You may now Pre-Load your CIV 5 Steam Install!

[Melboz99]

Hey all,

Just thought you might like to know that as of yesterday AFAIK you can officially preload your copy of CIV 5 on Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/4346/

Not sure why it's not listed on the Civilization V Store Page on Steam unless you're logged in through the Steam Client, but anywho. :P


Dan O.

[Melboz99]

BTW, you might want to jump on this before the big day, regardless of whether or not there's going to be any bottlenecking of Steam's Servers on release day.

The Pre-Load download weighs a whopping 4,551MB, fortunately I'm able to pull it down at 1.6MB/s, so I've only got another half our at this rate, but those less fortunate with bandwidth will likely feel more compelled to download before you spend 1/2 of release day waiting for it to come down from the cloud. :P

[Aro]

So far, I couldn't download the flash player (a different one) necessary in order to download the game. Busy dervers, lilkely...

[Melboz99]

So far, I couldn't download the flash player (a different one) necessary in order to download the game. Busy dervers, lilkely...

The Flash Player is only needed to view the videos they have. The main store page comes up with the video trailer of CIV 5 by default.

First, if you haven't done so already you'll need to Pre-Order. This is done on the Store Page.
Second, once you're Pre-Ordered, check your Library tab, select Civilization 5 on the leftmost panel, and you'll see a button to Pre-Load the game just under the title on the main screen.

[Robert]

When you pre-load the game, does that store the xml files on your hard disk already?

[Aro]

The Flash Player is only needed to view the videos they have. The main store page comes up with the video trailer of CIV 5 by default.

First, if you haven't done so already you'll need to Pre-Order. This is done on the Store Page.
Second, once you're Pre-Ordered, check your Library tab, select Civilization 5 on the leftmost panel, and you'll see a button to Pre-Load the game just under the title on the main screen.

Thanks a lot. Loading now!
But I have a doubt...
The game is ready, isn't? What am I downloading now? If this is true...

WHY are they doing this to us?

[Robert]

It's a service to both prevent too much downloads at once at the release date, and as a service to you to start immediately playing when September 21st is there!

[rah]

There could be a day zero patch.

[Aro]

It's a service to both prevent too much downloads at once at the release date, and as a service to you to start immediately playing when September 21st is there!

Yeah, I know that... They are nice and gentle and all
But it's not fair... The game is already done!

Oh, boy... I'm a true artist. I'll never understand the market!

[Aro]

Hum... This deserves its own thread, I think...

[Aro]

Or not.
Seriously... It's not a complain. I just want to know the economical reasons, or what, to keep the game locked. Or why not anticipating the unlock day.

After all, we know the game is done... I'm downloading it right now. Certainly, it's nothing about steam, or is it? Anyway, it must to be a reason.
Any clues?

Robert gives a possible motive:

It's a service to both prevent too much downloads at once at the release date, and as a service to you to start immediately playing when September 21st is there!

But... Is it sufficient as a reason? I mean, do you need to have a specific day to launch it, and etc., because of marketing reasons?

Just curious, not spamming.

Edited: Keeping the game in your hard disk locked is only possible because of Steam, am I right? I suppose there's no hacker in the universe capable to unlock this game...

[Robert]

What rah says: there may be a day-zero patch. The game you have right now isn't fully complete.

[dregor]

Pre-loaded and ready to go come next Tuesday!

[Aro]

What rah says: there may be a day-zero patch. The game you have right now isn't fully complete.

Yep, this makes sense and is believable...
Ok, preloaded, backup done and ready to go next Thursday. I live in Brazil, you know... A nice country, but two days later for Steam and Firaxis, or whoever is the boss.

[Sabre2th]

Yep, this makes sense and is believable...
Ok, preloaded, backup done and ready to go next Thursday. I live in Brazil, you know... A nice country, but two days later for Steam and Firaxis, or whoever is the boss.

Well, Steam is a program/service run by the game company Valve. They work with publishers to digitally distribute games. 2K is the publisher for Civ5, which means they have control over the release date. Firaxis (the developer) MAY have some say in the matter, but it's generally the publisher that makes the call.