Not the project I'm working on specifically, but I work side-by-side with the guys that are making this game, so it's cool to see what people are saying.
Ritual Entertainment's long-awaited Sin 2 is to be released episodically over Valve's Steam digital distribution system, with episodes lasting around six hours each to be released "every three to four months" for around $20 (£11.38) an episode.
The first episode is set to be released on Steam this Winter, but it's not yet known whether the game will also be released in boxed form.
In a rare interview with PC Gamer, Ritual CEO Steve Nix said: "We've been talking to Valve about Steam for about four years now, and we've always wanted to get back to the SiN universe.
"We talked to publishers about doing it, but we never felt able to make the product we wanted to make with the next SiN." That is, until the relative freedom offered by Steam came along; something several developers must be seriously looking into at this point.
The Valve-Ritual relationship is to go even further than that, with SiN 2 being developed using a tweaked version of the same Source engine that powered the legendary Half-Life 2.
An exclusive eight page cover feature on the game is the main focus for the UK version of PC Gamer (available to subscribers today, and on sale in newsagents soon), and goes into detail regarding the hopes of the team, and some of the core innovations. Check back shortly for an overview of what to expect.
Interestingly, the Ritual feature is followed by an exclusive four page interview with Bill Van Buren, Marc Laidlaw and Bill Fletcher from Valve - the key men behind Half-Life 2.
The article gets the name wrong though. It's called SiN Episodes, as you can see from this:
Deathwinger wrote:its not the world's first, there have been a lot of old PC and Nintendo games that had a similiar distribution style.
First of all... DEATHWINGER? What the hell brings you back here?
Secondly, I can think of one very influential game that was released in Episodes: DooM. Oh wait, make that two: Duke Nukem 3D. Oh, and if you're going to say "but those 'epsiodes' were just shareware versus full version releases" then I'd point you in the direction of Commander Keen episodes 4, 5, and 6 and say "too late".
So many ppl bought the Steam version of HL2 that it did not make it into the game sales charts top 10. As it was the block buster, this means to me that a heck of a lot of ppl bought the Steam version.
The shameful thing about the HL2 Steam version is the price - you need a fraction of the distribution cost of the boxed version for it, so Valve really milked the cow here. And then you're bound to your account and cannot easily give it away (unless you do not care about the e-mail address you registered it with).
[quote]So many ppl bought the Steam version of HL2 that it did not make it into the game sales charts top 10. As it was the block buster, this means to me that a heck of a lot of ppl bought the Steam version.[/url]
No. You simply haven't understood it. Direct sales via Steam aren't counted for the sales charts. Do you think HL2 got game of the year because nobody bought it? So it was immensely popular, but did not make it to the charts top places. Conclusion: So many ppl bought it via Steam, where the sale did not get statistically registered, that it ruined the charts statistics.
Diedel wrote:The shameful thing about the HL2 Steam version is the price - you need a fraction of the distribution cost of the boxed version for it, so Valve really milked the cow here.
Valve is contractually obligated to Vivendi (their [former] B&M publisher) to not undercut them. The price on Steam is the MSRP, and that's pretty much that.
Even if Valve published it themselves retailers really don't like it when the source sells less than the MSRP. If you look at, say, Logitech's products on their website vs. what you would pay at pretty much any major electronics store Logitech's prices are significantly higher.
With the exception of certain supply-limited things, retail is always going to be cheaper than going directly to the people who make the product.
Diedel wrote:No. You simply haven't understood it. Direct sales via Steam aren't counted for the sales charts. Do you think HL2 got game of the year because nobody bought it? So it was immensely popular, but did not make it to the charts top places. Conclusion: So many ppl bought it via Steam, where the sale did not get statistically registered, that it ruined the charts statistics.
Game of the Year awards aren't based on sales.
Do you have any numbers to back up your assertion HL2 didn't make the sales charts?
