Last night, my husband and I waited for the release of Civilization V via Steam. This was one of those games that he felt would be fine as a digital download instead of, for example, StarCraft II Collector’s Edition. Some games are just better to buy and have the physical copy than a digital copy.
Having a digital copy is great, especially if you are prone to missing CD keys or the actual disc. Another nice thing about Steam, is that you don’t have to worry about an older game not running on a newer system. With Steam, the game will always work on whatever system you upgrade to. Take Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, for instance. This game will not work on Vista and newer operating systems. Unfortunately since it’s not available on Steam, I had to search the web to find a patch and/or a work around to be able to play said game. If this game would have been available on Steam, all I would have to do is purchase it and then I wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to play it once a new OS came out.
Steam does have a nice collection of games to choose from, but they are still lacking and I would love to see some older PC games make a comeback in their original form on Steam.
Back to the topic on hand with Civ V. Once midnight (eastern) hit, we tried to download and play the game. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. After digging online a little bit, I found out that CiV V won’t be available until 10am. I guess their reason for this is because that is the time that most stores open that will sell this game. I have to wonder if maybe a 24-hour Walmart had that game at midnight or perhaps another 24-hour retailer that sells video games.
It doesn’t seem fair that after being able to preload a game that you have to wait ten hours after midnight to play it. If a game is available on a certain date, then wouldn’t it make sense to have it available once midnight came about?
