Valve Is Killing The PC Market Apparently....

[OmegaFenix]

According to a report on trade site MCV, two "big-name digital retailers" for the PC market are staring down the barrel of financial ruin, while two major British retailers are reportedly considering a ban on games that include Steam integration.

"Publishers don't give a shit, they don't care what happens to the customer. Which is the crucial point, because Steam do," the director of "a fledgling Steam rival" told the site. A fledgling rival, eh? Direct2Drive, perhaps? GamersGate? Impulse, maybe?

The criticism of Steam - an online multiplayer platform and digital shopfront run by Half-Life developers Valve - doesn't stop there.

"I've fought hard for my customer, and never before have I had to give my customers away. Steam is killing the PC market and it is no wonder digital retailers are failing", the unnamed director continues.

"Steam is locking down the market."

See, here's where these digital competitors have it wrong. Yes, it's hardly an ideal set of circumstances that a single company is effectively taking over the mainstream PC downloadable market. More competition would be good for everyone. But there's a reason Steam is so dominant: it's the only service that's doing things right.

The sooner competing services quit bitching and start putting together comparable platforms where you can shop, play and communicate as easily as you can on Steam, the sooner we'll take their criticisms as something more than just sour grapes.

As for the bricks-and-mortar retailers, there are reportedly fears that selling boxed copies of games that include mandatory Steam integration is only going to encourage customers to not only shop online in the future, but shop with Steam, which is a competitor to these own retailer's digital shopfront ambitions.

As a result of this, "two major retailers" in the UK are threatening publishers that they will cease stocking games that include such a requirement in any form.

Source

Agree with Kotaku here, Steam is the only one doing it right, MS screwed their chance with the shamble that was Gamers for Windows Live and there is no other real competition for it.

[Crzwaco]

Games for windows live really suck its like they tried the xbox thing on pc.But then again its pretty new and we all agree that steam was shit in the beginning day's but these day's its top notch still need a lot of improvement but its stable.

[Necuno]

Games for windows live really suck its like they tried the xbox thing on pc.But then again its pretty new and we all agree that steam was shit in the beginning day's but these day's its top notch still need a lot of improvement but its stable.

exactly, and thank your fellow pc pirate for steam.

[Stefan9]

Right the platform that grew 178% last year and has grown for 6 years straight is the death of pc gaming...Personally I prefer steam as platform because of its integration, gfwli is just trash I try to avoid games that use it.

Have used gamersgate and gog as well and never had any issues. Don't like impulse and d2d because most of their games is restricted to only US users. If you want to keep in the digital world you need to insure that as many titles as possible is available for all of the regions. Steam and gamersgate are much better with this.

[czc]

Ever since I got steam I have not pirated a single game, true story. And then I only pirated age of kings until I could buy a copy in the shop.


Its not dead, just creating a monster.

[smokey]

Sour grapes, plain and simple. I never wanted to install Steam on my PC because it constantly crashed when I used it before... but since I was enticed by Alien Swarm I have gotten my sister and brother to make an account and we've bought quite a few games. I mean how can you say no to KOTOR for R35? I really hope major retailers in the UK and US ditch Steam titles. It will just force a showdown that will end badly for them. The Steam machine just keeps rolling on...

[James]

Haha, retail stores don't get it. They won't carry Steam games because they are afraid that people will rather buy the game on Steam. What do they think will happen if they don't carry the game at all?

@ Pr⊕phet: It's not like piracy was the reason that Steam was developed. You can still easily get pirated Steam games anyway.

[Necuno]

@ Pr⊕phet: It's not like piracy was the reason that Steam was developed. You can still easily get pirated Steam games anyway.

haaai nooit wie sou dit nou kon raai .

steam is partly a piracy deterrent, it's one of the reason and i've never said it's the only reason. why do you think so many games use steam works these days ?, but um thanks... i lol'ed when i read your reply.

Right the platform that grew 178% last year and has grown for 6 years straight is the death of pc gaming...Personally I prefer steam as platform because of its integration, gfwli is just trash I try to avoid games that use it.

Have used gamersgate and gog as well and never had any issues. Don't like impulse and d2d because most of their games is restricted to only US users. If you want to keep in the digital world you need to insure that as many titles as possible is available for all of the regions. Steam and gamersgate are much better with this.

i've bought 4 or 5 games on physical media this whole year so far as to rest is just digital distro because of the ease of it.

Ever since I got steam I have not pirated a single game, true story. And then I only pirated age of kings until I could buy a copy in the shop.

that and, it becomes less when you actually have pay to afford it.

My biggest issue with steam is that it's horribly unreliable with offline functionality, one tiny little glitch and it's useless.

As long as you save your details there won't be a problem its when you don't save your details that you can't do nothing.

i've gotten the one instance where i had no internet for about 2 months and somewhere along the line steam decided it won't launch any more in offline mode and must update now. needless to say, i just couldn't play my steam games and went over to my console till i got access again.

[James]

haaai nooit wie sou dit nou kon raai .

steam is partly a piracy deterrent, it's one of the reason and i've never said it's the only reason. why do you think so many games use steam works these days ?, but um thanks... i lol'ed when i read your reply.

Of course it's a piracy deterrent, much like a solid moral compass and strong ethics are also a piracy deterrent. I'm just saying that I reckon Steamworks DRM is just a natural element to the digital distribution platform (much like meat-sweats and regret are a natural element to eating an entire family bucket of KFC by yourself) and not the reason it was developed in the first place.

Looking at other implementations of DRM (Ubisoft's online verification fiasco, Starforce, etc), Steam is probably one of the most user friendly systems (random crashes and giant patch Friday's aside). Plus it lets you collect all your games into one accessible digital distribution platform where you can always retrieve them. Props to Valve for this one

[Raven Gold]

My biggest issue with steam is that it's horribly unreliable with offline functionality, one tiny little glitch and it's useless.