Steam has THQ games now

[Inspector Jihad]

Originally posted by: Noema
Bought Company of Heroes last night...

Darned thing won't run on Vista x64 :| Apparently this is an issue with Steam and UAC, not the game itself. The only work around is to disable UAC to play the game. No way Jose!

Dual booting to XP back while they fix it

that sucks. but stay updated at the CoH forums at steampowered.com

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

This is great news! I can sell my copies of Warhammer 40K and the expansions (assuming they're coming) and get them on Steam, getting rid of my boxes.

 

[Bateluer]

Nice, I'll have to pick up Supreme Commander from Steam once they release it.

Just a little FYI for people, you can back up your Steam games to DVDs, so if/when Valve goes belly up, you still have your games backed up. So long as you remember to keep the DVDs in sound condition.

Edit- When will SupCom be available on Steam?

 

[Noema]

Edit- When will SupCom be available on Steam?

Word has it the next batch of THQ games will be out on the 24th...but it's just a rumor.

 

[Noema]

I also pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Bioshock be available upon release on Steam. They do carry 2K games but not all of them (Oblivion for instance is conspicously absent).

That'd be awesome, indeed, if they let you prebuy and pre-download so you could play the very minute it's available.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: Daverino
People who are afraid of Steam are also afraid of iTunes. Those people that ignore the fact that you can burn your content on your own CDs and have it forever. . .

If you had any friends to trade or borrow games from you wouldn't like Steam as much.

Steam isn't any where near as good as iTunes. With iTunes you get the whole song and never have to go back to their site again. You get to make 5 working copies that you can do with what you please. Compare that with HL2 were the get incomplete game disks and have to download the rest of the game and register it everytime you install the game, and the game is locked to your account. Could you imagine CDs that only worked for one person. Once you burn them to disk, no such stupidity with iTunes. Another area were iTunes is far superior to Steam is you can get most of your music there. Steam only offers a very limited selection. If start buying games online you're going to have to deal with many different online services, instead of a one-stop shop like iTunes.

Totalgaming.net blows Steam away, but unfortunately Gal Civ 2 just isn't as popular as HL2. You get a real working disk, a full back up, and never have to use their website again.

Steam is part of Valve, and Valve is a one franchise company. If Half-life 3 were to bomb, I'd bet they'd be out of business. Try downloading the games and getting support then. If you've been around gaming for any length of time, you should know that publishers and developers go out of business all the time.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Daverino
People who are afraid of Steam are also afraid of iTunes. Those people that ignore the fact that you can burn your content on your own CDs and have it forever. . .

If you had any friends to trade or borrow games from you wouldn't like Steam as much.

Steam isn't any where near as good as iTunes. With iTunes you get the whole song and never have to go back to their site again. You get to make 5 working copies that you can do with what you please. Compare that with HL2 were the get incomplete game disks and have to download the rest of the game and register it everytime you install the game, and the game is locked to your account. Could you imagine CDs that only worked for one person. Once you burn them to disk, no such stupidity with iTunes. Another area were iTunes is far superior to Steam is you can get most of your music there. Steam only offers a very limited selection. If start buying games online you're going to have to deal with many different online services, instead of a one-stop shop like iTunes.

Totalgaming.net blows Steam away, but unfortunately Gal Civ 2 just isn't as popular as HL2. You get a real working disk, a full back up, and never have to use their website again.

Steam is part of Valve, and Valve is a one franchise company. If Half-life 3 were to bomb, I'd bet they'd be out of business. Try downloading the games and getting support then. If you've been around gaming for any length of time, you should know that publishers and developers go out of business all the time.

How the hell did itunes get compared to steam? They aren't even the same medium and can't be compared.

BTW... if you have to reformat and lose your music you can't get it back. Even if you burn a back up, those don't last forever. Itunes? Nope

 

[Daverino]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Daverino
People who are afraid of Steam are also afraid of iTunes. Those people that ignore the fact that you can burn your content on your own CDs and have it forever. . .

If you had any friends to trade or borrow games from you wouldn't like Steam as much.

Oh gee, thanks. :roll:

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Steam isn't any where near as good as iTunes. With iTunes you get the whole song and never have to go back to their site again. You get to make 5 working copies that you can do with what you please. Compare that with HL2 were the get incomplete game disks and have to download the rest of the game and register it everytime you install the game, and the game is locked to your account.

...

Steam is part of Valve, and Valve is a one franchise company. If Half-life 3 were to bomb, I'd bet they'd be out of business. Try downloading the games and getting support then. If you've been around gaming for any length of time, you should know that publishers and developers go out of business all the time.

Well no, not really. In order to use any of the 5 working copies, the particular device needs to be authorized, which frankly I find a pain in the ass. But in this case, they're not really comparable because there is a modicum of sharability built into the ITunes system. Steam is not sharable nor was it designed to be. But I digress. My only point in comparing ITunes to Steam are for those who give the OMGWTFBBQ argument that Valve is going to go out of business and all of my Steam games are going to stop working. I don't think that's a rational argument for a number of reasons. First, Valve is not going anywhere, and Steam is one reason why. It represents a revenue stream for them that is independent of their development. The second is that if Valve were to fold up, there's an assumption that Steam would fold up as well. Even if Valve imploded in some scandal, a money maker like Steam would get snatched up by someone else. So even if something bad happened to Valve, there's no guarantee that Steam would go away.

Steam strikes a good balance, I think between the rights issues of the developers and the desires of the consumers. The games are not sharable on purpose, because in the wild, we really all know what 'sharing' means and that's lost money for the developer. But the overhead costs for Steam are lower, because there's no physical media, no need to pay for shelf space at Best Buy, no need to worry about making an Atari E.T. mistake and burning the hell out of a flop. This gets passed back to the consumer as a lower price and passed forward to the developer as lower production cost. It also increases the lifespan of a game by making it available for purchase long past its normal shelf life at reduced prices. The inability to share encourages people to *gasp* pay for the games they play, but the reduction in cost from a store bought game makes it more palatable. And therein lies Steam's biggest similarity to Itunes. People will buy songs on ITunes for $0.99 where they wouldn't buy the whole CD at Virgin for $15.99. People will pay $27.00 for 8 month old CoH on Steam where they wouldn't pay $40.00 in Best Buy for it. Throw in the fact that if you I went and bought Hitman on Steam right now I would be playing it in 15-20 minutes? Steam's model, by reducing costs on both sides, AND giving Valve a steady paycheck is pretty slick.

 

[Noema]

By the way: If anyone is having issues playing CoH through Steam in Vista 64-bit, run Steam as an Administrator. That should solve the problem.

 

[KMFJD]

What's that sound the sheep make again?

 

[hooflung]

me and a few friends bought Titan Quest Total Package last night from Steam. It downloaded over 2 gigs while we played Jedi Academy over hamachi for about 2-3 hours. I've had a steam account since the very beginning. My pre-steam copy of HL : GotY has its CD-KEY bound too.

Never had a problem except for a bit in 2005/2006 when the friends system was flakey. Thinking about buying xcom again through steam. Rather go there then to Best Buy or Game Stop.... where the real sheep graze.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

how is titan quest? what little i played of the demo reminded me a lot of diablo2.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
how is titan quest? what little i played of the demo reminded me a lot of diablo2.

It was basically Diablo (2) with better graphics. The gameplay was identical

 

[gregor7777]

So 37 posts and noone nailed the primary reason Steam is successful? For shame AT.

Steam is successful because I can purchase a game and not have to hide a box from my wife. What game honey? This one? No, I've always had this. I've even lost the box. Sure I''ll watch <--insert some horrific reality show here--> with you, just a few minutes more. LOL

 

[ArchAngel777]

The only reason I hate steam is because at any moment, if they 'suspect' that your account is being shared, hacked, whatevertheywanttoclean, they can disable your account and bingo, all your games are completely gone. I'd rather NOT have all my eggs in one basket, that is utter BS. So, you know, all you guys who love steam, just pray to God that nothing bad ever happens to your account... Even though 90% of you will never have a problem, 10% of you will and well, say goobye to your hard earned money.

STEAM is already cracked anyway, it always has been and always will be, so any single player game. I know people who purchased the game, but run the cracked version just in case... Anyway, the idea of steam is good, but I just don't like putting all my eggs in one basket, especially one that holds a potential value of thousands of dollars...

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: gregor7777
So 37 posts and noone nailed the primary reason Steam is successful? For shame AT.

Steam is successful because I can purchase a game and not have to hide a box from my wife. What game honey? This one? No, I've always had this. I've even lost the box. Sure I''ll watch <--insert some horrific reality show here--> with you, just a few minutes more. LOL

Strange you should mention that, honestly... Just today at work I was talking to my good buddy about that feature... We both laughed as a fellow engaged worker said 'What, you have to hide stuff from your wife?' we both looked at each other and said "Lol, he will learn once he gets married"... Lol, some boys are naive! And I just loved it when my buddy said "Oh come on Gabe, tell me you haven't puchased a game, put it under the seat in the car, wait till the wife goes to bed and then get it!" LOL, that struck home! Oh how people are so different, yet so much alike.