Prey now available on Steam

As you are probably aware, when Prey launched, it was with a digital distribution method called Triton. Back in October, the Triton service shut down, and there has been no digital distribution method available for Prey since then.

That changes today with the news that starting right now, Prey is available via Steam! As you probably know, Steam is Valve software's digital distribution method of games, both their own and others. 2K Games has recently signed on to publish games through Steam digitally, and Prey is the latest in that line. So if you are looking to buy a copy of Prey, you can do that at the Steam website. If you are an existing Prey customer (either through Triton or through a retail box copy), then there are options available for you, too. Here's some details about Prey on Steam:

1. If you have a registered copy of Prey (either downloaded from the former Triton service or a box copy) you can optionally use your CD-Key to validate the game on Steam, and download it there if you wish.
2. If you have a box copy of Prey, there is no need to connect to Steam for any reason, unless you choose to do so. That is completely optional.
3. If you don't have ANY registered copy of Prey, and never did, Steam is the option now for digital delivery (or you can still buy a retail box copy).
4. Prey on Steam is for the full version only. The Prey demo is not on Steam at this time. If you wish to check out the Prey demo, you need to go through standard download channels.

So go check out Steam for your digital copy of Prey starting today! In addition to the game, you can view a free Prey trailer through Steam as well.

If you are a former Triton customer and cannot access your key, please see this post on our forums (it is from a former Triton employee who can look up keys) - 3DR cannot assist in Triton key retrieval, we do not have access to the information.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:01 PM | Discuss this story on our forums

The Miller's Tale

There's a seriously good interview with Apogee/3D Realms founder and president Scott Miller over at Gamasutra.com. Entitled "The Miller's Tale", this wide reaching interview is definitely worth a read if you are a fan of our company (or even if you're not).

Scott talks about a lot, but some of the bullet points in the interview are publishing and developer issues, working with external teams, 3DR's future console gaming thoughts, digital game distribution, intellectual property issues, and of course, a small bit about Duke. Here's some selected stuff from the full interview:

"GS: What's your approach to a PR situation as the publisher or developer? For example: Prey's release announcement came quite suddenly after quite a bit of silence. Will you take this approach with further releases or was that a decision for just that one product?

SM: Yeah, I think that something like that is how we're going to go in the future, because it seemed like in the early 90s games didn't take that long to make. It seemed cool then to announce a game when you started, because you knew you'd be done in a year or two. Now it's hard to find a hit game that's made in less than two and a half to three years.

GS: You guys are the most prominent at working with different people.

SM: We pioneered it, going back to 1990. id Software was the first studio we partnered with. They weren't even id then, they didn't have a name until I approached them. I asked them if they wanted to try shareware since they were doing so well with the Softdisk thing at the time. That's when they put together the company.

GS: The large majority of games coming out nowadays are console releases. Are you guys planning on focusing more on consoles now or sticking to the PC? I know that you have a history of FPS games which are more PC-centric.

SM: That's true, but going forward, any studio needs to look long and hard at focusing on consoles first. That's where the bigger money's at. Even though our background is in PCs, there isn't any more difficulty now making a console game. It used to be a problem because of the computing power differences between PCs and consoles. Nowadays, it's not that big of a gulf. It really comes down to whether the game idea is good, has good gameplay, technology and story hooks. If it does, then it's going to work on any platform. You just need to keep your controls simple and make sure it's going to work on a console, then it's not a big problem switching over. We're definitely going to be more focused on consoles than PC development in the future.

GS: Speaking of digital distribution, how would you feel about older 3D Realms products, like Duke Nukem 3D, appearing on Xbox Live Arcade.

SM: Yeah, we'd love to see that happen. Microsoft has a pretty tight lid about what they're putting on the system now. They're trying to not hit the same genres over and over again, and since Doom just came out on Live, they probably won't want Duke 3D on Live anytime soon. I've had some casual talks about this, but you never know. We'd like to see that happen, it's just a matter of making it happen."

There's a lot more to read, you'll definitely want to check this all out by reading the full interview today.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:47 AM | Discuss this story on our forums

Prey up for VGA awards

We've been told that Prey has been nominated for some awards at the 2006 Spike TV videogame awards. If you head to Spike's VGA site, you can vote on several categories. Prey's up for these categories:

• Best Shooter of the Year
• Cyber Vixen of the Year (for Jen)

They did not nominate the soundtrack for Prey unfortunately, but the Elder Scrolls IV soundtrack was nominated, and that was the same guy. So head over to the Spike's VGA site and vote for Prey. The awards will be announced December 13th when the show airs.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:46 AM | Discuss this story on our forums