To Steam or not to Steam

[Knotz]

Ok, I looked around and the only post I found about this was http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=43270 which isn't what my post is about. But if you know of it being somewhere else don't hesitate to take this post down and I will post there :)

I've seen in a few places people talking about Steam and why Planetside will/won't be released through Steam. I wanted to make a poll and see what people think/want regards to whether it will be released through Steam.

Personally, I would love for it to be released through Steam. For the longest time I was very anti-steam, I forget why but it was a very long time ago that I got a distaste for it and never used it since until just a couple of months ago. Since then I've grown to love it, and love the way all my games are in one place with one account.

Now if Planetside 2 is released through Steam, I know that all my games will still be in the same place, able to run through the same system, and not have clients spread out all over my desktop... I'm OCD about my desktop, very clean (My Computer, Recycle Bin, My Documents, in that order, top left hand side, nothing else allowed!!!)

So what do you all want?

[Stew]

I want steam

[Karma]

I think the benefits of using Steam far outweigh the negatives.

[Goku]

Totally separate as he wants a PS2 Linux client, which is quite out there. I think you are covered. I would like to see this on Steam. Seeing as how DCUO and other SOE games are on there its pretty high chance. I do not want to see it required though (as in making everyone launch via steam).

[Knotz]

Totally separate as he wants a PS2 Linux client, which is quite out there. I think you are covered.

Sweet :3

I'm pretty sure they can link something into the steam friendslist too... not sure what... but its possibru :3

[Coreldan]

It's a win-win that adds for a lot more publicity.

EDIT: But yea, I wouldnt force it, but have it available much like DCUO for example.

[Mirax]

I can't imagine why they would since it has been its own launcher forever and 3 days.... But if other SOE games are on steam then who knows? Whats in it for steam though if it is F2P? Do they collect some sort of royalty from SOE?

If it was on steam I'd rather use that than SOEs silly launcher...

[ChipMHazard]

Personally I'm against digital distribution, DRM services as a matter of principle.
However seeing as PS2 is an online game, and that the video game industry changed a long time ago in this respect, I don't rightly care enough to either be against it or for it.
If SOE decides to distribute through Steam then fine, if not then fine. As long as I get to kill smurfs and barneys I'll be just as happy as Elmer Fudd during hunting season.

[Ruffdog]

I say yay to get the word out more. They have a great "Free to play" sub section and like Goku said SOE already have titles in this. I think its a safe bet. The whole Steam friends thing can only be a good thing - getting your non-PS buds together and such.

[RNFB]

There is no good reason to not use Steam. I don't understand how you could possibly not want your game on Steam. Every bit of exposure helps to make a game more successful, especially if that exposure is on nearly every PC gamer's PC.

Some decent integration, rather than just "oh you can download our launcher here", such as automatic updates (unless SOE wants to finally put automatic updating on their own stuff, so I can get right into the game on patch days) would be nice.

[Poser]

I don't know any downside to Steam. If anything it will get more people to at least try the game. The version of Steam that sucked died nearly a decade ago.

[cryosin]

Matt said that steam charges a hefty royalty for each transaction on steam.
There are pro's and cons to using steam. I would personally add the game to steam much later, when all the hype dies down and you need those players who don't even know what the game is. I'm not in charge though, final say is on SOE.

[Revelator]

Yeah, I can see steam being used down the road, and I'd like to see it but I don't think we will get it initially.

[Knotz]

for the 5 people that voted that they don't want Steam, why not? cryosin I assume you voted no so thanks for the explaination, but what about the others?

[Surgio]

I sure hope it will be available through Steam. It would do wonders for the visibility of the game, and, considering that most of the free-to-play titles in their section on Steam aren't top notch games (IMO), PS2 would stand out even more.

[RNFB]

Matt said that steam charges a hefty royalty for each transaction on steam.

X% of Free is....?

[Algo]

X% of Free is....?

Cash shop transactions..

[Maarvy]

I would like Steam as a option .

[Luieburger]

I want them to use Steam and VAC, but I don't think they will.

[kaffis]

I'd love for Steam to be used. I'd also love for Station Cash to be purchasable through Steam. It would lead to more impulse purchases for me.

That said, I selected "I don't expect it to be on Steam" because, well, I don't think it will release on Steam. Might it move there eventually? Yeah, but the vibe I've gotten (disappointingly, on a personal level) from RadarX is that they don't intend to launch it on Steam.

[Zenben]

I would love for them to put it on Steam, but I don't think it's going to happen, at least not at first. Maybe after it's been released for a while.

[Rumblepit]

you wont see it on steam...... sorry. higby did say they were looking into something like steam for soe games. he said they will name it SOEAM lol. how do i know you wont see it on there???? they are using PB.... steam games run vac... if they were planning on putting it on steam they would have developed the game for vac and not pb.

[Absentis]

I don't see steam being used, but I don't particularly care either way. It seems every developer/publisher wants to release their own Steam-like client, so I believe SOE will end up making their own and releasing it through the client or as a download straight from their main site or PS2 site.

Although, like other SOE games, I could also see PS2 being released at a later point on Steam if SOE doesn't create their own client.

[Rago]

Im also againt it.
I have many Steam Games and i still dont like it.(Since CS)

[razor851]

I love Steam.

[Arovien]

Does not matter to me. Honestly, SOE has more important things to work at than dealing with Valve.

[Mr DeCastellac]

I would love to have it on Steam, but I highly doubt it will appear there, at least until they've payed off the development and if they're making more than enough consistent profit to pay employees and keep the servers running.

I believe Steam takes a percentage of microtransaction profits, so I could understand why games that rely on those profits are hesitant to join up.

It doesn't really matter though. People seem to forget about the "Add a non-steam game" feature. If any game isn't on Steam, you can just add the executable and have nearly the same functionality as if it was released on Steam in the first place. You can still shift-tab, take screenshots that will be displayed on the library background, et cetera. The only thing I can think of is that it won't show you the news on the library page, and friends can't do the 'Launch Game' function from the friends list. Meh.

[ODonnell]

you wont see it on steam...... sorry. higby did say they were looking into something like steam for soe games. he said they will name it SOEAM lol. how do i know you wont see it on there???? they are using PB.... steam games run vac... if they were planning on putting it on steam they would have developed the game for vac and not pb.

I'm not sure about that. Arma 2 uses Battle Eye as their anti cheat but is on steam. I think we could possibly see it on steam but it will depend on what they can negotiate in regards to $$$.

[Noivad]

I don't want it on steam, I would perfer to load PS2 straight off my SSD drive then to have to go through steams launcher and multiple extra hops to the game itself.The less running, the more efficient the system. Why would I care if my friends are playing some other game when I'm going tp play PS2. If they want to talk to me they hop on the Outfit Team Speak.

But that said, for those of you that would rather type chat to your friends instead of talk to them online well, if Sony wants to put it on steam for you, no problem. Just put an option in there for those people who do not want to use steam.

[Unforgiven]

i dont know what it is, but ever since i installed steam, my internet speed, and boot up speed were dramatically slower, and every time i play a game i got from steam, it has serious problems. i tried re-installing and all that crap, same thing happens

i hope there is no steam, or i wont be able to play at all!

[Pyreal]

+1 for Steam

[Kran De Loy]

Poll needs a 'Don't Care Either Way' option :P

Why do people keep forgetting that basic concept?

[UnDeAdKiTtY]

Let them get the game working and launched first.

[james]

I would love it to be on steam, but i just doubt it will come out on steam. There is a reason why most f2p games come to steam later. Steam takes a large chunk of all money bought in. I feel with the hype around the game they don't need steam. Perhaps down the road it will be something to do.
The numbers i have heard from some friends in the industry is something around the 30 percent mark is the royalty. But that may or may not be true.

[Otleaz]

Add it to steam once population starts becoming a problem. Once they add more continents, for instance.

[EightEightEight]

Why would you add your F2P game to something you have to pay money for. The Ingame store would not have anything to do with steam so they would get no money from it.

I don't think steam is a viable option for this title. Just download it from a website and if you NEED steam then use the steam functions to load the game into steam after its installed

[Otleaz]

Why would you add your F2P game to something you have to pay money for. The Ingame store would not have anything to do with steam so they would get no money from it.

That isn't how it works.

I don't think steam is a viable option for this title. Just download it from a website and if you NEED steam then use the steam functions to load the game into steam after its installed
You should look up what exactly Steam is.

[EightEightEight]

That isn't how it works.

You should look up what exactly Steam is.

If SOE used steam they would have to shell out EXTRA money in order to do so which means they would have to push you to buy more stuff to make up the costs.

I don't want PS2 to be needing more cash then it already does

[Otleaz]

If SOE used steam they would have to shell out EXTRA money in order to do so which means they would have to push you to buy more stuff to make up the costs.

I don't want PS2 to be needing more cash then it already does
Even if steam takes some of the money each time someone makes a transaction, they would still be making MORE money because of the several million people who would see PLANETSIDE 2 with a huge backsplash every time they opened up steam.

The only thing to take into consideration is that you can milk your already interested customers "tax" free until you switch to steam. Finding the balance is key.

[Anderz]

DCU is on Steam, and I imagine has a much stronger player base because of it. I think SOE would be silly not to put their game on steam. It's incredible exposure they won't want to go without.

[xSCORPIONx]

DCU is on Steam, and I imagine has a much stronger player base because of it. I think SOE would be silly not to put their game on steam. It's incredible exposure they won't want to go without.

I also agree. Steam always has over 4m people on every day. That would be so good for PS2. Also i think steam charges a % for DLC and not in game transactions. Just don't put it on origin,lol EA is such a terrible company.

[The Kush]

Totally separate as he wants a PS2 Linux client, which is quite out there. I think you are covered. I would like to see this on Steam. Seeing as how DCUO and other SOE games are on there its pretty high chance. I do not want to see it required though (as in making everyone launch via steam).

Exactly this. If you want it have it, but don't force it upon me I don't want any third party software.

Edit: After further reading this thread kinda makes me mad. Why would they host the game on third party software, then money has to be dished out to steam when that money could be going to updates and further enhancing PS2

[Knotz]

say PS2 without Steam gets 2 million people playing... and with Steam it gets 6 million..

now lets take that 30% royalty figure... theres nothing to pay for in the game at all except the station cash, so lets say PS2 without steam pulls in $500,000
all of that money goes to SOE... great, good job guys

now if they use steam, thats $1,500,000, 30% of that is $450,000

that means steam takes 450k, SOE/PS2 gets $1,050,000

of course all these numbers are just guesses so thats up for debate

[RedKnights]

Steam is great if only for that "Hey thar what's that game you're playing... oh it's free you say? Might as well try it... OMG THIS ROX"

[AzK]

I wouldn't be playing it through steam, but i think it should be there because it would bring loads more people to the game.

[Vamp Hunter]

Just don't put it on origin,lol EA is such a terrible company.

My god please NOT on origin! I wouldn't be able to play it if it was... :(

[maddoggg]

No,just no to steam!
I am sick of background programs!
What happened to the good old days when in order to play a game you needed only the game.
Steam causes MAJOR lagg issues for me with bc2 and other games(when i managed to start bc2 without steam i was honestly amazed by how much more playable it was in multiplayer).

[Blackwolf]

Ok, I looked around and the only post I found about this was http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=43270 which isn't what my post is about. But if you know of it being somewhere else don't hesitate to take this post down and I will post there :)

I've seen in a few places people talking about Steam and why Planetside will/won't be released through Steam. I wanted to make a poll and see what people think/want regards to whether it will be released through Steam.

Personally, I would love for it to be released through Steam. For the longest time I was very anti-steam, I forget why but it was a very long time ago that I got a distaste for it and never used it since until just a couple of months ago. Since then I've grown to love it, and love the way all my games are in one place with one account.

Now if Planetside 2 is released through Steam, I know that all my games will still be in the same place, able to run through the same system, and not have clients spread out all over my desktop... I'm OCD about my desktop, very clean (My Computer, Recycle Bin, My Documents, in that order, top left hand side, nothing else allowed!!!)

So what do you all want?

My desktop has absolutely zero icons on it. It's been squashed down to a little pop up menu at the bottom right of my screen.

That being said, no steam. I hate any system that forces distribution through one thing, and I've heard terrible things about steam.

[TheInferno]

No,just no to steam!
I am sick of background programs!
What happened to the good old days when in order to play a game you needed only the game.
Steam causes MAJOR lagg issues for me with bc2 and other games(when i managed to start bc2 without steam i was honestly amazed by how much more playable it was in multiplayer).

I don't think anyone is saying that it needs to use only Steam, but rather if it was an option. You can get DC Universe Online without Steam (I think) or get it on Steam. The game functionally plays the same.

Honestly, I don't care, so I'm not voting. Even if it is, what I'll probably do if I want to use the Steam Overlay is simply do the "Add Non-Steam Game" thing and run it like that. That way I can run with the overlay or without. The advertising boost would be nice, but that's up to SOE.

[Dougnifico]

I want it without any game services, but a lot of players use services like steam and (I dare say it) origin. If you put it on as many of those platforms as possible, more players to add to the population and the game's success.

Just don't force me to put up with any of them.

[james]

say PS2 without Steam gets 2 million people playing... and with Steam it gets 6 million..

now lets take that 30% royalty figure... theres nothing to pay for in the game at all except the station cash, so lets say PS2 without steam pulls in $500,000
all of that money goes to SOE... great, good job guys

now if they use steam, thats $1,500,000, 30% of that is $450,000

that means steam takes 450k, SOE/PS2 gets $1,050,000

of course all these numbers are just guesses so thats up for debate

That is very debative. There is no evidence to back up Steam equals more money for f2p, thanks to Steam keeping all records private. Right now steam seems to be mostly used as a last ditch effort to add a revenue stream to a dieing game.

Your numbers are a bit off to. Based off the the average f2p. 10 percent of the user base pays money. So out of the 2 million players, 200K pay something, and an average of around 20ish dollars a user. More in the several million dollar range.

[Prexun]

Right now I don't have any steam window in the background and it's taking 92mb of RAM. When I play games it usually goes up to 192mb. It's really not a problem for me as I have alot of RAM, but for others that have like 4gb and have alot of other stuff in the background, that might cause some issues because ps2 is probably going to take alot of RAM.

So I vote no, for the sake of others (my vote isn't going to change anything, but still).

[TheInferno]

Why is it that people are thinking that if it's on Steam it can only be on Steam? I honestly don't get it.

[Mikenumbers]

I think being able to download the game via Steam along with a standalone downloader would be a good idea, I certainly wouldn't want it to be Steam only.

However if they were to get the game listed on Steam don't they have to give a small cut of their profits to Valve? I recall a handful of companies that refused to publish their games via Steam because of that, one even claimed they get a small say in what content they could add and what they couldn't, might have only applied to indie companies...

Or I may be wrong and my memory might be on the blink... long day. :3

[ChipMHazard]

I think being able to download the game via Steam along with a standalone downloader would be a good idea, I certainly wouldn't want it to be Steam only.

However if they were to get the game listed on Steam don't they have to give a small cut of their profits to Valve? I recall a handful of companies that refused to publish their games via Steam because of that, one even claimed they get a small say in what content they could add and what they couldn't, might have only applied to indie companies...

Or I may be wrong and my memory might be on the blink... long day. :3

You're correct. Valve apparently wants to have a say in distributing DLC, although I don't remember to what degree and in what capacity.

If they add it to Steam then it obviously won't be exclusive to Steam as it's not a Steamworks game, but the above will still affect them regardless.

[TheInferno]

Actually, we got anyone who plays DCUO through Steam here? Can you use your Steam Wallet to buy Station Cash? I don't think you can, but my play of it is fairly limited, and I haven't paid anything anyway.

I figured the way DCUO works (and presumably Planetside 2) they might have to give Steam an advertising/promotional fee or something, but they don't charge on the microtransactions.

Isn't this all moot, though? Thought I heard that someone from the dev team said no Planetside 2 on Steam. Unless we're discussing just our opinions, in which case, mine has already been said.

[Radaeron]

Why is it that people are thinking that if it's on Steam it can only be on Steam? I honestly don't get it.

I chose the option closest to what was available.

Ultimately, I don't care. I would not want to be forced into using Steam, but don't care if it's an option. Because then I can just not use it.

As far as people thinking if x is on Steam then it's only on Steam... I have no idea. It boggles my mind tbh. That said, the vast majority of gamers only even want their games on Steam.

[Mastachief]

Having it available on steam = instant success.

Having it only on the soe launcher may put some people off like origin does. Yes i know that the launcher isn't origin but EA did long term damage with that piece of crap they call a rival to steam.

[ChipMHazard]

Having it available on steam = instant success.

Having it only on the soe launcher may put some people off like origin does. Yes i know that the launcher isn't origin but EA did long term damage with that piece of crap they call a rival to steam.

A video game launcher is not a digital distribution, DRM system. It's a rather strange comparison.
MMO's still launch via their own launcher, as far as I know, even if it's made available on Steam.

[GLaDOS]

I want Steam, because it will probably let a lot more people learn about the game. That seems to be a problem with Planetside 2, it's an absolutely awesome game but off most people's radar. However, I probably wouldn't launch it from Steam, both to hide the embarrassing amount of time I will play from my friends and because I like to feel unique and special.

EDIT: Upon reading some other posts (which I foolishly did not do before) I'm not quite as keen on Steam. Limiting any addons to the game sounds, for lack of a better word, bad. Also, I forgot to mention that I doubt it will be included on Steam. I don't know why, it's just gut sense I guess.

[Flaropri]

I think Steam will be used eventually, just as it is used for other SOE titles. Personally, I don't care to use Steam for this myself, but being on Steam is essentially (massive) free advertisement for the game, and will encourage a lot more people to get into it, much as it got me into PoxNora and DCUO (after they went F2P). I might not play DCUO anymore, but the fact that I saw it on Steam and such encouraged me to try it, and that's a good thing for the game.

As long as using Steam is optional, it's only a benefit for everyone.

[Rivenshield]

Steam sucks donkey balls.

I just wanted that to be on the public record.

[Carnage]

Steam sucks donkey balls.

I just wanted that to be on the public record.

well you can also note "on the public record" that steam has a large community of people that like it very much. (see the poll)

I personally like steam for many reasons, mostly the friend interactions, and knowing when your mates are in what game as well as cross game chat, irrelevant of if PS2 will be on steam, I will be adding the steam overlay to PS2 ASAP.
but really it should simply be available from steam, even if you don't need steam to run it. I would like it on steam, but as a F2P game from SOE it should be available without it.

[Canadian Vanu]

Removed for idiocracy.

[Coreolis]

I'd love it to be on steam, it would help boost the number of people playing it, and most of my other games are on there anyway so its nice to be able to go to one place to open my games xD

If they did it the way other F2P MMO's are doing it, you wouldn't be required to use steam to play anyway, its just a convenient way to do it for people who already have it / a way to spread the word about the game. For people who don't like steam, you can always just dl it from SoE or whoever.

[AzureWatcher]

Even if the game does not end up on Steam, I will still run it through Steam. The overlay is wayyyy too handy to not to.

If they do include it and it does make it on the front page of the Steam Store on the "Featured" section, there will be a great many people trying it out. Especially since it is F2P.

[Azarga]

I don't want Steam to be used as the only option. For me Steam is nothing but a little parasite that launches itself every time I try to play something. It gives me no benefits. Not a big deal, but annoying.

If there will be choice to use either Steam or separate launcher, that would be fine by me.

[wraithverge]

just fyi, to buy SC off steam just install any other SOE game.