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World Of Steamy Goo – Update
Written by John Walker on October 10, 2008 at 6:19 pm.
Hurrah! World Of Goo is finally announced for Steam. It launches on 13th October – next Monday – alongside the launch on 2D Boy’s own site. You can read our world exclusive review of the game here. Still not convinced? Try Eurogamer’s review.
Aaaand, if you pre-ordered it, and are all upset because you wanted it on Steam, look happy. You pre-order magic key will unlock it on Steam too, come Monday. Add to that the news that it’s integrating with Steamworks, and will be launching with eight achievements. And there’s lots more places to buy it too…
It’s also going to be available on IGN’s Direct2Drive, but there’s no game page set up there yet. Indie friendly Greenhouse will be selling it. And the game’s US PC publishers, Beanstalk, will stick up on their own portal. And finally, you can order the boxed copy from Amazon in the US.
Meanwhile, there’s great news about the release of the pre-orders so far. Thousands of copies have been sent out without a spec of DRM on board, and 2D Boy report they’ve still not seen the game on a single torrent site or upload. That’s five days and no one has disrespected their trust in their customers. What a really fantastic thing.
And they’re being very sensible about this. If/when it does start to appear, 2D Boy have asked that people let them know where they’ve seen it. They’re treating their release as a significant experiment, looking at the consequences of using no DRM. They state,
“i’d like to end with a request for help: if you see world of goo being freely distributed somewhere, please send us a note about it from our contact page. it’s not something we intend to fight, we’d just like to be able to share the data from this experiment with the rest of the game development community, hopefully to encourage more DRM-free games.”
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56Comment on this story — Share/save/Digg this story
Tags: 2D-Boy, direct2drive, steam, Valve, World-of-Goo
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cyrenic says:
I generally can’t find words to describe how good the game is when telling friends about it. I’m partway through Chapter 4, and it’s been a blast the whole way.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Chris Fifty-Two says:
Already have a pre-order but quite sure I’ll qet the Steam version too. Its a great game and well worth the support of getting it twice (or three/four times…have to gift it to my cheap friends that dont notice a good game when they see one).
October 10th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Brother None says:
I have it as a pre-order customer and I’d sooner cut off my right arm than put it on a torrent site.
And not just because I have no idea how to make a torrent anyway, but because this is a wonderful anti-DRM experiment. And a great game.
Well, I’ve already bought the game, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy at the idea that I now have the non-Steam version rather than the Steam version…
The difference isn’t important to me but for those who use Steam as a community system I can see why that’d be a pain.
Are you sure it’s absolutely a non-Steam version, tho’? I imagine they could patch it up so you can active it on Steam later.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Thomas Larsen says:
Yeah not having the game on steam sucks, but having the game 7 days early was pretty good :P
I just hope 2D Boy try to look into the possibillity of using the magic key for registering our copy and activating it on steam.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Jesse McLaughlin says:
Had I know it was releasing on Steam, I wouldn’t have pre-ordered. Would be nice if we could attach games to our Steam accounts (actually attach, not just create a shortcut in Steam).
October 10th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Rob says:
Huzzah, I was hoping it’d turn up there. +1 sale to 2D Boy!
October 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Downloads_Plz says:
once a purchase is made, a download link is sent out and there are no restrictions on where and how many times the game can be installed
I could be completely misunderstanding that quote from their site, or misunderstanding exactly how the process works…but if I’m not, why would this appear on any torrent sites?
If the download link could be sent to anyone, or even baring that, the installation file itself could be sent to anyone, wouldn’t this being torrented be akin to torrenting AIM, MSN Messenger, etc etc?
IE. Why torrent something when you can just send out a link, or give it to your friends directly?
Not that I want this to be torrented, as it sounds like an amazing game, I’m just not sure I understand their logic.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Thomas Larsen says:
The download is generated for you, so the only way to get the download again is by requesting a new copy, which he also talked about on the site.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Thomas Larsen says:
Press release from Doug:
The Steam PC edition of World of Goo will feature eight Achievements enabled by Steamworks
October 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Kadayi says:
Cool. I’ll be purchasing this directly then. Now we just need to convince the powers that be at Valve Towers to put Kudos 2 on Steam as well.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Little Green Man says:
Ooh, may buy it agin you know… Awesome game, and those guys deserve to have money thrown in their direction all og the time.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
RichPowers says:
Sold, sold, sold.
I’m really looking forward to this one.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Mike says:
But also – and where the hell’s the edit bit gone – quite short indeed. But as people have noted, it deserves money. So that more can come.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
David says:
I am somewhat disappointed that I have the pre-order and not the Steam version. The same thing happened when I bought the Penny Arcade game. I’m considering emailing 2DBoy and seeing if they can do anything about it, I suspect they’ll be more open to suggestion down that avenue than a larger publisher might.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Colthor says:
Hmm, I’m not sure about this game. Everyone’s seemed a bit ambivalent about it so far. Especially John Walker.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
PleasingFungus says:
Noo! It was lovely! I played it, beat it, got some of the OCD achievement-things, it is so wonderful. There can be no ambivalence!
October 10th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Fazer says:
World of Goo on Steam? That’s all you had to say! I’m buying it ASAP :-D
October 10th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Wayne says:
As one of the devs noted in the comments of their blog post, they’re looking into allowing pre-orders to be activated on Steam, as well.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Pidesco says:
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: This is better than Portal.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
thesombrerokid says:
glad i waited now although i would’ve liked the profanity pack, and i’m really glad and proud of all the people who have a copy and havn’t felt the need to upload it, it’s things like this that’ll show EA the error of their ways, i’m sure they’d've loved to have got in on the world of goo action.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
pkt-zer0 says:
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: This is better than Portal.
That’s not saying much.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Heliocentric says:
If its cheaper… I’m sad, I tried to give money straight to an indie, and in return I’d be punished.
:(
Let it be $20, at least at release, justify my patronage.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
John Walker says:
Downloads_Plz – you could give your friends a song, too, but people still torrent mp3s.
Everyone else – to the best of my knowledge, 2D Boy didn’t know they were going to be on Steam when they were selling pre-orders. I will ask them if they have any plans for the integration doodah. But yeah, buy it twice!
Helio – it’s $20 on Steam too.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Noc says:
Contrary to popular opinion WoG DOES come with DRM. It is simply a much more traditional and sneakier type, and involves softly spoken words and broken kneecaps.
2D Boy are keeping an eye out for torrents so they know which of their kneecapping agents need to be “let go.”
October 10th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Weylund says:
Regarding EA — I think World of Goo is better and more cohesive than anything they’ll ever produce. People aren’t pirating it out of respect. Do you EA expects their shoved-out me-too titles to get that kind of respect?
I suspect there’s also no pirating going on because there’s no challenge in it. Although there was a guy on GOG that was asking if it was okay to give away copies of the games to his friends, so that might not be good enough on its own.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Chris Evans says:
I knew it, I really did for once! Damn hard having to keep my mouth shut about it, but Kyle asked me too so I respected his wishes =]
Think I shall be buying it again :D
October 10th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Chris Evans says:
From the 2D Boy site:
update: several people who have pre-ordered have asked us if they’d be able to activate the game on steam. we contacted valve about this and the answer is a big fat YES. when the game releases, anyone who pre-ordered from our website will be able to use their magic key to activate the game on steam. we’re working with them right now to make this happen.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Mo says:
@Weylund:
Are you saying Spore is a “shoved-out me-too” title? I’ve heard people call it a bad game or a casual game or a collection of minigames or whatever, but I don’t think anyone can justifiably call it a “shoved-out me-too” game.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Yak Jazz says:
Hehe, I did a torrent search and all I found was “War of the Worlds – (Good Quality)”
October 10th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Thomas Larsen says:
Excellent news Chris :)
October 10th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Saflo says:
Peggle Nights is coming to Steam two days later, not to steal World of Goo’s spotlight or anything.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Poltergeist says:
I airfisted.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Scott says:
I’m loving the game, which I preordered, but there is a rather game-breaking bug: If you go to the World Of Goo Corporation and hit the reset button, and then hit Exit immediately after, it locks up the game, causes a fatal error, and, I kid you not, deletes all your savegames. It’s happened to me twice, at 4/5 and 2/5 through the game respectively.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Meat Circus says:
@Scott:
Ouch, yes. I just reproduced it. I assume that 2D Boy know about this stinker of a bug?
October 10th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
subedii says:
Much as I like Steam, I’d prefer to support the devs directly here so that they can get more of the profits in. Heck, the fact that it’s DRM free makes the choice almost a no-brainer.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
MarvintheParanoidAndroid says:
Bugs don’t get fixed when people just assume they’re known about! :P I would imagine if you whinge about it in the right places, or email them, it’ll be fixed. Also, totally buying this on Steam – first game I’ll have bought on Steam for a while actually. I assume today’s update (”Added support for an upcoming 3rd party game”) was World of Goo-related.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Kyle Gabler says:
Thanks guys. Yep, we know about the bug and fixed it, much thanks to those who reported it. The build will be updated in the next couple hours – so you can re-download with your existing download link.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Ed says:
I guess the question is, are 2D Boy paying Valve for the copies that are ‘attached’ to Steam? Obviously it’s somewhat cheaper for Valve (no credit card processing fees) but it’s still costing them in bandwidth… I’d rather it didn’t cost them if I attach it to my Steam account, but I would like it on it…
October 11th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Wedge says:
I’m fine with just sticking a shortcut in Steam and running it like that. I don’t care about achievements, I just like having the overlay and integration with the system, which I think is wonderful it works with pretty much any game.
Anyways, I do hope they manage a ton more sales from the press they’ll get from this.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Lim-Dul says:
Ed – I think it’s a win-win situation since Valve can again lure some people onto Steam and we all know that they tend to stay there (and buy more games ^^). Not to mention that it’s good publicity for their Steamworks system which encourages developers to stick to Valve in future.
Think of it as “it costs them ONLY in bandwidth”. =)
October 11th, 2008 at 1:38 am
malkav11 says:
I’d love to think that it’s not being torrented out of respect and love, but I think it’s more likely that it’s not being torrented because people don’t often put indie games up for torrenting. Just go look on torrent sites for a dozen or so indie games of note – you might find a third of them. Maybe. If that. Maybe this means they’re not being pirated. I think it’s more likely that they’re being pirated in some other fashion. I think cliffski said the big way he saw his games and others like them being pirated was through free upload sites like Megaupload.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:49 am
MeestaNob! says:
@ MarvintheParanoidAndroid
Dont think so, WoG has been in the Steam content registry thing-me-bob for a couple of weeks, the new game could well be NBA 2K9, which will bizarrely will have Steamworks integration.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Jickel says:
I just wish I could get that e-mail with a code and download link from them soon =/ I noticed this week that the old hotmail account I foolishly had tied to my Paypal had expired (I hadn’t logged in for a month or so so MS deleted all my messages…). I e-mailed 2D Boy about it this Thursday, but I have yet to recieve a reply.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:28 am
The Apologist says:
Pre-ordered. Love it. Their customer service was great when I had a little problem (of my own giving-them-the-wrong-email-address-creation) and really happy they are enabling me to link to Steam now.
This deserves huge success :)
October 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Scott says:
Yes, I’ve emailed 2DBoy, they got back to me and said they’d check it out. Just thought I’d warn everyone before they find out on their own. :P
October 11th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Scott says:
Aaaand I see that they’ve already stated that. This lack of editing is sort of a pain, lol.
October 11th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Mark says:
It really is a great game, very fun, funny, and addictive. Even though I was one of the guys last month asking for a Steam option, I’m still glad I pre-ordered and finished it already. I’m looking forward to going back and grabbing those steam achievements.
Not sure how it’d translate to a gamepad-only control scheme, but I think the next logical step are XBLA (real achievements!) and PSN releases. I’d buy it again in a heartbeat, for both platforms, just to support the devs.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Fazer says:
“World of Goo, the independent title from 2D BOY that swept top honors at this year’s Independent Games Festival, will make its North American PC debut on October 13, 2008 via Steam, a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games with over 15 million accounts worldwide.”
Does this mean it won’t be released in Europe? Oh please say I’m wrong!
October 11th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Optimaximal says:
I’m assuming they aren’t offering a pre-purchase option, as I can’t see it…
October 11th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Carra says:
Ign now also reviewed the wii version:
http://wii.ign.com/articles/918/918954p1.html
And now I really want to play it :)
October 11th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Scott says:
Hmm, Steam isn’t recognizing my magic key. Has anyone else successfully unlocked it with their pre-order key?
October 15th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Wayne says:
Steam pre-order activations via magic key are supposed to be live next week, sometime.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Scott says:
Yeah, figured that out about 2 minutes after posting. Curse you, lack of edit function!
Thanks anyway Wayne.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:06 am
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Well, I’ve already bought the game, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy at the idea that I now have the non-Steam version rather than the Steam version…
October 10th, 2008 at 6:32 pm