"We're all the rage"
Bad Company 2 and the Steam Pre-load controversy
Let me start off with this: for all of you who are pissed at not getting a preload, get over it. I know, I know. It’s obnoxious. We all know the Steam servers will be overloaded at release. It’ll take 20 tries to get the download started, and we’ll probably all start off with some absurdly bad transfer rate. But here’s the reality of the situation. Nowhere, at any time, did the Steam product page claim that there would be a preload option for this game. Pre-purchase, yes. Predownload, nuh-uh. So if you’re angry that you didn’t get your preload, well, it’s your own damn fault for not reading the product page when you bought the game.
A trip through the Battlefield subsection on the Steam forums will reveal to all of you a plethora of threads on this topic with literally thousands of posts. Some people talking about how they cancelled their Steam orders and got it through EA Downloader (those of you who did this are seriously the dumbest people alive) or Direct 2 Drive. For those of you who did, I’m happy for you. You got to download the game already. But quite frankly, I think you made a mistake. You see, D2D is simply a download service, and EA Downloader is the horrendously implemented file transfer program for an equally poorly made EA storefront. Steam is a community. Yes, I know that BC2 isn’t directly implemented with Steam like other games. But it will at least show my friends what I’m playing, it’ll be integrated into my games library automatically, I won’t have to worry about a finicky download service in the future (did I mention EA Downloader sucks?), and I won’t have to worry about a disk and CD keys. D2D and EAD only address the physical CD and key issues, and D2D only covers the finicky part. Neither of them has a friends system, a real community, and EAD doesn’t even work half the time (especially when a title has been out for a while. Ask Mack about his 2142 tales of woe).
And not only that, but this isn’t even Valve’s fault. It’s DICE’s. They appear to have waited to last minute to see if the whole thing worked with Steam and it didn’t. I’m going to attempt to get a hold of someone at Valve to see how the whole preload thing works, but I’m fairly certain this sort of thing has to be done from the publisher/developer’s end, not from Valve’s.
So really this comes down to the forum trolls not reading a damn thing, then directing their anger at the wrong target, then ignoring posts by people who are actually in the know. And if you guys think you have it bad, just remember that I’m on a 1.5 Mb connection, which during the day Speedtest.net tells me is typically between .75 and 1 Mb (right now I’m actually getting 1.27! But my ping to NYC is still 70, and it’s not that far away….). Even if I were lucky and got the full download speed I get from Steam on non-release days, I’d max at about 125 KB/sec. So for those of you with 5 Mb connections and up, you can cry me a river, because I’m probably not going to be playing ’til Friday. If anyone has a right to be angry at a lack of preload, it’s me, and I’m not.
I have no sympathy unless yours comes back as bad or worse.
Oh, and if you do decide to cancel your preorder (might be out of time, now), don’t do it through your bank. The forums are awash with admonishments that it violates a Terms of Use agreement and will result in your Steam account being shut off*. Contact Valve to have your orders cancelled (but you’re still dumb for doing so).
Steam indicates ‘not yet released.’ I assume this is what you are referring to? I pre-ordered in February thinking (my own ignorance) that it would be released on March 2nd. I did, however, have a chance to download the beta.
I call shenanigans on ATLEAST 90% of the trolls posting that they cancelled their pre-order. Everyone wants to be the one to “Stick it to the man.” and look like the guy who stood up the evil oppressor, Valve. First of all, as you said, Antilles, not Valve’s fault but, more importantly, I smell bullshit.
Very VERY few actually did anything. How long ago did the average player pre-order? I bet 80%+ were before this week. The money was already taken out of the bank accounts upon purchase. Its not as if players were buying from EB and had only put their $5 down. We paid in full. They are not going to reimburse us a week or more AFTER we purchased.
@Crookid
What Antilles is referring to is the way many publishers/developers handle a Steam release: when you pre-purchase, you have the ability to pre-load the game. That means you can download a large portion of the files necessary to play the game BEFORE release day. This way there isn’t much left to download when release day arrives, which allows you to fire up the game as soon as possible as well as relieves strain on servers.
The game WILL be released on March 2nd (today) if you’re in North America. It’s scheduled to unlock around 1pm EST. If you’re in Europe, you have to wait until the 5th.
Installing now at 750 KB/s. :)
EA Downloader is garbage and the “would you like to pay more so you can download it again?” should be illegal. Sure I can’t resell or lend the game with Steam, but at least I can theoretically reinstall the game in 5 years if I so choose. EA would probably “forget” that you bought the let me install again option.
Just ask Mack about his headaches with 2142 when he tried to reinstall that. He got it through EA downloader. I’m not sure their “pay again” strategy should be illegal though. It’s basically a known entity when you purchase a game from them. If you don’t like it, don’t buy. Vote with your wallet. That’s the same reason I refused to buy MW2. I may have been one of the few, but I felt that principle demanded I not give them money for betraying the PC user base. I would do the same with EA if I really felt they were screwing me.
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