NEWS: Egosoft enters the age of Steam

fud · Post by **fud** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 14:38

Stick in the mud.

bvschipper · Post by **bvschipper** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 14:42

Egosoft,

Although I already own a copy of X3 (1.0 nonetheless), I have purchased a second through Steam as a way to not only support the continued development of such games, but also to reinforce the notion that consumers prefer software that is easily accessible, affordable, and does not infer that the end-users are, by nature, nefarious in their pursuit of free software.

Congratulations on what I hope will be reinvigorated sales and the promulgation of the genre.

Regards,
Brad

ThunderHorse · Post by **ThunderHorse** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 17:22

Ok, first post from a lurker. I've been playing X2 about a year now and immediately thought I would want to buy X3 as well. But, all the early issues with X3 install and the copy protection led me to hold off. I used to be an avid gamer but dropped out of the scene when the Tribes franchise got so screwed up. Also, I'm the owner of a computer service center and have had less time in the last couple years for gaming.

But last night I got the news about Steam and immediately went online and bought my copy of X3.

Thank you Egosoft and Enlight for making this business decision.

X3 is beautiful. I am happy.

NarcissusG · Post by **NarcissusG** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 18:40

Seems like I get to post the first negative remark in this thread. Imagine my delight.

I received a short message; a friend telling me that X3 was now being distributed by Steam. Thinking that it was a hilarious joke, I came to the EgoSoft website just to see if there had been any updates released recently.

No updates or content releases ... but the horrible (yet hilarious) joke had lost its humor.

When X2 was released and sold in a condition that was closer to 2/3rds finished than a complete release, it was blamed (un-officially) on the publishers. I waited and eventually received the full game that I had purchased. I lurked on the forums and read posts and kept my opinions to myself.

When X3 was released, I gave EgoSoft the benefit of the doubt (as I love their games) and purchased it as soon as it was available. Yet again, I found a game that was closer to 2/3rds finished than the complete game that I supposably had purchased. Yet again, everything was blamed (un-officially) on the publishers. Even the manual was so far off that it received (well deserved) negative comments! At that point, I decided not to lurk and started posting my opinions.

After having won several arguments with other forum members and even a moderator ... I simply gave up, shrugged my shoulders, quit reading my PMs on this site, and started lurking again. Eventually, EgoSoft finished the game and I left the forums. My goal was to wait till X4, see if EgoSoft had finally changed their ways, and then possibly purchase the game.

By placing their games on Steam, EgoSoft has changed my outlook again. I won't go into the numerous lies that Valve told it's customer base or any of the more nefarious things that the company (notably: Gabe) did. I will say this: EgoSoft has treated it's customer base a million times better than Valve has (and that isn't meant as a compliment to EgoSoft).

By using Steam (which is actually such a great idea that if it weren't for the Valve name, I would still use it), EgoSoft has lost any chance of ever receiving my business and money again. I would love to say that I wish this company the best of luck, yet that wouldn't be entirely truthful; instead of that, let me say: I wish this company the best of luck at learning to understand that profit doesn't necessarily mean a complete lack of ethics.

Narcissus

P.S.

muppetts wrote:Steam etc is the way of the future, we may complain but is it the only way smaller companies can stay alive and make a decent profit as they can avoid packaging, printed manuals and we hope can be a force unto their own, i.e no publisher and therefore have the option to release a better product.

I just wanted to state that while Steam (or the idea behind it, at least) is very sound and can help smaller companies reach a larger audience, it isn't necessary (nor ever will be) for a small gaming company to succeed. Feel free to follow the link in my signature.

silentWitness · Post by **silentWitness** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 20:05

NarcissusG wrote: Blah... etc... etc...

So basically you like everything and you hate everything...

Good luck finding a game thats similar... I've been looking for years and Egosoft produces the only product similar to what I'm looking for...

You'll be waiting til 'Duke Nukum' day for Elite 4... so basically until then this is your space sim game...

EvoSiNz · Post by **EvoSiNz** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 20:23

Give some examples of the nefarious thing Valve has done to warrant EgoSoft to stay away from it's (top of the line) digital distribution system. Site your sources.

fud · Post by **fud** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 20:29

I'd rather he didn't. I'd just let it go. He feels the way he feels, and likely nothing will change that. Everybody's entitled to their opinion.

There's no reason to drag this into a pissing match imo.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 21:05

I think this is very cool for X3 and Egosoft. It opens the door to a community with very decent hardware, known gamers demographic and a broad audience.
Good move Egosoft.
I still have high hopes for the future of the IP even though their are bumps in the road. That's why I have 4 wheel drive.

Devistater · Post by **Devistater** » Fri, 28. Jul 06, 22:11

NarcissusG wrote: Even the manual was so far off that it received (well deserved) negative comments!

I will say this: EgoSoft has treated it's customer base a million times better than Valve has (and that isn't meant as a compliment to EgoSoft).

By using Steam (which is actually such a great idea that if it weren't for the Valve name, I would still use it), EgoSoft has lost any chance of ever receiving my business and money again.

The manual has since been updated and is better.

Since egosoft isn't doing exlcusive business with steam, but doing retail AND steam and you can choiose which you want, I dont see any reason to stop buying egosoft, even if you hate steam. Just dont use that version. Its like if someone sells through D2D online distribution. D2D sucks because it allows only 3 installs, and only on that one computer. But thats no reason to stop buying from a company that sells its software on their (like Elderscrolls Oblivion is sold on D2D). I'd much rather have a steam version of X3 than a crappy D2D with even wackier protection.

Valve has treated me fine with steam, I've bought all of thier back catalog on it and half life 1&2 and their mods.

Th only things I dont like about steam is that they forbid you to sell your account, and they can lock out your account with purchased games for any or no reason at all. I can live without being able to sell my account, and as long as I'm careful with what I do on the valve multiplayer games (i.e. I'll never cheat, even if they didn't have cheat detection), I'm fairly sure they wont lock out my account.

Heck, microsoft has done FAR worse things to FAR more people than valve/steam and I still buy and use windows/office. For them though, I get legit MS software for low cost or free through discount and student stuff. So I'm sticking it to them in a small way

So anyway, I think you are very much overreacting. By all means, buy egosoft stuff retail (and if you dont like starforce, just wait until egosoft releases the official no cd/dvd patch like they generally do, which I give major kudos to them for) instead of steam if you like.

EnzoMatrix · Post by **EnzoMatrix** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 10:55

OK, I am new to this universe. What is wrong with Starforce? Should I be worried that I have three games that use it on my system, and no problems with my DVD burner?

Please, tell me if I need to dump my retail X3 and get it on Steam, I already have seven Steam games and think it rocks!

Enzo

andrewas · Post by **andrewas** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 12:42

We are not permitted to have that discussion here, so Ill just tell you to google around. Not everything you'll find is mindless paranoia, though you can discount stories like 'I installed StarForce and my hard drives exploded!!!'. Of course, if you arent having problems with StarForce, then dont worry about it.

-Joshua- · Post by **-Joshua-** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 14:00

NarcissusG wrote:Seems like I get to post the first negative remark in this thread. Imagine my delight.

I received a short message; a friend telling me that X3 was now being distributed by Steam. Thinking that it was a hilarious joke, I came to the EgoSoft website just to see if there had been any updates released recently.

No updates or content releases ... but the horrible (yet hilarious) joke had lost its humor.

When X2 was released and sold in a condition that was closer to 2/3rds finished than a complete release, it was blamed (un-officially) on the publishers. I waited and eventually received the full game that I had purchased. I lurked on the forums and read posts and kept my opinions to myself.

When X3 was released, I gave EgoSoft the benefit of the doubt (as I love their games) and purchased it as soon as it was available. Yet again, I found a game that was closer to 2/3rds finished than the complete game that I supposably had purchased. Yet again, everything was blamed (un-officially) on the publishers. Even the manual was so far off that it received (well deserved) negative comments! At that point, I decided not to lurk and started posting my opinions.

After having won several arguments with other forum members and even a moderator ... I simply gave up, shrugged my shoulders, quit reading my PMs on this site, and started lurking again. Eventually, EgoSoft finished the game and I left the forums. My goal was to wait till X4, see if EgoSoft had finally changed their ways, and then possibly purchase the game.

By placing their games on Steam, EgoSoft has changed my outlook again. I won't go into the numerous lies that Valve told it's customer base or any of the more nefarious things that the company (notably: Gabe) did. I will say this: EgoSoft has treated it's customer base a million times better than Valve has (and that isn't meant as a compliment to EgoSoft).

By using Steam (which is actually such a great idea that if it weren't for the Valve name, I would still use it), EgoSoft has lost any chance of ever receiving my business and money again. I would love to say that I wish this company the best of luck, yet that wouldn't be entirely truthful; instead of that, let me say: I wish this company the best of luck at learning to understand that profit doesn't necessarily mean a complete lack of ethics.

Narcissus

P.S.

muppetts wrote:Steam etc is the way of the future, we may complain but is it the only way smaller companies can stay alive and make a decent profit as they can avoid packaging, printed manuals and we hope can be a force unto their own, i.e no publisher and therefore have the option to release a better product.
I just wanted to state that while Steam (or the idea behind it, at least) is very sound and can help smaller companies reach a larger audience, it isn't necessary (nor ever will be) for a small gaming company to succeed. Feel free to follow the link in my signature.

the sole reason why everything was blamed on the publishers is beceuse EGOSOFT couldn't reach the deadline, so who's fault is it? the publishers (for setting an impossible deadline) or the developers (for not working fast enough)

personnally, I think that the publishers should have reminded the fact that X2 got much fans due to the fact that it was released mid-februari, and not during christmas. This ensured that the game didn't drown in hte sea of top-games.

strangely, the fate of X3 is not uncommon, many games have been released with a lot of bugs, or incomplete (Jedi Knights II was an example, the storyline was great in the beginning, but it seemed incomplete after the end,and... it was). luckily, Egosoft is a team full of good hard-working people, who want their fans to be satisfied, when X3 was heading for an release, patch 1.2 was already in the works, to make the game more playable.

Egosoft, hopefully you will find an

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 16:50

Me thinks its time that Ego tells thier publishers to "Back off" and let them develop thier games without constant "Hurry it up" comments from the publishers.

I dont know why X2 came out the way it did, i mean Ego did have 2 years to make it...but the result with the patches was amazing and not very surprising an excellent game that carryied many fans over to Ego's side.

Hopefully this wont result in games that require 4 patches to play...

Post by **CBJ** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 16:59

Player. wrote:Me thinks its time that Ego tells thier publishers to "Back off" and let them develop thier games without constant "Hurry it up" comments from the publishers.

It doesn't work like that. Publishers are paying for the development and developers are in no position to tell them to "back off".

esd · Post by **esd** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 17:00

Me thinks its time that Ego tells thier publishers to "Back off" and let them develop thier games without constant "Hurry it up" comments from the publishers.

Which most likely would result in the Publishers saying "fine, pay back the fee we gave you at the last milestone. We're not gonna fund what we don't directly control".

thenormalman · Post by **thenormalman** » Wed, 2. Aug 06, 17:18

I don't see what the advantage of the game being completed and released in say March is over it being released in January and then patched properly in February tbh (this is only an example)

|UNL| Shadow Warrior · Post by **|UNL| Shadow Warrior** » Fri, 4. Aug 06, 03:33

I bought X3 and **X2 ages ago when they first came out, two questions,

1. Ive registered my X3 key on this forum, but who can i register my X2 key, is it one or the other. **(i got the X2 game free with my graphics card).

2. Is it possible to register said keys with steam in order to get X2-X3 on Steam in "My Games"?

|UNL| Shadow Warrior · Post by **|UNL| Shadow Warrior** » Fri, 4. Aug 06, 03:34

I bought X3 and **X2 ages ago when they first came out, two questions,

1. Ive registered my X3 key on this forum, but who can i register my X2 key, is it one or the other. **(i got the X2 game free with my graphics card).

2. Is it possible to register said keys with steam in order to get X2-X3 on Steam in "My Games"?

|UNL| Shadow Warrior · Post by **|UNL| Shadow Warrior** » Fri, 4. Aug 06, 03:34

I bought X3 and **X2 ages ago when they first came out, two questions,

1. Ive registered my X3 key on this forum, but who can i register my X2 key, is it one or the other. **(i got the X2 game free with my graphics card).

2. Is it possible to register said keys with steam in order to get X2-X3 on Steam in "My Games"?

moggy2 · Post by **moggy2** » Fri, 4. Aug 06, 04:00

1. you should be able to register both.
2. no.

3. it is possible to delete accidental multiple post by clicking the little x in the corner of your post before someone else replies, before a moderator or admin thinks you're spamming

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

NEWS: Egosoft enters the age of Steam

Registering CD-Key with Steam

Registering CD-Key with Steam

Registering CD-Key with Steam