ETS2 Eastern European Expansion

We are happy to announce that we are working on the first official add-on for Euro Truck Simulator 2. This map expansion is centering on Eastern Europe with special focus on Poland, so we took the opportunity of a press-day taking place at our Polish publishing partner CDP to let the word know about it yesterday.

We have been working on the expansion for some time already, we have bits and pieces to show already, but there is still a lot of work left to complete the new part of the map.

Why go East for the first map expansion? With all respect to our truck sim games' fans across the globe, Polish fan community is one of the most active and most supportive. Cooperation between CDP and SCS in Poland is also exemplary. So we felt that this region is a great candidate for testing out if creating map expansions is going to become a viable business for SCS Software. It would be great if the market can prove that growing the world of Euro Truck Simulator 2 is not lost time for us.

Once ETS2 EEE is completed, we'll have to decide where to go next... Scandinavia? Rest of France with an option to go toward Spain? Italy? Balkans? Continue East towards Russia? We will have to try to come up with a method to understand the highest potential and set the priorities right...

Final note: This map add-on/DLC will not be free (we are pondering ~EUR 10 price point), but it's an optional expansion. Throughout the year 2013, we are going to keep improving the core game with free updates for everybody with fixes and many improvements, including for example all new trucks models, or new AI code. So while the 1.3.x patch is very near, stay tuned for further patches coming down the road. And some surprises on top of it all ;-).

A New ETS2 Patch Almost Here

In a few days we should be ready to finally update Euro Truck Simulator 2 again. We are working on improving many parts of the game, we are definitely not just in maintenance mode. The development effort is substantial; we are committed to evolving the game for a long time. But things take time to get them done right, more than we would like for sure. Several extensive features which will not make it into this patch are already under development. Please have patience with us!

What to expect now?

First and foremost, the 1.3.x patch is bringing two more official truck brands into the game. Of course moders are doing fabulous job in this area already, but this is major news for us. We are proud to have official support from 6 of 7 biggest European truck brands. Down the line, this is going to have very important influence on the quality of our games, as well us perception of our games by the public and truck industry insiders alike. Far from all ETS2 players use mods, so having the real brands in the game "out of the box" is a welcome feature for the many thousands of players just using the standard game.

Second major development is addition of Product Key verification step to the activation process. It is no secret that in the recent weeks, a "key gen" has appeared which can fool the built-in Product Key check in many cases. On release, the game had no true "DRM" protection, it never contacted any database of valid keys to see if the Product Key is really issued and in good standing. All that the game did was check if the Key conformed to a complex mathematical formula. This protection step though was reverse-engineered, a key gen unleashed, and since then piracy is through the roof. It's not just casual piracy, it seems that several shady companies have made a business out of selling these fake product keys on the cheap, scamming customers by claims that these keys are valid. We had to do something about it, it was urgent as this was badly hurting both our pocket and our reputation. So instead of bringing you a new patch quickly, we had to concentrate on closing this hole and spend over a month of programmers' time implementing an extra Product Key verification step to the game. As of the new patch, everybody will be asked to re-enter their Product Key again, and this time the check will be more thorough, actually comparing the key with a database of valid keys. Any keys which are not genuine or are coming from stolen credit card purchases will be refused. We expect quite a storm of complaints as people will find out that the key they were using until now just fine was in fact invalid, but we simply must take this step to protect our business. Steam version of Euro Truck Simulator 2 can be activated by using genuine Product Keys issued for any other edition of the game, and seeing the activity on Steam it is already a clear indication of what to expect with so many people trying to use fake keys to register the game there.

The patch change-log has some 20 lines covering fixes and improvements not listed above, but we'll post this detailed list closer to release of the patch. For now, let us show you some of the visible changes and additions to the ETS2 truck fleet.

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At Last!

We are looking forward to welcoming new truck simulation game players - Euro Truck Simulator 2 was published on Steam just a few minutes ago.

Update 1 am Prague time:

We just got word from Valve, the original ETS2 Product Keys (also known as CD keys though they are not necessarily only from CD editions of the game) should as of now activate the game. Please try again if you've failed to activate the game on Steam before!

Steam today!

We got word from Valve that finally, Euro Truck Simulator 2 should appear on Steam Store today. It has taken many more weeks than we hoped, but finally we have managed to push the game through the system and get it ready for release. Unless they bump into some last-minute show-stopping problem, this page should be on Steam tomorrow:

Product Keys (also known as CD-Keys) issued for ETS2 should allow for activating the game on Steam as well. No key-gen trickery will work though - this is a topic which will be addressed by the next non-Steam patch, too.

The first version of the game to appear on Steam will be equivalent to 1.2.5 which has been out there for a long time. We are working on several improvements and new features for the game, but they will only appear in the next update - When It's Done.

Linux is close!

Finally today we see the light at the end of the tunnel - Euro Truck Simulator 2 Linux port is almost finished. Very soon we should be able to start beta testing it.