Human Head's Prey Gets Steamed

[Evil Avatar]

MCV is reporting (http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=235) that Human Head's upcoming DOOM 3-engine shooter, Prey, will follow in the footsteps of Valve's Half-Life 2 and be offered as a digital download as well as a boxed retail product.

Upcoming PC shooter Prey will be available via online distribution in a partnership with Game xStream - a move that echoes Half-Life 2’s recent distribution through Valve’s Steam technology. This high-performance delivery system effectively cuts the traditional retail environment out of the route to market.

Prey is in development at 3D Realms and Human Head Studios and has recently been snapped up by Take 2’s publishing offshoot 2K Games.I think this worked well for Valve because Half-Life 2 was such a well known property, but who has heard of Prey outside the super-hardcore PC gaming crowd?

[Varsity]

What's to worry about if they are doing boxes too? If HH have learnt anything from HL2 they won't integrate it so much: people buying in stores probably wouldn't even know about the xStream version.

Hopefully Valve will take their chance to do the same after they renegotiate their publishing deal.

[Tentaro]

Buying things digitally is great, I bought Guild Wars online and it just downloads areas as I get to them, no box at all!

[Pumped'Up]

i just hope there's an off-line mode...like HL2. yea, besides the short 1 hr install of HL2, Steam is f'kn great...{hic}...

[Royal Fool]

Somewhat off-topic, but have people seen the absolutely disgusting concept art for this game?

[Taco]

The Screenshots didn't look to hot to me.

Linky (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/37096)

Doesn't look horrible since it uses a good engine, still looks a bit messy though.

[ÜberJumper]

Prey was one of my favourites at E3. It's got a lot of gimmicy stuff in it, but it's showing SOOO much polish already that I don't see how they can fuck it up.

[fndarkone]

ok, so how many fucking content download programs are we going to have to install? soon we will have steam, xstream, something from ea, ms, sony, etc. it would be nice if there were one standardized download program but thats not going to happen.

[sTubbs]

ok, so how many fucking content download programs are we going to have to install? soon we will have steam, xstream, something from ea, ms, sony, etc. it would be nice if there were one standardized download program but thats not going to happen.

There is...it is called XBOX Live. :p

[dr_qwandry]

everytime i read about this game i'm torn between it being good and it being bad.
quite frankly they'll have to do a little bit more to impress me.

[kokyunage]

Maybe they are hoping the "doom3 engine" brandname will carry the game.

[11thfinger]

This game looks awesome in motion.

[baz]

I bought chronicles of riddick as a digital download from gamespot, bought a few games from www.direct2drive.com. I love digital downloads, especially being in Japan at the mo.

I kinda liked the screenshots.

[Lodin]

but who has heard of Prey outside the super-hardcore PC gaming crowd?Who outside the super-hardcore PC gaming crowd uses Steam?

[Oddmaker]

Well it looks good to me, But its not gonna life up to the hype when all those other FPS's come out a month before prey.

[mister_slim]

There is...it is called XBOX Live. :p
But Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection has more and better games!

Theoretically, anyway.

[emjoi]

There's a difference between merely downloading the game, and having a persistant thingie like Steam continually on, downloading patches, advertising new stuff and so on.

Why Steam must be a separate program that wants to be permanantly installed and running on your PC is a bit mysterious.

Why isn't a Web site, where you can purchase and download stuff, and a built in automatic patch updater within the game, sufficient?

If you've got to have these thingies, the yeah, I hope xStream or someone corners the market and everyone uses them rather than inventing their own.

[Varsity]

Why isn't a Web site, where you can purchase and download stuff, and a built in automatic patch updater within the game, sufficient?Because Steam is about a whole lot more than what you listed.

[Deadend]

Hmm, I just read the IGN preview, and Prey looks to be fairly diffrent from most shooters, which to me, is a good thing.