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Steam Deals Day Three: Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead, Borderlands on sale

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 28th 2009 at 12:30PM }

To quote the immortal words of the musical revolutionaries known as Widelife, "all things just keep getting better!" For the purpose of this post, "all things" include Steam's post-Thanksgiving deals, which seem to have hit critical value mass today. Resident Evil 5 for $24.99? Borderlands for $33.49? Ghostbusters for $9.99? Left 4 Dead: Game of the Year Edition for $7.49? Daddy like.

Once again, if you don't like the games which have had their prices temporarily torn in twain, tune in tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. PST for the next batch of deals.

Steam Deals Day Two: KOTOR, Dead Space, L4D2 discounted

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 27th 2009 at 12:45PM }

The second day of Steam's five-day-long "Early Holiday Sale" has arrived, bringing with it another batch of wallet-friendly prices on a few excellent titles. The highlight from today's offers is, of course, Left 4 Dead 2, which you can now purchase for just $37.49.

A few older titles have also undergone a bit of cost reduction surgery, including Dead Space, which is $14.99 for today only, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which is just $2.49. None of these float your boat? Swing back by tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. PST for the next round of cheapenings.

Check out Joystiq's Black Friday Game Deals Hub or jump to a retailer guide below:

For more Black Friday coverage, check out Black Friday Deals, Cyber Monday Sales,
And other Black Friday 2009 stories today from Walletpop.com

Valve: Keep listening to your customers, keep listening to your developers

by Ben Gilbert { Nov 26th 2009 at 4:00PM }

Regardless of what some developers may say about Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, the Left 4 Dead 2 developer remains steadfast in its belief that listening to customers and developers is the best way to stay on top of the game. Ars Technica spoke with Valve director of business development Jason Holtman before his keynote at the Montreal International Games Summit, and Holtman explained his company's one-two-punch plan of listening to Steam customers and developers for advice on running the operation. "They're actually usually far better predictors of success than we ever could be," he said.

He was also quick to point out that, despite the cyclical claims that PC gaming is "dying," Steam has been enjoying strong digital sales for years. During his presentation in Montreal, he noted that Valve's games have doubling sales numbers (or more) when they're put on sale, with Team Fortress 2 sales having jumped by as much as 520 percent when the Sniper vs Spy update was released. With numbers like that to back up his claim, it's starting to make a lot more sense to us why developers were so happy to defend Steam last month.

Valve addresses Left 4 Dead 2 server lag on Xbox 360

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 26th 2009 at 11:00AM }

What's the only thing worse than having two dead team members, an approaching wave of special infected, and a fresh sheen of Boomer puke on your person? Having to suffer all those things while also -- fighting -- server la -- tency issues. Fortunately, that experience has become less common, as Valve recently did a bit dusting around their network infrastructure, reducing lag during bouts of Left 4 Dead 2 on Xbox 360.

Of course, even without the lag, you're still going to die. But at least now you'll be able to see where it's coming from. (Hint: It's probably from those three oncoming tanks.)

Steam's Black Friday deals will probably put it out of business

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 26th 2009 at 9:05AM }

After reviewing Steam's Black Friday offerings, we can't help but find the post-Thanksgiving sales offered by other retailers kind of adorable. Aww, you're knocking $10 off the price of Red Faction: Guerrilla? That's cute. Steam is selling that game, and almost every other game by THQ in an enormous, $49.99 bundle. You've got a buy-one-get-one-free deal on LucasArts adventure games? How quaint. Steam is selling like, every LucasArts PC game ever in yet another $49.99 bundle.

On top of those two preposterous offers, Steam will be slashing prices on a handful of games every day for the next five days. Today's sales include Batman: Arkham Asylum for $24.99, Far Cry 2 Fortune's Edition for $9.99 and Dragon Age: Origins for $37.49. In short, you should spend as much time downloading things from Steam as you possibly can this weekend -- with prices like these, we're guessing they'll be filing for bankruptcy some time before Christmas.

Alienware machines now come pre-loaded with Steam

by David Hinkle { Nov 25th 2009 at 2:40PM }

If you've got an impressive amount of money buried in your backyard and would love to own a super slick gaming machine, Alienware might be an option you're currently considering. The company has announced that its "All Powerful" systems will ship with Valve's Steam platform pre-loaded onto the system, allowing potential gamers to sign up for Modern Warfare 2 boycotts mere moments after booting the rig up.

The Steam client will also include a free copy of Portal, in case you missed most of 2007.

Valve selling Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead-themed greeting cards

by Ben Gilbert { Nov 22nd 2009 at 11:59PM }

We know how boring most holly jolly holiday cards can be, so we were glad to see that a handful of Valve-ified greeting cards are now available for purchase at the game maker's online store. Featuring characters from Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2 in compromising holiday situations, there's no doubt that we'll actually – finally – send out greeting cards this year to everyone in our little black book. We're quite partial to the handful of TF2-themed images you see above (just look at The Spy, back with The Scout's mother!), but we're sure there's something for everyone in your list of Source Engine-loving holiday card receivers.

[Via Big Download]

Left 4 Dead 2 gets patched on PC

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 22nd 2009 at 6:30PM }

A few minor glitches which Left 4 Dead 2 players on Steam were experiencing have been squashed by a recent patch. The update includes fixes for an error which impeded matchmaking for players looking for higher difficulty games, for a bug which allowed special infected to team up on players who are being pummeled by a Charger, and for performance problems which cropped up when the game rendered too many decals, "notably when fighting Tanks with shotguns."

Well, thank goodness for that. If there's a better way to kill a Tank than with a few well-placed shotgun blasts, we've yet to find it. Check out the full list of changes after the jump!

Continued →

Modders pump L4D1 maps into L4D2

by Richard Mitchell { Nov 20th 2009 at 10:30PM }

There's some good news for the PC players of Left 4 Dead 2. You no longer have to worry about whether Valve will be bringing the original Left 4 Dead campaigns into the sequel. You see, crafty modders over at l4dmods.com have already implemented the original maps into Left 4 Dead 2. Valve hasn't actually released an SDK for Left 4 Dead 2 yet, so making this mod work will require users to change some files in the original game (and yes, you do have to own both games to make it work). There are some known issues and bugs and, needless to say, it's not the most user-friendly mod out there, but it's probably a small price to pay for the dedicated users.

So, if you want to see a Spitter on the roof of Mercy Hospital (and we know you do), you can. Watch a video of the mod in action after the break.

[Via Kotaku]

Continued →

Stardock: Steam is top digital distribution earner, Impulse second

by David Hinkle { Nov 20th 2009 at 9:30PM }

Stardock isn't a publicly traded company, though it strives to be as open as possible about its business. This is where the annual Stardock Customer Report (PDF link) comes in, an annual assessment of the company's financial situation. Stardock, a publisher of games such as Sins of a Solar Empire, is also behind digital distribution service Impulse, which boss Brad Wardell says is the second only to Valve's Steam platform in terms of revenue generation.

"Our estimation is that Steam - as the current market leader - enjoys approximately 70 percent of the overall digital distribution market with Impulse at 10 percent and all others combined at 20 percent in terms of actual dollars generated per month," Wardell explains. As Wardell estimates, 25 percent of PC platform sales will come from digital distribution channels during 2009's calendar year, so we're talking billions of dollars here.

"Steam and Impulse both have the advantage of exclusive content (Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, Sins of a Solar Empire, Demigod, etc.)," he adds, but explains that Valve's strides in getting major publishers to sign on for Steamworks as a DRM solution (Dawn of War II, Modern Warfare 2) effectively nullifies those games' chances of appearing on Impulse. This is a big area where Impulse is missing out and even though it offers its own alternative -- Impulse Reactor -- the company already missed the boat on its share of the big, fat money-filled pie.

[Via Gamasutra]

Source - Stardock Customer Report 2009 (PDF)

Metareview: Left 4 Dead 2

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 20th 2009 at 3:00PM }

Considering the devilishly heightened difficulty of Left 4 Dead 2, we're surprised enough outlets managed to complete a single campaign in time to submit a review for the title. We have to imagine GameSharks were somehow involved. Regardless, here's what other sites are saying about Valve's follow-up to last year's Zombocalypse survival sim.

Eurogamer (9/10): "Whereas once we treated Left 4 Dead as a stopgap between Half-Lifes, this is no longer a weird little side project with modest expectations, and Valve is confident enough to play around with it, safe in the knowledge that you can trust your players. Left 4 Dead proved it. And whereas that game had a personality, this one is overflowing with it."
IGN (9/10): "It remains one of the most distinctive co-operative titles out there, and allows for some of the most nerve-searing team-based multiplayer gaming on the market."
GameTrailers (8.7/10): "Though not an astounding improvement over the original, Left 4 Dead 2 successfully rekindles that magical zombie-hunting feeling with great new content, and a cool competitive multiplayer mode to boot."
Giant Bomb (4/5 Stars): "The core of Left 4 Dead may have lost some of its newness in the last 12 months, but the wealth of additions in this sequel ought to keep you blasting zombies and munching on brains for a good long while."

Review: Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360)

by Christopher Grant { Nov 20th 2009 at 8:43AM }

When Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2 during Microsoft's E3 2009 press conference -- less than seven months after the release of the award-winning original -- gamers were, perhaps rightfully, shocked. This was the same Valve that spent nearly ten years iterating on Team Fortress 2 and whose experiment in episodic gaming has forced us to reevaluate our expectations for future installments of Half-Life 2 using the "Star Wars–definition" of episodic.

So when Valve announced a direct sequel to the ground-breaking Left 4 Dead on what could only be considered an accelerated schedule for normal developers (and an impossibly accelerated schedule for Valve) we had every right to be shocked. Valve answered this concern with assurances that Left 4 Dead 2 was an entirely new game, with changes that could not be simply grafted onto the original. And the team was right! ... But that's the problem.

Gallery: Left 4 Dead 2 (07/10/09)

Continued →

Left 4 Dead 2's Midnight Riders get a gloriously bearded teaser page

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 19th 2009 at 7:30PM }

Zombie obliterators who've managed to survive Left 4 Dead 2's "Dark Carnival" campaign are probably familiar with the Southern rock outfit known as the Midnight Riders. While they're not exactly an enormous focus in the game's overarching story, a teaser page featuring the heavily bearded band (and a cryptic "Coming Soon") is leading some folks to believe that the Riders will soon play a much larger role in the game's proceedings.

Given the number of facial hair-sporting members of the band (see: four), we're really hoping to get some form of DLC that turns them into playable characters. Perhaps even a new campaign, in which they cure the global zombie infection using nothing but the power of their rock music. How about it, Valve?

Valve: Short-term Steam deals don't hurt long-term performance

by Richard Mitchell { Nov 18th 2009 at 6:15AM }

Speaking to GI.biz, Valve's head of Steam, Jason Holtman, had some interesting things to say about the company's frequent deals and their effect on long-term game sales. According to Holtman, Steam's quick game sales -- offering Team Fortress 2 for $2.49 for only a few hours last month, for example -- don't have a negative impact on a game's long-term performance. Holtman notes that once a brick-and-mortar retailer reduces a game's price, people are reticent to ever pay a higher price again, but downloadable games are different. "You can have sales that are dramatically low and bring the price back up and people don't care," said Holtman, "They don't care at all."

Regarding the $2.49 Team Fortress 2 sale last month, Holtman said that sales actually increased the following weekend -- after it went back to full price. He also mentioned Steam's previous half-off sale of Left 4 Dead, noting that it didn't hurt retail sales at all (readers will recall that Valve claimed that it actually boosted retail sales). Holtman stated that it's possible to run several promotions without "sacrificing" either downloadable or retail sales, and added, "You don't have to hurt somebody to win."

Left 4 Dead 2 delayed in UK, due 'by Friday morning'

by Randy Nelson { Nov 17th 2009 at 4:32PM }

We'd usually say it's a good thing when a zombie invasion gets postponed, but not when we're talking about Left 4 Dead 2 releasing in the UK a couple days after the rest of the world. According to Valve's own L4D2 blog, "copies of the game are still arriving" across the pond, with assurances from the developer that it will "have everyone in the UK playing Left 4 Dead 2 by Friday morning." Wait -- everyone in the UK? Whoa now guys!

While Xbox 360 owners and PC gamers who still buy physical copies of software are out of luck, Valve says that everyone in the region who pre-ordered L4D2 via Steam can play it right now. Of course, those left waiting can pretend they're fighting to survive the scariest of all Left 4 Dead campaigns: "Delay of Game" (tagline: "Patience never killed anyone -- until now!").