Patching >V 1.30

[RocketMagnet]

I bought this game when it first came out and i'm looking at playing again and finishing it off.

However i'm running V1.30 - looking at the patch info on 1.41 and 1.42 it mentions Steam. I would like to patch my game but without installing Steam etc - why should I when I bought the game hardcopy prior to it's release on Steam.

Steam has it's good points like getting Darwinia to the masses, however it's bad points completely outweigh any other slight benifit. They have replaced that ohh so nasty "middle man" and simply taken up the extra themselves (lined their pockets) whilst removing competetive pricing between vendors - why are their "full priced games" not 1/3 or more cheaper.

Still it's the future eventually - but Steam proves how far away we still are and how it really means no benifit for paying customers - no competition on pricing means higher prices etc etc. Only people I can see benifiting are Valve and erm... the odd small developer.

Steams a great idea in concept but like everything else people get greedy and want to make as much money as possible for as little effort as possible .

[xander]

You don't need Steam to install the lastest patches. They can be downloaded from Introversion's website.

xander

[RocketMagnet]

Hi thanks for the reply Xander, but I can get hold of the patches anyway - i'm just wondering if when you patch it then fires up Steam when you run the game after this?

I don't wan't Steam on my system - may seem a bit silly but I can't stand greedy companies. I don't mind people making a profit but this Steam things really annoyed me with the pricing and limitations it imposes.

So all I want to know is when I pacth to >1.30 will it also install Steam?

[xyzyxx]

No, it won't.

[xander]

Hi thanks for the reply Xander, but I can get hold of the patches anyway - i'm just wondering if when you patch it then fires up Steam when you run the game after this?

I don't wan't Steam on my system - may seem a bit silly but I can't stand greedy companies. I don't mind people making a profit but this Steam things really annoyed me with the pricing and limitations it imposes.

So all I want to know is when I pacth to >1.30 will it also install Steam?

You don't need Steam to install the latest patches. You don't need Steam to run Darwinia. For 8 months before Darwinia was released on Steam, you could buy Darwinia directly from IV. Even now, if you are running Darwinia on a Macintosh, or a Linux box, you don't even have the option of Steam. In fact, Steam is only one of several ways of getting Darwinia. You can buy, install, patch, and run Darwinia without Steam.

Also, what is so bad about Steam? Really? Steam is bad because Valve is a "greedy company?" In two posts on these boards, you have done little other than bash a company that probably saved IV from bankruptcy (I may be exagerating a little, but I don't think by much). Before Darwinia was released on Steam, it was not selling well enough to support IV. There was serious talk of Chris et. al disbanding IV, and getting real jobs. After Darwinia was released on Steam (for the same price, I might add, which means that IV are getting less per copy after Valve take their cut), sales went though the roof. Despite getting less money per copy, IV are doing quite well because of Valve and Steam.

I am sorry if you do not like Steam. It sounds like a personal problem, to me. However, it is irrelevent, as (a) Steam has been very good for Darwinia and (b) you can play Darwinia without Steam.

xander

[RocketMagnet]

Yes you raise fair points and I stand corrected. Steam helped promote and sell Darwinia of that there is no doubt and it's one thing I do like about Steam. I still think Steam is too restricting and expensive for full priced titles though - its nothing personal its just numbers.

Like you say i'm biased in my opinion mainly because download systems were supposed to cut out the middle man yet stuff like HL2 and the proposed E1 - E3 work out at the same price as a full boxed game - so as a consumer the new system didn't benift me.

The big problem I feel is the fact that a great game like Darwinia needed Steam in the first place. Like you state - Steam take their cut - so after all the bitching and moaning about the cut out the middle man they do the same to IV.. kind of ironic really .

I personally actively support many small developers by purchasing their games online via download and telling anyone that will listen about how great heir games are etc. Companies like PomPom games received a great deal of fanboy stuff from me. I supported IV by buying both Uplink and Darwinia and i'm really looking forward to the next. Yet if it all goes Steam style then all weve done is create a new middle man who controls what gets released and more importantly for how much and nothings changed.

Like many things they have +ve and -ve's - you'll of course see Steam as the saving angel and thus your opinion is as clearly biased as mine is from the other side.

So no I don't fully agree that Steam etc is gods gift to struggling talented developers - it's simply moved the control and money somewhere else IMO.

[xander]

Don't get me wrong on this: I don't feel that Steam is either good nor evil. I am a Mac user -- there is no such thing as Steam. As far as I can tell, your complaints are that (a) Steam is too expensive (cheaper distribution should lead to cheaper games), and that (b) Steam is a middle-man, where they were claiming to eliminate middle-men.

(a) If Valve can charge the same amount, and still sell games, what motivation do they have to offer their games any cheaper? If other services like Steam pop-up, offering the same quality of games, but cheaper, you can bet that Steam will also get cheaper. Right now, people are perfectly willing to pay the same amount for a download as they are for a box. If you don't like it, don't use Steam (which, it sounds like, is what you are doing). If enough people have a problem with it, Valve won't be making money with Steam, and will either discontinue the service, or discount it. I don't see either of those happening at any time soon, as Steam seems fairly popular.

(b) I don't see anything intrinsicly wrong with middle-men. The job (more or less) of a middle-man is to buy something from a manufacturer, and sell it to consumers. This is good for the manufacturer, as the middle-man likely has the time and resources to spend promoting the product. In the case of Darwinia, Valve, by way of Steam, can advertise to thousands of people. IV can't do that. They don't have the time, manpower, money, or experience to do that kind of mass marketing. Steam is good for IV. Middle-men are good for the consumer, as they have the ability to pool many products into one place, which gives consumers a great deal of choice in what they buy. For all of the people that found Darwinia through Steam, and enjoyed it, Steam worked out pretty well. Steam is good for consumers.

My question, with regards to this, is: how do you expect middle-men to stay in business if they do not take a cut? do you think that Valve should be distributing Darwinia on Steam for free (i.e. giving all Darwinia sales receipts directly to IV)? Does that sound like a reasonable business model?

Again, I don't think that Steam is perfect, but it is not a bad system, either.

xander

[holdmykidney]

Personally I worry about what will ever happen to digitally purchased games if (and I hope this never happens) steam goes out of business.

There's nothing quite so reassuring as having a CD with the game permanently available.

Although I would like to be able to install my CD copy within Steam, for the purposes of on-line updates. Like when you buy Half Life games on CD, you can register you key with Steam.

I really like Steam and if it hadn't been for the Darwinia demo I wouldn't have known what I was missing - I'm just not sure about buying games

[xander]

PAlthough I would like to be able to install my CD copy within Steam, for the purposes of on-line updates. Like when you buy Half Life games on CD, you can register you key with Steam.

It would be nice, but impossible, given IV's principled stand against copy protection. Darwinia has no form of copy protection, and no CD key, which means that there would be no way for Steam to know if you had a valid copy or not. Also, Valve makes no money off of box sales, so why should they support the boxed version by allowing it to be registered to Steam?

xander

[holdmykidney]

It would be nice, but impossible, given IV's principled stand against copy protection. Darwinia has no form of copy protection, and no CD key, which means that there would be no way for Steam to know if you had a valid copy or not. Also, Valve makes no money off of box sales, so why should they support the boxed version by allowing it to be registered to Steam?

xander

absolutely, on both points.

What would convince me to buy games over steam is if they offered a better system of allowing you to burn a personal master from an installed game. That way once you'd patched to 1.42, you could could generate a Steam CD key that matches the CD you burn and create a standalone copy, should you ever need to reinstall without Steam being available (The Lord knows how many times my Steam has gone into a hissy fit at a LAN party and refused to work offline).

Sorry if this is going off-topic

[xander]

absolutely, on both points.

What would convince me to buy games over steam is if they offered a better system of allowing you to burn a personal master from an installed game. That way once you'd patched to 1.42, you could could generate a Steam CD key that matches the CD you burn and create a standalone copy, should you ever need to reinstall without Steam being available (The Lord knows how many times my Steam has gone into a hissy fit at a LAN party and refused to work offline).

Sorry if this is going off-topic

Well, since Darwinia has no copy protection, you could take all of the Darwinia files, and burn them to a CD. If there is no Steam, then you don't need a CD key; and if Steam is still around, you can just re-download it.

xander

[RocketMagnet]

Yeah i understand there is a cut to be taken by selling someones game for them - however despite this I still feel it's a bit ironic that they are doing what they gave as the number 1 reason for Steam in the first place.

Oh and do you really think it was through the kindness of tehir heart they sold Darwinia? - no they seen a great game that didn't sell -which is quite common really. Still the end result was good for Darwinia and has facilitated another game but basically Darwinia jumped on the coat tails of HL2 not Steam.

Steam has been discussed slated and fanboyed on most sites.
It's certainly got it's good points and some people love it, yet I think they are confusing the fact that it was backed by a good game to start with.

For copy protection I liked the ID model for Q3, none of this logging on all the time and force patching (Steams got its benifits however meaning everyones running the same version). Steam was a fiasco to start with though its matured - I still think its a lurking monster and has just turned a games developer into the thing they said they despised. Really for any proof just look at Steam game prices.

I think as long as copy protection is invisible and only causes failures due to its inclusion on a very small %age of machines then it should be included.

My biggest fear for these games is an initial payment then a constant drip feed licence to play the game you've bought in the first place - with the excuse that the money is being used to patch and improve it.. etc etc.
After this its an easy step to paid for weapon upgrades (micro payments) - imagine playiyng Doom3 where your asked for an entry code to a locker the next step is enter your credit card number to open it etc.
Doesn't bear thinking about, you'll have Microsoft etc charging you each time spell check your word docs next.. its all coming .

You can't beat charging people money for using something you've sold em in the first place .. no this isn't Steam currently but it's taking steps in that direction and it's this which worries me for the future of games development.

[xander]

Yeah i understand there is a cut to be taken by selling someones game for them - however despite this I still feel it's a bit ironic that they are doing what they gave as the number 1 reason for Steam in the first place.

And, for Valve, there is no middle-man. In a similar vein to the paragraph that I quote below, do you really think that Valve created Steam out of the kindness of their hearts? They didn't want to deal with middle-men anymore, so they created Steam. They were big enough, and had enough money, that they could make it work. It is great to advertise that there is no middle-man, and it gives people a warm fuzzy feeling, but it really has little to no effect on the final price of things.

As an example of a middle-man being eliminated: my grandfather was a wholesale jewler before he retired (his shop also made some of their own stuff, but the business was mostly about wholesale, not production). Basically, he was a middle-man. He bought large quantities of merchandise from jewlers on the east coast, and sold them to retailers in the midwest. This model made sense for everyone involved -- the producers didn't have the time or resources to sign contracts with every single retailer, and the retailers didn't have the time or resources to deal with the producers directly. My grandfather took his cut, and everyone was happy.

Later, businesses (like Best, for instance) started selling directly to the consumers. The jewlery that they sold was about the same quality, and about the same price. They could charge the same amount, people would still buy it, and they made more money, because they didn't have to deal with middle-men. In reality, cutting out middle-men doesn't tend to make things all that much cheaper -- it tends to provide higher profits to the producers. As a consumer, I could care less if I am buying direct from the manufacturer, or via a middle-man.

Oh and do you really think it was through the kindness of tehir heart they sold Darwinia? - no they seen a great game that didn't sell -which is quite common really. Still the end result was good for Darwinia and has facilitated another game but basically Darwinia jumped on the coat tails of HL2 not Steam.

The fact that Valve makes a profit off of Darwinia does not change the fact that Darwinia on Steam was good for IV. Quite frankly, I don't care what Valve's motives are.

Steam has been discussed slated and fanboyed on most sites.
It's certainly got it's good points and some people love it, yet I think they are confusing the fact that it was backed by a good game to start with.

I am really not at all concerned about the larger debate about Steam. I don't care about any of the games on Steam. In fact, I don't play that many games, and have a PS2 for most of the games that I do play. Furthermore, I have a Mac, and couldn't install Steam, even if I wanted too. I am not a Steam "fanboi." However, with regards to IV, Steam has been a good thing. Given that fact, this is probably a bad forum to rant against it, or the people that like it.

For copy protection I liked the ID model for Q3, none of this logging on all the time and force patching (Steams got its benifits however meaning everyones running the same version). Steam was a fiasco to start with though its matured - I still think its a lurking monster and has just turned a games developer into the thing they said they despised. Really for any proof just look at Steam game prices.

I think as long as copy protection is invisible and only causes failures due to its inclusion on a very small %age of machines then it should be included.

Steam != copy protection

The games that Valve produces are copy protected by Valve. There are other games on Steam, however, that are not produced by Valve. One of them, at least (Darwinia), has no copy protection what-so-ever. The games that have copy protection would have some form of copy protection, anyway. This is not a problem with Steam, but with the video game market in general.

My biggest fear for these games is an initial payment then a constant drip feed licence to play the game you've bought in the first place - with the excuse that the money is being used to patch and improve it.. etc etc.
After this its an easy step to paid for weapon upgrades (micro payments) - imagine playiyng Doom3 where your asked for an entry code to a locker the next step is enter your credit card number to open it etc.
Doesn't bear thinking about, you'll have Microsoft etc charging you each time spell check your word docs next.. its all coming :(.

You can't beat charging people money for using something you've sold em in the first place :).. no this isn't Steam currently but it's taking steps in that direction and it's this which worries me for the future of games development.

Yeah, that is something to be concerned about. However, I don't think it would happen. The minute that someone tried to charge on a subscription model for a game like Darwinia, people would stop buying Darwinia. Companies would very quickly realize that people don't want to pay subscription costs for an FPS, or for patches. Hell, if IV charged for patches, I would still be running the first version of Darwinia.

On the other hand, I would note that the system you mention is very much up and running in many MMORPGs, where people spend real money for virtual stuff. But these people are also paying a subscription fee, and the nature of the games are quite different. *shrugs*

xander

[Jackmn]

Also, what is so bad about Steam? Really?

Every game I have purchased via Steam phones home every time I wish to play a game.

None of the games I have purchased over Steam work without having Steam loaded (unless you run a Steam emulator or locate some cracked executables). I haven't purchased Darwinia or any other third party games over Steam, so I can't say if that holds true for them.

[xander]

Also, what is so bad about Steam? Really?

Every game I have purchased via Steam phones home every time I wish to play a game.

None of the games I have purchased over Steam work without having Steam loaded (unless you run a Steam emulator or locate some cracked executables). I haven't purchased Darwinia or any other third party games over Steam, so I can't say if that holds true for them.

Again, I would suggest that this is a problem with Valve, not Steam. Darwinia does not phone home -- as I said above, it is possible to move Darwinia to another directory, and play it without Steam. I am not sure about other third party games, but Steam has nothing to do with the games phoning home. If Valve wanted their games to phone home, and didn't have Steam, I'm sure they could find a way.

xander