Yet another steam (Digital Distro) thread

jaggy · Post by **jaggy** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:55 pm

I don't know VPaulus, if Steam picks up Panzer Corps I seriously doubt they will tolerate any sales aside from their own digital platform. It would cut into their sales. Panzer Corps is designed, in my personal opinion, by people who do care for the game and their customers, and I want to keep it that way.

I'm curious about those who are pro-Steam, if Steam should one day go belly up and gets wound up as a company, can you still get to play the games you have bought?

impar · Post by **impar** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:15 pm

jaggy wrote:I don't know VPaulus, if Steam picks up Panzer Corps I seriously doubt they will tolerate any sales aside from their own digital platform.

Nah. Just check Gratuitious Space Battles or World of Goo, available both at Steam and from the developer\publisher page.

jaggy wrote:I'm curious about those who are pro-Steam, if Steam should one day go belly up and gets wound up as a company, can you still get to play the games you have bought?

Honestly, have no idea.
Valve games should be freed from Steam easily, other developers games would be trickier.
Games that use Steam for MP would be dead MP-wise. SP games would be somewaht easy to play anyway, with some minor law-breaking tweaks...
Anyway, considering Steams ongoing success, its not likely to happen any time soon. Steam user base is still growing, the sales help and some people really want a Steam version of the game over any other. Its easier.

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:18 pm

jaggy wrote:I don't know VPaulus, if Steam picks up Panzer Corps I seriously doubt they will tolerate any sales aside from their own digital platform. It would cut into their sales. Panzer Corps is designed, in my personal opinion, by people who do care for the game and their customers, and I want to keep it that way.

Not true, jaggy. That's a misconception.
They may exist some exclusive titles that might only be activated through Steam, like for example Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Skyrim. But even those can be purchased outside Steam, through other Digital dealers or even by retail. You need to have Steam account for those, of course. There are few developers, that might want only to go along with Steam, but that's their choice and they are doing that for their own convenience.
IMO, I really doubt, if one day Panzer Corps or any Slitherine product goes exclusive with Steam, if hypothetically they decided to sell also through Steam and Steam permits it, of course.

jaggy · Post by **jaggy** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:32 pm

Thanks, impar, for the clarification. I know some gamers feel Steam is the wave of the future and yes, it may be easier but I have yet to be convinced that easier means better. Just my opinion.

jaggy · Post by **jaggy** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:41 pm

I stand corrected, VPaulus, but having experienced heavy-handed DRM with previous games, I've a deep mistrust of compulsory online-activated games.

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:56 pm

jaggy wrote:I stand corrected, VPaulus, but having experienced heavy-handed DRM with previous games, I've a deep mistrust of compulsory online-activated games.

Me too.
What I hate more is the after activation, when you still have to be online in order to play it. But Steam at that regard, is not the worst because it permits, if you want, to play in offline.
For me the worst protection, was the one that obliged me to have the CD/DVD on drive. I hate it.

jaggy · Post by **jaggy** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 2:00 pm

The one that really cheesed me off, VPaulus, was the limited game installs. That, in my opinion, was unethical.

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 2:07 pm

jaggy wrote:The one that really cheesed me off, VPaulus, was the limited game installs. That, in my opinion, was unethical.

Yes, forgot about that. That's outrageous.

impar · Post by **impar** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 3:11 pm

jaggy wrote:The one that really cheesed me off, VPaulus, was the limited game installs. That, in my opinion, was unethical.

That was, by far, the worse DRM.

Himajin · Post by **Himajin** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:12 pm

I can understand the reluctance to put Panzer Corps on Steam given the uncertain outcome, but personally I feel this would be the ideal game to test the waters at some point.
I have already purchased the game through this site, but I would double-dip for sure if it appeared on Steam as well. The convenience of having my game collection in one place would make it worth it for me at least. It is the focus of my PC gaming now, to the point where I often forget I own other games not bought through it.

impar · Post by **impar** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 7:57 pm

[joke]
Ah! I see now the future of PZC and its DLCs:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/13111/

[/joke]

PS:
When this post was made, the game and DLCs had massive discounts.

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 9:21 pm

The moment I saw the word joke and Steam, I knew instantly that could only be Railworks 3.

But at 18:00 I was there, to look for what were the sales for today. And spotted Railworks 3 was on sale. I might buy it. But not the DLCs.

impar · Post by **impar** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:46 pm

And Steam is still growing:
- Steam hits five million concurrent players

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:33 pm

Yes and at the same time I was having issues with their clouding, it seems there was an apparent hardware failure in the Steam rack.
Last month for three times I wanted to play and I wasn't able.

impar · Post by **impar** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:57 pm

VPaulus wrote:Yes and at the same time I was having issues with their clouding, it seems there was an apparent hardware failure in the Steam rack.
Last month for three times I wanted to play and I wasn't able.

It happens when the sales are too good to pas.

Mark50 · Post by **Mark50** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 3:23 pm

If PzD were to become Steam exclusive or as a result of partially going to such a system would implement the sort of limitations listed above I`d not be sorry to immediately give up on it, as I did with other game series which I loved. While the game itself appeals to me I also have no regrets about the money spent on Pzc and all its DLC packs precisely because of the current selling practices which I regard as fair and customer friendly. Nor do I think that if the game went mainstream and make efforts to appeal to a different type of gamer age group will it stay the same game.

impar · Post by **impar** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:06 pm

Some numbers:

Steam Closes 2011 with 100% Sales Growth, 5 Million Simultaneous Users

Valve today announced the 2011 growth data for Steam, a leading platform for PC & Mac games and digital entertainment. During 2011 the platform grew to offer over 1,800 games to over 40 million accounts. Year-over-year unit sales increased by more than 100% for the seventh straight year, and during the 2011 Holiday Sale Steam's simultaneous user number eclipsed the 5 million player mark.

Meanwhile Steam doubled the amount of content delivered in 2011 vs. 2010, serving over 780 Petabytes of data to gamers around the world. To meet the increasing demand for games and services on the platform, the Steam infrastructure more than doubled its service capacity and a new content delivery architecture was deployed to improve user download rates.

Over 14.5 million copies of Steamworks games were registered during the year, a 67% increase over 2010. Steamworks titles shipped during 2011 include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution , and more. Since the suite of services was released three years ago, Steamworks has shipped in over 400 games.

"Steam and Steamworks continues to evolve to keep up with customer and developer demands for new services and content," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. "Support for in-game item trading prompted the exchange of over 19 million items.
...

Mark50 · Post by **Mark50** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:08 pm

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:08 pm

The game developers have made it clear what their approach is to Steam - flaring another fire over it is not going to be productive.

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:03 pm

El_Condoro wrote:The game developers have made it clear what their approach is to Steam - flaring another fire over it is not going to be productive.

Last time Rudankort posted in this thread, he was still saying "not just now", but also interested in more hard info about possible benefits (or downsides, I guess), which is just what impar's link is about.
And he didn't make a new thread but use the pre-existing one ... so what exactly is your problem?
_____
rezaf