News Valve releases Steamworks toolset for free

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/01/30/valve_releases_steamworks_toolset_for_free/1

Valve has released the SteamWorks toolset to PC developers completely for free, making digital distribution a suddenly viable option for all!

 

Absolute legends.

This is just the good news the industry needs after the previous report regarding poor PC-Game sales.

I love buying games on Steam, I only wish it had a greater selection (more big-names and more RPGs would be nice, for instance).
Hopefully this will be a step towards curing that.

 

I think Microsoft with Games For Windows should take a page out of Valve's book.

 

I agree - this is good for the PC games industry as it really needs to move away from point of sale to something that's a bit more secure and kicks piracy in the nuts without invasive copy protection. There needs to be a reason for PC gamers to want to buy games these days and inconveniences like invasive copy protection schemes is enough to make people fire up BitTorrent.

 

Neat-O. Should make it easier for small game developers to get busy.

 

these guys are geniuses!!!!

 

A minor point - how are they going to pay for the bandwidth costs?

 

Point-of-sale is never going away. There are still too many people who hate digital distribution, me included to an extent.

Value have suddenly made PC Gaming for devs very easy

 

i dont see it as a big threat to retail just yet, its aimed at giving games that woudnt sell otherwise (or only in small numbers so shops dont stock them) a plattform for advertising and distribution.

once the world gets rid of slow internet though (i.e. once the change from copper to fibre happened) and when hdd's will cost even less by then it could certainly become the main source of pc game sales. if retail would go away and steam (or similar plattforms) would take over the issue about kids and violent games would also be solved since you need a cc to purchase them (i.e. kids wont be able to buy them anymore).

 

Um, excuse me - point of order.

The question still remains unanswered as to what we're going to do when Steam evaporates like, well, steam, as at some point it inevitably will.

I'll forestall the inevitable claim that Valve will never go out of business - people would have said the same about Cavedog at the height of Total Annihilation's powers. The reich will not last for a thousand years. And when it falls, as it obviously will at some point, whether that's in two, five, or ten years, every single thing anyone has bought - at least tens of millions' worth - will vanish with the next Windows reinstall.

This is not a hypothetical concern for me. I own a fully legitimate copy of the audio edit software Sound Forge - not a cheap item. The version I own was the last released by Sonic Foundry before they were bought out by Sony. Now, whenever I want to install it, I have to argue my way through thick layers of bureaucratic incompetence at Sony HQ before someone can be arsed to dig out the official keygen. Quite frequently I'm told "we don't support that anymore", as if I'm supposed to roll over and buy a new version because it's convenient for them.

Valve have very vaguely mumbled something about having a plan for this situation, but I remain unconvinced. Until it's in the EULA it's vapourware. In the hypothetical circumstance of Valve being wound up, it's impossible to imagine any liquidator agreeing to spend company money creating a no-Steam patch for the huge amount of software they will by that point have distributed on the system.

Until recently, it was understood that software licences were in perpetuity. It's no secret that outfits like Microsoft would adore the idea of renting windows to us, monthly. But if this sort of paradigm is going to be implemented, it should not be by the back door, which is what Steam is clearly trying to do. There are very serious problems and very trying unanswered questions with Steam, and until they are addressed I will have nothing to do with it.

 

By the time Valve dies steam will be far from the only digital distribution system (competition is whats going to kill steam, it won't just disappear one day like you suggest), in which case its likely the content will be sold to those other platforms to squeeze the last drop of money out of it. In which case you would probably be able to install through those. This relies somewhat on the good will of the platform devs but I'm sure a class action suit would sort any problems out if they decided to be difficult.

Steam isn't the only thing valve/vivendi does and they have pretty much the same status as MS or IBM, albeit on a smaller scale. They have their fingers in so many pies and they've created a dependant market so any "death" which may or may not occur will be long and protracted enough that they would probably be able to sort these problems out for themselves. It even makes more business sense. By creating the no-steam patch they reduce dependence on their bandwidth.

I imagine that the platform itself would continue to exist in some form or another for a long time after valve goes under.

 

Abso-f*%#in-lutely. Great news.

 

Agreed. I want to support the developers, but if they're making software that I can't even run because they lock it down so much, it's going to be THEIR loss. For all of the issues that I've had with Steam at one point or another, not being able to play something because of copy protection has never been one of them.

 

The publishing software is the free part. I'm sure if they put the game up for actual sale on Steam, Valve will take a percentage of the profits. This simply means there are no upfront costs other than development. This is still awesome though because of the popularity of Steam. We may see more small time devs make it big.

 

Very true, never did get round to playing bioshock for just that reason.

 

maybe create a torrent system..... the more you upload the more discount you get on your future purchases, even getting as low as free games for the top uploaders ...... this would drive bandwidth cost down and profit up, and would make people buy more games and prices would go down.......

 

Cool idea, but getting a game for free just for being a seeder is a bit extreme. Maybe 15-20% max. Of coarse those with better internet connections would be at a big advantage.

 

the problem would be the very slow upload speeds people have avalaible... uk has like 1,2mb max as upload speed for non corporate connections. it could work in countries like sweden though where you can easily get 100/100 mb down / up connections.

 

> (competition is whats going to kill steam, it won't just disappear one day like you suggest)

Well obviously it will at some point, it's just a case of when.

> in which case its likely the content will be sold to those other platforms

Is it? Says who? Where's it written down? According to which legally-binding paperwork?

> This relies somewhat on the good will of the platform devs

No ****, Sherlock. Actually it relies entirely on the goodwill of the administrating legal team of whatever company has gone belly-up. So we're relying on the goodwill and public-spiritedness of corporate lawyers. Oh, that'll be OK, then.

> but I'm sure a class action suit

Against what? A company that's in Chapter 11? Good freakin' luck!

> I imagine that the platform itself would continue to exist in some form or another for a long time after valve goes under.

Lots of imagining going on here, yes.

Phil

 

All they really need is a way to burn the games to DVDs in an installable format. They could implement that now, that way people who reformat often don' need to redownload the game. Seems like an easy solution to me.