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Evening Reading: Steam Rising

by Garnett Lee, Dec 29, 2009 5:00pm PST

Over the past few days Steam really pulled out all the stops for its holiday sale (as Chris can attest from updating the PSA story). Many of the deals -- Prey for $2.99 (which sold out!), Torchlight marked down first to $10 and then $5, deep discounts on packs, and so much more -- offered outrageously low prices. Judging by the responses around the Net the sale proved irresistible on an unprecedented scale. Along with those taking advantage of the individual offers, I saw countless instances of people recounting sizeable lists of their purchases.

With all the talk about the coming era of digital video game distribution we could well look back at this as a pivotal moment and master stroke by Steam. Nothing overcomes reluctance to try a new thing like a great deal. Valve keeps its figures closely guarded but it's no secret that Steam has built a strong base. They've also refined the service to a point that buying and playing a game through Steam is a smooth process. That strength gave them a strong position from which to use a sale like this to catapult the service to new heights. How many people took the plunge and bought their first game from Steam in the past week? And don't think it's PC-exclusive. While it's gone along relatively unnoticed, Microsoft's Xbox Live Games on Demand service now boasts 88 titles. It's not out of the question that we'd see the first day-and-date new release hit there in 2010.

Being the holiday week we don't have nearly that many stories but you'll still want to check out:

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  • #1002
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    By: IndigoAK This person is cool! x
    Reply
    Checklist for Codemasters to make DiRT 3 a masterpiece:

    -Improved AI. The AI in DiRT 2 is reactionary in the sense that unless you blatantly cross into the racing line or hit them, they follow a set path. Better yet, make it so that the DiRT 2 races feature human players. Combine SP with the MP. I don't usually go for this kind of thing, but I think for DiRT 3 it would work.

    -Get rid of multi-car Rally and Trailblazer stages and go back to the tiered format of the previous games. Rally and trailblazer times are too often affected by having to move around or slow down behind AI drivers.

    -Weather. As it stands, the game is missing the "Oh shit, I didn't know it was going to be raining!" factor. In this same light, bring back northern segments in Sweden and Canada.

    -More places to race. Bring back Germany, Sweden, England, Arizona, California, rural Japan, Australia, Ethiopia, Bosnia, and other countries where rally stages occur in real life. The more tracks there are the better.

    -True track deformation. The effects for track deformation were a step in the right direction in DiRT 2, but still not enough. They were just that: effects. They had no bearing on the actual driving. It's about time that Codemasters took a page from Sega in this area.

    -More Gate Crasher/Unique events, less Rallycross. There are way too many Rallycross events in DiRT 2. Rallycross quickly became my least favorite event type. Gate Crasher is awesome fun, but I was sad that it was the least used event.
    Dec 29, 2009 7:24pm PST

    Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

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