Valve Unveils Steam Cloud

Erik J tips us to news of Valve's announcement that their content distribution system, Steam, will receive an update "in the near future" called Steam Cloud. The new service will allow users to save games and configuration settings online. According to MaximumPC: "This system will be completely transparent to the user. The files cache locally, and will upload when Steam detects an internet connection. There will be no restrictions on users - no save quotas or file management - the system will 'just work.' Any Steamwork game will be able to support these features, and it'll be free for customers and developers."

No file management?

[Drenaran]

I understand how for some users not having file management isn't something they'll notice or care about, but what about the multitudes of people that would enjoy having a choice? What if we just plain don't want something game related (save, setting, whatever) stored any more? I checked the article to see if there really weren't any options at all about your stored files, but unfortunately it gives about the same amount of information as is in the article summary.

This seems like a fairly big thing to leave out seeing as there seems to be a great deal of options and tools (import/export/backup, etc.) for controlling your data (games/saves/etc.) when it comes to the current Steam client.

Steam rocks

[Toreo asesino]

Steam is the first online content distribution system that's genuinely made it easier to buy a game rather than pirate it.

New games are purchased, downloaded, activated and constantly patched all automatically and in no time at all...it's step in the right direction in combating piracy; just make it easier to NOT pirate ffs rather than just stuffing games full of anti-piracy nastiness.

Umm...

[NoobixCube]

Sooo... You store your settings locally, they are uploaded silently, then you go to a friend's place, who has a computer with lower hardware specs, and... your save is unplayable, because it never makes it to the config screen?

Re:Steam rocks

[Majik Sheff]

And what happens when Valve decides that they don't want you to have a game any more? What happens if/when Valve goes out of business or is bought by a less scrupulous company? Oops, sorry. EA owns your ass now.

Re:Steam rocks

[Brian Gordon]

I completely agree.. unlimited matchmaking, being able to easily download any of my games whenever and wherever I want at insane speeds, steam community.. it's all well worth the tiny prices Valve asks.

Re:Steam rocks

[FoolsGold]

There are many "what ifs" when it comes to Steam, but given the popularity of the system, it would seem a lot of people prefer to look on the bright side and take a gamble. If everyone had to worry about the what ifs in life, we'd never have any fun cos we'd be too afraid.

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're assuming you'll be running the game on a system with the recommended, or at least minimum specifications to run the game as intended.

Just like every other software developer under the Sun.

Finally!

[YodaToad]

Yes! I'm really excited about this. I've been buying the games I can from Steam since the original release because I like the fact I don't have to keep track of CDs or DVDs when I reformat my PC (which tends to be every couple months). I've always wished there was a way that games could automatically store my progress online so I don't have to remember to back up my save games (or forget to as is usually the case). It sucks when I'm playing Bioshock and reformat only to realize that I forgot to save and lost all the time I already spent playing. It tends to kill games for me because I don't feel like playing through that part again. I never finished Quake IV, Prey, Bioshock, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and a few other games because of this.

I was happy when I found out UT3 saved all my controls and single player stats between installs because it's always a hassle setting those up.

Now I can be as forgetful as I want and not have to worry!

Re:Umm...

[Awptimus Prime]

Sooo... You store your settings locally, they are uploaded silently, then you go to a friend's place, who has a computer with lower hardware specs, and... your save is unplayable, because it never makes it to the config screen?

I don't know what world you live in, but even when changing video cards and monitors, most Windows games will still load but fail back to the default resolution and color depth. This isn't 1990.

Re:Umm...

[Awptimus Prime]

But you appear to be able to set the options back after setting them too high. The point is, you probably aren't going to find a situation where you are completely locked out of a game because it loaded the wrong config file.

I've never had a situation arise where a friend would come over and install a game on my machine so one of us could sit around and watch the other play. Either you bring your own machine and I'll supply the monitor or we'll be playing something on the 360.

Re:Steam rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Well as a happy Windows 2000 user I have the other fear, that steam will stop supporting win 2k and bang... all the games that I bought on steam.. now out of action.... and I can't even stick with a lower patch version because they don't do that.

Mice is mice? Not.

[tepples]

unless you're using something crazy like a 7-button mouse at home, keyboards are keyboards and mice are mice.

High-DPI optical mice are not low-DPI ball mice, and keyboards with extra keys aren't ordinary 104-key keyboards. Furthermore, gamepads aren't keyboards.

Re:Steam rocks

[The MAZZTer]

And what happens when Valve decides that they don't want you to have a game any more? What happens if/when Valve goes out of business or is bought by a less scrupulous company?

That's when we start Googling for game names with special keywords which lead us to downloads that make the games not require Steam running anymore to use. Even if Valve themselves don't free their games from Steam when it goes under (which they have said they would, and I like to believe they are trustworthy) we can always fall back on the huge community dedicated to making games free. We already paid for and own the games anyway.

Re:Steam rocks

[mollymoo]

That may be true, but it's not like your copy of Windows 98 (or ME, if you're perverse) will have evaporated into the ether, so you could still play the game if you kept the old hardware and OS. With continual online checks you don't even get that choice, you can change nothing and the game will just stop working when the publisher gets bored of providing the authorisation servers.

DRM like this results in de-facto perpetual copyright - if the keys never get released the copyright materials never get released to the public, so the public interest side of the copyright bargain never materialises. I think we need laws to enforce key escrow, patches to disable online activation when the authorisation servers are taken off-line and the like. They're just running rings around the intentions of copyright law otherwise.