there will be tons of people downloading it and i think steam would be better with p2p or else people will only be able to play it next year. __________________ *Renegade X - 0.40 Release!* <---- CLICK!

28th Jun 2007, 18:54	#19
Amon inch-perfect Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: cannoning into the reds, Toronto, Canada Posts: 2,456	Steam is great. But, if there is no direct competitor, Steam can get away with controversial product prices. Side note: I will buy X3: Reunion via Steam. __________________ Defunct Socket 939 San Diego 4000+::2GB PC3200::Radeon 9600 SE 128MB::200GB HDD::24" Dell 2407WFP-HC::WinXP x64/x86 dual boot Dell Vostro 1500 laptop::Socket P Merom T7100::2GB PC5400::Go 8600m GT 256MB::660GB HDD::15.4" WXGA+, 24" Dell 2407WFP-HC::WinXP::Fanatec 911 Wheel+Pedals