ArmA:Combat Operations on STEAM?

[Stoned Delta 0]

As BIS Studios are releasing ArmA in the USA I wonder if maybe STEAM would be a good way to get it to more gamers. Valve is a smaller independent company that runs STEAM by itself. So many people already have STEAM for older games like HL2 and CS. Even more people are downloading it everyday to get special prices on games like COD1 and COD2. You would almost think that BIS would dump Game-Spy after the TERRIBLE server implementation that OFP recieved from Speak-Easys' aging DSL network. STEAM is an FPS players program. Designed for implementing Valves own FPS games to the public and basically cutting out the cardboard and CD/DVD. So just wondering (or actually hoping) that mybe STEAM and BIS Studios could get togather and make ArmA one of the most popular combat sims of its time.

[smellyjelly 0]

There was a poll about this before, and the majority of the people voted "No".

[KaiserPanda 0]

That isn't exactly fair. I bet most of those "no"s came from people who haven't used Steam since the early days of Counter Strike. It's the best online distribution service there is. If ArmA is released on Steam, it'll reach a much wider audience.

[vipermaul 246]

ATARI has their own digital download service.

ATARI is usually good at publishing games.

Let's see what they come up with. God knows they have plenty of time LOL. May 2007. Feels like 2.5 years away. Instead of 2.5 months.

[max power 21]

There was a poll about this before, and the majority of the people voted "No".

Was it BIS polling the community or was it the community polling the community? With all due respect, BIS's nor Valve's nor Atari's business decisions are democratic in nature, especially not in the hands of detached 3rd parties. I'm thinking that there is a small percentage of people who would boycott ArmA if it was released on steam, weighed against perhaps a much larger potential consumership.

[Adv 0]

Stoned Delta, I appreciate what your saying and have to agree it would increase exposure of ARMA. I have not seen the post where this was spoken about before but I suspect there is one factor that is not really being talked about. I feel most of the tactical shooter community and CS are at odds.

They see the same things and extract differrent ideas about how to use it. If any of you have played any tactical shooter sims you have inevitably heard the remark "Go play Counter Strike you @#$%#% noob" or some other nonsence.

In reality most of the best gamers I've known have played CS or quake or some other frowned upon game by the tac. sim community. Steam in most gamers minds is tied very closely to CS style games. And rightly or wrongly many feel that opening the game to the CS crowd would produce an endless stream of "l33t kiddies" trying to "pwn the noobs". I feel this is a very unfair generalization but it is made by many. But what tac. shooter player would want that in the game they love so much?

These are only half informed impressions granted but there is a divide in the FPS community along realisim lines. Would we really be having this disscusion if steam was integral in OFP's main release years ago?

[celery 8]

Buying Armed Assault would only and solely be the decicion of the Steam users. Mind you that Steam is publishing many other not-so mainstream games like Red Orchestra, Darwinia and DEFCON that the stereotypical CS teen would frown at.

If such a player would like ArmA and start playing it more, I don't see much trouble in that. He probably wouldn't waste his time shooting braindead AIs but blast real people in CTF and similar games. As heated conversation is sometimes part of the thrill in PvP, most people won't mind if a kid expresses his dark feelings to everyone. And if they're good players that pwn everybody, that's great!

[Dwarden 1125]

most people answered in that Steam poll NO because they feared that ArmA retail would then "require" Steam ...

or they just simple hate Valve/Steam for "insert bad experience" reason ...

today Steam is "another" online digital Content Delivery System which "just works" as bonus to retail channels or other CDSs (eg.Gamers Gate) ...

imagine changes needed to implement it like difference between StarForce vs Securom vs Softwrap etc.

this was major change in "Steam" as it's easy to implement to even old games

(e.g. see Prey it's now on Steam even they first said Steam suck and when with Triton > yet Triton (DiStream) went bankrupt))

now game versions from retail w/o Steam and with Steam can work together in MP w/o problems etc...

all depends on BIS deals with publishers (time exclusivity @ market etc)

and BIS self can sign the deal with Valve (income from Steam sales then go directly to BIS pocket) ...

i'm not trying to say that Steam si perfect, it always was far away from that,

yet it's most matured service on market with 10+ mil users = $*$^$+$    

[Luciano 0]

This game is way too unstable for Steam. It will cause too many problems.

People with the sprocket version still can't play MP because they crash every hour or so.

And who said people will boycot if released on steam? They said exactly the same thing about starforce and securom and they didn't boycot anything. And its not up to what the player wants.

I'm sure Valve wouldn't want this problem on Steam. It will just ruin their reputation.

[whisper 0]

Mmmh, the sprocklet version is unstable, I don't get an unstable version with the DVD German, at all, and I guess most if not all of the non-Sprocklet users do have a stable game.

So the bold generalization "This game is way too unstable for Steam" is rather off, tbh.