Saturday, January 17th 2009
Groundbreaking MMO Library from Sony Online Entertainment Arrives on Steam
Valve Corporation and Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) today announce the availability of many SOE Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) titles on Steam, a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games and digital content with over 15 million accounts around the world.
The SOE developed and/or published titles now available include the complete EverQuest (EQ) and EverQuest II (EQII) collections, as well as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Pirates of the Burning Sea. To kick off this monumental event, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, EQ Secrets of Faydwer and EQII Rise of Kunark are being offered via Steam for a special introductory price during the first 10 days the games are available for purchase. New SOE game accounts for the game purchased will also receive 30 days of gameplay (this offer excludes existing game and Station Access accounts).
In addition, the recently released expansions EverQuest Seeds of DestructionT and EverQuest II The Shadow OdysseyT are available for purchase. "Sony Online Entertainment propelled the MMO genre and PC gaming into new era with the launch of EverQuest," said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. "SOE continues to evolve the genre and PC gaming with new universes such as Vanguard and Pirates of the Burning Sea, while continuously expanding the EverQuest and EverQuest II worlds with over 20 total expansions delivered electronically since the first EQ was released in March 1999."
"We are always looking for additional ways to introduce our great catalog of games to new audiences. It's hard to think of a larger group of PC gamers interested in multiplayer games than those connecting to Steam," said John Smedley, president of SOE. "We've long been a leader in MMOs and this agreement will help bring our exciting content to millions of additional online gamers around the world." For more information, please visit Steam.
Source:
Steam
The SOE developed and/or published titles now available include the complete EverQuest (EQ) and EverQuest II (EQII) collections, as well as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Pirates of the Burning Sea. To kick off this monumental event, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, EQ Secrets of Faydwer and EQII Rise of Kunark are being offered via Steam for a special introductory price during the first 10 days the games are available for purchase. New SOE game accounts for the game purchased will also receive 30 days of gameplay (this offer excludes existing game and Station Access accounts).
In addition, the recently released expansions EverQuest Seeds of DestructionT and EverQuest II The Shadow OdysseyT are available for purchase. "Sony Online Entertainment propelled the MMO genre and PC gaming into new era with the launch of EverQuest," said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. "SOE continues to evolve the genre and PC gaming with new universes such as Vanguard and Pirates of the Burning Sea, while continuously expanding the EverQuest and EverQuest II worlds with over 20 total expansions delivered electronically since the first EQ was released in March 1999."
"We are always looking for additional ways to introduce our great catalog of games to new audiences. It's hard to think of a larger group of PC gamers interested in multiplayer games than those connecting to Steam," said John Smedley, president of SOE. "We've long been a leader in MMOs and this agreement will help bring our exciting content to millions of additional online gamers around the world." For more information, please visit Steam.
6 Comments on Groundbreaking MMO Library from Sony Online Entertainment Arrives on Steam
Can't wait for Steam client to go the way of GameSpy Arcade. Into irrelevance. What is wrong with retail boxes and simple CD key authorizations? If the game is any good then people will buy it. Look at Oblivion. It had a simple CD check in place and that was it. Yes, people pirated it, but Bethesda didn't mind since they sold like three million copies in the first year alone.
Because the EverQuest universe is not limited to any known fictional media, whether it be novels or movies, it's completely unrestricted in terms of where it takes it's lore.
It is true that the original EverQuest is a good example of what happens when an MMO goes on too long. I personally thought it should have ended before the Luclin expansion. Though to it's defense, because Everquest is on a different 'reality' / time-line than EverQuest 2, it is also unrestricted.
Contrast that with something like LOTRO, which has pretty strict lore guidelines, and we know will have a definitive end one day. To compound that issue, their 'ten year' projection of it's lifespan, means that official expansions will be a couple to several years apart (as we saw with Mines of Moria) and knowing there is actually an end is a bit dis-heartening.
As for membership numbers, while WoW probably still retains the title, LOTRO had a severe drop-off in the months leading up to it's expansion; Age of Conan still struggles to fill it's servers(though I prefer it this way. It's such a nice solo play MMO) and the rest like SWG, EVE, Vanguard, Horizons, EQOA etc. are low. The only competition in this category is EverQuest II.
I don't like Steam, and I don't like conglomorates(sp?) however this could be a good move to possibly push SOE to do something revolutionary with MMOs later on.