GTA VC - Steam vs Retail | Behind the scenes (Patreon)

Hello there!Today I decided to write a bit about "GTA VC - Steam vs Retail". So yeah, please welcome behind the scene stuff. 

~~Something from the pastEverything started in January, when someone showed me a similar picture from below on Twitter.  Someone stated that his key for Vice City gave him a "New Audio" version.  

Since I bought VC in 2008 on Steam, I always had a full soundtrack, so I decided to ask him to share his game files. I was curious to look at the music differences and save these files for the future.

When I got his files, I noticed that there are no differences. I thought, what the heck? Someone's screwing me? 😄I decided to create a post on Twitter asking people to share their "GTA VC New Audio" files. 

The more files I received, the more I started to believe that New Audio and Old Audio is the same freakin version. What a mystery!😛 Eventually, I asked people on Twitter if they want to see a video about the steam version of Vice City and to my disappointment, they didn't want it. Maybe that's because it was a bad choice in that poll.

~~Why did I choose to make this video instead of others? 

Well, two months ago, when I started to hunt various GTA versions, I came across this weird and obscure Russian Steam release.https://steamdb.info/app/110700

It is a standalone Russian version of Vice City, which has a few mysterious:

It has no store page;

If someone owns it, it isn't visible in the game library for others;

It doesn't count time you playing it.

Three gamers, who got this version, said that they got it by activating a key they bought on various digital marketplaces.I started to browse various Russian e-shops to buy this release, because I was curious enough to check it. Fortunately, I found one seller selling this key so I bought it. 

Instead of "GTA Vice City RU" it it gave me "GTA Vice City "New Audio" even when I had so called "Old Audio" from pre-ordering GTA IV in 2008. You can check this mess below: 😛

I noticed that the Steam didn't update my game and VC soundtrack was still there.  

I thought, heck, I can talk about Steam changes in my next video, why not to talk about New Audio and Old Audio mysteries as well? After that I started scripting a video and asked FireHead to look at the game code giving him various GTA VC versions.

~~New Audio on Old Audio

If you wonder, I got a refund for that "GTA Vice City RU" or New Audio key. Seller stated that he didn't update his store page after getting new international keys. He said, that these "old" keys I wanted to buy are gone forever.

Moreover, I decided to ask Steam support about this bug having both old and new audio releases at once.Since I didn't know that it will be my future video, I decided to ask them in Russian as I thought that Russian Steam department knows about this mysterious release better.

Steam representative said that they checked my key and stated that "New Audio" release I got from a key is an addon to Vice City and not an actual game adding that this key isn't from "GTA Vice City RU". 

An "addon", huh.... I thought that it would be an interesting thing to show in the video.Unfortunately, I didn't know how to explain it to English people. I didn't know if it was a good idea to translate seller's and Steam support's answers. If you wonder, here is that Russian frame. Imagine that I added English translation there. Heck, it would be a mess. 

 Eventually, I decided to cut this part once and for all. I thought that I waste too much time talking about new and old audio releases and, it felt like a "filler".  

~~Ask to pause the video or explain?

Originally, I thought that 1.1 patch changes were uninteresting and boring. Moreover, at that time FireHead didn't know much about "SkinFix" stating that it could be a simple memory leak fix.My original idea was to leave a frame explaining people these changes, asking them to pause the video if they want to read more about them.Right now I only have Russian frame left from it, but anyways, you can still see that it had less information than now.

Eventually I changed my mind as well as FireHead managed to crack "SkinFix" change, so I decided to talk about them more in-depth.

~~German digital version of the game

I can't remember that I cut something else from the video, which is a good thing, I guess, but there is something I want to share.According to SteamDB, Germans had both New Audio and Old audio depots as well, but having additional "DE" tag in them.I thought, maybe Germans were unlucky to get a real "New Audio" release, so I ordered this interesting "release" below. You can read more about it here.

The problem was, I received every single file I need from German people just before this "disc" arrived so I knew the answer that the music is not cut. 😛

Moreover, it gave me International versions, for some reason.I guess, there are no more "German" cut versions on Steam. I can't find a single person having a true low violence mode. Searching continues.

~~Visuals

This was a hard video for me, because it had a lot of visuals, which I changed a lot.For instance, here are a few of them:

"Timeline"- Tried to find good balance how to make it "decent".

"New Audio" and "Old Audio" - minor changes.

This was a "WIP" thumbnail used as a teaser for VC macOS video.I am still fighting with Hackintosh though. 🤬 

~~The name for the video

It was so freakin hard to name this video. Originally, I thought to name it "What's wrong with Steam version", because I wanted to talk about macOS version as well. I wrote about it in my last posts on Patreon, by the way.As you already know, I don't have mac nor I have a luck installing Hackintosh. Eventually, I decided to talk about PC version only and I noticed that there is nothing wrong with it (for the most part), so I decided to change the name.I didn't want to name it "Retail vs Steam", because the title should be something like a "clickbait" to attract more viewers, so I decided to name it as a question "Is Steam a good version?". The truth is, everyone thinks that is is a bad release. Maybe, it is a bad title for the video. We will see.

~~~~~

I hope, it was interesting for you to read. Stay tuned for more.