Journal

Steam-Powered

For whatever reason, for the longest time, I was under the impression that Steam didn’t work here.

It all started back in the day of Half-Life 2, where there was all of this hullabaloo about Steam being some kind of unnecessary and troublesome anti-piracy measure. I didn’t care too much about the fuss they were kicking up because I just really, really wanted to play Half-Life 2. The registration and all that did seem somewhat difficult back then, but nothing was going to get in my way en route to some more Gordon Freeman adventures.

A bit later, there was talk about Steam’s digital content store. I remember wanting one or two things from it, but I didn’t get to it. There were three reasons for this. I didn’t have a card back then; I hadn’t yet bought into the idea of digital content; and most of all, I seem to remember that it was region-restricted back then. That is, in the same way the iTunes Store didn’t–and I think still doesn’t–fully work here. I could be mistaken, but that’s definitely how I remember it.

So for a long time, I didn’t get anything off of Steam. It was just my portal to Half-Life 2.

A while ago, I wanted to play Half-Life 2 again. That was, say, half a year ago, I think. There was a problem. My game was on CDs, and even though there wasn’t anything apparently wrong with the discs, there was always some trouble with the installation. So I poked through my Steam window and realised that I could just download it onto my computer. I did, and away I went, back to the land of City 17.

That experience gave me quite a good impression of Steam. Being an idiot, it didn’t occur to me then that I ought to check out the store.

Last week, as you know, I bought Mass Effect 2 for the PC. You’ll also know that my copy of Mass Effect was on the 360, which I’m hoping to sell. So I figured that eventually, I would have to get Mass Effect on my PC. I looked around for a cheap old copy of it. (By the way, I was glad to read that the DRM nonsense had been taken care of.) I failed. And then I thought I’d look for it on Steam.

There it was. Not being in a hurry, I thought I’d wait for an offer, except… Well, you know, I didn’t know if the Steam store worked here. So I did a test. I wanted to get Psychonauts, which was going at a ridiculous price for the week, but having too many things to do, left it for the weekend. Of course, I didn’t realise then that there were new deals during the weekends.

But it was fine too, because I ended up getting Freedom Force and its sequel. I actually have the first game, but I’d buy it for 2USD even if I had both.

This was all a test, of course, just to make sure that I could one day get Mass Effect on Steam. However, I think I’ll certainly be paying more attention to the store now, especially with these lovely offers and a host of games I’d like to be playing after such a long absence on the PC gaming front. (Including, I want to add, Company Of Heroes.)

My one hope is that I’ll one day be able to register the BioWare games I own on disc on Steam, so that I won’t ever have to worry about my discs conking out. Well, one can hope, no?

In the meantime, keep on being awesome, Steam, and you’ll definitely be getting more of my cash.

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© 2010 a modest odyssey.