Computer gaming's Steam-powered war

For weeks now, bits and pieces of Valve Software's "Half-Life 2," one of the year's most hotly anticipated computer games, have been trickling onto nearly 2 million computers around the world.

Along with Tuesday's release of "Halo 2" for Microsoft's Xbox, the game is one of a series of sequels that the game industry is betting on for a record sales season. "Half-Life 2" won't be out until next week, but Valve's new broadband content distribution network, called Steam, has been slowly loading players' computers with the game so they'll have it at their fingertips the moment it's released.

The network, which has been used to a lesser extent over the past few years to distribute updates and less-anticipated games, is getting its toughest market test with "Half-Life 2." By selling the games directly over the Net, the company is experimenting with a model that could substantially transform the video game business, which now rivals Hollywood in annual revenue.

News.context

What's new:
Valve Software is using its new broadband content distribution network to bring "Half-Life 2" to gamers.

Bottom line:
By selling games directly over the Net, Valve is experimenting with a model that could substantially transform the video game business--and bode ill for retail stores and middlemen such as game publishers.

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But the network has also gotten Valve into hot water with Sierra Entertainment, the Vivendi Universal subsidiary that is publishing the "Half-Life 2" game, but doesn't get the same cut of copies distributed online. Even as they jointly promote the new game, the companies are locked in a court battle over the broadband network that could help shape the increasingly profitable gaming world for years to come.

"A lot of the time game developers feel like they're not being taken care of by their publishers, and there's a lot of friction," said IDC analyst Schelley Olhava, who follows the gaming industry. "Utilizing Steam could be Valve's way of getting around that."

Valve's Steam network is one of the most ambitious online projects aimed at pushing more software distribution online, a trend that could ultimately bode ill for retail stores and middlemen such as game publishers. The growing penetration of home broadband connections, along with increasingly efficient file-distribution technologies such as BitTorrent, now make it relatively simple to download even massive packages like a video game or the Linux operating system.

These budding broadband distribution services are also being closely watched by video-on-demand services, which are hoping to find ways to provide consumers with instant access to movies online without choking home Internet connections.

The game's release, scheduled for Nov. 16, has been eagerly anticipated for several years, both by fans and the wider technology community. Like Id Software's "Doom 3" a few months ago, it is viewed as a title that will drive fans to spend potentially millions of dollars on hardware that can best handle the cutting-edge graphics and game play.

A science-fiction sequel that will owe as much to H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" as to conventional "twitch" shooting games, "Half-Life 2" will set a research scientist on a planet overrun by malevolent aliens, trying to figure out how to preserve his own life and that of the

This is a good thing

Publishers muck up game development so often. Anything that puts control back into the hands of the game developers is a good thing.

This is a good thing

Publishers muck up game development so often. Anything that puts control back into the hands of the game developers is a good thing.