I still dislike for steam for consumer reasons. I really hope the game developers will also create non-steam versions of their games.

as an end user, I love Steam. It's a great service, ingame web browser available, matchmaking, take my games on the road, etc. The only thing I don't like is if my internet connection goes out, I can't play any of them since I wouldn't have had time to go into 'Offline' mode.

You can go into Offline Mode after your internet connection goes out. I've done it many times without any problem whatsoever.

Anyway, this is a very interesting development. They're stressing the "free" aspect even though Valve has always advertised Steamworks as being a free platform that developers can integrate, so the main meat of the story is that Unreal Engine 3 must have that integration already done. So it's "free" from a development man-hours side, not just cost of licensing.

After seeing so many games come out with crappy server browsers, yet-another-friends-list, and sketchy online integrations with unreliable services, I welcome any new Steamworks licensees. I'm looking at you, Borderlands+Gamespy and Bad Company 2 + EA Online!

I take it this does not include UDK?

Michiel, it is all about choice. However, "consumer reasons" for not liking Steam is not very explanatory. I don't like Classical Music but that doesn't tell you anything does it.

Steam is here to stay. They have paved the digital download highway that many developers and publishers are beginning to discover. Valve through Steam has created a trustworthy service to get PC games outside of the slim pickens provided the brick and mortar market. They have a thousand games on their service. While at Best Buy and Target there is 100 copies of The Sims and World of Warcraft and one copy of Left for Dead. Can you blame Valve for opening their own store?

Further, Steam works creates a community for games. The download service itself can make the games for sale relevant to service. There is nothing wrong with that. Steam works being offered for free makes a lot of sense. The best thing about it is that it provides centralization of service and the community gaming experience for the consumer. Having the customer have to login to and out of and into each and every developer and or publisher to get Steam works type community games services is frankly a dumb idea and certainly doesn't serve the developers.

To me it just sounds like sour grapes. The number one thing that the console have over the PC market is centralization of services. Steam bridges that problem. Sure I like the freedom that PC's have over consoles but I am not stupid about the economics of the gaming market either.

I hope this includes UDK since Steam is really the best solution for indies.

Except steam is DRM, I've been thinking the industry needs a good class action lawsuit lately, no one should EVER need permission from the mothership to play LAN or offline in any game all, ever.

Hoo boy, it's the "DRM" boogeyman again.

I don't care how scary a word people have made "DRM" to be in recent years. In and of itself, I honestly couldn't care less about it. The term "DRM" is meaningless to me - it's how the DRM is used that matters.

Steam's form of DRM (when implemented correctly) is a 100% guaranteed way to stop zero-day piracy, anyone from playing the game before it's release. It's effective there, which makes it plenty reasonable for me to use in order to activate the game a single time the first time I want to play it.

You don't "need permission from the mothership to play LAN or offline" in any Steam game after you activate that first and only time.


Personally, I'm sick of these blanket statements that everything should be open, everything should be free, free love everyone, open this, open that. All that does is create endlessly scattered, horribly disconnected experiences that make the quality of the experience go down, and the complexity and learning curve of getting used to it go up.

There is quite simply no other system in the entire PC gaming landscape that makes it so easy to use, so friendly to the gamer, with such a huge community to work with, all at the same time, as Steam. Yeah, Stardock may do the DRM thing even more friendly, or GFW Live integrates achievements, etc. etc. But in terms of the full package, Steam kills the hell out of everything else out there.

And that is exactly why I see this article, and think nothing but "hell yeah, bring it on!" Once again, if Borderlands is the last time I need to deal with Gamespy again, or Bioshock 2 is the last time I need to deal with GFW Live, then that is plain awesome.

@steve
Well, consumer rights. The mere idea that Valve has absolute control over my game collection doesn't suit me. Especially considering I'm not in the US, which makes it even more difficult to settle any disputes I might have. So if Valve decides it does like me, it could take away all my toys I kept in the steam trunk

@James Barnette

I doubt it, the article states "licensees". Steamworks stuff is under heavy NDA as well, if someone could simply obtain it with the UDK it might as well be public which is near pointless.

@Michiel Don't give Valve a reason to dislike you. Its not easy to get banned from Steam. I've been using it since its beta years.

Valve isn't the only one who has the ability to take away the right to play your games. Just look at the recent Playstation 3 bug/incident where players couldn't do just that; play their games. And it wasn't like it was just the PSN ones, THE HARD COPY ones didn't work too. So don't single Valve out for what they do transparently while others may do it behind closed doors.

That being said, I do understand you're view on it. I'm not crazy about Steam having the ability to take away all the games I've paid for at a given time. Though, the way I see it....treat the service well and the service will treat you well. It has yet to give me a reason not to trust it.

I love steam, end of story

Steam a DRM? Yes, a good one. Like Netflix. Gotta see it like a service, not a physical good you buy. And the service is well worth the price I put in it. I even value that more now than the pile of old PC CD-ROM from the 90s that I don't have the courage to try to make them work again.

Hey, Wolfenstein 3D downloads in 30 secs on Steam and runs perfectly with one click. AWESOME!

I prefer STEAM over any other copy-protection any day.

@Joseph "if Borderlands is the last time I need to deal with Gamespy again, or Bioshock 2 is the last time I need to deal with GFW Live, then that is plain awesome. " You nail it dead on right there! x2

I don't buy discs anymore. I 've got Steam.

Good for Unreal. PC would be dying if it weren't for the likes of Steam and Impulse. Go into any game store and the majority of PC games on the shelves are games like Spor or Sims, or some weird budget game by some Russian studio you've never heard of. This really just makes it easier for games to get out there. Plus Steam might help offset the use of DRM and having to be always online to play (get fuct Ubi).

Hating on Steam is like hating on Xbox Live Arcade or PSN because you can't buy the copies in stores. Good move on Epic's and Valve's part for sure. Oh and Steam doesn't violate "consumer rights". If you don't like Catholics, you don't use their church. If you don't like Steam don't use the service. If people have some negative moralistic view on Steam yet they still use it anyways, shows how strongly they believe in consumer rights.

About the UDK, I'm sure it will work with it as well - the "free" part just won't apply as much. UDK has a license (which I assume is different from UE3's) requiring $99 up front, then 25% royalty on all profits after $5,000.
Plus, I've heard (from no credible source, and Steam doesn't release info on this) that Valve can take up to 50% of the profit from the game. That leaves not much to be earned for the developer, depending on who takes their cut first. Either way, it's a fraction of the sale price.

EDIT: And I just noticed a link on the "Related News" section saying that the May UDK beta was released with Steamworks Scaleform, so full Steamworks integration could be soon to come.