# Is it normal to be able to play a steam game before it's 'out'?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [October 13, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037 "2010-10-13T19:36:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037/1 "2010-10-13T19:36:16Z")

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On steam you can install games ready for when they get released. I’ve just installed Medal of Honour.

It’s supposed to be out in about 2 days, but it’s letting me play it now. I can play single player, and multiplayer matchmaking mode (there are no servers to play on yet).

Is this normal?

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**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037/2 "2010-10-13T19:57:31Z")

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Medal of honor came out yesterday 🙂

There was an October 15th release date hanging around in some places, but that was changed a while back, IIRC.

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**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037/3 "2010-10-13T22:57:48Z")

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> [@Kinthalis](#):
>
> Medal of honor came out yesterday 🙂
> 
> There was an October 15th release date hanging around in some places, but that was changed a while back, IIRC.

My steam said October 15th today. And when I purchased the game it said ‘this game will be released on 1 day and x hours’ (I didn’t pay attention to the number of hours)

FYI there’s a bug in level 2 - if you fail the hellfire mission first time (I did because I was trying to figure out the controls) it becomes impossible to fire anything. I think you might be able to start the whole mission again (and hope you don’t fail that bit again) to get past it.

I wasn’t going to go through that so I played the MP mode for a bit then turned it off.

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**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037/4 "2010-10-14T07:20:29Z")

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I was able to play Civ5 early by using a proxy to fake being in the US, but that was early just for us EU people. 😃

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**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-normal-to-be-able-to-play-a-steam-game-before-its-out/557037/5 "2010-10-14T20:40:20Z")

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In the other direction, Steam was actually late with enabling Mount & Blade: Warband so I downloaded the game from TaleWorlds.