Retail threatens to not sell Steam games.

[Mkilbride]

Steamworks is free of charge, also. Desura is not trying to compete with Steam either, they've already said that.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51016

Valve Announces Steamworks: Free Tool Suite Available to All PC Developers

I don't think it's a large percentage either; as it was brought up on the Killing Floor forums, someone cited that "The Devs didn't even make much money, Valve got most of it", to which a Dev replied that "Valve was really helpful developing, but no, they did not take a large percentage"

No exact %%% was ever given though.

 

[Avenger]

The danger of Steam is its rise to monopoly, not its current quality of service. When a company reaches monopoly, it has nothing to lose anymore, and so the quality of its services drop whereas the price increases.

 

[Mkilbride]

In most cases, but not all. Let us just assume that Valve's quality does not drop; then what?

Basically, there is no alternative that is half-way decent to Steam at the moment. D2D is kinda meh...and Impulse and all that isn't so great, basically just "here's your key and download" kinda deal.

Steam offers everything a budding Developer could want, but can't afford, for free, and offers the player amazing deals, automatic updates, news on what is going on, groups, chats, in-game overlay, and fast download speeds. A Monopoly is when one business, like Microsoft over-shadows the competition by such an insane degree due to forced tactics and under-handed dealings, that nothing new can come.

That is not the case with Steam, nor will it be.

 

[Z Power]

Hopefully Valve won't let that happen. Besides if their quality does drop, their forums are gonna be filled with so many hate posts, they'd have no choice but to back it up again. Steam is at the top because it is as much community driven as it is Valve driven. People CHOOSE what Steam is and will become.

Edit: Dammit Mkil, stop ninjaing me!

 

[Avenger]

Right, because a corporation cares about its hatemail when it has a monopoly. Right. Good luck with that.

 

[Grega]

That is not the case with Steam, nor will it be.

Thats one thing you can not say. Also a monopole doesnt only mean overshadowing the competition with brute force tactics. It also means getting onto a new market, and taking it all before anyone else even has the chance to join in. And that is what STEAM did. It was a blazing success. And it does almost guarantee that Valve has the monopole on the digital distribution market. They dont own all of it, but you can not predict what will happen when they do.

 

[Z Power]

Right, because a corporation cares about its hatemail when it has a monopoly. Right. Good luck with that.

I trust Valve.

 

[Prozac]

Not sure if its proof, due to the fact that its Valves own game, but

On STEAM the Orange box was round 24€, i bought it retail for 14€ no discounts, no nothing.

Hows that make sense.

Shops want to dump old stuff, so they lower the price. They don't always add a discount label to it.
And this is one of steams biggest weaknesses. As they can't control third party game prices.

 

[Sicron]

I trust Valve.

You trust Valve based on current data. However, companies change when they are a complete monopoly. They have no competition, so no need to be innovative. They could care less about hatemail then, because people will not leave either way, since Steam would be the only system around.

 

[Mkilbride]

Really there is nothing stopping anyone from creating an alternative for Steam...the issue is they aren't, and they don't want to offer as much as Steam does.

 

[Grega]

Really there is nothing stopping anyone from creating an alternative for Steam...the issue is they aren't, and they don't want to offer as much as Steam does.

Its more like they cant. STEAM holds such a big piece of the market, that noone can get close to them unless they make something that blows STEAM out of the water. EA tried it long ago and it dodnt really get as much hype as STEAM.

 

[Mkilbride]

And how is that Steams fault? It's their fault they did a good job, and that no one wants to offer a better service / is afraid to take the risk?

Steam broke out with DD was risky, they took the dive that many weren't willing too, and they won because of it. Fair.

 

[DiebytheSword]

Steam innovated and offered incredible services at equally competitive prices. The end result is domination. This is always the recipie for success.

 

[Z Power]

Steam built up because the community liked the services. The moment the quality of services falter, it wont matter if Steam has the monopoly, consumers will go back to D2D, shipping and retail. If the offers stopped, and all the prices hitch up, are you really willing to spend that high price rather then just go down the street and grab a copy?

For Steam to become even more popular, they HAVE to continue what they've been doing, ie providing good services, and even build up on it, which they HAVE been doing. Steam will live.

 

[Mkilbride]

Exactly. This isn't a case of them grabbing a service by the balls and not letting anyone else in their court.

It's them pleasing the customers, giving us what we want, quality service. The thing is, places like Best Buy want their own DD for games and such, but with Steam, they can't see it as profitable, so they claim bull**** like this. It's because they're unwilling to put out anything near the quality of a Steam DD service; because it requires effort & time.

Honestly, as others have said, it will not affect Steam in the slightest...also, let's see them NOT SELL THE NEXT CALL OF DUTY GAME IN STORES. Let us see them not do that! They'll loose out on TONS AND TONS of money. It's merely a bluff, and if not, they're plain stupid.

 

[sub]

I'm surprised that anyone in the retail business even cares about the PC anymore. For years PC games have lost retail shelf space to console games because console games make more money. It's to the point where my local gamestop hardly even sells PC games, there's a small shelf hidden in the store devoted to mainstream PC games like Call of Duty.

Unless Walmart comes out and boycotts games that use Steamworks, this is too little too late. Steamworks is offering them things that no one else in the industry right now is able to: They get free matchmaking, free server browsers, free online hosting of save games/configs, free realtime sales data, and an avenue to directly communicate with their fans and sell them DLC. Not to mention the fact that most users genuinely like Steam.

 

[Synth]

Steam is not the only reason why Gamestop is the only retail video-game store all up on the strip malls these days.

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

I'm surprised that anyone in the retail business even cares about the PC anymore. For years PC games have lost retail shelf space to console games because console games make more money. It's to the point where my local gamestop hardly even sells PC games, there's a small shelf hidden in the store devoted to mainstream PC games like Call of Duty.

Unless Walmart comes out and boycotts games that use Steamworks, this is too little too late. Steamworks is offering them things that no one else in the industry right now is able to: They get free matchmaking, free server browsers, free online hosting of save games/configs, free realtime sales data, and an avenue to directly communicate with their fans and sell them DLC. Not to mention the fact that most users genuinely like Steam.

This is what's going to keep retailers from scaring people away from using Steam in their games. Retailers already offer next to no space or advertising for PC titles, and they would still be carrying the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the cross platform games when those were released, so there will be virtually no revenue lost to publishers if the PC versions of those games were sold exclusively online. Hell the fact that so many of these games have already been released with Steam bundled in ensures that even if you were to pull Call of Duty off of store shelves tomorrow, 98% of their preexisting user base would still be able to purchase the game without even hopping through the hoop of creating a Steam account.

 

[Grega]

This is what's going to keep retailers from scaring people away from using Steam in their games. Retailers already offer next to no space or advertising for PC titles, and they would still be carrying the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the cross platform games when those were released, so there will be virtually no revenue lost to publishers if the PC versions of those games were sold exclusively online. Hell the fact that so many of these games have already been released with Steam bundled in ensures that even if you were to pull Call of Duty off of store shelves tomorrow, 98% of their preexisting user base would still be able to purchase the game without even hopping through the hoop of creating a Steam account.

At the same time you have Console variations of those games. And if those are boycotted, then the entire console gaming world will go down knocking on Valves doors in anger.

And how is that Steams fault? It's their fault they did a good job, and that no one wants to offer a better service / is afraid to take the risk?

Same goes for microsoft. And i mean EXACTLY the same. Windows was revolutionary. An easy way for PC usage and file management that every person can learn with out a 1000 page book on dos commands. And where are they now. Cashsucking leaches thats where. They have enough of a grip on the market to ensure no one even gets close to threatening them, while they sell their products and literally force people to buy expensive Windows if they want to use for example the latest DX technology. Even though it would be REALLY easy to port DX11 onto Windows XP, or even Vista.

How can you be so sure that STEAM wont go down the same path?

 

[Mkilbride]

Because the guy who made Steam left Microsoft cause they were a bunch of Cashsucking leeches?