Games - Steam

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	Games - Steam

Steam is a content delivery, digital rights management and multiplayer system developed by the Valve Corporation. It is currently used to digitally distribute and manage games including Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Steam also replaces WON, the original authentication framework for Half-Life multiplayer games and a number of other now largely or entirely defunct titles.

History

Steam was primarily developed to attain 'secure content delivery and rights management' (primary source lost, consider ), allowing users to download, update and use content wherever they are, ensuring in the process that they own the product. This reasoning came about after Valve looked at their own products and realised that patching and getting new content (for example mods) for them could be a very slow and laborious process, with enormous, monolithic patch files that the user had to both find out about and find a download for themselves. From this idea came today's system, which also incorporates anti-cheat technology (see VAC 2), marketing tools and communication services.

Despite popular opinion, and perhaps their past actions, Valve does not presently seem overly concerned with using Steam DRM to combat Copyright infringement of their software. Their future plans focus more on making the platform more useful for developers and customers rather than more frustrating for anyone stealing the games.

Steam's ability to allow a game developer to "cut out the middleman", namely game publishers and storefronts, and to thereby directly sell and distribute their products to users via the Internet, has led many to predict that Steam and future concepts like it will revolutionize the gaming industry in the same way that P2P threatens the livelihood of the music labels and movie publishing houses. This possibility was poignantly highlighted by the legal battle between Valve and their publisher Vivendi Universal Games, where VUG argued that Steam was an attempt to circumvent their publishing agreement. However, on November 29, 2004, Valve announced that the courts had granted their motion of summary judgement in this case.

The client application, Steam version 1.0, was first made available for download in spring of 2002 during the beta period for Counter-Strike
1.6. At that time, it appeared to be a method of streamlining the patch process common in online computer games. Installation and use of the Steam program was mandatory for CS 1.6 beta testers, but Steam remained an optional component. In late 2003, Steam was revealed as a replacement for much of the dated framework of WON and Half-Life multiplayer and also as a distribution system for entire games.

Valve's Doug Lombardi announced in October 2004 that Half-Life 2 required activation via Steam in order to play the game. When Half-Life 2 arrived at some stores earlier than its intended release date of November 16, Valve reported that their contract with Vivendi prevented them from activating the Steam authentication servers until the 16th.

Recently, Valve has been negotiating contracts with several publishers and independent developers to release their products on Steam, typically with a pre-order discount of 10% off their MSRP. Rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia are two recent examples, and European publisher Strategy First announced in December 2005 that it would be partnering with Valve for digital distribution of current and future titles.

Valve Cyber Café Program

Steam has also allowed Valve to run a subscription-based cybercafé program , the Valve Cyber Café Program, which is now the only legal way for a cybercafé to offer Steam-based games. There are two pricing models, a flat-rate per-client fee each month or the upcoming 'Valve Time Tracker' system that offers a pay-as-you-go model.

Program Benefits

In addition to what is offered by the regular Steam client (see above), the Cybercafé program:

Is cheaper in the short term
Automatically gives access to each new Steam release, whoever the developer
Gives access to the Cybercafé Administration Server (CAS)
*Updates are downloaded once to the server then distributed to clients via LAN
*Licenses can be used on any computer on the premises
*Stores a customer's savegames and configurations as a permanent profile
Free tournament licenses
Promotional materials
Account protection against bannings and thefts
Priority support
Entry in the

Program drawbacks

The flat-rate fee model can end up more expensive in cafés where Steam games are not often played
Another layer to go wrong

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Steam (content delivery) ]

Games - Steam

History

Valve Cyber Café Program

Program Benefits

Program drawbacks

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