Holy Crap! Epic games is now on steam.

"Take a slow news day, toss in some wild speculations, and you come up with a story like this one: VE3D quotes CS-Nation who unearthed a forum post from a Steam user who was doing a little spelunking in Steam's client registry. Apparently, a new-ish entry includes a developer with the name EPGComp which, the user posits, is possibly an abbreviation of Epic Games.

We've asked Mark Rein for an official comment and will update the news item accordingly.

UPDATE: No need for confirmation, Steam just blew us all away with this. All Unreal games (sans UT2003, again) are available through Steam! The package is on sale for $53.95 (for nearly $100 worth of games, including UT3). Go grab it and let us know how it goes!"

Neat. I love Steam!

I might finally pick up UT3, even though I lack a machine that can run it well.

EDIT: Why would they sell 2k3 when 2k4 does everything 2k3 does and then some?

UT2003 is still a recognized game that was released months earlier than UT2004. I see no reason not to include it, tbh.

epic is trying distribute to more copies I guess

It's a good move...Steam is a good distribution system.

I agree. Who would buy only UT99, UT2003, or UT2004. Combine them all together and toss in UT3... then you have something like the orange box; some cool stuff with a bunch of stuff most people find useless to justify the price.

Orange Box? This box should be called the Unreal Box.

I think he meant similar

Yeah, they could make some nice bundles...

Also better updates availability etc. etc.

i can't believe how much i've paid for Unreal games over the years.. i could have spent that money, on a new Electric Guitar! (or 2!) UT2k4 was a good buy i suppose, but UT2k3, and U2.. EUGH!! Unreal games are horribly priced.. the most expensive PC games i've seen anyway..

Good for Steam! Unfortunate for all those Dial-up suckers though!! (like us)

Unreal 2 > electric guitar

you must hate electric guitars a LOT dontcha Bjossi?

Thats only your opinion, Bjossi.

I tend to like my guitars very much, all two and a half of them.

I play them more than video games as of late.

No, I just like Unreal 2 a LOT.

ok.
glad we cleared that up.
(slips slowly back into the shadows)

Good for Epic.

Well Epic needs to clean up its act for pc gamers

Exhibit A:
Cliffy B
“I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and “Gearsâ€Â

You can't blame him for thinking logically.

If you have ever read some tech support conversations, you can see that the casual gamer is so stupid that he doesn't even know what OS is installed. In other words, one of the reasons why the PC is losing it's charm is that many gamers don't have a clue how it works. So naturally being able to just put the disc in the drive and play is a preferable solution.

So yeah, unless the casual gamer gets smarter or someone makes PC usage generally easier, I doubt it will ever get it's crown back.

Well, this is what moving to Steam will help alleviate. It's fairly simple to use, and will generate sales for UT3.

I think Steam needs to be more widespread before it can be a gamer-magnet. It has plenty of games available, but the client itself should be more accessible. Maybe Microsoft should ship it with Windows as an optional software install, but that's just a brainstormer.

Cept isn't it free to join?

It is, but that doesn't bring in the crowd. Advertising and accessibility is the key I'd say.

I like the idea of making it a default program on windows.

It should be optional during Windows install though.
(and I personally think the same should apply to software like Media Player, Movie Maker, MSN, IE, etc. etc.)