id Software just went to Steam! Will 3D Realms hold out?

[Sang]

Why shouldn't they get a small cut? They are providing a service after all

Well I don't know. Valve should fund Steam themselves, not with money from 3rd party companies. I'm all for Steam but not if Valve gets money for every game sold on it - It's like they get money they don't really deserve..

Imagine that you and I are both retailers, you give me some game to sell to someone and of course you'll want me to give you the money afterwards. But what if I sold the game, then gave you some money but kept some for myself? It's not really fair.

[ShadeEX]

Originally Posted by Sang

So, I'm guessing the companies who have their games on Steam get all the cash in case of a sale.. Or does Valve get a small percentage? I seriously hope not.

Valve gets a small percentage..

But then again so does Retail Publishers.. like EA, 2K, Activision and so on..

EDIT:
all publishers does that.. it's really nothing new really..

[Kev_Boy]

Originally Posted by Sang

It's like they get money they don't really deserve..

They're the ones providing the service, they're the ones who need to handle the extra bandwidth, they're the ones who give the game more buzz. I don't see how that means they don't deserve a small cut?

Originally Posted by Sang

Imagine that you and I are both retailers, you give me some game to sell to someone and of course you'll want me to give you the money afterwards. But what if I sold the game, then gave you some money but kept some for myself? It's not really fair.

Retailers already do that, only they shove it through to the consumer. Valve could simply charge a little more for the game themselves too. I don't think that's a better solution

Actually, 3DR, how does Prey handle this?

[8IronBob]

I'm wondering if Castle Wolfenstein will be a Steam exclusive, knowing that, or their Star-Wars racing thing?

[Parkar]

Originally Posted by Sang

Well I don't know. Valve should fund Steam themselves, not with money from 3rd party companies. I'm all for Steam but not if Valve gets money for every game sold on it - It's like they get money they don't really deserve..

Imagine that you and I are both retailers, you give me some game to sell to someone and of course you'll want me to give you the money afterwards. But what if I sold the game, then gave you some money but kept some for myself? It's not really fair.

So they should just help the competition selling there games for free? That sounds like a brilliant idea.

[ShadeEX]

Originally Posted by Kev_Boy

You actually raise a good point, for people like me who like multiple partitions, it could pose a problem because I don't think you can install these games anywhere but in your Steam directory.

Yeah Steam releases can only be installed in the steam folder naturally..

So yeah bigger Harddisks just for steam are nessesary IMO

[ZaphodB]

Quickly scanned (and used the search feature ) and noticed no one mentioned it yet, COMMANDER KEEN is available on steam .....

[ShadeEX]

Um yeah it's already mentioned.. in this tread.. jump back a few pages..

[ShadeEX]

EDIT: fiddle sticks my original post is on top of this page now..

Please delete this then as i only repeated myself

[Sang]

Originally Posted by Parkar

So they should just help the competition selling there games for free? That sounds like a brilliant idea.

No, where did I say that?

But now that you mention it, yeah allowing non-Valve games to be sold on Steam sounds a lot like "helping the competition" alright. That's a good thing, but then getting some money for the games that the competition sells is kinda the opposite of "helping", no?

Valve could simply charge a little more for the game themselves too. I don't think that's a better solution

Well, if the new price would equal the money the original developers get + a cut that Valve gets that could work, as long as this "a little more" will not be that big that the customer will be like "wow man too expensive "

[Kristian Joensen]

Well if they use doxbox, they have to state that..
Its in the GNU GPL IIRC

Here is what the GNU GPL V2 says about what you have to do if you distribute executable versions covered software:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

So they don't have to mention that they use it, they only have to either distribute the source code along with the executable code or give out a written offer to get the source code.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by alexgk

It's true Prey is on Steam, but it wasn't 3DR's decision but 2K's (in a major part). I'd like to see DN series on Steam.

You think we really had no say in the matter? It is our IP, after all.

Originally Posted by Zero

I'm still not sold on this idea *holds stack of compact disks tightly* until steam has garenteed me that it can never die or go out of business I will never buy anything but valve games from them, my prey is still not on steam, I still have Half-Life , Opfor, Blueshift, CS non steemed editions.

Compact discs last for more time that they will be useful to me, i have no garentee steam can do the same, I remember when TEN was hot, everyone said they would be around forever, well where are they now?

Some people still use manual typewriters, and some people are afraid of electricity, too. You're on a computer engaged in an electronic only form of communication. Saying this is a bit panicky, and like someone saying they like being cool in summer, they like water, but are afraid of swimming pools. If you're so married to CD's, then back up your Steam stuff to one, and then you'll have your CD to "hold on to". Physical media is likely to be replaced everywhere by something else anyway. Methinks you're being a bit too "head in the sand" here. As for them going away, more people buying their stuff, and more companies headed their way will ensure they won't go away. So go buy games there and make sure it won't go away.

Originally Posted by Sang

So, I'm guessing the companies who have their games on Steam get all the cash in case of a sale.. Or does Valve get a small percentage? I seriously hope not.

Why on Earth would they not? They're providing a service. Show me one place on the existing distribution chain that doesn't make something off of the product. Why should Steam be any different? At a minimum, you think all that bandwidth to deliver the games is free? Someone has to pay for that.

Come on, that's a bit silly to expect Valve isn't going to make some money.

[Kev_Boy]

Originally Posted by ShadeEX

Yeah Steam releases can only be installed in the steam folder naturally..

So yeah bigger Harddisks just for steam are nessesary IMO

You raise an even better point, I was simply talking about partitions on one drive, but it's even a bigger concern when you're talking about multiple drives!

[Blue Lightning]

Originally Posted by Sang

Well I don't know. Valve should fund Steam themselves, not with money from 3rd party companies. I'm all for Steam but not if Valve gets money for every game sold on it - It's like they get money they don't really deserve..

Imagine that you and I are both retailers, you give me some game to sell to someone and of course you'll want me to give you the money afterwards. But what if I sold the game, then gave you some money but kept some for myself? It's not really fair.

What? If Steam (which is owned by VALVe) sells a game, why shouldn't VALVe get a cut? They are the one's providing the BW, tech support, and so on. If I give you a game to sell and you sell it for me, you would surley get a cut. Steam is VALVe under a different name.

Don't forget that little contreversy between VALVe and Carmack, where Carmack said he recognized some bits of Quake III (or II?) code in the Source engine, and VALVe denies that and claims that they built the Source engine completley from scratch to make Half Life 2. I guess they put all that stuff aside

[ShadeEX]

Originally Posted by Kristian Joensen

Here is what the GNU GPL V2 says about what you have to do if you distribute executable versions covered software:



So they don't have to mention that they use it, they only have to either distribute the source code along with the executable code or give out a written offer to get the source code.

Ahh okay.. my bad..

But they don't actually do what that snippet says.. atleast I haven't seen any links to source code..

EDIT:
But then again they could be releasing the source code with the games..
Can't check since I haven't bought them, yet..

[Quakis]

Imagine that you and I are both retailers, you give me some game to sell to someone and of course you'll want me to give you the money afterwards. But what if I sold the game, then gave you some money but kept some for myself? It's not really fair.

Then what is the retailer getting out of it? Beside, they add a bit more onto the price anyway, which is profit that they keep - or something along those lines.

Edit; wow, a third page. Didn't notice.
Edit2; eh, two previous page posts now at the top.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Sang

Imagine that you and I are both retailers, you give me some game to sell to someone and of course you'll want me to give you the money afterwards. But what if I sold the game, then gave you some money but kept some for myself? It's not really fair.

That is how it works, only retailers purchase the game from the publisher, and then add their own mark up. The result is still the same though: a substantial portion of the amount you pay to purchase a game goes directly to the retailer.

And that's perfectly reasonable, because the retailer is providing an economic service; it's paying for the facilities necessary to stock, market and sell each title. The situation is no different for Steam, where Valve is providing a bandwidth and support infrastructure for publishers to distribute and update their titles directly. Why should they do this for free? Paying for Steam is no different than paying for any other online service - Valve pour in millions building the platform, and are recompensed by developers who want to use that platform.

[Sang]

Originally Posted by FireFly

That is how it works, only retailers purchase the game from the publisher, and then add their own mark up. The result is still the same though: a substantial portion of the amount you pay to purchase a game goes directly to the retailer.

And that's perfectly reasonable, because the retailer is providing an economic service; it's paying for the facilities necessary to stock, market and sell each title. The situation is no different for Steam, where Valve is providing a bandwidth and support infrastructure for publishers to distribute and update their titles directly. Why should they do this for free? Paying for Steam is no different than paying for any other online service - Valve pour in millions building the platform, and are recompensed by developers who want to use that platform.

Well, that makes sense, I guess.

[peoplessi]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Why on Earth would they not? They're providing a service. Show me one place on the existing distribution chain that doesn't make something off of the product. Why should Steam be any different? At a minimum, you think all that bandwidth to deliver the games is free? Someone has to pay for that.

Come on, that's a bit silly to expect Valve isn't going to make some money.

Could you see 3D Realms providing similar digital-distribution system in the future? Or would that be an option anymore after what happened with Triton. 3D Realms surely has the backcatalog to do such thing, but it would bit risky considering the costs of such arrangement, as you mentioned bandwidth isn't free, neither is customer support(okey they are pratically slaves )

Somehow I have always been little against programs like Steam, if there was to be one for every company. That is just too much fuss for the average user and would't really make it that much easier. Steam has proved itself to certain extend, it works quite fine, not too much piracy in multiplayer games and so fort.

Seems like a lot of the big players have moved to Steam, best thing for Valve would be is to make it it's own company apart from Valve. Different agendas, so if Valve has thing A to happen to them, that wouldn't affect Steam in anyway. Probably they've tought about this as well.

[Blue Lightning]

I got to admit, VALVe is handling the Steam issue better than expected. Steam seems to give all the games good spotlight, and tries to be fair with them all, even though they are competetors. They are giving good support too, and the players seem to like the idea of being able to play anywhere they go, from any computer they want, just by typing in a password. Gabe Newell is a perfectionist (and a honest person) and tries very hard to do things right, and with Steam it's showing. In 2004, many thought that the Steam idea was not a good one.

Don't forget that along with BW and tech support, Steam also provides the forums for each of those games, and that's not free either. So it seems to be a full service.

3D Realms (as mentioned in this thread) has a tremendous back catalog of their own, and it seems to me that if 3D Realms wanted to just go it alone (as they are now), then that wouldn't be a problem. 3DR has plenty of games, and still has the rights to sell Prey even though Steam does too. However, if 3DR wanted too, they could go the route of Steam, and start offering digital distrubution for 3rd party games like Steam does, but as 3DR says, it's a giant hassle. 3DR doesn't even have digital distribution for all of their own games yet, just some (I had to order DN3D Atomic, but it came quickly ).

Bottom line: I'll go out on a limb and make a guess that 3D Realms will stay indipendant, and offer their games only at this website. Hopefully, they will offer them all through downloads one day, and hopefully that will include DNF very soon

[8IronBob]

Well, Steam's almost like Vista when it comes to DRM, that's probably the trouble most people have. On top of that, Steam may wind up locking you out of playing the game if you're not connected, that sux. That's why I liked the old Counter-Strike rather than the newer stuff that REQUIRES Steam. At least it was optional up until 2003/2004, or so. As for id Software going to this, well, hopefully Steam won't be so strict.

[avatar_58]

Uh-oh, id didn't include any GPL files or source code -

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopi...er=asc&start=0

What does this likely mean? They can't just include the binary and then fluff everything off. I mean id of all people should know this.

[ShadeEX]

Originally Posted by avatar_58

Uh-oh, id didn't include any GPL files or source code -

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopi...er=asc&start=0

What does this likely mean? They can't just include the binary and then fluff everything off. I mean id of all people should know this.

They can expect a lawsuit, if they don't do something about it ASAP.. (As in NOW)..

Man first VU disrespects DOSBox team.

Now Valve and id too, for shame..

[avatar_58]

Valve? This has nothing to do with Valve, it's up to id software to fix it. They can simply add the files in as an update to all the games.

The question is - will they? Whats worse is how on earth can you fight this? Lawsuit? Sorry but this is done in the spare time of a few guys, they haven't got the cash for thats sort of business.

I'm willing to bet it's a misunderstanding, because id has used the GPL before without issue. You can't tell me they just "don't care" when it comes to someone else's work?

[ShadeEX]

AFAIK the DOSBox team is contacting them to get it sorted out..

But that stilll dosn't mean that it wasn't wrong IMO..

Shure it could just be a misunderstanding but either way it has to get fixed.

[avatar_58]

Well obviously they have to do something.

Anyway has anyone got any higher resolutions to work in GLQuake? It doesn't work.

[ShadeEX]

Nope nobodys got it to work over at steampowered either..

id needs to make patches ASAP..

[avatar_58]

I tried "-width" and "-height" but it just crashes. :\ I can play the original Quake (or winquake, as I guess this is) in 1280x1024, but it would be nice to get GLquake working.

[ShadeEX]

Have you tired only using 16 BPP and tried different resolutions..??

If that dosn't work somethings got borked in the steam release..

EDIT:
Also have you tried using GCFScape (like pakscape) to check if all nessesary files are extracted..??

you can get it here:
http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=25

I can help you with GCFScape if you have truble using it..

[avatar_58]

I tried 1024x768x16 and it still didn't work, so it's not just the higher resolutions. It seems like it doesn't accept ANYTHING from the launch options. Even using windowed mode doesn't help.

[dlink]

It's pretty damn cool some of ID Softwares games now is on Steam.

[Blue Lightning]

Damn I hope they can get some of those resolution issues worked out. I'll wait until they do before I buy. 640 x 480 resolution on a 19 inch screen can be awfully painful.

And I agree that due credits should be extended to DOS Box.

[avatar_58]

Well that all depends, on my 24" it doesn't look blurry at all. For the dos games they use "normal2x" scaler, which basically is 640x480. Not much you can do there, except use "normal3x" or something HQ filtering.

[Blue Lightning]

Originally Posted by avatar_58

Well that all depends, on my 24" it doesn't look blurry at all. For the dos games they use "normal2x" scaler, which basically is 640x480. Not much you can do there, except use "normal3x" or something HQ filtering.

Hmm. Interesting. I think there is an HRP project (similar to the Duke3D HRP project) that put's DooM in a high resolution with remade textures and 3D models, I have seen some screenies somewhere...

I would assume you could download that and install it, but from the screens that I saw, the DooM guy's face was removed from the HUD! No way I'll play DooM like that, the face on the HUD is a big part of the game IMO.

[avatar_58]

Originally Posted by Blue Lightning

Hmm. Interesting. I think there is an HRP project (similar to the Duke3D HRP project) that put's DooM in a high resolution with remade textures and 3D models, I have seen some screenies somewhere...

I would assume you could download that and install it, but from the screens that I saw, the DooM guy's face was removed from the HUD! No way I'll play DooM like that, the face on the HUD is a big part of the game IMO.

There are tons of Doom source ports out there, that do basically anything you'd ever want. Doomsday can run Doom in high resolution with added model and texture packs. What you saw was just the hud minimized.

If you want to use zdoom/zdaemon/doomsday/etc you just take the WAD files from the steamapps dir and you are all set.

[SonnyBonds]

Hmm my initial thought was that this sucks.. however, as long as they release games *both* as retail without Steam being a requirement as well as on Steam, I don't mind that much.

I don't need to buy any of the older ID games either as I have the ID Anthology

[ShadeEX]

Originally Posted by ShadeEX

AFAIK the DOSBox team is contacting them to get it sorted out..

Aparrently I've misenterpreted some stuff so I was wrong about the above statement.. Sorry about that

[Simon Charles]

Originally Posted by Blue Lightning

Everything. All the gaming companies seem to be going to Steam.

Be careful with words like "all", "always" or "never". They distort reality and are rarely based on facts. In this case, it would mean that every single developer in the world is on Steam, which is not true.

Question: Will 3DR stay an independant online distributor of their own games, or will they too succumb to the giant vortex that is VALVe?

3D Realms is an online games distributor now? Hmm, must have missed the memo.

You're blowing this way out of proportion. Steam is a shop. You go there and buy games. End of story. Id Software decided to put its games on those shelves. So what? If I want 3DR games, I'll go here :

http://3drealms.stores.yahoo.net/

Big deal.

[Blue Lightning]

Originally Posted by Simon Charles

Be careful with words like "all", "always" or "never". They distort reality and are rarely based on facts. In this case, it would mean that every single developer in the world is on Steam, which is not true.

3D Realms is an online games distributor now? Hmm, must have missed the memo.

Now you have the memo. 3D Realms does allow some of thier games to be downloaded.

[avatar_58]

Originally Posted by Simon Charles

Big deal.

Well except for the fact that buying these games is tied to one's account and one does not have to store any discs anywhere, nor any receipts in case one loses one's hard drive to one's own stupidity.

Wait what?

Anyway steam is miles ahead of other online distribution methods, even I'm willing to admit that. It's nearly as risque as downloading from some website.