News Valve sign with EA

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/07/20/ea_sign_valve/

 

Does this mean every time I fire up my copy of HL(number here) im going to be FORCE to watch the EA logo like the rest of their games? I do hope not

 

I can't see this working very well!

{Valve + ATI} + {EA + Nvidia} = Trouble

 

noooooooooo!

i thought EA was losing money anyway?

 

At least they havent sold out which is what i had feared.

 

I don't think it's a big issue really. OK, yes, Valve did a deal with ATI. But NVIDIA gamers are half the market too, so Valve aren't in business to alienate those guys. So I'd be surprised if the ATI / NVIDIA thing turned into anything major. Certainly not anything that would become public knowledge.

I wouldn't be surprised if I was asked to "Challenge Everything" in future games though. TBH, EA's global distribution power is unmatched by anyone in the industry, and they spend big bucks promoting their titles with TV ads etc So I'm actually quite happy that Valve have landed this deal - higher profile, more sales = more dev of cool games.

 

When is the HL2 university expansion pack out then?

 

higher profile = more pressure to get games out quickly for more profits = more buggy games with less support?

 

please don't make me go through the 5hrs of video's you get before an EA game...

 

i wonder if EA knows its rep. maybe, the higher ups make money = must be good, so there ignorent about alot of EA dislike.

 

I hate having to start EA games. I love it when some mod comes out and kicks the intro vids to the curb. If it wasn't for that, EA might be close to perfect. That's really the only gripe I have with them, so I don't think i'm gonna worry too much.

 

Well EA tends to stick a lot of crap ads in the game itself too, not just the intro. But yeah, the intro ones are killer. I hope that IF they do that, although I pray they don't, it's at least the .avi method Valve has for their own little logo in hl2 so it's ultra easy to kill.

But I did go, "Oh, crap.... bad!" when I saw the title. I think there would be an e-riot on the steamforums if they went and stuck a bunch of "ea is roxors!!" vids at startup.

Realistically I'd much rather see Valve become an entirely online distributer. Because nobody on 56k is nuts enough to download a 4 gig game (I hope....), and that move could both increase broadband usage and ensure they can sucessfully update their netcode to use the bandwidth you get with a broadband connection for whatever goodies that could bring in store for us. Sorry if anyone on 56k reads this, but if you are on it for any reason other than lack of availability, you have no excuse.

 

Firehed - But why should I want to download a 4gig game. Even if you're on a 1Mbit connection thats still going to take some time.

Plus the whole no original disk, manual, box! I think its funny that people are happy to pay the same to download a game, then pay the for the cost of ink to get the manual.

56k'ers (Im not one) are not just on it for availability, but also due to cost against internet usage. Why pay £15-£20/month when only surfing for an hour at the weekend.

If everyone did upgrade to broadband and start downloading Gbytes of data, that might increase broadband usage but would'nt it effect broadband bandwidth?

 

w00t great news.
</sarcasm>

 

Yeah, in theory it would bump up the demand for faster internet connections, which means they would a) be available and b) in time, become much cheaper. Verizon FIOS, in the places it's available, gives you 15/2Mbit for $50/month, about what my family pays for our 4Mb/384Kbit cable. Between formatting of my comp, I'll go through about 150 gigs of bandwidth in each direction just on bittorrent, probably another 50+ gigs down through http.

I hate using CDs to install games. Mostly because of the games that come on DVD (relatively few considering almost every gamer has a DVD drive), you need to leave the disk in the drive for a lot of them due to copy protection crap or wahtnot, and on the CD ones, same story but we're getting into 4-6+ disks for an install. I backup my steam install files to a DVD, and it's installed when I need it to be, including custom maps, settings, etc. No choosing directory and settings for everything every time (not to mention finding a dozen disks that need to remain intact for successful usage).

People using 56k for the cheap cost to surf for an hour on the weekend aren't gamers. So that's irrelavent.

Manual... useless for games really. Most everything is WASD controls now, and it's not exactly difficult to check the controls ingame. Not much else to know really.

dunno, my thoughts really. but electronic distribution is really the way things will be done, and is a much better content management system imo, no need to go to the store, everything's in a central place, etc. And you can use it anywhere, you don't need to tote your CDs around, etc. I can definately see something where your settings are connected to your account too (stored both locally and remotely) so you can login to steam at your friend's house and your settings are right there for you, etc.

 

lol bindi you wouldnt be refering to a certain game called battlefield 2 would you?

 

meh just general cynisism

 

It's true though. As much as we hate waiting, we hate even more if the game is craptacular because it got rushed.

 

Valve is such a high profile developer that I think they'll release their updates and whatnot just in the fashion like they are regularly doing.... but think how sweet it would be browsing battlefield servers threw steam.

 

I was kinda hoping vavle would sign with some one like codemasters as they need a bit of help (esp for the US market) and codemasters are a little ott with copy protection as well. oh well :-(