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Forums - PC Discussion - Retailers threaten to ban Steam games!

BengaBenga said:
ssj12 said:
totalwar23 said:

Good. Everytime I look at a game at a retail outlet, I have to constantly look in the back to see if it's Steam integrated or not.


And why don't you just buy your games on Steam? the majority of the time they are easier to get installed, have better purchase deals, and amazing sales.


The point of the non-Steam sellers is that Steam could grow out to be the iTunes of gaming, where Valve dictates the market, like Apple is doing with songs and apps. Now maybe you can trust them not abusing that power, but I surely prefer actual competition preventing one party deciding which games you can play.

Not saying I blame Valve for that, they grew because they're offering the best deal, but it seems other (online) retailers had enough and will stop at nothing to lose all their market share.

Valve might control 60% of the digital download market but you, and these retailers, fail to realize Valve has a ton of competition. Impulse, Direct 2 Drive, Amazon, GameStop, Nvidia, etc all are in direct competition to Valve. Impulse is the 2nd largest DD retailer for PC followed by D2D. Valve might have majority, but they will never manage to control the DD market completely like Apple is controlling the music download service at the moment. And even Apple is threatened if Sony released the rumored music channel on the PSN, Microsoft releases something like it on XBLA, and other smaller services gain more popularity.



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I'm on the retailers can burn. Even without Steam retailers actively started cutting PC games already. So why should retailers only carry select top AAA production games? That would choke the market out of the true heart of PC gaming. Retailers are just bitching about the loss of monopoly, but they brought it on themselves. tough.

Besides that Steam has nothing to do with the move. Digital Software distribution was already happening without Valve. Valve just grabbed the opperunity rather than get left behind. That's a company with smart, flexible and not brain dead stupid like the retailer chains.



Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.

it's funny how the PC market was dead but now it's steam killing it because their keep growing and growing... =) i'd see this more as insulfing health to the market.



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ssj12 said:
BengaBenga said:
ssj12 said:
totalwar23 said:

Good. Everytime I look at a game at a retail outlet, I have to constantly look in the back to see if it's Steam integrated or not.


And why don't you just buy your games on Steam? the majority of the time they are easier to get installed, have better purchase deals, and amazing sales.


The point of the non-Steam sellers is that Steam could grow out to be the iTunes of gaming, where Valve dictates the market, like Apple is doing with songs and apps. Now maybe you can trust them not abusing that power, but I surely prefer actual competition preventing one party deciding which games you can play.

Not saying I blame Valve for that, they grew because they're offering the best deal, but it seems other (online) retailers had enough and will stop at nothing to lose all their market share.

Valve might control 60% of the digital download market but you, and these retailers, fail to realize Valve has a ton of competition. Impulse, Direct 2 Drive, Amazon, GameStop, Nvidia, etc all are in direct competition to Valve. Impulse is the 2nd largest DD retailer for PC followed by D2D. Valve might have majority, but they will never manage to control the DD market completely like Apple is controlling the music download service at the moment. And even Apple is threatened if Sony released the rumored music channel on the PSN, Microsoft releases something like it on XBLA, and other smaller services gain more popularity.

I don't fail to realize that at all, I'm fully aware of that. Actually iTunes has quite some competition as well. The thing you don't adress is the iTunes apps situation, where Apple, not the customer, decides. iTunes obviously can do that because they own the platform.

With game developers adding Steam content to their games you could end up with the same situation in PC gaming, as there will be less and less reason not to buy on Steam, if you have to access that while playing anyway.

 



BengaBenga said:
ssj12 said:
BengaBenga said:
ssj12 said:
totalwar23 said:

Good. Everytime I look at a game at a retail outlet, I have to constantly look in the back to see if it's Steam integrated or not.


And why don't you just buy your games on Steam? the majority of the time they are easier to get installed, have better purchase deals, and amazing sales.


The point of the non-Steam sellers is that Steam could grow out to be the iTunes of gaming, where Valve dictates the market, like Apple is doing with songs and apps. Now maybe you can trust them not abusing that power, but I surely prefer actual competition preventing one party deciding which games you can play.

Not saying I blame Valve for that, they grew because they're offering the best deal, but it seems other (online) retailers had enough and will stop at nothing to lose all their market share.

Valve might control 60% of the digital download market but you, and these retailers, fail to realize Valve has a ton of competition. Impulse, Direct 2 Drive, Amazon, GameStop, Nvidia, etc all are in direct competition to Valve. Impulse is the 2nd largest DD retailer for PC followed by D2D. Valve might have majority, but they will never manage to control the DD market completely like Apple is controlling the music download service at the moment. And even Apple is threatened if Sony released the rumored music channel on the PSN, Microsoft releases something like it on XBLA, and other smaller services gain more popularity.

I don't fail to realize that at all, I'm fully aware of that. Actually iTunes has quite some competition as well. The thing you don't adress is the iTunes apps situation, where Apple, not the customer, decides. iTunes obviously can do that because they own the platform.

With game developers adding Steam content to their games you could end up with the same situation in PC gaming, as there will be less and less reason not to buy on Steam, if you have to access that while playing anyway.

 

No, since valve does not own the hardware, any company can easily take their share if they offer a better service at a better value. Itunes(apple) owns the apps market because there can be no other market on the ipad/iphone/itouch. Computers are open to far more services without restriction. Completely different circumstances.



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Exactly. The PC is an open market, not a walled garden like Apple's itunes ecosystem or XBox Live. If anyone can come up with better services for publishers and customers than people will gravitate towards them, similarly to how nearly everyone's moved away from GfWL to Steam. Bleating that you can't get a slice of a market that Steam pretty much created is pretty pathetic.



Yeah. If I buy a game from a retailer, I don't want to install some advertisement service with it. Remove forced steam installs from retail games and everything is fine.

Oh and if I buy a retail game with steam integration, can I sell the game later or am I stuck with it like the stuff you buy from rip off service called steam?



Do a lot of games come with Steam included?

Regardless, it doesn't seem to matter what retailers do. Digital Downloads dominate the market.



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nordlead said:

I completely understand where the retailers are coming from. It is the equivalent of selling McDonnalds burgers in Burger King take out bags and sandwich wrappers. I support the retailers and hope they force these companies to remove Steam from the retail copies of the game. I have no problem with Steam personally, but I don't want to install Steam just to play a game I bought in a brick and mortar store or off of a website like Amazon.

While I agree that the practice of requiring Steam just to play a game bought through retail is questionable at best (and completely unnecessary), it's not so different from Games for Windows which effectively hobble retail games (no saving) if you don't set up an account and stay logged on while playing, even in single player offline modes. 

But this may just continue to be the future of PC gaming in the interest of monitoring and controlling content. 



Antabus said:

Yeah. If I buy a game from a retailer, I don't want to install some advertisement service with it. Remove forced steam installs from retail games and everything is fine.


Advertisement service? Jesus.

The installs are 'forced' because the publisher has chosen to use Steamworks, which offers a whole shitload of free services saving them development money and adding value for customers. Valve sells GfWL enabled games on Steam without crapping themselves that users are going to be installing the GfWL client and being exposed to Games on Demand. Again, if retailers are so bothered that customers are going to be seduced by Steam, then they need to come up with more compelling offerings or get out of the way as they're starting to look like dinosaurs.