Recently however, I’ve realized my compulsion to buy stems from the slick marketing process built into Steam’s interface. By default, you are presented with the home page of Steam store once you load the client. Sometimes a pop-up appears, upon start-up or after exiting a game, detailing all the latest games and promos available from Steam. Both are designed to keep you aware of what’s new, subtly pushing you to open up your wallet and make Valve (and its partner publishers) richer.

Luckily, you can change the Steam client settings and lessen temptations to buy. It’s a simple matter of clicking on the File Menu of the Steam client and selecting Settings. Once the dialog pops-up, all you have to do is set your Favorite Window to anything other than “Steam”, and unchecking Notify me (with Steam instant messages) about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases. Then click OK to save the new settings.

What this does is minimize the temptations to buy new games. Now when you start up Steam, you’re brought directly to your games; you don’t get to see the store until you intentionally choose to go there, saving you from the skillfully crafted “buy now” messages plastered all over Steam’s home page. The same applies to disabling Steam’s notifications, as there are now less opportunities for Valve to ply its wares on your impressionable gaming mind.

With fewer temptations to buy, you indirectly save more money, and continue maximizing the advantage that attracted you to Steam in the first place: low-priced legit copies of PC games.

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More than one person finds the scale of such an undertaking scary. What if say, over a hundred-thousand people want to play benchmarking-crown Crysis at the same time? Wouldn’t you need massive CPU and GPU computing power? Probably less than we think, and most likely not too much as to threaten Valve’s massive R&D and marketing budgets.

Valve already has the the user base (like over a million members?) and the resources to implement a cloud gaming service successfully. It’s a relatively simple matter of creating a server environment that works, then tying that into the current Steam ecosystem. Valve already practices cloud computing with Steam to a slight degree, allowing users to access restore their settings and even saved games from any computer they use, so why not roll out a large-scale implementation?

Imagine if there was no longer a need to download a game to start playing, since the game is already available on Valve’s servers; all you’d have to was log on and direct the service to load the game you plant to play. You’d also hear less complaints about games that simply do not want to run on a user’s particular computer, as presumably the servers would be configured to run Steam games properly.

The point is that if Valve can pull this off, they’ll be on the market for this much earlier than present and future competitors. And instead of coming out with optimistic PR snippets design to get the internets writing, they can just prove the concept by actually presenting a working service. Opp

What do you think? Should the Valve come up with its own cloud gaming service? If so, how much should it charge? How much are you willing to pay?

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Courtesy Left 4 Dead blog

Since I’ve been having so much fun on Left 4 Dead lately, here’s a post simply containing info related to the game, and its upcoming sequel, Left 4 Dead 2 (duh):

• You can become a Facebook fan of Left 4 Dead here.
• …and for Left 4 Dead 2 here. To paraphrase one supporter: “screw the boycotters”
• Hands-on previews of Left 4 Dead 2 are available here and here (includes video). Snippets:
  

  “But on the evidence so far, it’s hard not to be thrilled all over again by the prospect of headsetting it up with chums and pounding through the new locations, with the new characters and weapons. And in the meantime, once the blistering heat and SEGA-blue skies give way to familiar concrete grey misery, I suspect more than a few will still be locked away in dark rooms romping through the original.”

  “Left 4 Dead 2 is shaping up really well, and with four new characters, the group dynamic has changed once again. We played as Coach, a huge dude with an attitude; and Rochelle, a smaller female character. There was also the white-suited Nick and the jocklike Ellis. We loved our time with the game, especially playing with other journalists in the LAN setting. While Left 4 Dead 2 certainly doesn’t do anything drastically different, we’re confident that it will offer another highly addictive experience of the zombie apocalypse. The full game is out on the PC and Xbox 360 in November, and we should be able to bring you more between now and its release.”

• The Left 4 Dead blog is here. Kooky reason behind Left 4 Dead 2 logo (pictured) here.
• Nice third-party maps available here.
• And of course, you can buy Left 4 Dead here.

Now leave me alone. Need to get back to my squeeing.

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Yet that should now be practically impossible, thanks to the efforts of Steam forum user sciss0rz, who’s taken it upon himself to update other forum members with information on—you guessed it—the latest discounts and price drops on Steam! The list (found here) also includes information on Steam game packs, compilations of multiple titles that are usually available at a lower total price (sciss0rz does not list packs that represent no savings).

Even more important however is region availability. Lots of Steam customers have complained about the inconsistent availability of games worldwide. Specific games aren’t available in certain regions and countries, and you can see who misses out on what.

Nevertheless, the “Price Reduction and Sales!” thread is a very useful resource that any Steam user should bookmark. Heck, I’d even suggest making it your browser homepage, if only not to miss out on any new promos cooked up by Valve’s sales team.

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Why would you get those games? Well, Assassin’s Creed is probably the best 3D platformer I’ve played in quite a while (finished it on the PS3 last year). For some reason, dealing fatal counters to attacking enemies seemed very therapeutic.

The original Freedom Force, on the other hand, is a great strategy game that features a campy yet compelling story, and very wonderful art direction. Personally, it’s also a chance to finally try out the expansion!

I’m starting to hate Valve. They perfectly understand that, after development work, the production costs of video games are practically zero. More so if distribution is done through a digital platform like Steam.

Of course, Valve has to pay for servers to keep Steam running smoothly (they should!). But you can bet they pay less for each copy’s distribution. And they can tempt me to pay through the nose for games, because with all their game packs and weekend promos, they end up selling copies for less than what the pirates do.

Since I (currently) pay a flat monthly fee for internet access, those are very good deals indeed. Until you realize that you’ve spent more on games before signing up for Valve!

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Of course, you could’ve bought The Orange Box, a five-in-1 package featuring three Half-Life 2 games, and TF2, when it was $10. But I can assure you that even getting Team Fortress 2 all by its lonesome for $10 is still money well-spent. Besides, misery loves company; I thought I got a good deal when Valve was selling Left 4 Dead for $20. About a month or so later, the company discounts the game again—selling it for $10!

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If we take Left 4 Dead (by far my most favorite Steam game), some of the trends made clear by the achievement tally make sense. For instance, only 0.5% of L4D players have achieved “Legendary Survivor”. Achieving that means holding off endless waves of zombies for at least 10 minutes—in five different situations while hoping your 3 teammates know what they’re doing.

But only 36.5%—nearly a third—of players have achieved “Grim Reaper”? That only requires finishing the last campaign of the game; you can do this by playing single player on easy. Maybe a significant number of players simply don’t have the time to play Left 4 Dead for at least the hour or so required to finish a campaign?

In any case, given that after-gameplay updates from Steam are apparently unavailable anywhere else, here’s the full post:

This week, we added some new pages to the Steam Community which make it possible to view each game’s aggregate achievement stats. Check out the complete collection. While browsing them, we think you’ll find there are some interesting things to learn about Steam games.

Sometimes, achievements reveal what should already be blindingly obvious to all criminal masterminds. For example, you, dear reader, undoubtedly already know that the way to cause “Death From Above” is to fire an orbital laser.

But in a stunningly non-obvious counterpoint, who would ever have thought Steam could pop-up a notification that reads “You have achieved: Divorce (Defeat Mom and Dad)“? Where has that message been all our lives? All we had to do to get that sweet revenge was just play a Steam game? We wish someone had told us sooner.

And then there are the truly inspiring achievements. As of this writing, 13.5% of one game’s players have officially gained the status of “Pervert”, after inspecting a pair of withered binoceros testicles with genuine enthusiasm.

All in a day’s work, we say.

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To recap, The Orange Box is Valve’s award-winning bundle, which bundles the following games:

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

…into one neat package. The Half-Life 2 series and Portal is great for solo-play, while Team Fortress 2 has won accolades for its enjoyable multiplayer gameplay and distinctive art direction.

Everything’s handled (purchasing, installation, and actual game playing) through the Steam platform. So you’ll need to buy into Valve’s gaming and content delivery system, and a good internet connection to download all those gigs of data. If you’re not a Steam user, this promo will probably turn you into one! Or at least, make you more willing to try it out.

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Concurrent with an update announcement for Team Fortress 2 was Valve’s re-explanation of their Steam Hardware Survey. Perhaps noticing the privacy concerns raised regarding their data collection service (which has no opt-out), Valve decided to point out its benefits in their own special way.

First, they list their current setup:

• EVGA 780i SLI FTW Intel Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor
• 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 1066MHz ram (Crucial, Kingston)
• 1 x NVidia GTX280 1GB – OR – ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
• 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
• 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
• Antec Sonata III desktop case
• Zalman CPU Cooler
• 850W Antec power supply
• 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30″ LCD – OR – 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1″ LCD monitors
• Vista 32bit

Then matter-of-factly reveal the new setup they’re rolling out now:

• EVGA X58 3X SLI Intel Motherboard
• Intel Corei7 940 2.93GHz Quad-Core Processor
• 12GB PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz ram (Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
• 1 x NVidia GTX285 1GB – OR – ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
• 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
• 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
• Lian Li P60-F Case
• Intel CPU Cooler
• 850W Antec power supply
• 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30″ LCD – OR – 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1″ LCD monitors
• Microsoft Vista 64bit

So Valve’s saying “See? We need accurate stats on our average user, because if we used our own machines as the benchmark, our games would totally own your asses.” Heck, even their old system was already to drool over! Yet an important question remains: would you got for the solo 30″ setup, instead of the dual 20.1″, even if the former’s $400 more expensive?

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Thus began the interesting—but unverified—account of Steam user “The Neighbor”, who describes the results of his tweaks as instructed by a Steam forum thread (which apparently details how to run games on the dreaded integrated Intel GPU).

More of an experiment rather than a desperate penny-pincher trying to get the popular multiplayer shooter running on his basic netbook, the tweaks hardly produce an optimum gaming experience. Neighbor warns that framerates drop to as low as 10 per in outdoor environments, and that the “Discolorations with the characters is bad that you sometimes can’t tell the enemy. (sic)”

Still, chalk one up for Filipino ingenuity! It’s not the kind of original thinking that Takipsilim-haters would love to see, but any Filipino who steps up always makes me teary-eyed.

(reprinted with permission from Technograph)

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