YourGamer.Net

The story of Steam is well known to most PC gamers. The initial resentment, the crashes, the bugs, then the sudden upswing, the acquisition of indie titles, the increased ease of use, turning it into a useful tool more than a barely-tolerable burden to your gaming experience. Steam and Valve have together revolutionized the face of PC gaming, in terms of content (episodic games, third party devs all rolled into one app), installation and patching (all done automatically…if devs are gonna release a buggy build, the least they can do is have it patch itself when they finally get around to fixing it…), and most of all, exposure and advertising. How many people had heard of an indie studio calling itself Introversion before their outstandingly quirky RTS Darwinia was featured on Steam? With that success, the entire catalog of Introversion games started appearing on the service (Defcon, the classic Uplink, and the upcoming Multiwinia), and subsequently many other smaller studios started marketing their games on Steam. The platform has become a viable contender to become that “golden bullet” that will unify PC gamers, the answer to Xbox live that Microsoft’s own ham-handed attempt, GFW Live, clearly will never be.

So why bring all this up now? Old news, right? Well, what if Steam isn’t the golden bullet, but merely the trend setter? What if Steam is the prototype for countless other, similar systems of distribution? This could just mean a further splintering of the PC community, which, as some analysts would have it, can only lead to the DOWNFALL OF PC GAMING AS WE KNOW IT. Of course, this is BS, since PC gamers have exclusive, unlimited access to the most open ended online community known to mankind, the freaking INTERNET. Still, it’s an interesting point, and one that’s brought to the forefront by the freeware doodad known as “ZoopTEK Launcher.”

ZoopTEK is, according to their website, “a small organization built around programming for fun or creating useful programs.” This means that ZoopTEK has the notable distinction of being a delivery program for both gaming AND non-gaming software, though the focus is undoubtedly on gaming. The program is super-slim, at just over 500k, and grants you immediate access to several of ZoopTEK’s downloadable games. The reason the program was created, evidently, was to make an easy way for consumers to get the .net framework and Directx files that the games depended on, and it downloads these files automatically…but the potential is so much larger than this. The user doesn’t even need to check the website for new games, or updates to old ones…they’re just…there. And if you try a game and don’t like it, one click, and you’ve got an instant uninstall!

As for the games themselves, I can’t honestly claim to have tried them all. From the ones I have tried, most are passable for a short diversion, some are complete crap, and one is excellent (Zombsand, an outstanding zombie-survival-themed roguelike that I’ve been using to keep my hunger for Left 4 Dead at bay. Definitely try it.). But truly, that’s not the point. The point is, this is just another example of indie developers taking a concept from the commercial scene, using it, adapting it, and making it completely unique (and improved in many ways). That’s the sort of thing I love about the indie scene, and that is why we should ALL be paying attention to it.

EDIT: SO after writing all this up, our lovely editor johnwedd (killjoy =P ) informed me that ZoopTEK has been around for a while, before steam even. So, I stand corrected, but my point still stands. Indie devs are versatile and unique, and deserve notice.
Also, john mentions gametap, the well-received service that provides older games through a well-designed launcher, available on a rotating schedule of some sort or other (being on dialup, I can’t actually try it out to verify exactly how they do it). That sounds pretty awesome as well, and the thought of “recycling” old games in this way is novel. Too bad I can’t claim THAT spark of genius for indie, since gametap is run by Turner Entertainment. Ah well, can’t win em all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 12:41 am and is filed under gaming, links, rant, review, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.