Valve wins online distribution war

THE FIRST DAY OF QuakeCon proved to be quite a spectacular one, at least as far as the future of gaming is concerned. Even though Enemy Territory: Quake Wars did not manage to come to this festival of shooters in its final form, it did not go without excitement.

Id Software released a joint-press release with Valve Software that announced arrival of all the game franchises to Steam, Valve's on-line game distribution system. As of today, Steamed users can download complete library from the wizards of id.

This includes their first title Captain Keen, complete Doom series, legendary Heretic and Hexen (really, why there are no sequels to these magic beauties? Harry Potter could eat his heart out), Wolfenstein - all available as separate titles or inside the accordingly named pack.

With Steam making worldwide publication of indie developer titles such as brilliant Darwinia a reality, even small gamedevs can find a neat way of publishing their titles.

In the end, we can conclude that Valve and its Steam won the war of on-line content distribution. Game catalogue now includes 185 titles, and with franchises such as Civilization, Commandos, Deus Ex, Doom, Jade Empire, Might and Magic, Half-Life, Quake, Thief, Tomb Raider and Wolfenstein, there is no doubt, where gamers can get their ultimate software catalogue. µ