Extra Life Raffle is Dead.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, and we did plan to do it again, but…. that can not happen anymore. Changes Valve has made to the Steam Gift system have just rendered our yearly raffle impossible.

Clearing the Air and Valve Working On Greenlight

Hello and good day out there. While the Greenlight issue is why I am writing in the first place, I wanted to clear the air in a few questions brought up here prior. Admittedly, when the “uncaring” (yeah, right, how many posts have they left now?) troll asked about me not covering major fuckups in the gaming industry, I was snarky as hell rather then answering. I don’t apologize for that, nor will I. A troll is a troll is a troll, but even so, he did bring up two good examples that I would like to answer now before I take a look at Valve’s latest actions in their utility to let gamers choose some of the library they get access to.

Gamers Are Going to Have to Step Up Part 2: Hatred Edition (UPDATED)

Less then a month ago, I wrote the first part of this article. Since writing that, we have seen such motives in action. The day after I wrote it, the #Gamergte movement pushed a developer through Greenlight because some assholes online decided her involvement with it meant her game should not be sold. If you read the comments on part 1, we had a troll show up who didn’t like being told that OR that he apparently cared enough to post 6 of the 9 comments on that very article. It was amusing, but the really good news is this developer got through Greenlight because people have had enough of the SJW “do as I say or you don’t get work” bullshit.

But sadly, a darker event has now also occurred. Do you remember the game Hatred? It was announced a few months ago, and if you need a reminder, you can watch the trailer here, courtesy of PC Games. Now that you know what the game is, did you know it was on greenlight? I say was because Valve took it down, which is where I have an issue.

CES is going to be BIG for PC Gaming this year

As the convention gets set to begin in Las Vegas tomorrow, a lot of gamers will let it slide by. After all, console gamers will have no interest in what the new hardware is because theirs is already set and console gaming isn’t exactly the biggest part of this convention. A lot of PC gamers (myself included) also tend to look the other way since new hardware is not so much new and exciting as just something we know is coming due to the gradual nature of our choice device. But this year, I think there are a few participants who will make it worth our while to pay attention.

Someone OutValved Valve?

In a word, yes… someone did this over a year ago when the world saw a mod for Half-Life 2 called Black Mesa. Did you forget it? You may have, but it was a huge step in the direction everyone had expected from Valve when they showed us that Half Life 1 would be remade with the Source engine. What we got from Valve was the same old content with little updates that was modified to work with the new engine.

What we wanted, however, Black Mesa gave us as a free mod for Half-Life 2…

But What Does it Mean? SteamOS

Last week, Valve has told us they would be making 3 announcements which would mark an expansion to their universe. Rescently, the first such announcement came forward in the form of revealing SteamOS, a new Linux distribution built around the Steam platform. They will be releasing it and forever keeping it free to download for everyone. Now I can already hear a lot of gamers laughing at the concept that Valve is backing Linux and a few predicting their doom, but they might want to stop and think about that. It could and would never replace Windows overnight, but Valve is doing some things right here and leveraging their own weight in the PC world in a way that could well lead to trouble for MS.

Calling on Our Readers to Back the NERD!

Before we begin, no… the the AVGN (or Angry Video Game Nerd) is not in trouble… but he may have just announced some epicly awesome trouble for us to get into. AVGN is launching his own VIDEO GAME and right now, it’s waiting on Greenlight for us to welcome him to our Steam Libraries. Want to know more? Read on after the jump!

Greenlight Special II

Today we have a very special Greenlight Special for you. Once a month, Valve releases what games made the cut and will officially launch on Steam among the thousands we get to select from. This week, that list has been made available to the public. You can view it from Steam’s own Press Releases here, but in addition to showing you what games we supported this week, we felt it would be worth your time to see both our top five games that are now certain to hit Steam.

How Would Digital Resale Work?

The question came to mind yesterday morning. I was just reading through my usual morning list of sites, and PC gamer had produced an article talking about how Valve is being sued in Germany over the inability to resell used games on their service. Now I’m sure a lot of you just scoffed at the very idea, and in fact that was my first impression as well. I mean, digital download means the only thing you own for good is the CD-key, and who’s to say that you don’t copy it someplace and use it later? Isn’t that why PC games in general can not be sold used and haven’t been able to since sometime around 2004?

But with a little thought, I came to the conclusion that this may not be so impossible to do, and in fact it may well be Valve who, once again, could lead the way! Curious? Step inside….

The Old Guard May have to Watch Out for the Ancient Guard

Well you guys heard me make the prediction. It wasn’t a hard one to make, but in my what-if article, I laid out that if what I expected happened, we would be looking at a PC/console hybrid from Valve… Linux PC in function, but console in form. They have now officially announced it. Now it’s time to see if they can succeed. I believe personally that this will be based entirely on the sales they can pull off (and depending on if you believe the rumors about Sony allowing publishers to block used sales or Microsoft going digital only, the path to do so may only be getting easier), but it would seem the 800 lb. gorilla of the PC world is not the only one looking to expand their empire.

Linux: A Possible Future?

A little while ago, Gamespy produced a short article in which they suggested we might, just might, be seeing the beginning of a shift in PC gaming from Windows dominating to Linux taking over. In the short article, they promptly asked at the end if we as gamers would embrace such a change. Today, we explore the possibilities… what if we are about to see the beginning of this shift? How would it happen, and how would we be effected? Join me in a little “future history” and see if maybe you could see this happening.

The PC World is Getting Easier For Everyone

And in the past week, we have seen two HUGE steps forward. We have now witnessed the first REAL move to place PC gaming in the living room, as well as a beta to not only automatically update your graphics drivers as necessary, but optimize your games so those who want to jump in and play can get the absolute best out of their games. The future is really bright ahead!

Hold on to your hats…. (even if you plan to make more)

Just a quick FYI for those who have not been paying attention to their news or do not have Steam to see this, but Valve is in the middle of an overhaul of the community system within their distribution service. It seems they have seen another way to add things that we do not yet have, did not know we wanted, but can now drool over. All this week, they are giving away information on how things are changing, a little bit each day.

You can take a look at their page here and see what’s going on. I’m not going to attempt to summarize since they have not told us everything yet. But I bet you will be happy.

Binary Domain (PC) Review

Sometimes, when you try out a game the potential in the demo is so strong you can smell it. And while I don’t like playing anything that relies mainly on guns and aims with the camera on a controller, I had already decided when the price dropped, I would get this game on my PS3 because of such a smell. And then something wonderful happened… Binary Domain was announced as a Steam Download! Once the demo showed me just how right this game feels on my good old mouse, I couldn’t resist and this became my big Steam Summer Sale game. Now, I have finished it. It did not disappoint. Step inside.

Platforms of a Platform: Redux

While this may be the first time you are seeing this type of article on the Red Sector, it is not the first time I have written about it. That was one of my earlier articles on Front Towards Gamer. However, in under a year, the landscape described there has changed dramatically. For the sake of anyone who plans to enter the PC gaming world in the near future, it’s time to revisit this topic and bring everyone up to speed.