R
RickyB
Guest
There is one possibility that many (not all) people continue to overlook - that Steam will be released on Sep. 30th, but only via Steam; it would be released later in stores. This would explain why most retailers have been given October/November release dates. This would also probably explain the miscommunication last month with respect to Vivendi announcing a delay.
Obviously Valve are trying something new here, and we can't assume that they will follow the traditional business model - they certainly haven't up until now (by waiting 5 years to officially announce their game). Here are the advantages:
Obviously Valve are trying something new here, and we can't assume that they will follow the traditional business model - they certainly haven't up until now (by waiting 5 years to officially announce their game). Here are the advantages:
- This would certainly create more revenue for Valve because almost everyone would opt to purchase HL2 online rather than wait for the store copy.
This would also create revenue because Valve would not have to pay the publisher overhead/box costs.
This would enable Valve to get the game to market more quickly because they can bypass the traditional "going gold" process which can take up to 2 weeks.
This would ensure that the most hard-core players are playing the game through Steam right away (which would probably end up happening, anyway).