Digital Distribution Good News

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the good news in digital distribution. Getting games to consumers with bits, rather than boxes, seems to ensure that we'll have a wider variety of titles to choose from in the future. The path looks at indie title Red Orchestra on its path to our desktops. From the article: "Of course, with a digital distribution deal, there is usually no big marketing push from the distributor like there is with a big publisher. But, through Steam we would be selling into the hardcore FPS gamer market. And as a result of the Valve deal, Red Orchestra got solid editorial exposure in major PC game publications, including two page 'preview' articles in PC Gamer US and UK."

Deja Vu?

[bi_boy]

Is this the same Red Orchestra [moddb.com] you could get for free as a mod for UT2K4?

Re:Deja Vu?

[KrisW]

The link goes to the UT2004 mod so, yeah, they're related. Personally, I never found the mod that fun, so I doubt I'll be picking this up.

Well, actually, I wouldn't have picked it up anyway. Digital distibution is not my cup of tea.

Re:Deja Vu?

[bi_boy]

Only issue I had with the UT2K4 was that after I finally downloaded the 500MB install file or however large it was and had it installed and running, there was NO ONE running any servers for the mod. I think it was one of those one-month wonders or something.

Re:Deja Vu?

[The MAZZTer]

The game released on Steam is the sequal to the UT2K4 mod.

Re:what if i lose the steam password?

[SScorpio]

You can easily backup your steam data files. Right click a game and goto properties. You'll see a backup option where you can the put the files on the media of your choice. The cd key is not needed as you just reinstall Steam and the restore your backup which will then be patched to the latest version. As for Steam going under, it's been stated that if that happen Valve will release a patch to untie the games from Stream but it going under is very unlikely for at least a while seeing how popular it is s

Re:what if i lose the steam password?

[The MAZZTer]

If you lose your Steam password, it's analagous to misplacing the game CDs. You have to buy new ones. Nothing new with that, really. Only issue is if Steam ever goes under. That's when the certain patches made by certain individuals to separate the games from Steam will become popular and useful. Also because Steam is gone Valve likely won't be in a position to care (and might even release one of their own).

Re:what if i lose the steam password?

[AspectRatio]

That's simply not true... I lost my hard drive and didn't have the Steam password anywhere. I reinstalled Steam, entered my email address and clicked the forgotten password link and I had the password in my inbox in seconds. I signed in, all my games were listed ready to be installed and I was playing HL2 in minutes. Now, when I lost the CD Key to RTCW a couple years ago... well that's another story.

Stardock is an example of digital distribution

[Shivetya]

You can buy many of their games through download. In fact their recently released game, Galactic Civilizations ][ was easier to obtain that way than finding. http://www.galciv2.com/ [galciv2.com]

One interesting issue about digital distribution versus retain was covered by their own people in journals available on the site.

Adventures in Retail
http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=164&AID=103584 [galciv2.com]

Economics in Gaming
http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx?ForumID=164&A ID=101602 [galciv2.com]

For some companies there is no real exposure

Re:Stardock is an example of digital distribution

[NateE]

Ah you beat me to it Shivetya. Been playing Galciv2 too much to keep up to date with slashdot.

Re:Stardock is an example of digital distribution

[kevin.fowler]

You post an article on slashdot.

Wrong link to RO

[vertinox]

The official link to RO is here: http://www.redorchestragame.com/ [redorchestragame.com]

The other is to their old site.

More to DD than steam

[cliffski]

Stardock have their own system too, as to Realgames (shudder... intrusive client) and lots of indie devs like msyelf are selling through Digital Downloads without using Steam. Steam is just one way of handling digital distribution.

Re:More to DD than steam

[Ahnteis]

Yes, but Steam would be the method of choice for the new Red Orchestra game -- which is one thing the article focuses on.

The article itself (I know, this IS /.) mentions other distribution methods such as the xbox live network.

Did anybody else take this route for Guild Wars?

[smaerd]

I did the whole "Use our download client instead of buying a CD" thing for Guild Wars. I have to say that was the slickest game installer I've seen in a long time. I haven't played the game much since the first month, but wow was that installer easy as hell. I'm not saying Steam is chopped liver or anything. I will say that If I play another NCSoft created MMO, I will definately go the digital distrobution route again.

I'm not a shill, I didn't really care for the game that much (what can I say, I'm

Re:Did anybody else take this route for Guild Wars

[rehtonAesoohC]

The guild wars game distribution system is actually one of the coolest I've ever seen. For starters, it only installs bare minimum requirements before it lets you play the game. Then, after that, it only downloads exactly the areas that you visit, so if you never get to level 20 and visit the "end-game" content, then you never have unnecessary space taken on your hard drive.

I actually went out and bought the game from Gamestop though, it saved me $10.

Re:Did anybody else take this route for Guild Wars

[Paran]

Yeah, it's very slick. They'll be distributing their new standalone expansion this way as well.

Something for nothing.

[MaWeiTao]

Is this the same Red Orchestra you could get for free as a mod for UT2K4?

This is the fundamental problem indie developers face. People don't think they should have to pay for these games, especially if earlier versions were free. To some extent the sentiment is justifiable because most indie games, even when they have potential, simply lack the polish and refinement or amount of content found in a commercial game. It hurts playability and I think people are averse to spending money on such games.

I played Re

Direct2Drive kind of sucks

[snuf23]

I recently purchased EverQuest 2 through the Direct2Drive [direct2drive.com] service. I figured an MMO was relatively safe since I wouldn't need to deal with any of the weird DRM that most Direcr2Drive games require to be installed. The big problem was delivery of the game files. At least for EverQuest 2, in order to download the files I paid for I had to use the FilePlanet [fileplanet.com] servers and a proprietary download program. The real problem is that unless you are a FilePlanet subscriber you can't use the "no wait" servers AND ads ar