I know that to anyone who isnt a pc gamer the Left4Dead preloading experience may be like downloading porn, I mean, you dont care until you get to see it right? And thats not going to be until Tuesday which sounds like a a couple of months away (why they couldnt make a Friday release so I could play on the weekend?).
Then I was thinking about other download services like RapidShare.
Rapidshare is a way for you to upload files and download files from a server that other people uploads. It can be used from business to piracy, but mostly piracy since games take 20 minutes to be release on forums with their respective rapidhsare links. Not only games, porn too! I mean, you get the picture. You can pay a premium of 70 usd a year and download, download, download... and download at peak speed.
The problem with STEAM is that is preloading at an average of 120kb/s, is a stupid thing to complain about since: 1) is not released until tuesday, 2)probably every pc gamer is preloading right now and servers are beign cooled with urine. But it has happened to me, I have had slow download speeds with games and we are not talking about huge releases.
Im paying for a game or content in this case, and I demand speed from the servers.
Thats the next thing Valve has to come forward with the STEAM platform, speed.
STEAM wasnt very reliable at the very beginning, but it has come a long way since then, for good: it has a great friends system, comunity, groups, etc. I mean, lets face it, STEAM is the LIVE for the PC market right now.
Still the groups system needs some work, like a group chat and not the invite only chat, I mean, thats old tech, its easy and it should be there. Some navigation issues could be better too...
Valve has a big oportunity with STEAM. It should try to get EA and other big publishers on board of the platform, Im in favor of a big and only gaming platform for the PC that covers multiplayer and buying games. Since its free and is on the pc I dont care if it starts sucking because then something else will come along and replace it. I dont like multiple downloading services each for a different publisher. EA thinks that is only about the "i sell you a game throught broadband and you just play it", STEAM has the right focus in mind with groups, friends and of course the $ issue.