Image by brianjmatis via Flickr

Dragon Age: Origins is one of the biggest RPG releases for the PC this year and was touted as the next step in the Fantasy RPG.  So many of us opted for the chance to pre-purchase, and Pre-download the game from the Steam service.

Quick rundown on pre-purchasing a game from Steam, as I understand it:

1.  Find a new title which is available for pre-purchase from/on the Steam service.

2.  Purchase said title, giving Steam money, and once available, Steam will covertly download the game files to your hard drive, but it will not be playable until the advertised release date (US release date).

3. Wake up early on the morning of the release date (US time) and play your game before all the those who have to go to the trouble of going to the shop for the boxed copy.

The idea is great, as is the whole concept of down-loadable distribution, although having to wait for the release date does suck.

Dragon Age is the first pre-purchase I have made with Steam.  Although I have bought a number of post-release games in the past.  I can't remember any issues with the service on either Win XP or Win 7 until now.

This is what happened to me, and many others.

1. Purchased the game a couple of days before release and had Dragon Age: Origins sitting on the hard drive ready for 4th November.

2. Late on 4th of November (US time) I tried to launch the game, and nothing happened.  After a few failed attempts I went looking for some support and found the support message boards(already with 20+ posts) to find out that the problem was common and was to do with the game files not decrypting on first launch.

3.  The forums were recommending a number of fixes including deleting and re-downloading the game (not a nice solution on a slow link), registry hacks, and simply re-starting the Steam client software.

4.  After some messing around I got DA to work by "Verify integrity of game cache", and re-starting the Steam client, then launching the game.  On launch, the game started the decryption process properly and installed the game.  So happy to report all is well.

"No big deal, so why post about it?" you might say.  For me the whole process was just a annoying bit of the normal "getting games to work on a PC".  I've been doing it since you had to create a separate 3.5 floppy boot disk to free up RAM for games like Privateer and Doom 2.

I wasn't even going to post until I worked through the support forums and saw posts like these:

"♥♥♥♥!!!! I pre-ordered the ♥♥♥♥ing game and bought the deluxe edition. Had a ♥♥♥♥ty day at work and now this!!!! ♥♥♥♥ you Bioware and ♥♥♥♥ you Steam. This is it, I'm not gaming on a PC ever again. This is so over. I'll go buy a PS3 tomorrow."

"Here's an idea: take some of the astronomical profits you're getting from not having to pay overhead for printing and packaging and have more than one monkey chained to a keyboard to test your download and decryption process."

"This is just jarate-poor QA practices, and is the kind of amateurish bull♥♥♥♥ I'd expect from a company like EA, not Steam. I know I'll never buy another non-Valve product through this service; way too many issues every time I try to play a game on release day."

"I didnt find the registry.blob, but i took a chance and deleted just the registry files , after entering registry in search in windows 7, working fine now."

It struck me that if there was a pop up on the Steam client suggesting a re-start of the client, and maybe "Oh it didn't work please try this...." it may have saved a bit of aggro.  I guess that things can't always go smoothly, but when there is alternatives out there that appear to provide a better experience, and your platform is losing support every day, you would think that you would be trying a little harder.

I have put Steam up on a pedestal a bit when it comes to the future of PC gaming.  But I think that the convenience that it has to offer the gamer, and casual gamer, is the hook and strength that will keep the platform going.  I just thought, and I guess was hoping, that 2009 would be the year of the seamless PC gaming experience.

Jason

...if it is Broken, go buy a PS3 tomorrow.