Unreal Tournament 3 – Now with Steam Functionality!
After yesterday’s farce (whether by accident or design) over the Gears of War .exe expiry, this comes as a very welcome change. You can now add your Unreal Tournament 3 keys to Steam, in preparation for a major update. I may take every opportunity I can to demonstrate just how shallow the Epic business model is, but I cannot deny that this was a good move, especially in the wake of yesterday’s controversy, so I guess apologies are in order towards Cliffy B and crew if they maintain smart moves like this.
We at The Reticule are unashamed Steamophiles. We love Steam to bits really, and it’s basically thanks to Steam communities that we met and created the site. But what I’d really like to know is, what do you guys think about Steam, and moves like this? Do you find Steam to be as intuitive and useful as we do? Or is it unecessary bloat distracting you from your games? Do you feel annoyed that Epic are perhaps forcing you to use it after you bought it in the knowledge that it wasn’t on Steam?
As a slight aside, incase people are confused, I, Greg Wild, am infact Stalins Ghost. Sorry for any confusion there guys! :)
6 thoughts on “Unreal Tournament 3 – Now with Steam Functionality!”
Steam is my lord and master. It takes a massive price difference and the lure of a nice box for me to buy a game in the shop vs. getting it off Steam.
I always thought that the ability to add retail keys to Steam was something sorely underdeveloped (iirc, it only ever used to work with Valve games. And Prey.); here’s hoping more companies follow suit, so we can have the best of both worlds!
Totally agreed! I do tend to wonder if Valve take a cut that a lot of developers aren’t willing to part with to have it up on Steam. Steamworks is free, but I wonder if Valve charge for the server space maybe? I don’t know, I’m just speculating. No-one quote me on that one! It’s promising to see both UT and Empire Total War going this way though. It’ll make them a breeze to use.
Well I think the only games that work with it are ones you can buy through Steam? At least that’s how I thought it worked.
Yeah I think they have to be a game that is on Steam as well, otherwise there is nothing on the servers regarding the game.
I really don’t much care for Steam as a marketplace, and the only time I buy from them is when it’s indie stuff that had to be direct download anyway (World of Goo, Audiosurf), or when they have a crazy good sale on (The blowout that was the Steam Sale). I’m a collector at heart, so to miss the opportunity for a box pains me on a spiritual level. I need my boxes and my special editions full of things I’ll never need, like the version of Empire Total War with the working compass. I’m hoarding for the point in the near future where digital distribution envelops all.
When boxes became naught but rattling DVD cases, with but a slip of glossy paper with your CD upon it, I lost all desire to own the physical copy.
Not that I miss all the various decoder ring schemes folks used for DRM back in the day when a boxed PC game could weigh a pound even after you took the dozen floppies out…