Strategy First to Use Valve's 'Steam' distribution system

[JamesT73J]

Was browsing PC Zone and came across this:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=131011

(Look under 'news headlines' if the link isn't going to the page).

Should be very good news. Steam's a great platform, this will hopefully produce some good business for DW.


James

[Fish]

Originally Posted by JamesT73J

Was browsing PC Zone and came across this:

http://www.pczone.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=126707

Should be very good news. Steam's a great platform, this will hopefully produce some good business for DW.


James

Can't find anything about DW there? :hmm:

[Winston]

This is very good news. Only last month a company by the name of Tripwire announced that they were going to distribute Red Orchestra over steam. Though a little off topic, Red Orchestra is a first person shooter that strives to convey a realistic partial of war on the eastern front. It’s well worth checking out if you own a copy of UT 2004.
Anyway, getting back on topic this is good news because developers will have more control of content and release dates, so no more rushing games with bugs to the shops in order to please distributors. This should lead to higher quality games with less bugs. Also patching a game is much less of a headache as it’s automatic so any bugs that inevitably crop up will be dealt with very quickly and easily. Also given that there would be less overheads such as distribution and production costs this might lead to a reduction in price or if not that more money for funding other simulations and/or expansion packs. Good news indeed

Edit:

http://www.pczone.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=126707

"The publisher's first Steam release will be submarine sim Dangerous Waters, which will debut on the service later this month, although eventually Steam users will be able to purchase and download a variety of Strategy First's games releases."

[Bellman]

PC Zone Friday 9th December 2005

''STRATEGY FIRST EMBRACES STEAM

Software publisher to begin releasing games on Valve's digital distribution service later this month

12:24 Strategy First, the company best known for hardcore strategy titles - funnily enough - is next up to Steam-ify recent and future titles as it embraces Valve's distrubtion service.

The publisher's first Steam release will be submarine sim Dangerous Waters, which will debut on the service later this month, although eventually Steam users will be able to purchase and download a variety of Strategy First's games releases.

"Throughout the years, Strategy First has delivered great games from many developers while navigating the evolution of genres, technology, and distribution mechanisms--whether it's moving from 2D to 3D, or from floppy to Steam," said Strategy First product manager, Emanuel Wall.

This deal comes hot of the heels of announcements to bring both Introversion's Darwinia and Ritual's SiN: Episodes to Steam. We can only wonder what games will come next for Valve's download service.

Andy Robinson.''

Snap W

[Winston]

oops edited my post after I found that info right at the same time you posted Bellman, sorry about that

[Bellman]

NP - we must try getting a cross-bearing on a target next time.

[XabbaRus]

Cos DW is a first it might get better sales due to this.

Here's hoping.

[Winston]

It will be interesting to see what sort of audience it will reach as steams major demographic are well….counter strike players, lol. We must however be fair as I myself have played such games and still do indeed play other such games (Day of Defeat) via steam. So ergo there must be quite a few out of the 6,000,000 users that use steam that would be intrested in Dangerous Waters. I already own a copy of Dangerous Waters but would consider re-buying it over steam if there was a practical reason too. This is not a problem at all as there are few games I play so I spend very little in the long run. However, there are some questions that arise from this news.

Firstly all games that I own via steam require steam to be running when I play games. For example when urmm…’pawning n00blets’ on counter strike, steam is always running in the background. Will this be the case with Dangerous Waters as well?

Second, if this is so will it be compatible with the original mail order version I have? And if so, how will it integrate multiplayer wise with the steam version?

How would setting up multiplayer games work as well? At the moment all it contains is a server browser which shows how many people are in a game as it’s going on. This is fine for fps games where you can jump is when ever but how would it work when setting up a game of Dangerous Waters?

Over all though I’m very happy with this news as I would imagine distributing add-ons would be very easy indeed. This is all very exciting.

[Hobnail]

I've had nothing but good experiences with Steam.

I'm in the fortunate position, for Australian users, that my ISP runs its own Steam mirror so I get prioritised uncapped service.

[Crimguy]

Any word on exactly when this is going to happen? I've checked a couple of times on steam and haven't seen anything. . .