Download market place

[MjM]

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/microsoft-xbox/594355p2.html

Downloads will be managed from a central system user interface. They will appear as offers to the player in a download marketplace. Free and premium downloads will be supported. Developers will be able to send players to the marketplace and notify them when new content is available.

I think this is how downloads should be handled in steam.
It would give the users more control and fore-warning of the fact that a download has been released released. A schedule feature could be good as well. Obviously they can maintain the current system of automatically keeping all games up to date.

Thoughts

 

[Dekstar]

I think it would be a bit weird. I mean, I'm guessing that even if this was implemented, then you would have to restart the steam client before they would show up, and then there's just more clicking. But yeah it would allow more access and control over how much you've downloaded I guess.

 

[Lanthanide]

I had a very nice surprice when the upgrade for CS came out that added bots to the game.

It started downloading without me knowing about it. All 600-700 megs of it. I never play CS. I live in a country where international bandwidth (such as traffic to the USA) is charged at 10x the rate of national traffic. I was not happy.

 

[MjM]

I cant see why they couldnt implement an autoupdater, sorta like the AVG updater, where it downloads the update, installs it, then restarts AVG.

If Microsoft can do it, surely Valve can manage it. :E
I think now that they have HL2 done, they should work on gettinf steam as user friendly as possible, its the only thing holding them back atm. Plus it has huge commercial potential.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I had a very nice surprice when the upgrade for CS came out that added bots to the game.

It started downloading without me knowing about it. All 600-700 megs of it. I never play CS. I live in a country where international bandwidth (such as traffic to the USA) is charged at 10x the rate of national traffic. I was not happy.

Turn off automatic updating.

 

[Dekstar]

Turn off automatic updating.

Rhowned!!! :E I love doing that.

 

[G-Dub]

Pi Mu Rho i've been meaning to ask... what's your avatar a picture of?