Posted by: Bryan Mau at January 29, 2008 3:12:12 PM
January 29, 2008 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announce Steamworks, a complete suite of publishing and development tools - ranging from copy protection to social networking services to server browsing - is now available free of charge to developers and publishers worldwide.
Steamworks, the same suite of tools used in best-selling PC titles Half-Life 2 and The Orange Box, is available for all PC games distributed via retail and leading online platforms such as Steam. The services included in Steamworks may be used a la carte or in any combination.
Specifically, Steamworks offers:
· Real-time stats on sales, gameplay, and product activation: Know exactly how well your title is selling before the charts are released. Find out how much of your game is being played. Login into your Steamworks account pages and view up to the hour information regarding worldwide product activations and player data.
· State of the art encryption system: Stop paying to have your game pirated before it's released. Steamworks takes anti-piracy to a new level with strong encryption that keeps your game locked until the moment it is released.
· Territory/version control: The key-based authentication provided in Steamworks also provides territory/version controls to help curb gray market importing and deliver territory-specific content to any given country or region.
· Auto updating: Insures all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games.
· Voice chat: Available for use both in and out of game.
· Multiplayer matchmaking: Steamworks offers you all the multiplayer backend and matchmaking services that have been created to support Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, the most played action games in the world.
· Social networking services: With support for achievements, leaderboards, and avatars, Steamworks allows you to give your gamers as many rewards as you would like, plus support for tracking the world's best professional and amateur players of your game.
· Development tools: Steamworks allows you to administer private betas which can be updated multiple times each day. Also includes data collection tools for QA, play testing, and usability studies.
"Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today's market," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing."
"As more developers and publishers have embraced Steam as a leading digital distribution channel, we've heard a growing number of inquiries regarding the availability of the platform's services and tools," said Jason Holtman, director business development at Valve. "Offering Steamworks is part of our ongoing efforts to support the needs of game developers and our publishing partners."
Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games and digital content. With over 13 million active accounts and more than 250 games, plus hundreds of movie files and game demos available, Steam has become a frequent destination for millions of gamers around the world.
If we're going to be pedantic, actually it's either:
Usage Note: Assure, ensure, and insure all mean "to make secure or certain." Only assure is used with reference to a person in the sense of "to set the mind at rest": assured the leader of his loyalty. Although ensure and insure are generally interchangeable, only insure is now widely used in American English in the commercial sense of "to guarantee persons or property against risk." dictionary.com
Er, title is a bit misleading, shouldn't it be 'announced' not 'released'? I'm not trying to be pedantict but it just doesn't seem to be released quite yet.
HodgmanMember since: 2/14/2007 From: Melbourne, Victoria
Posted - 1/31/2008 7:47:27 PM
Quote:
Original post by d00fus
although ensure and insure are generally interchangeable, only insure is now widely used in American English in the commercial sense of "to guarantee persons or property against risk."
If we're going to be pedantic, actually it's either:
Usage Note: Assure, ensure, and insure all mean "to make secure or certain." Only assure is used with reference to a person in the sense of "to set the mind at rest": assured the leader of his loyalty. Although ensure and insure are generally interchangeable, only insure is now widely used in American English in the commercial sense of "to guarantee persons or property against risk." dictionary.com
this is absolutely untrue in any circle I've run in.
The core ideas behind all three are nearly identical, but their exact proper (or idiomatic if that's the case) usage is quite different:
To ensure is to verify or make true (The metal detector ensured that no-one brought illegal firearms to school)
To insure is to guarantee (which means to offer up some alternative (usually monetary) in case of failure)
A bond "insures" the arrival of a person to court, by paying the court if they don't arrive, the paying of a large sum of money towards a bond "ensures" the person will arrive by offering them a reason to arrive (the return of their money).
These words are as similar and different as affect and effect. In any exact case I've ever heard of only 1 is correct without rewording the sentence.
P.S. it most definitely does not "Insures all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games" because valve (or anyone else) does not offer me any compensation or enforceable guarantee against the failure of that promise.
Original post by Moomin
Er, title is a bit misleading, shouldn't it be 'announced' not 'released'? I'm not trying to be pedantict but it just doesn't seem to be released quite yet.
Original post by Xai
P.S. it most definitely does not "Insures all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games" because valve (or anyone else) does not offer me any compensation or enforceable guarantee against the failure of that promise.
Why do I feel that I need to join this pointless discussion? Oh well. From Merriam Webster, Insure: "to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions". Note that this is one of several definitions of insure, one that includes giving insurance. This definition clearly fits what Valve is doing; they automatically download the latest version of the game, unless the user specifies otherwise, hence taking the necessary measures and precautions. And while we're at this, M-W lists "ensure" as a synonym for "insure."
Now, onto the actual topic. This actually seems quite generous of Steam. However, Steam's website seems to provide nearly no information on this. Does anyone know what the process for getting this is? Is it feasible for a freeware, hobby game to get on there? I'm not sure if it would have any benefits for such a game, but I'm still interested in whether or not you could.
Original post by Xai
These words are as similar and different as affect and effect. In any exact case I've ever heard of only 1 is correct without rewording the sentence.
I only respond to this for the sake of the large number of people on these forums for whom English is not a native language who might read this and take it as correct. While there are subtleties in certain cases where one of ensure/insure/assure may be more appropriate, they are considered interchangeable in many contexts (including the context of the press release) by all major English dictionaries, albeit with a bias towards more common use of insure in US English.
Merriam-Webster
(which even includes as an example for a case more suitable for "insure" which directly contrasts with your assertion: "careful planning should insure the success of the party") Oxford Collins
Like you I would tend towards the more British approach that insure implies commerciality, however this is a preference not fact, and certainly not on the same level as affect and effect which are entirely different words and not interchangeable in any context.
I am really not sure what point you pedants are trying to make...
On topic, however; this looks pretty damn cool to me. Steam is a well-established platform these days (let's try and forget how it was to begin with) -- and big names are all getting in on it -- the anti-piracy stuff, while not infallible (what is?) is a step in the right direction. Controlling how people play a game sort of spoils the fun aspect, but empowering end-users to play a game they've purchased a license for -- in any location provided they've got internet access and a Steam account is a small price to pay for developers getting useful libraries, wide audiences, and some peace of mind.
Original post by Xai
These words are as similar and different as affect and effect. In any exact case I've ever heard of only 1 is correct without rewording the sentence.
I only respond to this for the sake of the large number of people on these forums for whom English is not a native language who might read this and take it as correct.
For the same reason: I'm sorry, but when you claim "all major english dictionaries" but omit the most famous english dictionary (OED), which contradicts you, that's a bit disingenuous.
Non-american dictionaries often even have a page at the end devoted to correcting the misunderstanding you're peddling here, although IIRC it's usually affect/effect that comes at the top of the list, e.g. (quick google):
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Hodgman
Member since: 2/14/2007 From: Melbourne, Victoria
Posted - 1/30/2008 6:12:38 PM
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Posted - 2/2/2008 8:21:21 PM
