(Im posting this in the forums since I can't post it like an article in the blog section.)
I remember the old days of gaming. That long gone era called 2008. Back when games were provided with their own custom installers, and were self-contained products that installed themselves separatedly on the computer you instaleld them. I like to call this era the "Installshield Era" of gaming. Back when game media only contained asset and binaries, and a registration window, when dialog box wizards ruled the gaming land, and when there weren't any remote validation hooks attached to executables. That is why, with increasing concern, I am watching nowadays the way our most amazing form of entertainment is rearranging itself, how market forces and anti-consumer tendencies are beggining to shape the new landscape of gaming, at the expense of the average gamer.
Big game releases nowadays are abandoning these old, anticuated components such as autorun main menus, install wizards, or dedicated servers, and have moved to the all encapsulating remote delivery methods of popular DRM schemes, such as Steam. By itself, Steam is convenient, fast if you have good internet connection, and easy to deploy. Many games were released in normal "retail" form, and were offered in Steam's store shortly after. Those instances however, are nowadays mostly the case with PC only releases from eastern european studios it seems. Steam's "next step" in gaming convenience is anything but that, and could mark the beggining of a new mandatory requirement for gaming in the future. More and more games are now announcing their complete deployment based around Valve's new Steamworks framework, touted as the "least intrusive" DRM scheme, "convenient" to gaemers and publishers alike, which takes care of formerly manual tasks like patching. They claim it isn't intrusive when compared to the likes of Securom or Tages. But I would like to point out that it is more than that. It's not only indeed intrusive, it's THE most intrusive DRM scheme to come along yet. The game is not at all installed or even located completely in your computer when you realize it. At least Securom installed itself after it let the installer copy YOUR game to YOUR hard drive. Steamworks' remote always-on cloud network remotely controls one of ITS game's installation, patching, running. When you start the game, you send a signal to the autenticathion servers situatied remotely from your location, and the order is sent back before you are able to game. You are asked for an authorization each time to play the games you paid a hefty premium to be allowed some few hours of playimte. It's the arcade coin-up model. We've gone back full circle, to the arcade machins of old times. It may as well place a coin slot in your computer. It's like trying the games you paid for thru a remote terminal. A service that, much like an arcade place, can close up in after hours, or at the discretion of their owners. The access to the games you are allowed to try remotely can be switched off at any moment without any explanation from the providers, and you are effectively out. Cloud based gaming, and software as a service don't look like a good idea afterall under these terms.
"Blah blah, who cares, I don't have to deal with DVDs anymore!" Maybe this is really making mountains out of molehills. Steam does have it's merits, which mostly come from giving smaller indie developers a storefront to showcase their creations without needing a traditional expensive distribution contract. Companies like Tripwire and 2d boy have been the most vocal about their praise for steam, with Tripwire saying they wouldn't be around without Steam. This piece is not an anti-steam call to arms, it's just an informational soundbyte, just to express concern about the trend Steamworks is creating, which isn't 100% in reality as advertised in the package. A steamworks game instantly becomes a steam exclusive game. That situation could become the beggining of a monopoly. Maybe this is a good time for competitors to shine.
Best Buy shouldn't sell products with Wal-mart slapped on them. You're not getting the point, still. The problem isn't the product, it's the product branding.
Your position holds little water because in your mind, you see Steam as the winner and everyone else just borrowing time until they are gone. That is not an arguable position to take for D2D.
YOU are not getting the point. Best Buy sells products with Verizon and ATT slapped on them. They even sell contracts for those companies. This is happening right now. In reality. By your logic, should Best Buy only sell unlocked phone? What's the point of Best Buy having a cell phone store at all? Obviously to make that initial cash. This is EXACTLY what D2D is doing.
Best Buy doesn't really compete with ATT and Verizon directly. You still refuse to see who Best Buy actually competes with; it is NOT ATT and Verizon. You need to compare them to places like the defunct Circuit City, Frys, on some levels Wal-mart, Sears. For your comparison to work, it would be like walking into Best Buy and them handing you a cell phone with the words "Wal-Mart" "Radioshack" or "Circuit City" slapped on then, not ATT or Verizon.
Their cellphone section obviously does.
@ZehDon:
Except D2D doesn't make or publish their own games. You guys keep bringing up first party vs first party examples, which have no relevance. D2D is not a Ford lot selling Volvos. It's a used car lot selling Ford, Volvos, and anything it can get its hands on. Just FYI, Ford lots will sell Volvo, Honda, Toyota, and other brands of cars. I'm not sure if you've ever been outside and have seen a car lot, but they buy up used cars as part of the sale of a new car, and will then sell those used cars right on their lot.
It's an independent cell phone shop selling Verizon and ATT phones. It's not Verizon selling ATT phones. That would be Impulse selling Steam products. D2D DOES NOT HAVE THEIR OWN BRAND OF GAMES. They are nothing more than a storefront.
Since you guys are so obviously hung up on the wrong part of the analogy, here's one that's simpler, and hopefully even you guys can understand:
D2D is an independent cell phone shop. They sell phones from all carriers, as well as unlocked phones. They do not make phones of their own. Do you see any cell phone shops selling just unlocked phones? No. They all sell branded and contracted cell phones. They are giving business to other companies, who will entice customers with "new every two" deals once their contract runs out. They are selling them Verizon phones, which makes a person log into verizon.com to pay their bills, and forces them to bombarded by ads advertising Verizon phones and services. Sound familiar?
FYI, D2D agrees with me and that's why they're selling Steam games. That's pretty much my ultimate trump card, and all the flawed analogies in the world won't change the fact that they tried to boycott, and they failed.
There's no such thing as a used Steam game though. That argument can't hold water.
Think would work, but Steam doesn't sell just Valve games like how Sprint stores sell Sprint phones. Steam sells games for everyone. It would be like that independent company (D2D) advertising for a different independent phone shop, except that phone shop (Steam) is a couple blocks closer to your house than the other one.
Sprint store does cell non-Sprint exclusive phones. They just rebrand them with Sprint. Just like Steam sells non-Steamworks games, but requires you to be running Steam to be able to launch them.
D2D does NOT agree with you. They state they are siding with what their customers want; that is a far cry from saying they don't compete with Steam and that they might as well roll over and play dead some random guy on the stardock forums says they don't have a chance to compete anyway. Your comparisons still don't work. You've got multiple people telling you this, but you still refuse to accept that. There really is no point continuing trying to explain to you that the nature of the competition is different since you refuse to listen and you're still trying to "win" an argument that no one is having. After all, we're talking about competition and you're still trying to claim that there is competition where there isn't and that there isn't competition where there is.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/64822
Didn't Brad Wardell claim Impulse is number 2?
And Mafia 2 is going to use Steamworks too:
http://store.steampowered.com/news/4101/
Already posted here: http://forums.impulsedriven.com/388894
Add yet another game to the list: Relic's Space Marine.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/13/confirmed-space-marine-will-use-steamworks/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/13/relic-steam-could-save-pc-gaming-from-piracy/
Feel free to call me a pessimist, but with major developers and publishers raving about Steam and flocking en masse to it of late (thank you for not even trying to provide a viable alternative, GfW LIVE team), I'm getting increasingly worried about Impulse::Reactor 2.0's future.
You were supprised? DoW2 was Steam AND GFW. Which was stupid.
Steam is the best choice. Why would they go with anything but the best choice?
GFWL is junk and deserve to die ASAP. Their "We support only 26 countries" policy is dumbest (game distribution related) thing of this decade.
I have only tried one game with GFWL, and being in a non-supported country the game launched. DOW II doesnt rely on GFWL for online does it? This was expected, given Relic's complete Steam fanboism. Reactor needs to be released yesterday.
DOWII, at least the base game, requires GFWL for multiplayer. They may have changed it for Chaos Rising, but I don't own it (Chaos Rising), so I can't say for sure.
DoW uses Steam for DRM and to contact the multiplayer servers, and GFWL for matchmaking and data-mining (eg, GFWL tracks the average rating, win %, favorite races, commanders and units built, etc etc all to help the devs balance the game).
Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter thinks Steam won't get any serious competition:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-131-pach-attack/704384
And before Xbox came out, they were pretty sure Sony was going to be king of hardcore gaming community too. It's sort of rare for someone to think there will be strong competition until it actually happens. I mean, I am sure I said this before, but there was a time when a lot of people thought Apple was going to be dead in the water, game over as well. There was also a time when IBM was pretty far up there in the home PC market, and cow boxes were being run through grassy fields all over the world! Seriously though, anyone who thinks it's game over, Steam wins, just hasn't paid attention to the history attached to pretty much anything tech related.
Steam WOULD have competition if some of the big ones bothered to try.
Sure, EA has the EA store thing going, but they are certainly not serious about trying to compete - their offering is amazingly sub-par. (The EULA says once you've downloaded the game ONCE your contract with them is done, they have no obligation to let you download later.). Not to mention that their prices are so high (over here at least) you'd have to be blind to shop there.
If Apple were to launch iGames for PC, or Virgin (Who owns Blizzard) got into it seriously, then there'd be a real market here. But while Steam isn't a monopoly yet... well... they are the next best thing.
All due respect to Impulse - it's a good system - I see little indication it has the size and volume to affect steam sales much.
Possibly, much of the problem is the contracts and deals between retail publishers limiting online ones. I see no reason why the online prices should be so artificially high compared to store prices - at least here, all launch titles that cost 50-60 euro on steam, cost half that in stores.... and in the stores you buy a product that is MORE expensive to manufacture and distribute, not less!
*grumbles and goes back to shooting things*
Brick and mortar stores have too much leverage into what the online prices are. They're the biggest problem.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/15/relic-ditch-games-for-windows-live-for-steam/
It was only a matter of time. DoW2 already used Steam, and G4WL was just shit on top of Steam's shit. This decision was a long, long time coming.
They are now calling on publishers to develop Steam-free SKUs – as Sports Interactive did with Football Manager 2011 – so that they can maintain their audience.
“Publishers don’t give a shit, they don’t care what happens to the customer. Which is the crucial point, because Steam do,” commented the director at a fledgling Steam rival.
“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.
“Steam is locking down the market.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41747/Valve-monopoly-is-killing-PC-market
My guess is GamersGate and Impulse.
Most probably, though I won't be surprised if it turns out that Direct2Drive is one of those "at least two digital retailers". Time to step in if you haven't already, Brad - you've got a suite of development tools (Reactor) which publishers need to consider adopting.
Here's even more news on the subject:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41746/Retail-threatens-Steam-ban
‘We will refuse to sell Steam games’ blast High Street giants; Digital distributors losing customers to giant rival'
The world's biggest digital distribution platform for games is under attack.
MCV understands that key retailers will drop titles that integrate the popular Steam service as fears mount that the service has a ‘monopoly’ on the download market.
Insiders say Steam, run by US studio Valve, serves a massive 80 per cent of the PC download sector. And retailers preparing their own rival platforms don’t want that share to grow any more.
Some of the biggest PC games – such as Call of Duty and Fallout – use Steam. But retailers are concerned that selling games with the tech built-in pushes users towards only buying games via Valve going forward.
At least two major retailers will demand that publishers remove Steam from their games – or they will not sell them in any form.
“If we have a digital service, then I don’t want to start selling a rival in-store,” said the digital boss at one of the biggest UK games retailers.
“Publishers are creating a monster – we are telling suppliers to stop using Steam in their games.”
The head of sales at a big-name digital service provider agreed: “At the moment the big digital distributors need to stock games with Steam. But the power resides with bricks and mortar retailers, they can refuse to stock these titles. Publishers are hesitant, but retail must put pressure on them.”
Gaikai CEO David Perry told MCV Steam could become the games-equivilent of iTunes, where it dictates the terms of the market, not the other way around: “Steam has made it so easy for everyone and they have lots of users. But how long do you wait before you take control of your own digital strategy? Like with iTunes, at some point it’s going to be too late.”
Retailers are every bit as much bullies as Steam is, though. So those complaints are very hollow to me. Retailers are probably losing a lot of sales to Steam, and they want to limit their competition. It's just a struggle for power from their end - they want more, so does steam.
The question should always be - what is best for the customer? And who is the customer? Anything else is just corporate tug-of-war, and completely uninteresting to me as a consumer.
At this point, if you want to beat out Steam, you can't be as good as them, you have to be better. Stop charging street date prices that equal box prices for digital downloads. Then you'll get digital customers, and lose retail customers. If you think the future is going one way - digital downloads - then your decision should be simple.
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