to Steam, or not to Steam

(Senethro) #101

Given that the best selling PC FPS of last year was steam compulsory, clearly a majority of people do not say no to Steam. Its just the ones who don’t are very noisy.

(Reanimator) #102

I meant on this forum, sorry if that was confusing :slight_smile:

(murka) #103

Is this for real?

(Voxie) #104

Well, since it comes straight from the lead designer’s mouth, I’d say so.

(coolstory) #105

Nice, steam is pretty useful. Prolly too early, but will players be able to ‘view game info’ on steam friends, like see whose playing on the server, how many kills, how long they’ve been in the server.

Also will players be able to play Brink when steam goes down?

(Apples) #106

Well, as we are a minority (lol) I’ll stay civil, but this decision is pretty dumb selling wise and community wise IMO.

Go go steam, I’ll wait for rage then, good news for the justice league tho, one less guy to pown their arses :wink:

Peace and bye

(oh maybe i’m right again and it wont be steam only, as for the “brink is slow” phrase which crucified me by a bunch of ignorant who were all glad that brink was speed’ed up, oh wai…)

/me goes back to quake, definitly, and good luck with another console/noob/gamer friendly game

(Nail) #107

well, that’s as my Chinese friend would say “interesting”
will patiently wait for further explanation

(INF3RN0) #108

Hmmm. I might lose all hope.

(LyndonL) #109

[QUOTE=Exedore;223898]http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/gxboxlive.php
Conclusions might be drawn.[/QUOTE]

In 1337-speak - w00t!!!

(Senethro) #110

[QUOTE=Apples;223990]Well, as we are a minority (lol) I’ll stay civil, but this decision is pretty dumb selling wise and community wise IMO.

Go go steam, I’ll wait for rage then, good news for the justice league tho, one less guy to pown their arses :wink:

Peace and bye

(oh maybe i’m right again and it wont be steam only, as for the “brink is slow” phrase which crucified me by a bunch of ignorant who were all glad that brink was speed’ed up, oh wai…)

/me goes back to quake, definitly, and good luck with another console/noob/gamer friendly game[/QUOTE]

Quoting this for the record.

See ya!

(Voxie) #111

I see where you’re coming from - though I personally am quite fond of Steam, it’s pretty evident that a somewhat sizable part of the core SD fanbase is less than enthusiastic about the platform - but calling it a dumb decision sales wise would be a bit far fetched, right? Like it or not, Steam is becoming the de facto method of distribution for hardcore PC first person shooters.

(murka) #112

It’s a “steam game” so no. You require net connection to play. Might not be a big deal, but if you don’t have it installed and have no net(can happen due to **** ISP) or go on a lan with friends and bring the game… Oh and you’ll have to put up with 10x more cheaters too now.

People really prefer paying more(about 1.5-3x more) just to get it w/o going out of home?

(LyndonL) #113

Incorrect. Steam allows offline play. Then again, how much do you wanna play a coop/multiplayer game offline???

Really? Dunno about where you live, but Steam is half the price that we pay in Australia.

(LyndonL) #114

At any rate… remember the MW2 boycott? The L4D2 boycott?

They’ll still buy it. Eventually.

(murka) #115

Read my further explanation on situations that require net and you just can’t play then. Also when steam goes down, can’t play online. Nice being on an invisible switch where someone else dictates when you play?

(Voxie) #116

Speaking from personal experience, the Steam uptime is very close to 100% and the service itself isn’t going away anytime soon; believing anything else would be borderline paranoia and cynicism.

And in the highly unlikely event that Steam would go under, Gabe Newell has stated that the authorization part of Steam would be removed.

(murka) #117

But still, why not add steam as option. Being compulsory just seems like they are dictating how we’re meant to play the game

(Apples) #118

I dont think its far fetched, less option = less sells , no need to be a genious to grasp that, even if most of the sells would be on steam, the more option you give, the more “niche” of consumer you get. So yeah I’m 100% sure that they dont do that blindly, dumb was a bit too much, “not the best choice” would be a better judgment I guess.

Peace

(AnthonyDa) #119

Orly ? I had soooooooo many problems with all clan mate with L4D, STEAM servers where either down, or couldn’t find a server, it took us about 1h to start a clanwar because it was impossible for STEAM to find us a server, no clearly the STEAM servers are complete sh!t.

(Voxie) #120

[QUOTE=Apples;224043]I dont think its far fetched, less option = less sells , no need to be a genious to grasp that, even if most of the sells would be on steam, the more option you give, the more “niche” of consumer you get. So yeah I’m 100% sure that they dont do that blindly, dumb was a bit too much, “not the best choice” would be a better judgment I guess.

Peace[/QUOTE]

While you might be correct about Brink selling a few more copies if it was available on every method of distribution under the sun, the true reason that Brink will be on Steam is because that means Splash Damage won’t have to program their own solution for anti-cheat, achievements, matchmaking, friendlists, et cetera. The Steamwork API allows them to cut corners while at the same time exposing them to a wealth of potential customers who cares about the features that the Steam suite allows as well as advertisement on the Steam client and weekend deals.

Remember that not just sales matter, development and marketing cost does too. Using Steam was a very calculated move, you don’t have to be a genius to grasp that. :slight_smile:

That’s a problem with a shortage of dedicated servers (and possible the matchmaking service) for L4D, which isn’t directly related to Brink using Steam.