oh. .... that's mighty nice of them.
Yeah, and this is why my response was a bit more muted than overt joy. I mean, sure, it's nice. Steam Workshop is actually a pretty cool utility to incorporate mods, and the most up-to-date version of said mods, too. Particularly in a gaming industry that is increasingly anti-mod (and pro-forced-obsolescence), it's a welcome thing when a game you dig actively supports that.
But it's not as if this heralds a true overhaul of the game, nor did the company that holds the rights to it at this point "officially" fix the broken parts (so I gather). It's still relying on third-party/user-generated fixes to enable the broken stuff.
But yeah, it's nice and all. More like a nice little bonus than "OMG THEY FINALLY DID IT!!!!"
If it was on anything but Steam i'd go for it.
Eh, Steam gets a bad rap, I know, and if you're anti-DRM, I can understand your disdain of the platform. Certainly, a site like GOG is far more like what you may be looking for, if that's the case.
But they've also done some pretty cool, pro-consumer stuff. As I mentioned, they have the Workshop, which allows participating games to really push the modding scene in ways that I, at least, had thought mostly died out in modern gaming. In a world where Call of Duty games come out every 6 months and mods are basically impossible, it's nice to know there's still one corner of gaming where mods are easy to find.
It's also widely acknowledged that Steam's recent refund policy was almost singlehandedly responsible for WB/Rocksteady bothering to do sod all about the atrocious state of the PC release of Arkham Knight. Currently, they're estimating August for an interim patch. If not for Steam's refund policy, I'd bet you'd be looking at December at the earliest, because WB/Rocksteady just wouldn't have given a crap. It was only because Steam allowed refunds on digital downloads of games, and then went back to the developer and said "Pay up, jackasses." Basically, Steam did what consumers couldn't: it punched WB/Rocksteady right in the pocketbook, and it hit
hard.
Steam was only able to do that because it has real leverage in the marketplace, and that's because it's a huge distributor for games. And it's not just AAA titles. I mean, yeah, they do some crappy stuff with "early access" that goes on for years on end with broken, unsupported games. But they also allow users to write honest reviews that
slam titles like that, and warn people away. Steam also helps provide a real platform for wide distribution of indie games, allowing game development in general to continue without requiring companies to buddy up wit EA/Activision/Ubisoft/etc.
On balance, I'd say even if you don't like the platform itself, it's a good thing to have in the gaming industry.
