By John Walker on January 29th, 2008 at 6:07 pm.
[Update: The press release offered lots of confusion - the story's been updated now for clarity]
Valve are rocking the boat in a really big way, especially for PC gaming piracy. They have just announced the release of a complete collection of publisher power, called Steamworks, available to developers and publishers completely free. Valve describe it as,
“A complete suite of publishing and development tools – ranging from copy protection to social networking services to server browsing – now available free of charge to developers and publishers worldwide.”
What does this actually mean? Well, its extensive. The complete press-release is beneath the cut, as well as our explanation of what it means. And what it means could be huge.
What does it mean? It gives publishers and developers the ability to control their games in a brand new way, with Steam itself dropping in the final executable to get the game working, which could have a hefty impact on how we buy our games. And most importantly, no one’s paying Valve a penny, neither the publisher, nor the player.
The suite will allow developers to perform many of the tricks that have distinguished Valve, such as monitoring sales stats, hefty anti-piracy measures, automatic updating, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, social networking and even the ability to run beta testing. The possibilities this opens up for independent developers, and smaller publishing companies, could be enormous.
It’s a bit confusing what this will actually means, so here’s what we understand: A publisher can sell their game in the shops or distribute it digitally via their own system, customers install it, and then have Steam drop in the executable. It kills off day-one piracy in a single shot. Bam. Then updates will be delivered automatically for the game via Steam, and all the post-release stats and tools will be available, with Valve charging no one any money for this at all.
Does this give Valve more power? It certainly means more people will be installing Steam on their systems, and that isn’t going to hurt them. But since they won’t be responsible for distribution, nor handling money for these companies, the control seems to be firmly in the hands of each game’s publisher.
Complete Suite of Publishing Tools Available Free of Charge
January 29, 2008 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announce Steamworks, a complete suite of publishing and development tools – ranging from copy protection to social networking services to server browsing – is now available free of charge to developers and publishers worldwide.
Steamworks, the same suite of tools used in best-selling PC titles Half-Life 2 and The Orange Box, is available for all PC games distributed via retail and leading online platforms such as Steam. The services included in Steamworks may be used a la carte or in any combination.
Specifically, Steamworks offers:
· Real-time stats on sales, gameplay, and product activation: Know exactly how well your title is selling before the charts are released. Find out how much of your game is being played. Login into your Steamworks account pages and view up to the hour information regarding worldwide product activations and player data.
· State of the art encryption system: Stop paying to have your game pirated before it’s released. Steamworks takes anti-piracy to a new level with strong encryption that keeps your game locked until the moment it is released.
· Territory/version control: The key-based authentication provided in Steamworks also provides territory/version controls to help curb gray market importing and deliver territory-specific content to any given country or region.
· Auto updating: Insures all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games.
· Voice chat: Available for use both in and out of game.
· Multiplayer matchmaking: Steamworks offers you all the multiplayer backend and matchmaking services that have been created to support Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, the most played action games in the world.
· Social networking services: With support for achievements, leaderboards, and avatars, Steamworks allows you to give your gamers as many rewards as you would like, plus support for tracking the world’s best professional and amateur players of your game.
· Development tools: Steamworks allows you to administer private betas which can be updated multiple times each day. Also includes data collection tools for QA, play testing, and usability studies.
“Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today’s market,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. “Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing.”
“As more developers and publishers have embraced Steam as a leading digital distribution channel, we’ve heard a growing number of inquiries regarding the availability of the platform’s services and tools,” said Jason Holtman, director business development at Valve. “Offering Steamworks is part of our ongoing efforts to support the needs of game developers and our publishing partners.”
Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games and digital content. With over 13 million active accounts and more than 250 games, plus hundreds of movie files and game demos available, Steam has become a frequent destination for millions of gamers around the world.
For more information regarding Steamworks, please visit www.steamgames.com/steamworks. To find out about more about Steamworks contact jasonh@valvesoftware.com
29/01/2008 at 18:11 Freelancepolice says:
Good news imo, will be interesting to see how devs use this. Will we see people like introversion hop on or is it mainly for smaller indie devs
29/01/2008 at 18:12 Stick says:
Wow… that’s a can of worms if I ever saw one. Sandworms.
29/01/2008 at 18:24 Surprise says:
amazing, simply amazing
29/01/2008 at 18:26 Kast says:
Oh hell yes, that’s exciting news. :D
But does this mean that developers will be using their own distribution platforms, or does it mean that they will be more easily integrated into Steam? I don’t want half a dozen different Steam-a-likes on my computer.
29/01/2008 at 18:35 Pete says:
Wow. Fantastic. Let’s hope EA grab this for starters given that every version of their digital distribution system has been shite. Incredibly cool of Valve, you’d think they’d worry about it eroding income from Steam and splintering the market.
29/01/2008 at 18:40 John Walker says:
To clarify, they’re not offering digital distribution. Merely the tools Steam offers for their games post-sale.
Apologies if the story muddled this at first. Should be clarified now.
Also, you’ll need just the one, Steam, installed.
29/01/2008 at 18:43 cliffski says:
it is exciting, I’d love to sell my stuff through steam, but not sure how that ties in as the URL in the press release is dead :D
29/01/2008 at 18:47 John Walker says:
Man, the damage control this press release is going to require! cliffski – you’ll have to sell the game yourself, but you’ll be able to have it activated via Steam, and then do all the post-release Steamy stuff.
29/01/2008 at 18:47 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Ah, that clarifies it a bit more, cheers John. My initial thought was that Valve were basically handing away the keys to Steam, which I thought sounded a trifle odd.
29/01/2008 at 18:48 Falcon says:
I’m pretty sure this will be designed around steam, I can’t see them handing over the tools for everyone else to develop their own ‘steam-a-like’ system. Plus some of those features (encryption) they wouldn’t want to hand out willy-nilly so some enterprising pirate can reverse engineer it. I just hope they let mod developers in on some of this, I would love for my mods to atuo-update and have leaderboards, achivements etc. Achivements for insurgency would give me my elitist barstardism back!
29/01/2008 at 18:49 terry says:
If it leads to more Introversions, then it can’t be a bad thing.
29/01/2008 at 18:49 Alexander says:
Gosh, this is stupendously good news; this is having a publisher, a rating system, a payment system. Incredible. How many indie developers may possibly profit from this is crazy.. [edit] I also misinterpreted the post, they are not really opening their store as well. However, having the necessary steam distribution, still means it is far easier for indie developers to get a foot between the door, having already implemented the technical side.[/edit]
29/01/2008 at 18:49 Kast says:
Right, so it’s a post-sale management and monitoring package. Still very interesting.
29/01/2008 at 18:53 Dingobloo says:
Wow, that was unexpected, good on them. I think seeing the UT3 and Crysis sales numbers really made them aware of how much other developers need steam-powered copy-protection.
29/01/2008 at 18:58 Cueball says:
A shame about the customers in countries that don’t have easy access to broadband for Steam validations and downloads. Since these are also the places where the majority of games sold for cash are pirated anyway, wouldn’t having a better distribution strategy than simply locking out 90% of legitimate customers be a more sensible way of growing revenue for publishers?
And, just nitpicking, Steampowered insures you against customers playing outdated versions of your games by ‘ensuring’ all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games, surely?
29/01/2008 at 19:00 Seniath says:
One thing’s for sure, Theory is going to love this.
29/01/2008 at 19:02 Jonathan says:
You say valve won’t make any money but the chances are they will also sell the games through steam. Also larger developers may pay for adverts, such as Valve’s pick of the week.
I’m not complaining, I’ve never had problems with Steam and automatic updates are always a good thing. My only complaint is that as a student I don’t always have internet access so I had to wait months to activate Bioshock for example.
29/01/2008 at 19:06 cjt says:
Ugh, all the clunkiness of Steam’s net activation and forced patching without the benefit of Steam-the-online-store. Not to mention those bloody modder-unfriendly .gcf files.
Once you take out the online shopping aspect, Steam is pretty much just a big pile of poorly written software and customer inconvenience. I’d hate to see this used on retail titles.
29/01/2008 at 19:06 Chris says:
Yeah yeah yeah yeah just make with some new TF2 maps already.
29/01/2008 at 19:17 Andrew says:
Hmm, it still gives Valve a lot more power like Gamespy has/had, over the uptime of game server lists and user control – making it mandatory to sign up a service they otherwise wouldn’t use, adding another level of privacy concerns (3rd parties and suchlike having the right or tools to lock you out of your own game brought from the 2nd party publisher, nevermind the pure privacy concerns of “stat tracking”, and presumably other data stuff you’re not really aware of).
This won’t be a terribly good thing if the service quality is poor either – and since it is listed as free, I presume there will be no support contract to get any issues fixed?
I don’t like the idea of being bounded between two companies blaming each other for downtime and neither doing anything to fix it – especially for older games, where support “runs out” and it’s abandoned (sometimes intentionally, like EA does).
(I’d say the same things about Gamespy and MSN Gaming Zone, before anyone says I am biased against Valve)
On the upside, Steam is usable now, unlike a few years ago, and is much more then Gamespy offered. I’m being cynical – I just don’t know if it is a true golden halo – the service isn’t quite there yet. The fact offline support is non existent (not even in a “phone up them” way) support is nearly non existent, and you can get banned “accidentally” from the service (there are false positives in any system like it) which removes all your games is something you’ve got to be at least aware of.
29/01/2008 at 19:23 Hypocee says:
Territory control! Finally, we can have really effective territorial content and release restriction! It’s so great on consoles, I’ve been waiting and waiting for the PC platform to be carved up into staggered release territories. Thanks Valve!
29/01/2008 at 19:23 Nick says:
The key difference I see is that Gamespy is godawful and has been for a long time.
The Zone was quite fun though and wasn’t required for any MP games I had, but was compatible with them.
(edit)
Don’t they already stagger release dates on retail PC games anyway? Pretty sure they do.
29/01/2008 at 19:28 Okami says:
Has Bioshock taught us nothing?
“Altruism is the seed of all evil!”
29/01/2008 at 19:29 Elyscape says:
Is it just me or does the Steamworks link yield a friendly 404?
29/01/2008 at 19:30 Andrew says:
Region control was mainly used to stop people importing a Ukraine version (I think) of The Organge Box into any other country, since it sold it for around half price or less.
And I’d not doubt it could be used to make sure us UK people pay an exorbitant amount more then anywhere else. Euro people too. We already pay around twice as much as Americans, sigh.
Global capitalism at work…yeah, fun stuff. Region control in any form sucks.
29/01/2008 at 19:41 Lou says:
Impressive. Always been a defender of Steam and like the general idea (no discs and installing games on several PCs is great), but I began hating it when Valve started self-censoring their games for people with a German IP (and no, it wouldn’t have been necessary, legally, in any case). That’s what worries me about the control.
29/01/2008 at 19:44 Andrew says:
They really do that? That’s going a bit far even by German censor standards.
29/01/2008 at 19:46 Kieron Gillen says:
The steamworks URL seems to be down at the mo.
KG
29/01/2008 at 19:51 Lou says:
They really do that? That’s going a bit far even by German censor standards.
German standards aren’t half as bad as mostly uninformed foreign gaming news sites would make you think – it’s perfectly legal to play anything bar outright forbidden games (a very rare case) if you’re over 18 – which is somehting many publishers don’t get, or can’t be bothered to take into consideration. If Valve implemented an age verification system (like every online store here in Germany has), everything would be ok.
29/01/2008 at 19:53 malkav11 says:
Considering that there were pirate versions of every major Steam-linked Source engine single-player release within a short time, I’m not convinced that this is actually a significant blow against piracy. (Multiplayer games like TF2 have been a different story, but strictly multiplayer games are already fairly pirate-resistant.)
29/01/2008 at 19:58 torncanvas says:
I don’t know, I mean just look at what comes after “Steamworks offers:”
That’s basically Steam right there, minus the “retail space” of a built-in browser, shopping cart, and a list of games. Replace that with a download from your own website, and that’s Steam, right? I mean what about this – other than the “retail” part of Steam – isn’t Steam? So yeah, my conclusion is that Valve just released the set of features that set them apart from any other web portal out there. And good for them. They just proved how important that piece of technology is. :)
29/01/2008 at 19:59 roBurky says:
So this will be:
Publisher sell their game in a shop, but not through Steam. Person buys game, installs it (with Steam), and it functions as if it was a Steam game, except updates and multiplayer game browsing etc come from the publisher’s servers rather than from Valve’s.
Is that right? Or will people be making their own Steam-likes?
29/01/2008 at 20:22 TeamDairy says:
The SteamWorks site is now up. It’s vague but it’s got me looking.
29/01/2008 at 20:23 Cargo Cult says:
Pirate versions which just didn’t work properly, especially with mods – you try dealing with people having mod installation problems where there’s obviously something terribly peculiar about their game installation (you extracted all files from GCFs why, exactly?) and they’re rather coyly not admitting to pirating the original game…
In a MINERVAy Googletrip around the interweb, I actually found a bunch of pirates trying to get MINERVA to work in a more open manner. Suddenly all the bizarre support requests I’d read previously made perfect sense!
So, erm… Steam’s stuff definitely doesn’t completely prevent piracy, but it’ll stop the game being torrented long before it even reaches the shelves, and the myriad mandatory updates and patches afterwards will almost certainly leave the pirates with the bug-strewn wrecks that your fine developers originally shipped.
29/01/2008 at 20:36 Thomas says:
Andrew, i totally agree that it sucks seeing a game going for half the price somewhere else, but consider the alternative, everyone would be paying the same price, and only we would have the money to pay for it.
That really isn’t in the best interest of gamers or developers.
malkav11 It says “Zero-Day Piracy Protection”, zero-day piracy protection is basically protecting the game atleast until the game has been released.
“A few days after release” is actually quite a lot, many games are hacked/cracked before their release, and this technology makes piracy virtually impossible until atleast the release day.
Even then it’ll not be out right away, you’ll still have to crack it, and you’ll have to test it and release it, that’s usually 2 days after release. Keep in mind that the majority of sales to be lost has been suggested to be on the launch day due to copies being leaked prior to the release.
29/01/2008 at 20:43 Lou says:
Yes, I do think that’s a factor – not the least because piracy has a “coolness” factor for some people that’s partly based on being able to play games before they are released. Getting a cracked copy a week after people who have bought it isn’t half as attractive for some people. Whether these are the same people who’ll then buy the game is an entirely different question, however. ;)
29/01/2008 at 20:47 SwiftRanger says:
Dunno, there are others means to prevent PC piracy than some ‘free’ online activation/encryption through Steam for all who wants to. Steam itself (nor Steam Community) isn’t exactly perfect either.
29/01/2008 at 20:54 Thomas says:
SwiftRanger, definitely there is, but not many use it, infact the only developer i remember using it was Bioshock, but over the top DRM-control ruined it for them.
29/01/2008 at 20:58 The_B says:
Well, so far my inital thoughts are that I prefer this to say, StarForce.
I’m still slightly confuzzled as to what it actually means in practise mind.
29/01/2008 at 21:09 martin says:
i really like steam, except the part about not really owning my games just licensing them. it is simple, i don’t need the dvd it autoupdates the games. but i do hate the region check. what is wrong about getting the game for cheap i.e. in the ukraine. this is my biggest fear for this new service, region codes for pc games.
Publisher: “So you want to play a game that is not released in your territory, bad luck , can’t allow that”
Customer: “Damn it, okay give me my money back for the import.”
Publisher: “Our EULA does not include any refund for purchased games.”
Customer: “But i can’t play the game, you blocked it.”
Publisher: “We are really sorry, but i can’t be helped. But you have the option to move to the territory of your version or just buy a version that is allowed in your territory once it is released, if it ever is”.
29/01/2008 at 21:11 Kadayi says:
I think it’s a cool move. If it helps developers eliminate zero day release pirating then I’m all for it. The way that guy from Infinity Ward talked about the state of play regarding the extent of gaming piracy a week or so ago, I couldn’t help but think ‘they definitely aren’t going to support the PC next time around’. If PC gaming dies a death because developers switch wholesale to Consoles then the whole mod scene dies with it…
As regards regional releases. Sure Valve might not do it, but other developers and publishers often have different deals across the globe, so they do require that sort of stuff. The point is though, that it’s there, doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to use it.
29/01/2008 at 21:23 Lou says:
“i really like steam, except the part about not really owning my games just licensing them”
It’s actually the same if you buy a boxed copy of any game, you just own the data carrier – the software itself is always only licensed. You own just a few grams of plastic, not the content. But I do understand what you mean, just saying that legally it’s the same.
29/01/2008 at 21:27 Zarniwoop says:
I guess this is all part of Valve’s masterplan to take over the world. Developers know that they can either use this free piece of software, or spend extra time (i.e. money) developing their own anti-piracy system, or suffer reduced sales figures. Really it’s only the big players who can afford to take options 2 and 3, so this means Valve’ll have (at least some level of) control over all of the hundreds of titles which get released every year by indie and small-time developers.
On the other hand, this is probably no bad thing, at least in the short-to-mid term. Indie developers make a pittance as it is without people pirating their games.
29/01/2008 at 21:34 Hobbes2099 says:
I’m going to try to sound all serious and know-it-all, but since I’ve never developed a game in my life, please read the post bearing the fact I talk about game-development and space-travel with the same first-hand experience.
Here goes: the commercial model is pretty straight-forward: a) become the business-standard and b) make all the indie developers gravitate to the Valve network/enviornment (with all the new tools and hardware being able to run decent game-engines, we’re gonna start seeing better and sell-able games very soon);
Also, from a dev. point of view; if you’ve already installed all the back-end server functions and the experience was painless and gratifying, you might as well sell the game through Valve’s Online Store.
I’m sure Valve will be cool about this and not even mention exclusivity rights, first dibs, etc;
Couple of comments to a couple of people;
Piracy; when BioShock came out, the industry as a whole cheered and praised how it took almost a week for the PC version to be cracked. It appears the rules of the game are simple, each day after launch makes a difference in terms of sales and the reason is this:
While a lot of people will pay for software based on principle, and a lot of people will pirate software no matter how much money they have in their pockets, the importance of the time it takes for software to be cracked is because there is still a rather large gray area of consumers that can me tempted to pirate suchsaid software if available, or will purchase if it’s not. Suddenly a week is a lot of time if you want Adobe CS3 or just ‘need to play’ BioShock.
Buggy Valve; I’ve been using Steam for the last 3 years and while there’s a lot to improved, and the new Community function needs a major overhaul, Steam is the closest PC gamers have to XBL. And the effects of developing and mantaining a community in tearms of online games translates directly into $ sings.
Lastly, I think the great tool devs are gonna get from this toolset is the exposure and ability to connect with Valve’s community of players (soon to be testers).
All in all, a brilliant move on Valve’s behalf and not a minute too soon, indie game development is really just around the corner.
29/01/2008 at 21:38 Thomas says:
Hobbes2099
The week or so max it took to crack Bioshock is nothing decent, better protections have existed.
Any other game based on a similar protection will also take less time to crack whereas the steam protection is virtually guaranteed.
29/01/2008 at 21:44 Andrew says:
I realise some of the German laws Lou, and which is why I commented it was over the top. At least if things are under the counter and restricted to a age group, the same can be done online.
The whole “licensing software” is not always 100% correct, since many countries treat it as a product, not a licence contract. ELUA’s in non-USA countries don’t strictly apply, at least not all the inane clauses, since they clash with local laws. I somehow doubt this will improve matters – like DRM, it skirts the law on “rights” the user might have with copy protection (in the UK these rights might be limited, but there are fair use laws in the USA and many other countries, such as the right to backup).
The region restricting is bad too – case in point: Rock Band is USA only why?!
And the region locking of prices is arbitrary and ill defined, since it applies only to game software. I can buy books on Amazon (America store) cheaper then I can here (even with import tax, shipping, etc.) but somehow software is meant to be different? I don’t really understand this – it seems capitalism can only apply to businesses, not customers – why can’t an igneous customer get it at the cheapest place with the advent of the internet and aeroplanes?
It’s all a bit too business-y, and not exactly a fun thing to discuss. I don’t know truly if everyone did use steam that any kind of piracy would be outlawed, or that it’d boom the market, or anything, but these measures do generally only hamper people who want to buy the product in the first place.
29/01/2008 at 21:44 Lou says:
The week or so max it took to crack Bioshock is nothing decent, better protections have existed.
It seems to have helped though, here’s a quote from Gamasutra after the first week or so:
“While the Xbox 360 version is the more popular of the two in the U.S., BioShock on PC nevertheless manages to make a strong overall sales impression that few PC titles manage to achieve. Interestingly, though, the PC port outsells both the regular and limited Xbox 360 editions in Europe, where BioShock’s PC version emerges as the week’s biggest-selling software title on any platform.”
Now of course we don’t know how much of that is owed to the copy protection, but it’s probably not just a coincidence that one of the very few games that wasn’t available on the net for a week after its release sold so well.
29/01/2008 at 21:50 UncleLou says:
“I realise some of the German laws Lou, and which is why I commented it was over the top. At least if things are under the counter and restricted to a age group, the same can be done online.”
Yeah, sorry, I realised too late that my most might have sounded a bit patronising, it wasn’t meant like taht and I wasn’t referring to you with the “uninformed foreign sites” bit.
“The whole “licensing software” is not always 100% correct, since many countries treat it as a product, not a licence contract. ELUA’s in non-USA countries don’t strictly apply, at least not all the inane clauses, since they clash with local laws”
You are of course entirely right, but then again it’s the same for games you download – the EULAs are always dubious, and if they aren’t valid for boxed copies, they aren’t for games you download, either – which was part of my badly made point, that there isn’t really a legal difference between a boxed copy and a legal download. :)
edit: that friendly smiley looks pretty sarcastic, let’s try a sarcastic one to balance things out :p
29/01/2008 at 21:56 Mike says:
Wonderful.
29/01/2008 at 22:40 Thomas says:
Lou, tbh i’d say that Bioshock was just overhyped i bought it, i even bought it before release, so it’s not like i caved in and gave up.
But i genuinely believed it to be a good game, which unfortunately didn’t happen to be true, there were also a lot of people returning their games (or atleast claiming to be) because of the over-the-top bs DRM.
Blaming piracy on declining PC sales are just wrong, infact we don’t even know if the pc sales are declining, perhaps in the retail sales, but Steam, D2D, Gametap and what not is not included in these charts, but yet they still sell a lot.
29/01/2008 at 22:49 UncleLou says:
Well yes, it’s no evidence of course, and Bioshock was pretty hyped, but it still is an indication – it was similar with Gothic 3, which sold beyond expectations for several weeks, and which wasn’t cracked for a couple of weeks at the very least as well.
As for blaming piracy – it surely isn’t the only factor, but I am also sure that it does play a role. I often enough see figures of torrent sites due to my line of work, and the numbers are pretty scary. Games often get downloaded before their official release in bigger numbers than they are sold afterwards. Again, of course not all these people would buy the game, but even if it’s just a small percentage, it would be a not too negligible boost to sales.
30/01/2008 at 00:24 yxxxx says:
This is a very intresting development.
I think its going to take some time to actually see what it all means.
30/01/2008 at 00:31 Bob says:
If an indie developer uses this, I assume that “region locking” is optional – and if Valve does screw the pooch, then the indie developer can choose to stop using the system and roll their own replacement for whatever services they had been using.
I will not buy a Valve product (even legitimate ones) because their treatment of customers really sucks – but as far as I can tell, they don’t get “control” over other developers, but instead allow other developers to have the opportunity to be just like Valve, if they choose.
30/01/2008 at 00:36 Alan Au says:
Remember, no good deed goes unpunished. Also, I hope this doesn’t cause developers to fall into the Company of Heroes trap with competing copy-protection schemes that penalize the digital-distribution customers.
30/01/2008 at 00:58 Sucram says:
It’s a clever move from Valve in terms of making Steam ubiquitous amongst gamers.
Like iTunes, even if people aren’t buying from the online store, that it is on so many people’s machines pushes out any competition.
30/01/2008 at 01:42 Lunaran says:
The logo is clever.
30/01/2008 at 01:50 malkav11 says:
To point out: a) while occasionally pirate groups get access to leaked pre-release software (and get very excited), most of the time they’re working off commercially released copies. It’s actually quite unusual to have pirate copies floating around before the game’s on store shelves. b) Every one of those “Steam-protected” games hit pirate sites a mere day after release.
It’s true that they don’t work quite as well as they might, though. Mods won’t work because of how Steam mods are handled, and updating is a pain – more so than with a regular no-CD crack. Still, mods don’t reliably work with other pirated games either.
30/01/2008 at 02:16 Kadayi says:
Bob:
“I will not buy a Valve product (even legitimate ones) because their treatment of customers really sucks – but as far as I can tell, they don’t get “control” over other developers, but instead allow other developers to have the opportunity to be just like Valve, if they choose.”
/facepalm…
So basically your claiming your pirating of Valve games, is in fact a form of protest against their customer service. A service which you yourself wouldn’t be using, because your pirating their games. Seriously a thief’s, a thief’s, a thief, get a life before it’s too late.
30/01/2008 at 02:35 Rich Powers says:
RE: region locked games,
Valve’s been enforcing this for some time. Someone on CheapAssGamer.com purchased The Orange Box from overseas for like $15 and Steam banned it from his US-based account. But yeah, Steam will only make it more common (and I actually buy lots of import games…most of them compilations that aren’t available in the States).
I think region lock is total bullshit. The corporations love outsourcing labor overseas to save money, but the consumer is punished when he buys a product from overseas for less money.
30/01/2008 at 02:38 sigma83 says:
Yes, can someone explain region lock to me? I don’t get why buying your stuff cheap in another country is a bad thing. It’s a major drive in the tourism industries of some countries in my region I know that much.
30/01/2008 at 02:50 Mickiscoole says:
Sigma, look at it from the Publisher’s perspective. They want you to pay for the expensive version so they get more money. They get less money from you if you buy the incredibly cheap version from overseas. (Just send your mind back to when CoD4 was released over steam. Activision was originally selling the game at the same price everywhere, but when they discovered they could get more money from Australian consumers, they decided to make it the same price as the retail version)
30/01/2008 at 03:00 sigma83 says:
Unfortunately I don’t know the details of the COD steam release, so your example isn’t a great help to me. Sorry!
Lemme give example. Computer parts in my country are near factory price because my government chooses not to tax hardware in order to promote technology growth. I used to know a guy (Australian) who came to live here for a bit and he bought lots of hardware for his aussie friends when he was going back because it was cheaper.
Now I realize the price difference in this case is due to government taxation and the hardware manufacturers aren’t seeing a profit difference but would it really be so unacceptable for people to buy Ukrainian Orange Boxes?
30/01/2008 at 03:22 Cruz says:
Cheers for Valve. I’m hoping this Blu-rays GFWLive. Well, bad analogy. I hope GFWLive goes the way of the Betamax as a result of this.
30/01/2008 at 03:24 DigitalSignalX says:
Question 42: Steam is to Wal-Mart as Microsoft is to:
30/01/2008 at 03:35 sigma83 says:
Ikea?
30/01/2008 at 03:49 Cruz says:
Q42 A: Walmart.
Yeah, I get the analogy, but in the context of gaming, Valve has rocked my world and endeared me far more than Microsoft has.
30/01/2008 at 04:14 Mo says:
Re: region locking
Buying games from poorer regions is just plain selfish. Valve can do one of two things: (a) use region locking, (b) charge $60 everywhere in the world. If we abuse region-based pricing Valve will do (b), which is *incredibly* unfair to the people in less developed countries who want to actually pay for their games.
30/01/2008 at 04:21 Rich Powers says:
Valve might be able to accomplish what GFW hoped to do but never did: unify PC gamers around a common platform that emphasizes unified standards.
Wide-scale tracking would allow Skyne–err, Steam, to diagnose hardware and game balance issues on the fly. Patches would then be delivered in the background, totally sidestepping shitty download sites like Fileplanet.
Through surveys, developers and publishers would gain insight into their customers’ PC specs, allowing them to design games accordingly.
Such a unified, yet ad-hoc, system would solve many problems that gamers have with the PC as a platform:
*Instead of a myriad of different, shitty server browsers, games would use the proven and effective Steam layout;
*Patches, which probably don’t reach many end users, would be delivered on-the-fly, providing gamers with a better experience and resolving poor first impressions with increasingly buggy releases.
*Stat tracking tied to a single profile.
*Better grasp of system builds so devs can resolve system incapabilities.
…
Or it could be a total dud, who knows.
30/01/2008 at 04:53 Muzman says:
And I simply cannot concieve of what information they might have that would lead them to conclude this. Dedicated warezers are not that impatient. Non-dedicated warezers are not that impatient. They’re fooling themselves, or the security industry is fooling them.
The best part is the hypothesis is a complete non starter for testing. There are a thousand factors in why Bioshock sold, it was one of the most publicised games of the year, second only to Halo 3 I’d wager. How do they decide if a sale is a possible warez loss or not? Or vice versa. And then how can they compare it to other games? Not easily, that’s for sure. The whole thing smacks of a con; the industry is obsessed with release dates, the public not so much. Give the industry a time-after-release based piracy theory and they lap it up.
Maybe I’m missing something important in this, but really I don’t think that they’ll ever reduce piracy this way. It doesn’t accord with the world I know. They’re spending all this energy on a Spartan wall that’s facing the wrong way and then slapping themselves on the back when it succeeds in failing slightly less than the last one. Sure it helps, but there’s more going on.
Valve giving away a security system should hopefully prick a very big hole in all this, even though they seem to be talking about it in the same sort of terms. Perhaps because that’s all people know.
30/01/2008 at 06:03 TychoCelchuuu says:
Awwwwwwwwesome.
30/01/2008 at 07:19 Thomas says:
malkav11, that just isn’t true.
It’s true that it’s become harder to get it a long time prior to release because of how it works these days, but these people definitely get these titles prior to their launch day.
Usually it’ll only be released on or after the release day in the case of a good protection.
30/01/2008 at 08:42 Dinger says:
Folks, it’s a weird time. Yes, we have the technology now where an ordinary individual can make a retail purchase halfway around the world and have it delivered at a reasonable price.
At the same time, we have retail distribution systems that are based around countries, or groups of countries. And the consumers in those different countries have different amounts of money to spend on intellectual property.
Region-based sales/activation is important to developers because, like it or not, they have to negotiate on a regional basis. Not all developers, especially the smaller ones, can rely on a single global distributor. The assets they contain (for example, music tracks in Rock Band) often contain regional limitations themselves.
The first week is important to game retail. What I always find amusing about these debates over whether a 20-hour-game is “long enough” is that the average retail customer doesn’t play that long. Most of your sales aren’t going to go to people who finish the game. The retailer cares about selling those copies, and novelty sells, so it gets floor space. Very few games are going to get more retail exposure the second week than the first, so if the first week sales are mediocre, odds are on week two you won’t find yourself muttering “My God, Halo3 just puked all over the store!”
So novelty freaks aren’t usually “hardcore gamers”, but they’re very important for the retail success of a product. A sizable group of game pirates are novelty freaks too. With each DRM’d release, there’s a competition to see who can be the first to crack it, even if the game sucks (on the other hand, when the developers get around to releasing a patch that works, that patch is only cracked on the most popular titles). The logic runs that the overlap between the novelty freaks who will buy something in a store and those who will download it affects negatively first-week sales. And first-week sales determine retail success.
About EULAs: in the US there’s a huge difference between the validity of a EULA on a shrinkwrapped retail game and a downloaded one. When I take a game to the register, I am buying something from the store, and we both agree what that is. Neither the store nor the manufacturer can insert inside that shrinkwrapped container an “Agreement” that binds me: the purchaser didn’t agree to it!
When I purchase software via download, if I am required to agree to the EULA before completing the transaction, then I have just agreed to their terms.
30/01/2008 at 09:53 Butler` says:
A bold move by Valve. This could be a good move for the PC platform.
30/01/2008 at 09:57 AbyssUK says:
Just another system to be cracked, it won’t take long.
30/01/2008 at 10:03 Lou says:
Just another system to be cracked, it won’t take long.
Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think this system can be cracked before the game is released at least, because the game in question misses vital data that only get downloaded once it is released.
30/01/2008 at 10:32 D says:
Definitely correct Lou, it will stop pre-release warez, unless someone leaks a complete exe. But stopping zero-day warez with a platform that preloads, decrypts and only in itself contains any actual protection? Someone will crack the system, and all games will then be available to pirates on release day.
However, probably only a minority of pirates would go through the trouble, so it might have a noticable impact. Here’s hoping, especially for those indie game developeres.
30/01/2008 at 11:31 Colthor says:
Yay! More mandatory online activation! And region locking! Exactly what we all need!
30/01/2008 at 12:32 Andrew says:
Get off the hobby horse, Colthor.
30/01/2008 at 13:28 Colthor says:
Well, from “the consumer”‘s point of view it’s really no benefit whatsoever, is it? Quite the opposite, in fact.
You buy a game and, after installing it, you have to wait whilst it connects to the authentication server, downloads whatever bits the publisher doesn’t trust you to have on your DVD, chalks up what you’re allowed to play (and where) against your Steam account.
What if your internet connection’s down? What if the authentication servers are down? You’re stuffed, and can’t play your game until they work again.
What if Steam goes titsup.com? You’re stuffed, and can never play your game again. Unless some benevolent pirate cracks it, of course.
What if Steam suddenly decides it wants to deny you access to your games? Or charge you a recurring fee for your account? And so on? Oh yeah, you’re stuffed, or at the very least forced to bow to their demands.
A game you buy, on a disc, in a box, should work without recourse to anything outside of your control. Because how do you know those things will continue to keep working?
And the region locking – you see a cheap game on holiday, you buy it, you can’t play it. Why? ‘Cos you bought it in the wrong country. That’s all jolly well and good, isn’t it? Yes. It wasn’t a good idea on DVDs, I don’t see why you’d want to emulate it for PC games.
30/01/2008 at 14:50 The_B says:
I love how people are still making this argument…
30/01/2008 at 14:55 AbyssUK says:
This would mean the death of downloadable demo’s pre release because nobody will want to release an exe which could be cracked to run the full game.
Making me sign up to a server just so I can run a game is stupid, stealing play data/information from me is also stupid.This whole thing is stupid.
30/01/2008 at 15:21 Fumarole says:
Yeah, Valve collecting information on how their games are played is clearly a horribly stupid thing to do. How dare they try to improve our gaming experience!
30/01/2008 at 15:32 kadayi says:
I’m still laughing about the guy who pirates Valves games because ‘their customer service sucks!!!’. I’m curious as to which games company out there has better customer service.
As for pre-release demos, I’m pretty sure that sort of thing can be easily addressed.
30/01/2008 at 16:47 Alexx Kay says:
AbyssUK: This would mean the death of downloadable demo’s pre release because nobody will want to release an exe which could be cracked to run the full game.
Not necessarily. I know of at least one recent title that deliberately took huge amounts of (unneeded in the demo) code functionality out of the executable for their demo for *exactly* that reason. Apparently successfully. It’s more work than just using the basic exe, but so are all efforts at copy protection.
30/01/2008 at 17:25 Garth says:
Valve is quickly becoming my favourite developer.. creator… whatever company. This is a great step for indie folks, and really can’t hurt Valve at all.
Steam also gave me quite the quandary. It takes my favourite part of purchasing games – having the box, manual, backstory, etc – out, yet also removed my least favourite part – swapping CD’s every 20 minutes – so I’m torn between disliking it and loving it.
In the end though, it does help against piracy, yet doesn’t analy-rape those of us who simply don’t want to CD-swap constantly.
I’m going to say I’m happy with it all, but that is subject to change I guess, haha.
30/01/2008 at 17:30 Crispy says:
Can someone clear up a question of mine: If developers/publishers get use of the stat-tracking tools for free, who pays for the hosting? Can the stats be hosted by anyone other than Valve, or would developers/publishers have to pay a SteamStats subscription fee in proportion to their userbase?
30/01/2008 at 19:16 OldmanTick says:
Speaking strictly as a consumer (tho I work at a software comany) I buy my games well after they came out to get a reduced price, but I always buy them.
Waited til BioShock went down to $30
Still haven’t bought Orange Box for 2 reasons,
price hasn’t gone down yet
I’m in a rural area on dialup which makes using Steam quite painful
30/01/2008 at 23:01 malkav11 says:
Mm. I see a fair amount of European stuff hit before American street date, sure. But other than that, it’s not that common.
*shrugs* Anyway, as a game owner, I’d much rather have games tie into Steam than use copy protection like Starforce, Securom, or TAGES, so even if it’s not that much more effective (or, in fact, winds up being less effective, the way many indie games don’t get pirated on their own, but when they go on Reflexive, a single Reflexive keygen unlocks everything.), I’d be in favor of it.
30/01/2008 at 23:46 Dean says:
Will allow a lot more 0-day patching too. Basically it allows the developers to ship an unfinished product as long as it can be made to work on launch day.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
31/01/2008 at 00:33 Nobby says:
Dean: They usually do that anyway, at least now gamers will be able to release quick fixes for their broken games as they become available, rather than a weeks worth of Chinese whispers about a patch that /might/ fix issues, leaving the gamer with a useless game for that period.
31/01/2008 at 01:53 Charles Duffy says:
@kadayi – in all fairness, the poster didn’t admit to piracy; it may be that he/she/it doesn’t play Valve’s games at all (which is, of course, a huge loss on their part).
@The_B – ya know, some of us like playing old games. You know, multiple decades old. I don’t think there’s any question that Steam will be around in 5 years, but I’m not so sure it’ll be around in 50… and what if I feel like taking out the old nostalgia-mobile at that time? When I buy something, I want to own it… and while I do use and purchase games through Steam, that’s not to say I don’t have a reservation or two.
31/01/2008 at 04:45 malkav11 says:
Yeah, what Charles Duffy said. There’s a whole lotta defunct developers and publishers out there already in just a few decades of this industry. Some of them were dominant in their chosen area(s), for a time. Which makes for a whole lot of software you can’t buy anymore (or mostly can’t), but at least people who already have it can play them (with a few exceptions). If Valve goes belly up, you might be able to play the original Half-Life if you can find a pre-Steam copy, but that’s about it. I don’t think there’s any major reason to expect them to at this point, but, well…things happen. And even if they don’t, changes of ownership or leadership happen too, and if they decide to change up their policies, people who’ve already got money invested are fucked.
I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable with either prospect. It hasn’t stopped me buying Valve games or other things on Steam, mind you. But I don’t make as much of a habit of it as I might if those risks weren’t there (and Steam version prices kept parity or dropped below retail, which they don’t, generally.)
31/01/2008 at 05:33 Chris says:
“in all fairness, the poster didn’t admit to piracy; it may be that he/she/it doesn’t play Valve’s games at all (which is, of course, a huge loss on their part).”
There’s a lot of people that refuse to buy and play games that require Steam as long as the DRM restrictions are in place. Which is kinda funny, because such lost sales are then attributed to piracy, causing developers/publishers to use more DRM, which causes more people to get fed up, etc..
Fun fact: Morrowind and Oblivion contain practically no DRM what-so-ever, yet both sold extremely well. The strength of your DRM isnt what determines how well your game will sell. The quality of the game and the ease of which your users can play it do.
If I buy a game and can’t play it on a computer without an internet connection (or with a very poor connection), that’s not really easy, is it? Especially when you consider a broken internet connection to be the time people would most want to play a (non-multiplayer-based) game.
31/01/2008 at 06:11 The_B says:
I fully understand what people are getting at when they use that comment, but again in all fairness – to think that Valve won’t have planned something for if Steam were ever to close are surely being a bit niave, and for them to even consider closing down – everyone knows that there are a very large number of defunct developers and publishers. But by this point it’s a lot like saying you never want to cross a road again because you might get knocked down and die. No one is trying to pretend it will never happen, but the possibility by this point is so remote, expecting the worst is being very over pessimistic to be frank, especially with Valve’s current position – they’re bigger than EA in the digitial distribution field.
31/01/2008 at 07:14 Chris says:
Valve as a company? In all honesty, I really doubt Valve would care if people can play their games if they ever go belly up. It’s not like they’d continue to get money from more sales. Some of the more benevolent employees may want to allow it, sure, but as Steam is owned by Valve, only Valve as a company could do it, not the individual employees.
And it wouldn’t even take the company going defunct for something to happen. All it’d take is Valve no longer seeing a benefit for maintaining Steam. The servers and bandwidth cost money to maintain, after all, and if they see more losses than gains with no hope of recovering, down it goes.
31/01/2008 at 10:55 kadayi says:
This issue was bought up with Gabe Newell right when Steam started and he explained they had a software protocol in place at the time in such an event. After all they had no idea Steam would necessarily be a successful venture when they began it.
however the issue is moot tbh, because if Valve did go wobbly somewhere down the road someone like EA or Activision would snap them up just for the IPs alone. Also I’m pretty sure Valve don’t pay for bandwidth in the same way you or I do.
31/01/2008 at 14:25 The_B says:
The EVILZ OF CAPITILIZM argument (OK, I apologise if I offend anyone by mocking it slightly there, but it’s another argument that’s very overused as if it’s a GetOutofJailFree card imo) – is flawed for one very good reason. And it involves the 13 million active users. I don’t think, no matter how big Valve get, that the voices of distain and outcry of that number of people is going to be ignorable. Companies and coporations may be seen as heartless bastards that don’t care about the people sometimes, but even from a purely buisness standpoint, ignoring a customer base that large is amount to commercial suicide, and quite frankly it’s rather niave to presume the worst of a company just because they appear to be becoming less personal than a small indie developer that they once were.
31/01/2008 at 18:18 Crispy says:
I’m fairly confident that a) if Valve went under, as Kadayi says, another publisher would buy the hugely popular IPs for cut prices, and b) if Valve -or whoever the owner was at the time- could no longer maintain through conventional means, it would always have the choice to implement advertising in the server loader, in the server browser, in the game browser, in the shop browser, in the chatrooms, on the profile pages, etc.
01/02/2008 at 03:20 malkav11 says:
Yeah, I dunno…another publisher has no particular incentive to continue to operate things in the way that we expected from the original company. Look what EA’s done to…well, a lot of studios. And, again, with those companies it only boned us in terms of seeing more good games under those licenses, not enjoying the games they’d already made.
I’m also not convinced that a company’s highest priority when on the verge of collapse is going to be to take steps to make their products freely usable by their former customers. I freely concede that these are not things we likely need worry about in the next few years (at least, not with Valve. Other digital distribution options, and other games with DRM that phones home to the developer or publisher…). But I would prefer not to need to worry about them at all.