Computer games on steam. Can i just buy a CD?

Hi,

this is probably sounds like a stupid question but I’m rather out of touch with computer games. Growing up with playstations I’m used to physical discs (CDs) that you buy and own and just run on the machine without any further requirements.

I stumbled across a game website for ‘Firewatch’ and they did a good job of convincing me it looks like an interesting game to play. I am confused though as to how this now works.

In the old days even on a pc you’d buy a game (cd) in a box and that was it, install on your machine and go.

I’ve done a bit of searching and iam still not sure if this is possible for this game or not. The website shows the option for PC but it is via ‘steam’.

Is this the only way i can play it now? do i have to have an internet connection to play it? if steam shuts up shop do i lose my game? I’ve never heard of steam before (other than when i am making Tea from my kettle).

If i buy it on xbox 1 is that still streamed/downloaded?

Am i just not ‘down wit da kids’?

ah i think i’ve found the answer on their website

Can I get a hard copy?

Not currently! We don’t have plans to bring it to store shelves (or online store shelves), but we’ll announce it if that changes.

anyone know about gaming via ‘steam’? does it work well?

There is no stupid questions! I was looking for this information too. Thanx! Now I know)

I can’t vouch for the accuracy, but this Wikipedia looks to have answers to your questions

eg.

Once the software is downloaded and installed, the user must then authenticate through Steam to de-encrypt the executable files to play the game. Normally this is done while connected to the Internet following the user’s credential validation, but once they have logged into Steam once, a user can instruct Steam to launch in a special offline mode to be able to play their games without a network connection.

< off-topic >
“de-encrypt”…
< /off-topic >

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Don’t know whether to start a new topic or not but I’ve decided to buy the game but i want to check if it will actually run properly on my laptop.

It says Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 450 or higher with 1GB Memory. My laptop has the intel HD4000 graphics card but i don’t know enough to know if this will work or not.

the other requirements

  • Processor: Intel Core i3 2.00 GHz or AMD equivalent

  • Memory: 6 GB RAM

are fine as i have an i5 and 6gb ram. I’m just not sure on the graphics side of things.

Does anyone know? or give me a pointer? will it just run with a lower resolution or not at all?

This benchmark doesn’t look promising: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GeForce-GTS-450-vs-Intel-HD-4000-Mobile-125-GHz/m7762vsm7653

If you can play the game at all you’d have to set it to very low settings if you want any sense of fluid game play.

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thanks for that.

darn. Hmmm might have to resurect the old desktop pc i have kicking around. I think that has a decent graphics card and i can probably overclock the processor if necessary.

I can’t imagine the game will need super fast graphics as i think it is relatively slow walk through but i guess it will be well annoying if each frame is jolting one to the next.

thanks

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