The Failure of Steam.
630
2
Advertisement
Before I start I just want to say that as a platform I love the idea of Steam, more so now since it appears anyone can get on board and use it for their games, however I've encoutered now two failures, both of which aren't Steam's fault directly however both of which have been a tad annoying/stupid.
The first was the Bioshock insanity; a system which is effectively your DRM control providing a game with DRM control in it. That was never sane at all, maybe it appeared it was going to cost too much to remove which is why it happened, either way the lack of warning that it was even there annoyed people alot and probably cost a few sales of the game.
The second failure has occured today.
Dawn of War : Soulstorm is out today, I understand it has been out in the US since wednesday, which in itself is crazy; in a world of internet distrubution staggered release dates don't make any sense.
However, when I went and checked out the DoW:SS page on Steam on wednesday it said 'Available outside North America on March 7.' OK, so as I said a tad crazy but if thats the way they want to play it, fair enough, being from the UK I can wait until Friday to get a copy.
Friday rolls around (aka midnight GMT) and the page is still the same, not even an option to preload it and no details about price. It's still like that at 1am when I goto bed.
"OK", thinks I, "maybe it'll change when midnight on the west coast of the USA has happened, which'll be after I get up at 9am today". So, at 9am I get up to become awake for work, boot up the computer and bring up Steam.
On the front page, under New Releases we have "Dawn of War:Soulstorm", so it's looking hopeful; I click the link only to see the same page as before and 'Available outside North America on March 7.' still displayed on the page; still no price details and still no pre-load.
Which brings me to the point of the failure; As much as I disagree with the whole staggered release thing that's not going to change, however if when you get to the day of release and passed the time when the shops are open in the target country to allow you to buy it then something has gone wrong. If you could see a price and pre-load, well it would still be annoying but at least you'd have it there so when, like me, you get back from work it's a matter of buying it and unlocking the game.
However, you can't, I'm leaving for work after I've written this and during my lunch hour I'll be wandering to Game to pick up a copy on DVD; why? because the price difference generally isn't the large and somehow walking into town and buying a physical copy if more convenient than downloading one.
For a digital distrubtion system that's quite a failure.
The first was the Bioshock insanity; a system which is effectively your DRM control providing a game with DRM control in it. That was never sane at all, maybe it appeared it was going to cost too much to remove which is why it happened, either way the lack of warning that it was even there annoyed people alot and probably cost a few sales of the game.
The second failure has occured today.
Dawn of War : Soulstorm is out today, I understand it has been out in the US since wednesday, which in itself is crazy; in a world of internet distrubution staggered release dates don't make any sense.
However, when I went and checked out the DoW:SS page on Steam on wednesday it said 'Available outside North America on March 7.' OK, so as I said a tad crazy but if thats the way they want to play it, fair enough, being from the UK I can wait until Friday to get a copy.
Friday rolls around (aka midnight GMT) and the page is still the same, not even an option to preload it and no details about price. It's still like that at 1am when I goto bed.
"OK", thinks I, "maybe it'll change when midnight on the west coast of the USA has happened, which'll be after I get up at 9am today". So, at 9am I get up to become awake for work, boot up the computer and bring up Steam.
On the front page, under New Releases we have "Dawn of War:Soulstorm", so it's looking hopeful; I click the link only to see the same page as before and 'Available outside North America on March 7.' still displayed on the page; still no price details and still no pre-load.
Which brings me to the point of the failure; As much as I disagree with the whole staggered release thing that's not going to change, however if when you get to the day of release and passed the time when the shops are open in the target country to allow you to buy it then something has gone wrong. If you could see a price and pre-load, well it would still be annoying but at least you'd have it there so when, like me, you get back from work it's a matter of buying it and unlocking the game.
However, you can't, I'm leaving for work after I've written this and during my lunch hour I'll be wandering to Game to pick up a copy on DVD; why? because the price difference generally isn't the large and somehow walking into town and buying a physical copy if more convenient than downloading one.
For a digital distrubtion system that's quite a failure.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Discussion