McLovin_Nice McLovin_Nice

Sins on Steam?

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Sins on Steam?

from Stardock Forums
Just a suggestion that Sins should be made available on Steam. Hope I'm posting it in the right place.

For those who don't know, Steam is a digital distribution programme. You have an account, where you can access all your purchased games (it offers a varied and great selection). You can buy new games there. They can be accessed at any computer, by simply logging in. They auto-update. It has a great community.

I think Sins can benefit from this.

Now, you'll probably say "Stardock offers this!" I don't personally know how it works, but I'm guessing it works in a similar way to steam. So why should Sins be made available on steam? No doubt it will increase sales and add to the community.

I think it would be great if this was made possible. I know I'd buy it from Steam, as would many others. It makes things simpler having downloaded games together, rather than, say, Steam for some games, stardock for others, along with Direct2Drive etc.

In terms of just ease of use, it will make the game more accessible for many. Steam offers various other features which will be beneficial to Sins, such as messengers, server browser (which may not be applicable here) and community groups.

But the main point is that it will definitely provide a larger market and make it easier to acquire, thus meaning better sales etc.

Also, as there is no retail version available in Europe, it will make it much more easily available here.

It's not hard to get a game on Steam I would think. Lots of new games come out on it, whether they are big releases or from small independant developers.

What do you think?

I'm also hoping someone from Stardock sees this and considers it.

:)




124,654 views 143 replies
Reply #51 from Sins Forums Top

I like Steam but it doesn't make sense for Stardock or Ironclad for Sins to be on it.  When someone buys Sins digitally from Stardock, Stardock and Ironclad make the maximum amount of money from the transaction.

When someone purchases it through a third party, then there's obviously another party involved in the transaction.  Therefore, it's a question of how many more sales would be gained from being on Steam versus the number of sales we would lose on direct sales.  In reality, most people remotely interested in this type of game are going to know about the game between now and the end of its effective lifetime.  And there's really no barrier to entry in purchasing it directly from Stardock digitally.

Also, Stardock has millions of users using its system as well. Our user base isn't nearly as big as Steam's but it's pretty substantial. So those who argue that we should put our games on Steam could make the same argument that Valve should put HL on our network. But i don't think anyone thinks that will be happening any time soon.

And with the upcoming Impulse release, and with major publishers signing on to put their games on it, I think there's very little incentive for us to put our titles on other networks.

Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top
With Impulse coming, I think Stardock will be well placed.
I like Steam but it doesn't make sense for Stardock or Ironclad for Sins to be on it.
Stardock has millions of users using its system as well.
End of quote



And anyways, no product is truely competition proof and in complete control of the market. Somehow, somewhere there's always something bigger and better that comes/will come arround and either compete on even ground or dethrone the current "champ".

The north-american market is highly competitive and very fast paced, so a company always needs to watch its back even if it has the top spot in its respective market(steam included). It doesn's always take too long before a strong competitor becomes a threat.

Here's a longer term, but albeit excelent example of this.

General motors has, for probably over half a century, been the dominating automobile manufacturer in north america. hell for a long time it's been number 1 in the WORLD. So much so, up until recently, nobody, not even analysts thought anyone ever could dethrone their top spot in global sales. You know what? Toyota beat them early this year. And many other japanese manufacturers are slowly catching up to GM for the American market. a market which used to sneer at japanese auto-makers because they weren't "American".

So with that, I say that your company could easely compete on equal grounds with steam and maybe even beat them if you take the right steps. In todays market, anything is possible.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #53 from Sins Forums Top
And with the upcoming Impulse release, and with major publishers signing on to put their games on it, I think there's very little incentive for us to put our titles on other networks.
End of quote


Any chance of a sneak peak at planned upcoming releases on Impulse? That would make my day :)
Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top

Any chance of a sneak peak at planned upcoming releases on Impulse? That would make my day
End of quote

I would imagine that a year from now, Impulse will have a similar selection to what other digital distribution offerings have.

Previously, Stardock's position has been more of a "we are willing to put your game on our digital distribution network" but we weren't actively pursuing putting third-party titles.

But this year, we're going to start actively signing on major third party publishers.

Here's a screenshot of the latest internal build of Impulse.

2008-02-29_1622

Impulse will also support updating your games even if you didn't buy the game from Stardock and will support managing games that aren't even on Impulse by default.

Reply #55 from Sins Forums Top


 :CONGRAT: 
Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top
Just as long as it finds updates properly on start. It drives me batty that 9 times out of 10 I have to hit the "Refresh XML Data" button in SDC for it to realize there are updates to my games!

-HM
Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top
Just as long as it finds updates properly on start. It drives me batty that 9 times out of 10 I have to hit the "Refresh XML Data" button in SDC for it to realize there are updates to my games!-HM
End of quote


Hmm, that's odd - I've never had to do that (manually refresh XML data).
Reply #58 from Sins Forums Top
Happens quite a bit. Ask kryo about it. I'm ALWAYS seeing him recommend that to people when they complain, "I know there's a new patch but it's not showing in SDC!" :) I had to do it today to see the latest (today's) update to Twilight of the Armor.

-HM
Reply #59 from Sins Forums Top
Impulse uses a totally different system. It's not related to SDC in any way.
Reply #60 from Sins Forums Top

Impulse will also support updating your games even if you didn't buy the game from Stardock and will support managing games that aren't even on Impulse by default.
End of quote

Are you planning to handle localized versions when available or will it works only for english versions?

Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top
Impulse will also support updating your games even if you didn't buy the game from Stardock and will support managing games that aren't even on Impulse by default.
End of quote


It is reflective and innovative customer oriented positions or policy like that which shows SD true mettle as a product and service provider. It is also the reason I hype it [SD] as much as possible whenever the opportunity arises.

Now about my maven T-shirt... :p
Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top
Also...

It should not hog as much resources as steam. God dammit I only start it when I need to use it.
Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top
Steam stinks. It is intrusive, and it will not let you play games you buy in a box without being online (even for single player). Orange box is nothing more than a frontend for Steam.

It is now uninstalled and will not be reinstalled on my system.

Stardock has a much better system of once you register and download, it is really yours to play whenever and wherever you desire.
Reply #64 from Sins Forums Top
it will not let you play games you buy in a box without being online (even for single player).
End of quote


Sure it will. I play nearly all my Steam games offline (with the obvious exception of TF2).

Reply #65 from Sins Forums Top
This whole thread is giving me a headache...

Steam is another company that does the same thing that Star Dock does...

Saying Star Dock products should be sold on Steam is the same as saying "Star Bucks should sell Dunkin Donuts Coffee in it's stores"

for those of you not versed in how this operates it is like this, Go tell Steam to shut down their operations and go sell their stuff on Star Dock so that Star Dock makes all the money and they get what chump change Star Dock might decide to give them for operating as a salesman for them.

Now remember to tell the owner of Steam to give up his company so that he can become an employee of Star Dock, stop making his own decisions about how products should be delivered, what projects should be on the site and how the customers should be treated and to accept the pay scale that is set for him by Star Dock.

Do you see how this is playing ??
Reply #66 from Sins Forums Top
it will not let you play games you buy in a box without being online (even for single player).
End of quote
Sure it will. I play nearly all my Steam games offline (with the obvious exception of TF2).
End of quote


You two are talking at cross-purposes. He's referring to the need to "validate" your install online (AKA: you have to have internet access), your talking about the ability to play off line once thats done (AKA once you've validated, you are, in theory, fine).
Reply #67 from Sins Forums Top
it will not let you play games you buy in a box without being online (even for single player).Sure it will. I play nearly all my Steam games offline (with the obvious exception of TF2).You two are talking at cross-purposes. He's referring to the need to "validate" your install online (AKA: you have to have internet access), your talking about the ability to play off line once thats done (AKA once you've validated, you are, in theory, fine).
End of quote


Maybe I have missed something, but when I had Portal, HL2, Plus Add-ons, and TF2 installed on my system every (I mean every) time I went to play the game it automatically started Steam.

When I installed the games it had to install Steam first (this is single player mind you). It updated Steam and then installed the games. When I uninstalled the games from Steam they were no longer available for me to play on my computer.

That is what I am talking about. From my experience steam is intrusive software that takes you to an online connection just by clicking the icon to start the game.

What have I missed?

Reply #68 from Sins Forums Top
it will not let you play games you buy in a box without being online (even for single player).Sure it will. I play nearly all my Steam games offline (with the obvious exception of TF2).You two are talking at cross-purposes. He's referring to the need to "validate" your install online (AKA: you have to have internet access), your talking about the ability to play off line once thats done (AKA once you've validated, you are, in theory, fine).Maybe I have missed something, but when I had Portal, HL2, Plus Add-ons, and TF2 installed on my system every (I mean every) time I went to play the game it automatically started Steam.When I installed the games it had to install Steam first (this is single player mind you). It updated Steam and then installed the games. When I uninstalled the games from Steam they were no longer available for me to play on my computer.That is what I am talking about. From my experience steam is intrusive software that takes you to an online connection just by clicking the icon to start the game.What have I missed?
End of quote

You have missed:
opening steam
going to file(top left)----> selecting offline mode

Yes you have to run steam(or steam offline mode) to play all your steam games, that is the DRM on steam. There is no reason to go into offline mode unless you dont have an internet connection. Steam doesn't take up a lot of resources so I dont mind plus it is 10x better than starforce,SecROM, and other nasty copy protection(they secretly install drivers onto your computer) developers use these days. Not to mention being connected to steam is access to a great online community(you can search for servers through it, join friends already on a server,voice chat,etc) it is like an integrated xfire into the system.

Still, stardock's stance on piracy is the best out there. Frogboy pretty much summed up the "sins on steam" topic, it just doesn't make sense.

Reply #69 from Sins Forums Top
It appears the portly lady and sung her swan song on this topic.
Reply #70 from Sins Forums Top
Since when did use of Steam mandate DRM? I've always thought it was optional, as most of my games don't use the Steam cache file format (.gcf) or authenticate with Steam if I launch them manually.
Reply #71 from Sins Forums Top
While I think it's a silly argument that Sins should be distributed through Valve and have their company earn a share of the profits that Ironclad/Stardock deserve, I do think it's a bit of a strange business move to apparently deliberately code the game to function incorrectly when launched with a rival company's program.

IC/SD isn't losing money when I've paid for their game through their service, but I wish to launch it through Steam that I already have opened for other things such as chatting with friends in-game.

Personally, I'm baffled by such a decision. It would seem to only alienate those who already respect Ironclad for putting out such a great game. I mean, we see complaints even in this very topic about boneheaded moves regarding DRM protection, but disabling all text when using another company's program to launch the game doesn't seem equally as standoffish?

If I'm being paranoid, I do apologize, but with every other game on my computer not having any trouble using the overlay for chat, it's hard for me to believe it wasn't purposefully done. Simply stated, I like Ironclad and their game but it's a mystery to me why when a company is such an advocate of headache-free gaming, they'd institute frustration into legitimate owners' gaming sessions.
Reply #72 from Sins Forums Top
I doubt it's deliberate. You're reading too much into this.
Reply #73 from Sins Forums Top
I like the idea of steam, its great in theory, really is, but i have no end of troubles with getting it to sign in, it just constantly hangs in the background.

Only way to get it to run is constantly restart the process every 10 minutes till i get lucky. Which is more than frustrating. But at least with stardock central, you can still play your game without it running in the background, it makes the game so much easier to run.

So nice idea, but im more than happy with it on stardock central :)
Reply #74 from Sins Forums Top
I would like to note one other issue with Steam and third party patches. On top of most games needing specific steam-version patches (which can come hours, days, or even a week or more late), Steam is not a patcher, and if a file is changed in even the slightest way it must be entirely redownloaded. This isn't an issue for all games of course (i.e. those that split their data into large numbers of small files), however the recent Company of Heroes patch, which was 40 MB for owners of the retail version, was 3.5 GB for Steam owners. I have a fast internet so it wasn't a huge deal for me, but I can't imagine everyone is willing to do what amounts to a full game download more than once if they can avoid it.
Reply #75 from Sins Forums Top
So I finally had to install Steam. With my new video card I got the Black Box for free. So of course Steam had to be installed. All I can say is that Steam is a huge bag of suck. Just to play a game you have to run this 60 MB+ memory hog? Please. And you have to be on the Internet just to play single player. Worst. System. Ever.

Stardock's system is so much better. You just use it to download and install your game and you're done. No need to be connected to the Internet or run this memory hog just to play your game.