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STEAM- Announcements & Updates 2011 Edition

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H

Helmholtz

Member
classicdms said:
So, just like everyone else here, I picked up a shitton of games off the sale . . .

But I can't seem to want to play anything other than TF2. I finally taught myself to be a competent Spy. Stabbing dudes in the back feels so good and I've learned a hatred for every goddamn Pyro in existence.

It's not like the games new to me. I've clocked like 140+ hours in it. When will my desire to play new games return?
Click to expand...
After around the 400-500 hour mark. It did for me anyway.
 
K

Kabouter

Member
Dice said:
The combat looks cool but I don't think I can get past the worst premise in gaming history.
Click to expand...
It's the best premise in gaming history. It's hilarious. It's like Red Dawn but a million times more ridiculous.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
firehawk12 said:
I dunno, I look at it like when the music labels decided to give Amazon DRM-free music exclusivity for a while before letting Apple have it as well. It's good to have competition - both as a consumer, where you can by 3 dollar albums, and as a content producer, where your cut isn't dictated by a monopoly.

And I say this as the asshole who spends hundreds of dollars on Steam but refuses to make a GG account. :lol
Click to expand...

Here's my objections to what you just said:

1) The standard cut on virtually all services is virtually identical. The reason the big boys play hardball with the big distribution services is because they want the distribution services to take less of a cut. Why should iTunes take less of a cut for the Rolling Stones than for some random Indie game? Why should Steam take less of a cut on Medal of Honor than on Amnesia? While Steam, iTunes, BMG, and EA are all looking out for themselves rather than me, a situation where Steam and iTunes are strong is much better than a situation where BMG and EA are strong. For me and for indies.

2) I like the segmentation of roles in the industry. EA keeps trying to muscle in with their own digital download service. Valve has shown, thusfar, an ability to juggle their interests as a publisher of their own content and their interests as a distribution service, so I don't fault them. EA has not shown that, because their download service is a giant pile of shit and their DRM terms are ass-backwards. Ideally I'd rather a world where Steam as distributor was separate from Valve as publisher, but if they're going to be integrated, I'd much rather it be integrated in a way that benefits me.

3) Ensuring that Coke doesn't have a monopoly by supporting Pepsi doesn't generate competitions. Oligopolies behave economically very similarly to a monopoly. Supporting GFWL (owned by Microsoft) or Direct2Drive (owned by News Corp) or EA's own service doesn't do anything to give competition for consumers, it just reinforces the existing oligopoly the same way supporting Steam would.
 
L

Lasthope106

Member
Mrbob said:
The Bioware Dragon Age 2 forums have been lit up recently over the issue of no Dragon Age 2 pre order on Steam. One of the Bioware reps said the Signature Edition wouldn't even be on Steam, so it is crazy it is in the registry. Perhaps EA realized they shouldn't be a jerk towards the biggest online digital store? All these publishers are mad they were late to the digital party and can't control everything. Too bad for them and do what is right for the customer at this point!
Click to expand...

I'm all for competition, but Steam and GOG are the only two places where I buy games. In the future I might even buy stuff from D2D, Impulse, and gasp... GFWL, but never from the EA store.

Whether EA likes it or not, Steam is the market leader, and doing this kind of shady deals only cuts them from potential revenue. They can try all they want, but they will ultimately have to put their games on Steam to make the most money.
 
F

Fox318

Member
Lasthope106 said:
I'm all for competition, but Steam and GOG are the only two places where I buy games. In the future I might even buy stuff from D2D, Impulse, and gasp... GFWL, but never from the EA store.

Whether EA likes it or not, Steam is the market leader, and doing this kind of shady deals only cuts them from potential revenue. They can try all they want, but they will ultimately have to put their games on Steam to make the most money.
Click to expand...
Impulse is actually pretty nice.

Gamersgate seems to have the craziest prices.
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
SapientWolf said:
You say this like Rapelay doesn't exist.
Click to expand...
*googles*
There reaches a point where games are not games. I would say that crosses the line. It's some sort of sick fantasy simulator, but I don't see how that could be grouped in with "videogames" even of the fucked up kind.
 
A

AceBandage

Banned
Ok, so I bought Crysis during the Holiday sale as part of the $10 Pack deal.
I installed it today, but it won't launch.
Says "Failed to contact key server."
Any suggestions?
 
F

Flunkie

Banned
Whoever recommended Darkest of Days in the Holiday Sale thread, thanks. I just tried the demo, and loved it. Gameplay is not so perfect, but the premise is awesome.
 
L

LocoMrPollock

Banned
AceBandage said:
Ok, so I bought Crysis during the Holiday sale as part of the $10 Pack deal.
I installed it today, but it won't launch.
Says "Failed to contact key server."
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...


That's usually what it says when they're out of keys. Contact support, I guess.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
graywolf323 said:
but I already bought it all for 50% off from Impulse :-(



ugh too bad I don't have $50-60 to spend on it anymore
Click to expand...
:lol same happened with NFS. i was going to pick it up, but they played around like fuckwits and i spent my money on the steam thanksgiving sale. thanks ea!
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Flunkie said:
Whoever recommended Darkest of Days in the Holiday Sale thread, thanks. I just tried the demo, and loved it. Gameplay is not so perfect, but the premise is awesome.
Click to expand...

I had a lot of fun with it. I took like 1000 screenshots while I played through so I'll probably do a thread about it at some point.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
markot said:
I dont get EAs relationship with Steam >.>

Do they want to create competition? Do they want to try and force a better deal from Valve? What up!?
Click to expand...
I you completely get it.

Steam is pretty powerful right now and EA doesn't want to be their bitch. So they are a bit stand-off-ish. They try to get people to buy from their own store instead. But they can't completely ignore Steam.


Despite that, why the fuck didn't EA put up all the old Medal of Honor stuff on Steam? If they had done that, I probably would have bought their new MoH game by now in some deal with the old stuff.
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
speculawyer said:
I you completely get it.

Steam is pretty powerful right now and EA doesn't want to be their bitch. So they are a bit stand-off-ish. They try to get people to buy from their own store instead. But they can't completely ignore Steam.


Despite that, why the fuck didn't EA put up all the old Medal of Honor stuff on Steam? If they had done that, I probably would have bought their new MoH game by now in some deal with the old stuff.
Click to expand...

Yup. Its the reason I won't be purchasing any EA game from a competing service since it will eventually arrive on Steam, contrary to what EA claims publicly.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Stumpokapow said:
Here's my objections to what you just said:

1) The standard cut on virtually all services is virtually identical. The reason the big boys play hardball with the big distribution services is because they want the distribution services to take less of a cut. Why should iTunes take less of a cut for the Rolling Stones than for some random Indie game? Why should Steam take less of a cut on Medal of Honor than on Amnesia? While Steam, iTunes, BMG, and EA are all looking out for themselves rather than me, a situation where Steam and iTunes are strong is much better than a situation where BMG and EA are strong. For me and for indies.

2) I like the segmentation of roles in the industry. EA keeps trying to muscle in with their own digital download service. Valve has shown, thusfar, an ability to juggle their interests as a publisher of their own content and their interests as a distribution service, so I don't fault them. EA has not shown that, because their download service is a giant pile of shit and their DRM terms are ass-backwards. Ideally I'd rather a world where Steam as distributor was separate from Valve as publisher, but if they're going to be integrated, I'd much rather it be integrated in a way that benefits me.

3) Ensuring that Coke doesn't have a monopoly by supporting Pepsi doesn't generate competitions. Oligopolies behave economically very similarly to a monopoly. Supporting GFWL (owned by Microsoft) or Direct2Drive (owned by News Corp) or EA's own service doesn't do anything to give competition for consumers, it just reinforces the existing oligopoly the same way supporting Steam would.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't listen to music and I still buy hard copies of all my movies/tv shows, so I can only go on anecdotal evidence. Amazon seems to regularly put albums on sale for a fraction of what they'd go for on Itunes. Perhaps that's a completely artificial way to try to break a monopoly, but that's how it goes.
I mean, Apple is doing it to Adobe by not allowing Flash on the most popular mobile devices on the planet.

EA was clearly trying to prop up Impulse, D2D and GG and whomever else with The Sims 3. I'm assuming Atari tried the same thing with NWN2 (although, strangely, they pulled it from all the other competing services for a while). I don't know if that's right or wrong for devs to try to break the hold that Steam has in the PC space... in the same way that I'm mostly neutral on Apple's attempt to try to push Adobe out of the web space by pushing HTML5.

But if the reason why some games go on sale for 75% off on Steam is because they feel a little bit threatened by the competition, then that works perfectly fine for me.
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
I have something to give away for you all! Half-Life Platinum Pack CD Keys!

What do you get with these magical keys? Why, you get THESE FABULOUS GAMES!

2dvivt1.jpg



I have 3 of these key, who here doesn't own Half Life 1 still :D
 
Y

Yasser

Member
Drkirby said:
I have something to give away for you all! Half-Life Platinum Pack CD Keys!

What do you get with these magical keys? Why, you get THESE FABULOUS GAMES!

http://i54.tinypic.com/2dvivt1.jpg[IMG]


I have 3 of these key, who here doesn't own Half Life 1 still :D[/QUOTE]
i gave my cd copy of hl to my brother who then registered it with his steam account, so if you have a spare key i'll happily take it off you, my steam name is 0robas
Click to expand...
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
Drkirby said:
I have 3 of these key, who here doesn't own Half Life 1 still :D
Click to expand...
I don't. Unfortunately Half Life 1 isn't Steam Play yet though... (and no, I don't have the money or hard drive space for a Windows 7 partition yet)
 
T

Tetsuo9

Member
Drkirby said:
I have something to give away for you all! Half-Life Platinum Pack CD Keys!

What do you get with these magical keys? Why, you get THESE FABULOUS GAMES!

2dvivt1.jpg



I have 3 of these key, who here doesn't own Half Life 1 still :D
Click to expand...
I don't have it!
 
M

MNC

Member
GODDAMNIT.

I kind of wanted all the extra's that came with them. But then again good on me for being too late, my backlog is huge and I can't deal with this.
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Well, maybe next time. There are more goodwill stores out there, and a Million Seller has to have tons of unactivated CD keys floating around.

Ok, anther thing. At the same Good Will, they had copies of

Metro 2033 x2
Kain and Lynch 2 x2

It would come to $6.70 for each, and they all are steam work titles (And sealed)

Anyone want me to try and pick them up a copy at that price?
 
graywolf323

graywolf323

Member
damn of course that'd happen when I was eating dinner :(

would have had one sent to my friend who doesn't have any (she's just starting to get into pc gaming)
 
V

Volcynika

Member
Drkirby said:
Well, maybe next time. There are more goodwill stores out there, and a Million Seller has to have tons of unactivated CD keys floating around.

Ok, anther thing. At the same Good Will, they had copies of

Metro 2033 x2
Kain and Lynch x2
Alpha Protocol

It would come to $6.70 for each, and they all are steam work titles (And sealed)

Anyone want me to try and pick them up a copy at that price?
Click to expand...

Alpha Protocol is not a Steamworks title. Also, Kane & Lynch 2 is a Steamworks title, not the first one, for reference (at least I think that's true, but I know AP isn't one).

EDIT: Yep, just checked the Steam FAQ for that, Alpha Protocol / Kane & Lynch 1 are NOT Steamworks. K&L 2 and Metro 2033 are Steamworks.
 
T

ty_hot

Member
Drkirby said:
I have something to give away for you all! Half-Life Platinum Pack CD Keys!

What do you get with these magical keys? Why, you get THESE FABULOUS GAMES!

2dvivt1.jpg



I have 3 of these key, who here doesn't own Half Life 1 still :D
Click to expand...

I still dont have HL1, I have HL2, Ep1, Ep2 (all the orange box, actually), didint start playing them yet because I dont have HL1 and I lost the Steam Sale for it this xmas! haha
 
E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Steam GAF can't read, we know this from "WTF I bought this non-daily deal yesterday and now it's cheaper for 24hrs!?" posts.
 
J

jaundicejuice

Member
Kind of random but...

I didn't even know that there was free DLC for the PC version of first Mass Effect. If not for digging through some threads here on GAF and stumbling across a post by Felix Lighter I would never have known.

Felix Lighter said:
Also the Bring Down the Sky DLC is free with the PC version but you'll have to register your ME CD Key at Bioware's site, get your Bring Down the Sky key and download the installer.

Here are the instructions:
http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/galacticcodex/bringdownthesky_pc.html

It's a bit of a hassle but I think it's a nice piece of content and it's free.

Here's the Steam thread discussing the process. If you have any issues, there may be solutions in here.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=786714
Click to expand...

After about half an hour of fumbling through trying to remember my Bioware account info I created for Dragon Age: Origins a year or two back, I'm downloading this right now. So here's a belated thank you.
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
But is it any good?

And I wish EA would do the same thing Valve and Blizzard did with their old PC games, and allow you to register the games online. I have seen so many copies of The Sim at good will, and there is just nothing I could do with them. Been ages since I have seen a Starcraft key, I used to see copies floating around all the time before I realized it could be tied to a battle.net account (Though to be fair, it could of been the same copy, since Good Will stores swap inventory every few weeks for CD and such)
 
dream

dream

Member
Dice said:
The combat looks cool but I don't think I can get past the worst premise in gaming history.
Click to expand...

I had to look up Homefront after reading this.

Holy shit, you're not kidding. Someone actually got paid to come up with this?
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
dream said:
Someone actually got paid to come up with this?
Click to expand...
And then someone said "Sounds good, let's spend millions of dollars to make it!"

Edit: I can't leave this without being said, because it's too pathetic.

The backstory for Homefront was written with the help of CIA consultants who focus on potential attacks on the United States. Said Tae Kim, a former CIA field agent on the game's backstory, and a consultant: "we went to a very rigorous, academic research process to make sure to not only look at North Korea's current state but to look at historical examples how things could parallel and turn events. History repeats itself. From today to the day the invasion starts in the game, if you combine everything, the odds are very very slim this becomes true. But when you look at the storyline step by step, every step is a coin flip but a plausible step. So once you get there, it's plausible. And from there the next step is plausible as well. Even though the whole thing is fictional, it comes with plausible baby steps."
Click to expand...
WTF? :lol Yeah, except, not any of them.
 
A

ArjanN

Member
dream said:
I had to look up Homefront after reading this.

Holy shit, you're not kidding. Someone actually got paid to come up with this?
Click to expand...

Meh, US being invaded by North Korea isn't really any more far fetched than, say, COD:BLOPS story.

And I don't think it's only North Korea invading, it's some sort of asian coalition.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
Javaman said:
Why care if the Homefront backstory is plausable? Most shooters aren't anyways.
Click to expand...
Double standards or something. When a game isn't out and the story looks like shit, it's an easy target maybe? Dice's hatred seems really bizarre though. It's like he has never seen an action movie or something.
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
jaundicejuice said:
Because they publish Bioware's games, along with a few other interesting PC games and can be slow with adding those games to my DD service of choice.
Click to expand...
Oh, I thought for a second you buy their games retail over digital for some reason. Like if it came out on Steam and in store at the same day, you would buy it at the store to have the wonderful 6 page manual and free coaster.
 
T

TouchMyBox

Member
Stallion Free said:
Double standards or something. When a game isn't out and the story looks like shit, it's an easy target maybe? Dice's hatred seems really bizarre though. It's like he has never seen an action movie or something.
Click to expand...

I don't really care if the enemies are giant space vaginas who've invaded us for our supply of yeast infection ointment. If its fun to play, I'm there.
 
H

hamchan

Member
I don't like EA's approach of this whole DA2 pre order stuff. If it was just for their own store I'm fine with that but putting it on every store except steam? I'm not ok with that at all. Just seems ultra aggressive towered steam and it affects me too since I don't want to buy it off other DD sites. I wonder if EA and Valve are still friendly with each other.
 
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