Valve Is Killing The PC Market Apparently....

stabularasa said:
Jeez... did no one pass Business Economics in high school here? Everyone's saying how amazing Steam is for PC gaming. As if PC gaming was in some sort of crisis before Steam... But, whatever, I'm not going to get in to that. This refusal to sell Steam products by retailers was inevitably brought about by Steam having a monopoly over digital distribution and that monopoly is encroaching on retail. Monopolies are bad things, remember? Telkom, Microsoft... etc. Imagine how much you'd be paying for PCs if AMD finally crumbled.


Look at it this way: Would Pick 'n Pay sell Woolworths frikkadels?
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nope never had that. I see where you coming from but remember there is still direct2driver windows live(apparently they pushing for a bigger share in the market) Some other online shops as well. so its all good and dandy but using steam as a drm is also a big things these day so the other got to come up with some plan to play with the bigboy now since they have been sleeping.
 
I want steam to have a monopoly!
for 2 reasons
1) valve is awesome and deserve all the money in the world
2) I don't want to install a Digital Distribution program on my PC for each fucking publisher, yes ubisoft that was directed at you, retards...


edit: before any of you flame me, I know a monopoly is bad, I'm just being selfish...
 
There are lot of alternatives to steam. The reason steam is number one is because they do it better then all the others out there. If you don't like steam you can use gamersgate,metaboli,gamesplanet,d2d,impulse and games for windows live(if you like self inflicting pain that is). For older games you have gog. There's probably also others I forgot. You also have the likes of EA offering their own digital distribution.

a Monopoly is were you don't have a choice. With digital distribution in most cases the major games all appear on steam and the likes of gamersgate.

Personally I wouldn't cry at all out the retailers.
 
Stefan9 said:
If you don't like steam you can use gamersgate,metaboli,gamesplanet,d2d,impulse and games for windows live
[snip]
a Monopoly is were you don't have a choice.
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As if those other companies pose any sort of threat to Steam. Yes, the traditional definition of monopoly is that there is only one source for a product, but in the modern world a monopoly also exists when there is no tangible competition for one hugely dominant force in the marketplace, and that the dominant one can single handedly influence the other players at any time. Steam also engages in anti-competitive practices such as exclusive dealing and product bundling.
 
tpex said:
I want steam to have a monopoly!
for 2 reasons
1) valve is awesome and deserve all the money in the world
2) I don't want to install a Digital Distribution program on my PC for each fucking publisher, yes ubisoft that was directed at you, retards...


edit: before any of you flame me, I know a monopoly is bad, I'm just being selfish...
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tonystarkonholiday.jpg
 
Yeah, the problem is pretty much that no one else does it as well as Steam. Microsoft could easily, but their focus is on the XBox which is far more lucrative for them. They also have the problem that if they charge for GFWL, then Steam is superior because its free, but if they dont charge for it, they make it kinda clear that XBL customers are getting ripped.

I think Steam's success shows what a good business head Valve has. Their weekend sales are great at moving units of older games that people didnt buy before. I bought Supreme Commander 2 and its first DLC through them for like R50. Valve's pricing elasticity is a massive advantage that no other company has really thought to use like they do.

When other companies pull finger and innovate then we will see an end to Steam's dominance. If everyone is going to bitch and moan about monopolies but not do anything to improve, then nothing will happen.
 
Ancalagon said:
Yeah, the problem is pretty much that no one else does it as well as Steam. Microsoft could easily, but their focus is on the XBox which is far more lucrative for them. They also have the problem that if they charge for GFWL, then Steam is superior because its free, but if they dont charge for it, they make it kinda clear that XBL customers are getting ripped.

I think Steam's success shows what a good business head Valve has. Their weekend sales are great at moving units of older games that people didnt buy before. I bought Supreme Commander 2 and its first DLC through them for like R50. Valve's pricing elasticity is a massive advantage that no other company has really thought to use like they do.

When other companies pull finger and innovate then we will see an end to Steam's dominance. If everyone is going to bitch and moan about monopolies but not do anything to improve, then nothing will happen.
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Steam isn't just superior because its free. Its software is vastly superior to games for windows live. Also MS already tried to charge pc gamers for games for windows live, it didn't work. That's why they decide they rather focus on the xbox 360 gamers, who are willing to pay a subscription fee.

Steam also has a major advantage in content the ms marketplace just pales in comparison to steam and all the other pc digital distrobutors as well.

stabularasa said:
As if those other companies pose any sort of threat to Steam. Yes, the traditional definition of monopoly is that there is only one source for a product, but in the modern world a monopoly also exists when there is no tangible competition for one hugely dominant force in the marketplace, and that the dominant one can single handedly influence the other players at any time. Steam also engages in anti-competitive practices such as exclusive dealing and product bundling.
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Never said they posed a threat to steam. The point is if the consumer doesn't like steam's offering he has other options. In the cases of telkom and microsoft there is very little to no alternative.

As for exvlusive dealing steam is hardly the only retailer guilty of this. Gamespot is as guilty of this as steam.
 
Steam as a online digital distribution platform is very cool.

BUT, they must stay the FUCK away from the hosting games thing like with COD:M2 and Black Ops. Why do I need to authenticate to Steam first? Why do I need to be connected to Steam to be able to play my games? Incredibly annoying!
 
DenSweeP said:
Steam as a online digital distribution platform is very cool.

BUT, they must stay the FUCK away from the hosting games thing like with COD:M2 and Black Ops. Why do I need to authenticate to Steam first? Why do I need to be connected to Steam to be able to play my games? Incredibly annoying!
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Yes that is a big load of BS. Sometimes when steam is down it's such a MISH to try and play some of the games. Ffs man, last time we wanted to play killing floor, and I was hosting, I had to go get both my international and local IPs to give to my friends so they could join. Everytime I hosted it would choose one of those IPs and they had to join manually. What QaQ!

If people pay good money for games, why should they be limited to be able to play only when Steam is working?
 
Anyone tried OnLive? Seem like a decent competitor to Steam - though they are brand spanking new and I really don't know how they will fare but the concept is good.

EDIT: Tells me I must piss off coz I have a high latency... will try again when I go to Europe.
 
smokey said:
Anyone tried OnLive? Seem like a decent competitor to Steam - though they are brand spanking new and I really don't know how they will fare but the concept is good.

EDIT: Tells me I must piss off coz I have a high latency... will try again when I go to Europe.
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AFAIK OnLive only works in the US at the moment and you have to be within a certain distance of the servers due to latency since the game output is streamed to you. You would need sub 20ms to their servers for it to be playable.
 
Blackhand said:
AFAIK OnLive only works in the US at the moment and you have to be within a certain distance of the servers due to latency since the game output is streamed to you. You would need sub 20ms to their servers for it to be playable.
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I noticed. THough to be honest, I did read that 50-80ms was acceptable. If they base their revenue model on geographic servers, it'll be quite unsustainable.

EDIT: They are opening UK, Belgium and Lichtenstein/Luxembourg(!!) branches as well.
 
smokey said:
I noticed. THough to be honest, I did read that 50-80ms was acceptable. If they base their revenue model on geographic servers, it'll be quite unsustainable.

EDIT: They are opening UK, Belgium and Lichtenstein/Luxembourg(!!) branches as well.
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They are obviously going to expand =) Its just a fairly new service at the moment so they only have servers up in the US. I think for SA using something like OnLive is a LONG way off though. We would need local servers and the bandwidth and hosting costs of something like that in SA would be completely unsustainable, considering for HD gameplay they need to provide 5mbs of bandwidth to each player AND pretty much dedicate a high end gaming PC to them in the datacentre. I imagine it was difficult enough trying to make it financially viable in the US and UK.
 
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