Over the last few weeks, there seems to have been a shift in the tides of popularity of people's opinions of Vavle and Steam. For a while, it's seemed that both Valve as a developer and owner of Steam have seemed almost impervious to criticism, seemingly offering great games and a digital distribution service that has won many converts. So what's changed? Maybe we can point the finger at the busy end of year schedule and three games in particular; Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2. The release of all of these three games has seemed fraught on the PC, but how much is Valve's fault?

Borderlands

At first things looked rosy; an hybrid of co-op FPS mechanics and Diablo-esque levelling and loot. Indeed, Borderlands was offered as a four-pack offer similar to Left 4 Dead 2's offer, so it encouraged buying and playing with friends. Then Gearbox president Randy Pitchford blasted Valve's ownership of Steam as being "untrustworthy" and that Valve "exploited" smaller, independent devs. His latter criticism was rebuffed by Tripwire head honcho, Jason Gibson who insisted that he didn't feel, as an independent developer, exploited in any way.

Although there is some sense in what Randy is suggesting, I do question the timing of the comments. As Valve undoubtedly own the means to distribute not only their own games but any other developers, how are they different from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's own downloadable channels? True, none of the big three are offering triple A titles through their services, but there's still plenty of competition there. It's also not like Valve are releasing numerous games every year. Considering Left 4 Dead 2 is the first game Valve have released a quick sequel, it doesn't feel like that they're taking advantage of Steam to push their own games. As Jason points out in his rebuttal, Tripwire released two games, Red Orchestra and Killing Floor that were in direct competition with two Valve titles, Day of Defeat and Left 4 Dead. Yet both Tripwire games received good publicity, special offer pricing and post-release support for new maps and content. That hardly sounds exploitative. Of course, there's a whole legal and business hotcake that we gamers don't know about; do all companies do so well on Steam, because there's some crappy games on the service that you'd have to really twist my arm to buy? Jordan mentioned in his original article that it maybe hard to rationalise Randy's comments as a businessman, rather than our gamer-centric viewpoint, but really isn't that all we have? (Borderlands online multiplayer fucking blows however, just thought I'd put that in here Randy)

Left 4 Dead 2

Of course, everyone knows about the planned boycott of Left 4 Dead 2 by gamers who were disgruntled by the swift announcement of a sequel, but those protests seem to have faded away now. No, what irked people was the delaying of the demo by an extra 24 hours. I know, 24 measly hours. Gamers right now have an amazingly bloated sense of entitlement when it comes to what they want and when they want it. I can understand if you want to play something and it's been delayed, then you'd be a bit pissed off, but if you look at the Steam forums, this seems to be another minor issue that has gamers coiled into little bundles of rage. Yes, the demo was late, but we all played it eventually and I think by all accounts most of us really enjoyed it.

The censorship of L4D2 in Australia..... Jesus, don't get me started on that shit. That too hardly Valve's fault; Australia's archaic ratings system banned the game, and if Valve had refused to make the changes they did to allow the game to be released in Australia, we'd all be splitting blood at their refusal to release the game here, despite having their hands tied by the classification board. It's a stark choice; either have the neutered version available for Australian gamers to have the option whether or not to buy it or have it banned completely.

Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2's alienation of a section of the hardcore PC gaming community has been stated many times already, so I'll forgo many of the problems with the game's release and focus on the boycott of MW2 by digital distribution services like Gamersgate, Impulse and Direct 2 Drive. The claim by Direct 2 Drive was that by installing Steam as a mandatory part of MW2's installation, users were installing a "Trojan horse" and that other games like Dawn of War 2 and Empire: Total War would also be boycotted until Valve "decouple it's retail side" from presumably the rest of Steam's features.

I can see why these companies would want this. Steam provides a one-stop retail/community service. You can buy a game from Valve, have the community features that you want plus things like achievements, auto-updating for patches and backup utilities. But is this not what consumers want? Having my all games in the one place tied to a single user account in making PC Gaming much more user friendly for me. At this point, having a download only service that I purchase games from isn't appealing. I might as well just buy the things at retail; there's a GAME and EB about 10 minutes walk from my house, so it's not like it's truly more convenient. Steam's added features enhance the value of a game, beyond making it simply a purchase.

Oh, and people complaining about MW2 on the PC need to just shut the fuck up. Don't like it? Don't buy it. Easy as that. Next!

So what now?

I'll be the first to admit that Steam isn't perfect; right now the download manager won't recognise my ISP and therefore downloading anything from Steam is a big hassle when it comes to my measily 20GB bandwidth for the month. Then there's the sometimes high prices, which has actually improved recently for me anyway. Right now, the Aussie dollar is doing really well against the US dollar; I got Borderlands and Dragon Age for $5 more than the US price, drastically under-cutting Aussie retailers. If I try and buy MW2 I get a price of $88 ($97AUS) which is about the retail price which is what I'd expect, but why a great price from some companies and a higher price from others (ok, just Activision.....).

However, it does seem as if there are just average gamers who are turning against Valve. Reading the reader's correspondance page in this month's PC Gamer magazine, one person wrote in to complain how Valve was "conning" him into making purchases with the weekend sales. Whilst I think this guy was a blethering idiot, how many people out there are feeling unhappy despite seemingly getting a good deal through Steam? It seems not much right now makes people happy.

Whilst the argument rages as to whether we're getting value for money or getting plain screwed when it comes to DLC, it seems Tripwire have a really strange way of releasing DLC. Tripwire are of course the developers of Killing Floor (which I've talked about plenty before), the co-op zombie slaying game that's not Left 4 Dead.



Now a couple of months ago, Tripwire released a new map + weapons pack free of charge for Killing Floor. At the same time they released a DLC pack of four character skins for $2. No is it me or did they get this the wrong way round? I mean, extra levels and weapons are things I'd pay for, but character skins? Nope.....



Now, with a new "Level Up" pack, Tripewire have done it again! The pack contains 3 new levels, 7 new weapons, a new Demolition class, a new level cap (players can play up to 6 levels instead of just 5), plus 20 new achievements and an interface overhaul. All of this is free; what's not free is another 4 character skins. They're $2 again, but now I have this urge to buy both character packs just to give Tripwire some money for giving me free stuff they should have charged me for.

If that makes sense....

We're well into the silly season of gaming (as I like to call it ), too many games and probably not enough cash or time to enjoy them all (so why I'm writing this and not playing Brutal Legend is beyond me). With Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2 already purchased via Steam, my gaming purchases are easing up a bit. Next up on my list was Dragon Age: Origins which I'm really excited about. Hell, my wife is really excited about it, because as big Baldur's Gate fan she's been looking forward to a deep, hardcore RPG.



Now, with me playing more and more titles on my PC, rather than my 360, the only problem I've got is buying the physical copy or a digital download version usually off Steam. I usually buy a physical copy of a game if it's not on Steam, I can get a good trade in price or if it comes with a really nicepre -order package that's too tempting to give up. EB game's website has got a great looking Dragon Age: Origins collectors edition that comes with 3 exclusive in-game items, steel box, cloth map, DVD and soundtrack. Now that's a nice specialedition! Let's be clear, I was always gonna buy Dragon Age because of Bioware's pedigree and I like the sound of the long termDLC and community support they have planned for the game. Thing is I do like the convenience of having all my games on Steam; digital downloads are convenient and can sometimes work out cheaper in Australia although this is probably an accident. When I bought Borderlands last week, I only paid $50AUS for it, thanks to a really favourable exchange rate. If I bought the game at retail, it would likely be between $90 and $100AUS.

So, I was really happy today when I saw Dragon Age: Origins on Steam. Right now there's no pre-purchase offer or any indication of what the game will cost. However, it will be released as a great looking "digital deluxe edition". There is a Steam exclusive item and a "pre-purchase item" available, which is cool. There's another three exclusive items, the Warden's Keep campaign, the Shale party character, Blood Armour (for Mass Effect 2 as well), plus the soundtrack and wallpapers. Wow! This is a great collection, with plenty of juicy looking in game items and cool extras.



I have to say, this is the route that I wish more developers would take with games on digital platforms. Frankly, I've said many times in the past that I wish more games came bundled with a soundtrack. I'm looking at theWitcher Enhanced Edition on my desk and the big box it's contained in. Dragon Age: Origins on Steam is offering a similar package, but alldownloadable. Excellent . I have to say, the more games that come out like this, then trinket laden special editions can tick themselves off my shopping list.

Oh and Brad Nicholson, here's your motherfucking dragon!



(Holy bollocksing shit! She turned into a fucking giant spider!!)

So, Screenwipe star and all round funny bastard Charlie Brooker made his own videogame show. It's rather funny and features some good guest spots and you should watch it now before the BBC get it yanked off Youtube!

If you don't know who Y0j1mbo is, then shame on you. He has been Destructoid's resident old git for for as long as I've been hanging out here. From organising the PS3 FNF to writing some pretty excellent blog articles. He's the founder of the Dtoid Beard club (of which, I am Deputy Vice-chancellor!), he's shown us the wisdom of gaming on the shitter, and has his own fan art gallery.



But the best thing about Jimbo (as we like to call him) is that he's shown me that getting older and becoming a father doesn't mean you stop gaming. Jimbo wrote a great article about how one day his son beat him at Samurai Showdown 2. It things like this that have made me re-evaluate my feelings on becoming a dad.

So from someone who feels he's pretty old, but still 9 years younger than you, Happy Birthday man. Hope you have a good one!

Wow. I have to be honest, cosplay has never really interested me as a part of a videogame lifestyle. But those pesky Russians sure know how to step it up a couple of notches. This website has some amazing photos of a large group of cosplayers re-enacting some scenarios in a landscape no to far from the Zone depicted in the game.



It's a shame I know no Russian, as there seems to be a weatlh of info concerning each shot. There's some makeup and SFX to depcit some of the mutated denizens of the Zone, as well as some nice touches such as the Stalkers wielding bolts to detect anomalies in the Zone.



It's interesting why S.T.A.L.K.E.R. can generate such an interest in cosplay; my perception is that the bulk of coplaying is usually attached to either manga and anime or Japanese games. It's fairly rare to see a Western game, let alone one outside of the US or UK that's go this much interest in it.



It's also a game that probably for many in Russia and former Soviet states, a lot of resonance to it; the ramshackle and devestated zone is akin to some parts of countries like Ukraine and Lithuania that have had a lot of industrial areas simply collapse. These grim modern ruins are something that people can easily go to and serve as a reminder of a not too distant past.



I can't wait for the next S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, Call of Pripyat; neither S.T.A.L.K.E.R game was perfect but a host of mods can make them one of the most absorbing games you can get for the PC.



Link via Kotaku