Pre-installed games

[Chin-Li]

Will steam machine come with our games pre-installed?

[Cooljerk]

Originally posted by jaygunn:

Originally posted by TheSonicRetard:

the wouldn't need your login credentials. They can pre-install the game in steamOS and simply let the user activate their install on their account afterwards.

Does Valve have a way to install games without purchasing them? I wasn't aware that this was possible.

This wouldn't be valve, it'd be the OEM manufacturer of the machine. But sure - have you ever backed up your steam account? It's stored in your steam install folder under commondata, the actual files for each game. You can copy that folder onto a removable piece of media - it's what I do when I reformat my PC so I don't have to spend days redownloading my files. Once you get a fresh PC with a fresh Steam install, just copy that data back into your steam folder and you'll notice your installed gamelist becomes repopulated. These games still need to be authenticated by launching them connected to the internet, but you need not download anything.

Presumably, an OEM manufacturer could do the same thing - bundle, say, Trine 2 with a steam machine by including all the game's data in your common folder, then requiring you to launch the game to authenticate it. I guess "pre-downloaded" would be a better term than "pre-installed" since most would consider the authentication portion of launching a game part of the installation.

[8BitCerberus]

Yeah, I actually have my SteamApps folder on a different drive symlinked/junctioned to my Steam install folder. That way I can wipe/reinstall my boot drive and not have to worry about redownloading games. I've actually had the same Windows SteamApps through at least 3 PCs that I can remember and several OS reinstalls. My OS X SteamApps has travelled through 3 Macs and a few OS reinstalls, and on Linux I've not had to reinstall or change computers yet... but I do have my Windows SteamApps symlinked into my WINE Steam installs so that I don't have to maintain two multi-gigabyte copies of the same game(s).

But my question was more how does an OEM get the game data to do this, without having to purchase the game? I could see maybe something like CrashPlan's seeded backup, where an OEM could ship you a drive that you backup your own SteamApps folder to, and then send it back to them for installation into your Steam Machine. Or just sending them a drive when you order a SM. Or I can see partnerships with developers/publishers providing keys to activate games on Steam that you download when you get the box home. But I'm pretty sure in order to pre-download data, they'd have to purchase the game(s) themselves (or use a developer/publisher key), but they would still have to provide you with valid keys to activate them on your account... curious how Steam reacts to activating a product key, for something that already has data present but not yet authorized to that account. I've never actually had to do that before, even for the few times that using a boxed CD key would activate it on Steam, I've always just tried the key before installing the boxed copy, to see if it would activate.

[Cooljerk]

Originally posted by jaygunn:

Yeah, I actually have my SteamApps folder on a different drive symlinked/junctioned to my Steam install folder. That way I can wipe/reinstall my boot drive and not have to worry about redownloading games. I've actually had the same Windows SteamApps through at least 3 PCs that I can remember and several OS reinstalls. My OS X SteamApps has travelled through 3 Macs and a few OS reinstalls, and on Linux I've not had to reinstall or change computers yet... but I do have my Windows SteamApps symlinked into my WINE Steam installs so that I don't have to maintain two multi-gigabyte copies of the same game(s).

But my question was more how does an OEM get the game data to do this, without having to purchase the game? I could see maybe something like CrashPlan's seeded backup, where an OEM could ship you a drive that you backup your own SteamApps folder to, and then send it back to them for installation into your Steam Machine. Or just sending them a drive when you order a SM. Or I can see partnerships with developers/publishers providing keys to activate games on Steam that you download when you get the box home. But I'm pretty sure in order to pre-download data, they'd have to purchase the game(s) themselves (or use a developer/publisher key), but they would still have to provide you with valid keys to activate them on your account... curious how Steam reacts to activating a product key, for something that already has data present but not yet authorized to that account. I've never actually had to do that before, even for the few times that using a boxed CD key would activate it on Steam, I've always just tried the key before installing the boxed copy, to see if it would activate.

I've actually purchased a few physical titles from europe -- I'm kinda paranoid about losing my data (hence the backups I do) and if you don't authorize a key before installing, it kinda works like it did in the old days before steam, where it'll prompt you for activation before the first run.

You're correct about the OEM needing to purchase keys, though. That'll be up to the OEM and whatever game maker decides to partner, if this ever even happens to begin with. When the question was raised at steam dev days, the answer given from valve was something like "Sure it's possible, but it would be totally up to the OEM."

[lil]

Simple method:

OEM buys one copy of every game (and only one). Purchasers provide steamID (note: not login, just public steam ID).

OEM installs, logs in as themselves, downloads just the games purchaser has. Removes their login info, then when purchaser logs in for first time, gamedata already downloaded.

Bodda-bing, botta-boom, done.

Cheaper mode: Just buy games that your purchaser has, do same with any additional games next purchaser has, and so on.

Even Cheaper mode: Limit list of preinstalled games to 5. (They may include ones they own, or add ones they don't own for their cost.) You know 50% of those lists will have [Portal/Team Fortress/Dota/Half-Life] 2 .

[Grimallq]

Even cheaper method:

A licensed Valve partner gets access to gamedata from Valve (seriously, why would they need to buy it?), that can be just copied into the Steam Library directory on the SM HDD. Then, when the customer first logins to their Steam account, the gamedata gets activated and integrated by the Steam client.

Still this approach requires the SM to be custom ordered, so the OEM's know what to install, so you can bet it'll cost extra.

[Jack]

Steam comes with built in DRM. Most of the games require the steam client to run. (To test, completely exit steam then try to run the game, how many launch steam or just don't load?).
They can include the data without needing a key. There are already heaps of servers that have the data without needing a key. That is where you get the data from.

The most likely route would be to pre-download a bunch of common games, which may encourage people to buy them (perhaps include a slight discount), but it will not have the entire steam library, nor will it likely have all the games you want.
It would also most likely be up to each OEM to choose what games they pre-install, if any.

[SeymourGore]

I agree that it would be a good idea to bundle some games with the Steam Machine, even if it's f2p games like TF2.

As for the 'preinstalling' games you own, I dunno, besides the logistical issues (order processing delays due to OEMs downloading your massive Steam library to your new Steam Machine, etc), there's also the fact that if the user already has a Steam library, there's a good chance they're already comfortable with using Steam and would just be able to transfer their content over quickly via external USB device (ie: hdd, flash drive, etc).

Also, if their home network is fast enough, the option to transfer the content over their home network would be faster than redownloading everything.

It'd be nice if Valve made this transfer more user friendly, while it's pretty easy to do right now (as another poster described the process), I'm sure there's way for Steam to make it an even easier process.

[Cooljerk]

Originally posted by Jack:

Steam comes with built in DRM. Most of the games require the steam client to run. (To test, completely exit steam then try to run the game, how many launch steam or just don't load?).

It'd be more accurate to say Steam can come with built in DRM. There are games sold through steam that are DRM-free. For instance, any game bundled with DOSBox can be freely moved from PC to PC. I have a retro 486 DXII built that I migrated my commander keen games from because my original floppies had disintegrated (literally!)