Why 1C like Steam
 

FearlessFrog posted this on SimHQ, having seen it posted on the UBI forums. I'm sure he won't mind if I link to it here, to benefit the denizens of this banana republic.

http://www.mcvuk.com/features/808/OP...etail-vs-Steam

So as I have suggested is confirmed. I buy the Steam version more of my money goes to 1C and none goes to UBI whoop whoop. I will be buying the Steam version. Thanks for the post Novotny.

Nobody knows if this applies to CoD; the publishing contracts may be older than their digital distribution strategy. In fact so far we don't even know if it will be sold over Steam at all, or if there may be region restrictions for that. The publishing situation is certainly complicated, maybe that's why the information strategy is such a mess...

Anyway, if Steam is a way to get around Ubi I'm all for it.

Wow. That was interesting. In that case, I will buy a Steam version of Cliffs of Dover, and Ubisoft can do to themselves what they've been doing to Oleg for years.

(Sorry KG26_Alpha, had to re-edit to something more expressive) ;)

Thanks for that link.

I've used Steam a few times in the past without anything bad happening, but that was for casual time-wasting games I knew would be played for a few weeks at most. If buying on Steam helps 1C, then I'll change my attitude about the hard copy and I'll use Steam. Just cut out the embarrassingly incompetent Ubi altogether.

After read that I'm convinced to buy in Steam

yep, thx for the post, interesting read.

Interesting read. It's just a shame PC gamers are not getting the shelf space that console gamers are getting. I would still like to get a hard copy and some sort of users guide. If IC sold hard copies at a respectable price I'd buy from them in a heartbeat. Cutting out the middle man and dealing directly with producers is the reason the Internet is gaining popularity. The only way retailers are going to be able to compete is by supplying a service not just selling someone else's products.

I dont blame them to put it on steam,it gives them a bit more security that the game will not be pirated

Novotny - interested to read the linked article. Has reassured me and am now considering purchasing the game through Steam.

As I really want the collector's edition (primarily for the printed manual) though, and it is apparently not going to be stocked by Amazon UK :rolleyes: I may end up ordering it through UBi and then also downloading from Steam on release day while i wait for the CE to arrive (someone posted that UBI won't release copies early to ARRIVE by 25th.)

Maybe OTT, and not ideal, but that seems to be what I am forced into doing to get a Collector's Edition AND be able to play the game on release day.

I was going to say that patience obviously isn't my strong point...but not really true seeing as I (and many others!) have been waiting for this game for years. Buggered if I'm going to hang around for another week after release day to get my hands on it!!! :)

Also - please post the above link over on the main Steam discussion thread - may sway a few of the doubters there.

Interesting article and eye opening, I agree with Feathered_IV when it comes to the choice between Ubi and Steam.

Hasn't steam reached a 40% or 50% market share on PC sales (excluding MMos & games on facebook & the like) in the US?

For years, retailers there (and also in europe) have favored consoles for shelves space.
Then they realized that Steam had taken a big chunk of PC market and that some of the boxes they sell have steam.


We're in some kind of loop here, retailers in the US do not order PC "boxes" except for big titles, and they also complain about steam.

My guess is that one of the reason for having steam is to insure a launch in the US; even if some here do not like steam and don't use it, it is the reality of their market. Making boxes while retailers won't take them is a risk (inventory); worth taking for a niche game?

This just confirms for me that traditional bricks and mortar retailing is dying out. If I can't get my hands on the CE, I'm definitely going to buy from Steam.

That is a very good article.
I must admit that I didn't like Steam a couple years ago but grew to really love it.
Many games have I purchased through Steam. Games that would never be found in stores today. I've even purchased some new titles and get them the same day of release. I don't have to wait for shipping and I don't have to drive to the store to get it.
There are no discs to get damaged or lost and if you ever have to reinstall your OS, Steam has all of your games ready to download again whenever you wish.

To be objective there is a downside.
It's no biggie, but if my internet goes down, I am not able to play my Steam games as you need to log into Steam.

Weighing the good and bad, the good is far greater and Steam (and other similar companies) are here to stay.

You can play fine with steam in offline mode. So there's no downside :rolleyes:

+1 same here but im happy to add to the sale figures :grin:

I guess they got it they wrong way around.:confused:


Anyway - Steam seems to be the perfect distribution channel to revitalize the PC games market.
Downside is:
-Medium-term we will not be able to buy PC games in a physical form anymore.
-Retailers are reduced to console market only.
-It potentially could kill games magazines for PC titles as they are regarded outdated too(it's all digital and you can reach your customers directly on steam)

Steam could grow to a huge and powerful platform, that scares me a bit.
Time for the Naturalpoint haters to chime in - we're witnessing the birth of a monopoly...

And you can always just forward the CD key in the collector set to a friend in need for them to download it from steam if you buy it digitally beforehand.
Unless you plan on flying on two accounts! :)

Thanks for posting this, puts everything into a little more perspective. +1

Steam = the facebook of gaming.

Look at the date of the article ;)

LOL, thx.

nice find!

Actually, copy protection will be done through the Solidshield system, Steam is probably there for the multiplayer/matchmaking and word of mouth advertising only.
If you run a sample search on any torrent website you'll see there are a lot of Steam games that are pirated, it's not difficult to bypass at all.

Interesting read...and wise choice, thx for sharing some behind the scenes information

Good find Novotny! The problem with the high street stores like GAME and Gamestation here in the UK (both fall under the same parent group) is that not only to PC publishers get the shaft from them but also console publishers. First the high street stores gave over most of their shelf space to console gaming but now have given over a lot of that space to used games sales. Console developers are not so happy with them and came up with incentive's for people to buy new like EA's online pass system. The shops don't like this but they still promote used games over new which is why console gaming is also going digital distribution - the PC with Steam is well ahead of the curve.

Microsoft could have done so much more with Games For Windows Live. It seems now they might realise that if you read this article where they pledge to make the service better but has Steam already got a stranglehold on PC digital distribution?

Well, mostly. If Steam is trying to update itself when you lose net connection, you can get pretty stuck. Of course I only had that problem because my DSL modem died in the middle of a Steam update, not because I was dialing out, so ymmv.


Steam's only loyalty driver is that they're overall better than the competition. I've bought games through D2D, Good Old Games, and Live!, as well as Steam, but I've found Steam to be better for most things. That said, I do highly recommend Good Old Games for older titles, as their games have been tested for compatibility with modern OS's and are delivered as DRM free standalones, but they aren't a source for current games.

Though I will admit, at least part of what makes Steam so effective is their integrating their storefront into their game loader. Its really easy to go from "What do I want to play today?" to "Ooo look, shiny new games!"

Even that is not really STEAMs error, to be honest. Any self-updating will crash or quit if you break connection and log in under a new IP.

Besides that, speaking of the offline-mode: In this mode neither STEAM nor the game will update automatically. There is also no "calling home" in this mode.


And one more sentence on modding:
It's claimed dozens of times here and in the UBI-Forum that Steam is blocking modification of games. The opposite is true. You can even download many editors and tools for free with the STEAM-platform.
You just run into a problem if you make changes to copy-protected files or try to run a modified version of a game as a normal version on cheat-protected servers.

It's just extremely poor that these kinds of obvious bugs and poor implementations of features ("it's not a bug, it's a feature!") have been around so long on the Steam platform. Resuming downloads and downloading updates in the background are not things you should be able to break, as a user. Don't get me wrong, I have no idea if they ARE still around, I don't play any of the games I bought on Steam anymore, but it certainly seems like it from people's recent comments.

I remember offline mode being very poorly publicised and poorly implemented initially, but as Steam matured it's now become much less irritating.

How can it continue to download something when the user goes offline? and how on earth by any stretch of the imagination is that the apps fault?

No, not "log in under a new IP". That it can handle. I'm am talking about a situation where the DSL modem died in the middle of an update, and it took the phone company a week to ship me a new one. As in a *week* unconnected.

Actually it was more fun than that. It eventually took them sending a tech out, and him saying "Yep the modem's dead" before they finally dealt with it.

If it didn't cause a problem, why would anyone have mentioned it? I'm quite aware of how internet connections work you know, but I've had it get stuck in an update cycle before where I'd lost connection and even if the connection was resumed it got upset got stuck in some kind of half-updated broken loop and I had to install Steam from scratch. Which makes me wonder whether it's installing on the fly as it downloads, which is just ludicrous.

He said in the same breath that it wasn't really Steam's fault.

Is that in any way related to my experience or opinion of Steam? He can think that a program having a very poorly implemented self-updating feature is fine all he wants, but my own experience is that it can be rather unreliable where that particular feature is concerned.

I was refering to you saying "then why did he mention it." I've never had that particular issue with Steam. I've been using it since Half Life 2 came out, so about 6 or so years now. I have been using it pretty much exclusively in an always on manner for about 5 of those years. It doesn't use an on the fly install so I don't know what has caused those particular hiccups for you. Pardon my being short with you. Getting pretty frustrated about people only reading and seeing what they want to read and see and ignoring factual information for paranoid delusions. It was in no way your fault and I again apologize.

It was a issue because Borderlands was updated, but Steam was half updated so when the net connection failed mid update, it couldn't validate my game, so I had to play it off of my laptop while my phone company got their lead out. Again, the only reason I got stuck on my desktop was because it happened in the middle of an update. My laptop hadn't been connected at the time, and I could play offline on it just fine.

By comparison with the type of DRM used in Mass Effect 2, I would not have been able to play on any system, and with the DRM used in Assassin's Creed 2, it would have deleted my save points to boot.

My point, which you seem to be conveniently missing, is that there are some limitations with Steam, though they are not nearly of the same level as other current DRM systems.

It flabbergasts me how little people on these forums seem to know about current generation DRM. Things have changed since Il-2 came out.

Addendum: This is a really weird flamewar.

@Kikuchiyo: It's fine, there does seem to be a lot of hysteria around the issue, particularly the issue of people being unaware of the offline mode, which is one I remember going as far back as HL2, Valve just don't seem to like telling people about it, and neither do publishers. To be fair I haven't used Steam for a long time in gaming terms (not since Empire: Total War was released), but I did get HL2 on release day and I do remember a lot of hiccups and issues. I mean, even as recently as E:TW if I'm on my friends' computer and I wanted to switch accounts I often found the logout button very unreliable, often it just closed Steam and didn't bring back the login prompt, so I'd have to open it and click logout until it finally decided not to close itself instead of offering me the login screen. As useful as it is it's still one of the more buggy pieces of software that I've dealt with on a regular basis.

EDIT: As for the game updating issue, I don't understand that either...why once you've allowed it to begin downloading an update does that prevent you from playing the game on single-player? Does it still do that? Why would that ever have been a feature? I don't understand how it could be so hard to implement a check as to whether the player is playing the game before it begins the actual extraction of the update. It's just weird that Steam as a platform always seemed to be unable to separate the downloading and installation of updates for the convenience of the user.

I can't answer that questions about that issue as I never experienced it, but I do seem to recall hearing that complaint a couple of times regarding E:TW from co-workers. If that is the only time you experienced it perhaps it was more an issue with E:TW?

Not sure...certainly I used to have it with Valve games as well much earlier on. I expect they're phasing out/have phased out that kind of update method now.

I would be surprised if UBI gets nothing from Steam sales.

I don't know what version of Steam you guys were using or when but at this time Steam will stop all of it's downloads / updating as soon as it detects a full screen app running, even one that is not listed in it's game list.

These errors you guys are talking about sound to me it was Steam years ago.

There are times when the current version of Steam will sit and wait for a while to login but it's almost always due to the fact that I'm in the middle of downloading something.

Well I can conceed there are a few problems with steam. I don't see them being any bigger than the issues I've had with physical copies. I've had CDkeys already in use requiring almost 2 weeks to get a replacement key... fun. I've even had an issue with crysis and my dvd drive where the DVD drive, which I still currently use would completely refuse to aknowledge that the DVD was even in the drive, had to use a legit key on a downloaded copy ... not sure where that lands in the grey territory but since EA wouldnt help me I helped myself (only one occasion over the years but thats about as common an occurence as many issues these people are complaining about on steam).

I've used steam when it went beta with the launch of CS1.6 ... wow it was bad then. I bought HL2 and that launch was the first major launch it ever sustained up to that point... it was a mess. In the 6+ years since that point numerous updates and changes have taken place amounting to the fine piece of software that now exists. Millions of gamers use it every day and while the occasional few have issues ... the same # of people have issues with hardware, they just dont have a centralized location to complain about it like the steam forums so their voices are fragmented.

I almost wish 1946 had the benefit of steam, while all of you oldies love Hyperlobby, it was bourne out of necessity and it is definately not a great lobby software. Each person who buys IL2 is not notified that Hyperlobby even exists AND unless someone mentions it to them or they have the common sense to google search for a multiplayer function; they will never know 1946 multi-player even exists. That hasn't been healthy on our online community as the influx of players leaving has far surpassed the numbers of those joining even though many copies are sold a week on steam and other distribution sites. A centralized server querey site like a steam search or some method for game-monitor to hook into is an integral part of maintaining an online community these days.
Secondly, I've never been able to take a damn screenshot in IL21946 it instantly freezes the whole freakin game ... oh the moments of glory that will forever be missed. Suddenly last week steam releases an update that adds a screenshot button to the steam overlay!!! I rebind it to another key and WOAH screenshots that are instantly viewable in the overlay without having to minimize and/or paste into paint and save. I can take 10+ pictures in a few seconds and then go back and check for the best one just like a digital camera. Needless to say I now run my non steam version of 1946 through steam just for the overlay feature. It allows me to take screen shots and to browse the web while on the long bomber flights to and from target ... never get caught off guard like you would if you were minimized. I like steam, it has its annoyances but the gains FAR outweight the annoyances which I can frankly say I've never once noticed.

Awesome steal Novt - considering you visited my account / previous posts since you were arguing with me in the other thread (which "dissapeared").
I posted this already awhile ago, thanks for the credit though!
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...626#post230626

-Also the money still goes to Ubisoft via steam because Ubisoft is the publisher, they are just doing the same crap the devs could do themselves. At this point with the way things are being handled, nothing surprises me about the game or forums tbh.

I reposted a link which FearlessFrog posted on SimHQ, crediting him for his post and also pointing out - as he did in his post - that he found the info on Ubi. Can't see any stealing going on there; I gave full credit as to where I found the info.

Besides, information wants to be free, my dear boy; you cannot run around the internet demanding everyone check to see if you said something first. Or rather you can, and it will be funny to watch. Go for it!

Not exactly true, there are approx 300 new users every week. Why is it not a great lobby software btw?

There are not 300 new users per week on IL2 in HL, or there would be around the same loss of users.
Number of players waiting/playing is between 500-100 each time I log in.
300 per week would be noticed...


But I do think it's a great lobby. Been using it since 2002

Maybe 300 new *logins* a week for those who get banned from servers. ;)

I think great majority log in only once or twice. 250,000 members on Feb 25th or 26th :)

edit: Grunch, "unique" members, not just name changes.

Mmm, I'm not so sure about that...I'm not sure anyone could be bothered to differentiate between new logins from old IPs and ones from new IPs. Anyway, pointless argument IMO. ;)
As for your previous question, Hyperlobby is okay at what it does but it has a very poorly organised and clunky interface - even scrolling through servers is a bit of a chore. The other thing is that it's so easy for disruptive players to just login with another name or another IP and continue being irritating on servers, which making the Steam lobby compulsory would go a long, long way toward curtailing - you can only play your game on one Steam ID after all without effectively pirating the game in some way.
The chat, pager stuff and friend lists are also very clunky and awkward to use. I suppose it all depends on how much you actually want this functionality. I don't really use that sort of thing myself but I think that will change with CoD, got several of my friends looking forward to playing it, and I'd MUCH rather use Steam's overlay and chat than HL's. :) Certainly people seem to use HL chat and pager messages a lot, but they are really bad compared to other lobbies' offerings.

Main chat which in practice is free, instant, troubleshooting 24/7. Hardware, game hints, tips and guiding, history questions, anything. In the Steam, you have to know someone, or go forums. Thats one huge advantage... I think I link the updates, help with "game loads 5% then crashes" etc. bugs with 5 people every day, and only I sit there on average maybe 2 hours a day... So almost all the log-in time there is someone to help.

HL has forums of its own, I'm sure Jiri respects feedback and suggestions! ;)

That's a very good point about main chat! :) Hadn't thought of that. I haven't used Steam for ages...I wonder if you can have chat lobbies for a whole game in that way?

That would be good to know. When i initially got starcraft 2 it used a new version of battlenet that didn't have any chat channels. You could start a private conversation with other people when viewing their multiplayer profile stats or if they were in your contact list, but there was no chat channels in the traditional sense of the word for people with similar interests to hang out in.

Apart from it being nice having a chat channel for you and your buddies, this was also a problem for most organized gaming communities. It forced people who organized tournaments to invite every single person manually each time, then kick the ones who were about to play the next match before it would start (so as not to be receiving text and "spoilers" on how the others in the channel viewed their game), then invite them back in and kick the ones who would play the next match, and so on. With a standing channel however, players could join and leave on their own as they were alternating from player to spectator.

Needless to say it was one of the most complained about issues, it got acknowledged by Blizzard with a commitment to fix it within 2-3 patches and that's exactly what happened. After getting to work on some bug fixes and gameplay balance changes they sat down and implemented chat channels for the next update. I think it still took them a couple of months (don't exactly remember now, but game was released in the end of July and chat channels were implemented around early autumn), but just the fact that it was acknowledged early on prevented most of the fuss.

Steam it is for me too!

I'd take Steam over hyperlobby any day.
It's a dated product, created out of neccessity, and the IL2 community could benefit so much more from a better, more userfriendly and more robust multiplayer integration.

I'm happy that Novotny posted it here, and I originally found it from someone else on the Ubisoft forum too!

Steam is a divisive community issue, but I hope people give it a chance if they haven't tried it before (or back when it started out a little 'rough').

I think most here would agree that Oleg and 1C deserve success, plus as much money as they can get to put towards making more sims for years to come :)

Your Not going around UBI by buying through steam
UBI is the publisher
Steam is one distributer

UBI gets its money and so does steam
Yee gods people smarten up:(

if thats the case what do they need UBI for? oleg is the devolper and steam is the distributor and since i have seen fuckall from UBI interms of advertising the game they appear tobe redundent....Oleg should just put a link on the front page of this forum that says "CoD pay here, and ill e-mail you the game, one time online actication fee...enjoy"
and get rid of the middlemen :)

Many in the Il-2 community believe it is due to contractual obligations dating back to the beginning of the development of SoW:BoB.

Posted articles and information, along with some clues posted by Ilya indicate that the DD version of CoD will have nothing to do with Ubi, and will not put money in their pocket.

good for oleg

This is all great - but where the hell is the game in steams upcoming list? For heavens sake they have games there which are 6 months away...

I have the same question. I guess the answer lies in UBI's involvement - they want to milk the pre-purchase and the first couple of weeks, but since they're not able to sustain DRM, updates and generally want to cut their expenses they'll use Steam for the longer term. Still I don't have any idea why 1C and Oleg decided to tie up with UBI again, they literally bring nothing to the table - half-arsed website, shooting the game off to Steam at the earliest convenience and they're bad publicity all over. If it's for the collector's edition - that could've been taken care of through a direct channel too (like DCS people do with the printed manual and maps).

I wouldn't expect the game to be released for a good while yet. July-August perhaps. These things do tend to stretch out at the last minute.

I notice Steam have a sort of Hyperlobby app for the iphone. You can get a running update of what is happening on your favourite servers. Who is playing and what mission is running etc. Perfect for sitting on the couch with the missus, sneaking a look at your phone then yawning theatrically and wandering into the next room to switch on the computer....

I've heard from other posters here that the game is not sold on Steam yet but i didn't know it wasn't even listed in the "coming soon" pages.
Maybe Steam is indeed there only for the multiplayer/server browser functions after all and not for managing the entire running/updating/managing of the game?

To be honest, i wouldn't mind at all if that was the case. It would sure p*ss off the people who like Steam but it would also help relax those that don't, so anything will be a trade off in the end.
The worst thing however is not so much what they will actually do, but the lack of information from Ubi in these matters.

If its a steamworks game you'll require steam no matter what, doesn't matter if you buy it boxed or digital, it will request a steam account upon installation. We'll see in two weeks but its suspiciously quiet , one would think that Steam would've listed it by now, but so far nothing known.

Might get some new info in tomorrows update tho.

We also know 99% that it is a steamworks game because the leaked footage was on steam - which means that he was playing a version bought and DL from steam, or he had the game shortcut/launch through the steam otherwise the friend announcement would not of popped up (also think an acheivment appeared aswell).

It not being offered on Steam I suspect is more a contractual agreement made with Ubisoft on not offering the game before they could begin pressing physical copies. Which would explain why Oleg and Ilya are so confident that it will be available for digital download on 3/25 but Ubisoft says that physical copies won't be available until 4/19. 2 weeks seems about like the time one might expect for boxed copies to be pressed and then available in retailers. Er Go my money spent on a digital copy is worth about 4 times more to 1C Maddox than a physical copy.