L4D3? (Source 2.0 reveal)

Uh...SteamOS is free. You need a machine as expensive as any machine capable of running the Steam client to run SteamOS.

There is no cost argument, but an obvious convenience argument.
 
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German Muscle said:
When they required you to have Windows Vista for DX10.

To break it down for you.

When a company makes you buy something else so you can play the game you bought.
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Remind me again of the PC titles MS released that required Vista and DX10?
 
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German Muscle said:
This is pretty much down to how you took it and how i meant it.
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No, this is pretty much down to you using a poor analogy, getting corrected about it, and then refusing to just revise your assessment of the situation.

Anyway, like I said, the history of Valve along with other companies, indicate that it's not outside the realm of plausibility that Valve would release a major blockbuster on their own console. If third parties are willing to eat the cost of the hardware that's even better for their bottom line.

There is nothing in history indicating your position, not using Steam, not using any console exclusive, not even using Windows DirectX, that customers won't just buy whatever they need to buy in order to play the game they want to play.
 
mope54 said:
No, this is pretty much down to you using a poor analogy, getting corrected about it, and then refusing to just revise your assessment of the situation.

Anyway, like I said, the history of Valve along with other companies, indicate that it's not outside the realm of plausibility that Valve would release a major blockbuster on their own console. If third parties are willing to eat the cost of the hardware that's even better for their bottom line.

There is nothing in history indicating your position, not using Steam, not using any console exclusive, not even using Windows DirectX, that customers won't just buy whatever they need to buy in order to play the game they want to play.
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Cool, I respect your opinion.
 
mope54 said:
Anyway, like I said, the history of Valve along with other companies, indicate that it's not outside the realm of plausibility that Valve would release a major blockbuster on their own console. If third parties are willing to eat the cost of the hardware that's even better for their bottom line.
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You don't remember HL2 launch well enough. While the game was tied to Steam, it was also published by EA Partners on retail. The vast majority of people bought it offline.

Don't think Valve will make HL3 exclusive to a stupid new console. That makes no economical sense.
 
dgz said:
You don't remember HL2 launch well enough. While the game was tied to Steam, it was also published by EA Partners on retail. The vast majority of people bought it offline.

Don't think Valve will make HL3 exclusive to a stupid new console. That makes no economical sense.
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at the time, Vivendi was Valve's publisher.
 
Valve has already said that they're not making any games exclusive to SteamOS. So they would have to go back on their word if they went down that path.

I don't think, however, that they'll necessarily be in any sort of rush to sell their games on XB1 or PS4.

Also, it's certainly feasible that a Steam Machine could come with a free game or two. Or, SteamOS and / or Linux gamers could be offered a discounted price.

Valve has made their entire game catalog (Valve games, not Steam games) available for free for all Debian and Ubuntu developers, so they don't seem to be afraid to throw in a discount here and there.
 
I find that most modern game engines that are licensed are all about equal. Some people say Rage and D3 engines were not capable of say UE3 but that isn't true. Id games were just unpolished and you'd think they came out of the 90s.
 
dgz said:
You don't remember HL2 launch well enough. While the game was tied to Steam, it was also published by EA Partners on retail. The vast majority of people bought it offline.

Don't think Valve will make HL3 exclusive to a stupid new console. That makes no economical sense.
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Makes no economical sense to YOU. Because you're only looking at it in the conventional here-and-now. Try to take the longer view Valve is. What some might see as lost potential revenue, they see as an investment by planting the roots of a living room presence - two steps back, a thousand steps forward.

That said, I'd be surprised if they made anything SteamOS exclusive given their statements, but I would not be surprised if they made timed exclusives - that would probably be a good middle ground. Its a tactic Microsoft could certainly learn from: carrot-and-stick, rather than outrage.
 
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dgz said:
You don't remember HL2 launch well enough. While the game was tied to Steam, it was also published by EA Partners on retail. The vast majority of people bought it offline.
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You still had to install Steam to activate the game though.
 
pigwalk said:
You still had to install Steam to activate the game though.
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I never understood why so many complained about this and it was even listed as a requirement on the box. Did lots of people not have internet in 2004?? I can understand if you had dialup and didnt want to download it but cmon!
 
mope54 said:
Remind me again of the PC titles MS released that required Vista and DX10?
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IIRC Halo 2 was the only PC game that flat-out required Windows Vista to run.

I've heard that people were able to work some magic and get it running on Windows XP too, though.
 
noobman said:
IIRC Halo 2 was the only PC game that flat-out required Windows Vista to run.

I've heard that people were able to work some magic and get it running on Windows XP too, though.
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All true, but i wish they didnt fuck it up like they did. I would still be playing it today if they didnt shut down the servers and not make it able to install on anything other than Vista or XP.

Halo 1 is still very popular on PC today
 
mope54 said:
Yeah, four years *after* Steam was released making it difficult to argue that MS did "it" first.
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Requiring an application that runs on almost any OS is much different than being forced to purchase a completely new OS
 
Domini said:
Requiring an application that runs on almost any OS is much different than being forced to purchase a completely new OS
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Steam was *only* released on Windows. It wasn't multi-platform until nearly ten years after it was released on Windows.
And your point is ignoring the fact that nearly *every* blockbuster modern release requires a specific version of DirectX in order to work. Tying releases to DirectX versions is not MS exclusive no matter how hard you try to argue the point.

MS was not the first company to release a DX 10 game (iirc, that was Relic's CoH)
MS was not the first company to release a console exclusive
MS was not the first company to release an always on-line DRM client

A separate but related point is that companies release console exclusives all the time so it's not unheard of nor has it been economically damaging for them to do so. Valve could release HL3 for the XBOX One *only* (or make Playstation *only* features like they did in Portal2) or their own OS, or their own console (developed & manufactured by them or not) and no matter how many people griped about it the only option would be to buy it (along with the requisite console).

MS was not the first company to anything that the guy initially arguing with me claimed and he finally let it go when he realized he was incorrect so I'm not sure why you would bother dragging it out longer.
 
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DPI said:
Makes no economical sense to YOU. Because you're only looking at it in the conventional here-and-now. Try to take the longer view Valve is. What some might see as lost potential revenue, they see as an investment by planting the roots of a living room presence - two steps back, a thousand steps forward.

That said, I'd be surprised if they made anything SteamOS exclusive given their statements, but I would not be surprised if they made timed exclusives - that would probably be a good middle ground. Its a tactic Microsoft could certainly learn from: carrot-and-stick, rather than outrage.
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I agree but unless HL3 is released 5 or more years from now, it would be stupid of them to make it SteamOS exclusive.

I am way more interested in L4D3. HL3 is going to be a movie.
 
dgz said:
I agree but unless HL3 is released 5 or more years from now, it would be stupid of them to make it SteamOS exclusive.
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I agree. They wouldn't make HL3 (or any major release) a SteamOS exclusive unless at least 50% of the Steam user base was on that OS, and even them I don't see them doing it.
 
Domini said:
I never understood why so many complained about this and it was even listed as a requirement on the box. Did lots of people not have internet in 2004?? I can understand if you had dialup and didnt want to download it but cmon!
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Same reason that people complain about Origin. They hate change and PC gamers are relentless when it comes to change.
 
broadband was not near what it is today back in the early 2000's. In 2004 it was just hitting dialup parity, it wasn't particularly fast by today's standards, and it was expensive with limited availability in rural areas.

the concerns came about mainly because HL2 was a single player game and Valve's servers couldn't handle the load initially.

Computers were a lot slower back then, a lot less memory available, and dual core processors were expensive and fairly new. People had valid concerns about running software, any software, in an always on state.

And keep in mind that Steam is DRM. It's got a lot of bells and whistles and sales but that hasn't always been the case. There were, and still are, valid concerns regarding always online DRM for games and single player games especially.

For the people in this thread who are 18-early 20's I can see why looking back would make it seem like a relative non-issue. But for those of us like myself, who were in our mid-twenties to early thirties back in 2004, it was a big deal and a major shift in computer. It was also a risky move by Valve.
 
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