By Jim Rossignol on November 6th, 2009 at 11:33 am.
The Big K has news that the major digital download services are boycotting troubled enormo-shooter Modern Warfare 2 because of the inclusion of Valve’s Steamworks. Apparently Direct2Drive were first out with the news, saying they had “told publishers that they’d stop selling games bundled in such a manner until Valve “decoupled its retail marketplace” from Steam’s other services.”
GamersGate and Impulse will also be boycotting the title for the same reason. The implications of this aren’t clear. Does it play into Valve’s hands and given them an even larger grip on the market? Or is this the bell tolling for Steam’s retail service as a part of Valve’s gaming community?
06/11/2009 at 11:36 Mike says:
This seems like a massive foot-shooting by the digital retailers. I’m not saying a monopoly is good, it’s not, but I really think that this will do them a lot of harm, in the Christmas season of all times.
06/11/2009 at 11:38 ChaosSmurf says:
Yeah, I don’t see why devs/pubs won’t just go “okay we’ll use the better integrated/more popular/more tested/prove track record/etc service instead of you guys”.
06/11/2009 at 11:40 James G says:
Owch. Understandable on the part of other retailers, but this is going to seriously damage the uptake of Steamworks. Of course, Steamworks was always intended as a vector of getting Steam installed on more systems, and thus making the Steam store more easily availible to a wider customer base. If Valve were to decouple the two services, this would remove one of their primary drives for creating and supporting steam works in the first place.
I suppose Valve may be tempted to introduce a ‘Steam lite’ client, which could be bundled with Steamworks games independently of the main steam client. It would appear to act against their best interests, however may be more desireable than the loss of developers that would otherwise occur when they realise their market is constricted. Whether such a move would be sufficient to placate other retailers however is another matter.
06/11/2009 at 13:59 ascagnel says:
It will damage the uptake of Steamworks, but it won’t make Valve release a “lite” version. My understanding (based on reading reports of general assumptions) is that Valve has cornered the market for Digital Distribution. If they hadn’t, why else would there be concerns like those from Randy Pitchford (Borderlands, Gearbox: Valve has too much power). I think Valve is more concerned about getting Steam in front of the people who don’t use any online service and only shop brick & mortar.
06/11/2009 at 11:42 CMaster says:
Immediate reaction is that it only seems to play into Valve’s hands.
That said, you can see why the other portals are annoyed.
Though didn’t valve say that devs could use Steamworks “transparently” so that players wouldn’t have to ever actually run or know about Steam themselves?
06/11/2009 at 11:43 Rick says:
Well, get ready for another huge amount of complaints going “can’t work spyware Steam on my computer!!11, Valve sux”, as we seem to get from the unwashed masses for every major game release on Steam, from Half-Life 2 to Empire: Total War earlier this year.
06/11/2009 at 11:44 Satellite says:
I am not so sure about that – there are many people who are uncomfortable with Steam’s method of DRM and requiring an online connection (Yeah I know it can be set to offline) and others that out of principle just do not feel comfortable tying their games a Steam account.
I think it is going to hurt Activision just as much as it will the digital retailers and consumers. Besides can you blame them – Steam is a competitor service and if all the online game retailers protest eventually they are likely to be heard one way or another.
BTW I buy the vast majority of my games from Steam – but competition is needed to keep Valve in check.
06/11/2009 at 11:56 Mike says:
Looking at the bestsellers list for Amazon/Steam, it seems like most MW2 are being bought in hardcopy anyway. So I’m not really sure where this is going. It’s possible they’re trying to play on Valve’s good PR in an attempt to appear like they’re being bullied by Steam.
Fairly sure Steamworks doesn’t ahve to be fully integrated with Steam. I think it just /is/ because developers like the platform.
06/11/2009 at 14:18 Javier-de-Ass says:
not to mention offline mode is horribly implemented and never actually is enabled when you NEED it to be, for example if your internet suddenly stops working and you just want to play some fear2 single player.
06/11/2009 at 20:29 Jad says:
Yeah offline mode is really annoying. I just moved to a new apartment and don’t have an internet connection set up yet. Of course I forget to set Steam to offline mode before I move so now I can’t play half my games.
Now, I knew that this kind of thing was what I was getting into when I started using Steam, and I knew that I was supposed to go to offline mode before shutting down my internet, but what about the less computer-savvy customers that Valve is undoubtedly trying to get?
06/11/2009 at 11:46 Tei says:
So this how wars start?
06/11/2009 at 11:55 Tei says:
Old Internet wisdow:
Internet was designed to be open, and for openess. Any attemp to build “small gardens” are doomed.
My own positive feelings:
But I have to admit that I happy lalala to live in Steamgarden.
My own negative feelings:
I hope me (and my 95 games) are not banned… I can lost all of it if a valve employee (or a employee of a company hired by valve) click the wrong button.
I know wen I buy on Steam,… I am buying convenience, and not games. Games are free in a torrent site.
06/11/2009 at 12:54 Jonas says:
I wish I lived in Steamgarden. It sounds awesome. Do you have your own air ship, Tei?
06/11/2009 at 13:27 Azazel says:
Is this like the ‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’ sketch were every TV show has it’s own garden?
06/11/2009 at 14:53 Tei says:
yes, and yes.
06/11/2009 at 11:47 Cheezey says:
Personally I’d much rather have any game I bought digitally via Steam than any of those, even to the point of paying slightly more just for the sake of having it on steam.
I understand the conflict of interest argument against Valve, but it sure as hell does sound like a lot of sour grapes on the part of the other services.
I’d be nice to see the PC platform have one unified place for all of the things like Battle.net/Steamworks/Xfire/Raptr, which any DD service can plug into, providing a more competitive marketplace and giving the feeling of having a unified platform compared to say something like Live. However, seeing as each company wants to control its own setup/distribution channel (if they have one) I can’t see it happening.
06/11/2009 at 12:04 Baboonanza says:
'Personally I’d much rather have any game I bought digitally via Steam than any of those, even to the point of paying slightly more just for the sake of having it on steam.'
I’ve bought from Impulse, GamersGate and Steam (since I generally buy on price), and I have exactly the opposite feeling.
A) I don’t like having to run additional services just to play a game. True, it doesn’t take long to start Steam but now I’m running my games of an SSD it actually takes longer than loading the game!
B) Steam has the only form of DRM that has ever, ever, prevented me from playing a game. All you get is a conpletely useless ‘The game failed to initialise’ or some bollocks. I no longer trust Steam to let me play games I own.
Compare the above to my GamersGate experience:
- Download and run the installer
- Enter CD key (copy and paste from account page)
- No further connection necessary. Ever.
I'm not a Steam hater by any means, but it is neither the cheapest or the most convenient service IMO, and more competition is welcomed.
Edit: Why does editing my post in the forum strip all empty lines? grr
06/11/2009 at 12:10 cliffski says:
Be careful what you wish for though. The best thing about the PC is that it is the only true open platform with no single point of control, censorship or price-setting.
World of Goo can be sold with a pick-your-own-price because of this. Mods can be distributed freely because of this. And competition between online stores keeps prices sane.
Plus little indie devs can actually sell *direct* to their customers, easily. It also means that people who want to can do obscure games about suicide bombers, or arty games that are off the wall, or niche games like hex-based wargames or political sim games, without having to ‘pitch’ their idea to a portal.
This is all good stuff.
Steam are good guys, but imagine a future where Microsoft buy valve for a billion dollars next week.
Still happy?
06/11/2009 at 12:25 Riesenmaulhai says:
If I was Microsoft, I’d totally do that. Despite the fact that I would never ever be allowed to bundle a game with steam in Europe (i.e. IE)
06/11/2009 at 12:34 Cheezey says:
@Baboonanza
I think Steam certainly has room for improvement. I’ve always had the lingering feeling it has been rather shaky at best when it comes to product launches, certainly in the case of popular titles.
@cliffski
Good point, well made. My desire in that area is more so related to the single friends-list aspect than anything else, or at least one that most people who would use. At the moment I feel like i’m using 7 different programs/services to keep in touch with people who all like using something different.
06/11/2009 at 12:39 TotalBiscuit says:
Buying things from Steam even if they’re slightly more expensive is stupid and self-defeating. Steam is one of the more heavily DRMed DD services around and is not immune to problems by any stretch. It’s customer service is also lack-luster. Unless you have a hard-on for Steam achievements (in which case buy a console, you’ll love it) I can’t see any logical reason to buy from Steam when it’s more expensive to do so, it offers no advantages over Impulse whereas you can run games bought on Impulse without the Impulse client and without being connected to the internet, both big pluses in my book.
My Steam collection is huge but I’ve never conned myself into buying something at a higher price on Steam when I could get a hard-copy or use another DD service and save both money and time.
06/11/2009 at 14:10 Walsh says:
Uh Direct2Drive is way more heavily DRM’d than Steam. You’ll notice most mods that require changes to the way the application launches (like FOSE for Fallout) do not work with Direct2Drive versions of the game because of the nature of their DRM. When it did break with Steam, the Steam developers actually took steps to make it work.
Plus Direct2Drive has a clunky activation system vs Steam where most games you don’t have to worry about activating it.
06/11/2009 at 11:52 Persus-9 says:
Gutsy move by D2D et al but I can’t help feeling they should pick their battles more carefully since they aren’t going to win this one. Still I guess it does send a very loud clear message to all devs since if they’ve got the guts to pass on the chance to sell CoD then they’ve got the guts to pass on anything.
06/11/2009 at 11:52 monchberter says:
Handbags. Sheer handbags.
06/11/2009 at 11:55 Carra says:
Understandable. It’s not proper to force your users to install steams store to be able to play a game.
In the short run they’ll loose some profit but if they can decouple games from steam then in the long run they’ll increase their profits.
06/11/2009 at 11:58 monchberter says:
From Valve’s perspective, they should just perhaps nip this one in the bud and have the ‘Store’ tab and sales messages in Steam as an option rather than set part of the rest of Steam. Toggle whether it appears at all when you install and the job’s a good ‘un.
06/11/2009 at 12:01 Big X says:
Hang on, doesn’t steam already have something daft like 20m users already? Which is probably far more than all of the other portals combined (geddit?), so this is only hurting idiots kicking up a fuss. I suppose if Games for Windows actually worked, Steam wouldn’t be the main platform on which gamers chat and game with each other, then we wouldn’t have this mess
06/11/2009 at 12:01 Schmung says:
Wow. CoD is certainly giving a vast number of people reasons to get angry.
06/11/2009 at 12:03 Sp4rkR4t says:
Oh no, services I would never use in place of Steam anyway are removing an option I would never use and therefore help their largest competitor.
06/11/2009 at 12:06 Starky says:
Meh, this is akin to Lidl and Aldi saying to Kelloggs (or some other large grocery brand) “We’re not going to sell your product unless you stop selling it at Tesco”.
No company looking to sell their product is going to refuse Tesco’s for some smaller and weaker retail outlet.
I foresee Activision just telling them to like it or lump it.
Hell if I was Activision I’d just go “You know what? Fine, We’ll be pulling every single one of our games from your retail outlet effective immediately.”
See how long their silly little boycott would last then if the largest publisher in the game refused to deal with them while they boycotted.
Steam offers a better deal (mostly) to consumers, and publishers – it offers vastly better service for publishers, in terms of sales tracking, included features and such, and is deservedly the largest digital distribution platform.
Valve with steam are deserving market leaders, adding features to their service to remain leaders and offer users and publishers more in order to maintain that.
The rest need to put up or shut up, I have no sympathy whatsoever for them.
With the exception of GoG they all offer a crappy service (or at least zero added value from traditional retail), or a just plain steam clones (impulse).
06/11/2009 at 12:12 cliffski says:
Are you speaking from personal experience?
Unless you have read a distribution and publishing agreement from all the online publishers, you can’t say who gives the best deal.
And if you have read them, you are under NDA to not reveal them :D
06/11/2009 at 12:17 Bforge says:
Ah, the overzealous Valve fanboy speaking out of anything but experience or knowledge.
06/11/2009 at 12:18 CMaster says:
Actually, it’s more like Aldi and Lidl stopping selling Kellogg’s cornflakes because it comes with Tesco’s new mail order catalogue inside, that you must unwrap before you get to the cereal.
Well, that’s the substance of D2D’s argument, anyway.
06/11/2009 at 12:25 Psychopomp says:
If I’m not mistaken, Impulse, GoG, and Gamersgate, are all DRM free. I’d say that’s a pretty big boon to them, even though I’m a steam user myself.
Steams big advantage over the others, from a consumer perspective, is its built in community features. While Impulse has them as well, it’s not exactly like you can ask your friend what his Impulse ID is, as it’s quite unlikely he’s even heard of Impulse.
D2D is a broken pile of shit, in my experience. I have bought two games with them, both of which are completely unplayable, no matter how many times I try to redownload them. Support just tells me “loldownload is again,” so I finally just demanded a refund.
06/11/2009 at 12:41 TotalBiscuit says:
Gamersgate is no more DRM free than Direct2Drive is. It’s got a 1 time online activation, just like Direct2Drive. Both are better than steam in terms of their DRM though since neither require a client to run the game, nor a connection to the internet after the initial activation.
06/11/2009 at 12:42 Magnus says:
GOG is fully DRM free, Impulse requires online authentication (afaik) and also you have to use the impulse client to get patches etc. GamersGate just requires an online check once you’ve installed or the first time you play (again afaik).
For me, GOG is the best, but GamersGate has a reasonable system. Not sure I like Impulse locking you in for patches and stuff though, that’s quite similar to Steam.
06/11/2009 at 12:46 Starky says:
Half personal, half hearing from others with first hand experience – and you’re correct in that from what I’ve personally read I can’t give details. My personal experience is a few years out of date though, but I do try and keep track of what is going on in the industry and still know a few people).
Still you’ll know as well as anyone Steam takes a average cut for DD, a cut vastly lower than any brick and mortar retailer would when combined with a traditional publisher (even if the title was self funded).
The reason I know this is that I used to work for one of those B&M companies, and it was my Job (a few years back now so I’m out of date, decided to get out of retail and go to electrical engineering) to track and compare those things for my chain (first Electronic Boutique, when it still had that name – then Game).
I was trying to convince upper management at the time that it would be worth their time to start speaking to smaller local Dev studio’s (UK based), and begin offering them direct deals (Assuming they could press the CDs or DVDs themselves (which was easy and cheap enough). Steam wasn’t nearly as successful at the time and most of the other DDs didn’t exist yet. Still the writing was on the wall, and most of the people I spoke too (regional level management, PR execs and so on) knew it.
Though it’s taken longer than I thought it would have to get rolling – Still it’s going to happen, the PSPgo is just the start.
06/11/2009 at 12:59 Starky says:
That above post was in response to cliffsky (none of the others were there when I hit reply :P)
Oh and FYI I’m no a Valve fanboy (a stupid and mindless accusation spoken only from the mouths of idiots).
There is plenty wrong with Steam, things that need to be improved in my opinion.
They should allow multiple logins to the same account to play different games, or implement some kind of sub-account system – It’s frustrating not been able to let a friend (in the same house) play one game on steam while I play another.
Their pricing model needs to be sorted in Europe – I know they don’t set the prices, the publishers do, but Valve need to put their foot down.
Also they need to lower their prices generally, they are higher than retail in most cases – so much so I generally only buy from them during sales, or offers.
Still, had I the choice between Steam and any other digital distribution service at the same price, I’d choose steam.
Steam friends, steam community, auto-patching, unlimited downloads, easy backup and restoring all add a bit more value than simply buying the game at retail.
Honestly though, most of the best deals for PC games STILL come from retail, in the form of online only retail websites such as play.com, I buy most of my games physically still because they are cheaper – and often delivery takes less time than AAA games take to download anyway.
06/11/2009 at 13:00 Psychopomp says:
tl;dr:”You were quite mistaken, Pomp.”
06/11/2009 at 12:07 Bforge says:
I really doubt this will affect Valve or Activision at all. Steam-only buyers already outnumber D2D and Impulse-only buyers, and many (if not most) buy from all services without bias depending on which one provides the best price.
For a moment there I thought the DD services were boycotting the game for its recent failures with the PC crowd… how silly of me.
06/11/2009 at 12:32 Riesenmaulhai says:
If they were better at marketing, they would have done exactly that.
If PC gamers are really that annoyed by Infinity Wards decisions, you could wonderfully build up a “pro-pc-gamer”-reputation for your DD-store.
06/11/2009 at 12:10 Magnus says:
I applaud them for it, especially as they are doing this at cost to themselves.
The steam as DRM, steam as retailer, steam as service issue is a problem for me because I want there to be proper competition in the digital download sector, and I view steamworks inclusion on 3rd party games as being uncompetitive.
Every paying customer out there should want more real competition, in order to get the best value and the best service.
06/11/2009 at 12:12 Psychopomp says:
So they force their consumers to go buy from their biggest competitor, giving Steam a larger base, and they think this will help them?
06/11/2009 at 12:48 The Sombrero Kid says:
it doesn’t give steam a larger base, since everyone who buys the game needs steam to run it, just a bigger cut of the profits, just because you’ve got steam installed though doesn’t mean you’re going to buy games on steam though.
06/11/2009 at 13:52 MrFake says:
They force the publishers to rethink agreements with distribution portals about the inclusion of software. Activision loses potential market exposure with each portal that drops the game, and any future games. Now Activision may or may not turn to Valve to renegotiate present or future contracts. Valve, in a roundabout way, may be made to separate Steamworks from the marketplace, and the other portals won’t have to sell games with a competitor’s marketplace embedded in them.
It depends on how willing the publishers are to renegotiate with Valve, of course. i.e. what’s the trade-off for including the marketplace software and is it worth dropping that perk just to be on D2D et al?
06/11/2009 at 12:18 Rinox says:
Even if it sells only one copy less of CoD4: Money-Grab Console Shooter 2 I’ll be a happy man.
06/11/2009 at 12:18 Die Happy says:
great idea, drive away your customers to buy from the competition. really smart move.
and NOW they are complaining about it, but are still selling dawn of War & Empire: Total War that do the same thing.
just just silly whining because they lack behind in development of their platforms.
steam provides:
DRM
steam cloud
auto updates
achievement stuff (for those who need their e-penis to get bigger)
steamworks for developers
none of the other platforms supply any of these services (maybe DRM though)
you lost the battle and now you cry …
06/11/2009 at 12:19 Kadayi says:
I’ll take Valve over Rupert Murdoch any day. That guy can go eat a dick.
06/11/2009 at 13:06 rocketman71 says:
Or ten.
06/11/2009 at 12:32 Gap Gen says:
At what point does a software platform become monopolistic or anti-competitive? If including IE with Windows is anti-competitive, what about introducing a competing OS for the Xbox (PS3 technically comes with Linux, which I’m sure all of 3 people use outside of academia)? And is it purely about size, or can it be applied to smaller companies, like Valve?
06/11/2009 at 12:42 The Sombrero Kid says:
90% penetration makes you a monopoly under the law at which point you are required to conform to anti monopoly regulation, which is where the ie thing came in, i’m not sure steam has 90% of the market tbh at which point though, they’d be required not to use one product to force the uptake of another, e.g. requiring steam for you to play half life, beyond that they aren’t doing anything anti competitive, that i can see.
06/11/2009 at 12:56 Baboonanza says:
I have no doubt that it would be argued that although Steam is near-monopoly in digital distribution it is not a monopoly on overall distribution. It would be very difficult to make any monopoly claim stick.
And besides – no one but PC gamers care, and no one cares about PC gamers :)
06/11/2009 at 12:34 blobulon says:
I’m not sure what to think of this. Obviously, Steam is a profit-center for Valve, but I’ve seen more and crazier deals on their store than anywhere else on these digital distributors.
Hell, I got S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for $5. $5! From a consumer standpoint, they get megaprops from me.
The question you have to ask yourself is: Is the priority of making a profit from Steam primary or secondary to the client service?
06/11/2009 at 12:38 The Sombrero Kid says:
steamworks is decoupled from the store hence you can sell a game with steamworks on a different site. the only difference is steam is bigger than all the others combined, because the service is leagues ahead, i can see their point but there problem is a problem with games as a service, which is what all developers/distributors are doing not just valve.
06/11/2009 at 12:48 manintheshack says:
Apparently Direct2Drive were first out with the news, saying they had “told publishers that they’d stop selling games bundled in such a manner until Valve “decoupled its retail marketplace” from Steam’s other services.”
If they’re going to demand something as far out as that they could have at least slipped in a bit about dedi servers and player caps as well…
06/11/2009 at 12:54 Sagan says:
I think they are going to lose this battle. Activision won’t budge, because they aren’t going to lose any sales because of this. Because Modern Warfare 2 is popular enough, that people will just buy it from elsewhere. Either from brick and mortar shops, or from Amazon or from Steam. And Activision is stubborn enough, that they wouldn’t care, even if they sold 1000 or 2000 copies less because of this.
However if D2D and Impulse and Gamersgate persevere, and don’t give up after a month, then this might have implications on future games. No indie game maker will ever dare to make a game that requires Steamworks.
So even though I think they are going to lose this battle, I think they might win the war. And as has been pointed out before in this thread: I guess that is a good thing for all of us in the long term.
06/11/2009 at 13:08 The Sombrero Kid says:
that’s bollocks i couldn’t give a flying fuck about direct2drive gamersgate or impulse, they offer me nothing i wont be doing myself, whereas steam has a lot of cool community features, i hope they do become competitive because a monopoly isn’t any good for anyone, but they should focus on improving thier own service.
06/11/2009 at 13:48 TotalBiscuit says:
Impulse is already a superior service to Steam and just because it doesn’t have a fucking built in chatroom doesn’t make Steam better. Heck Steam friends is annoying as hell, I don’t want to be harrassed when I’m playing games and I have my own vent server for people I actually give a fuck about.
06/11/2009 at 14:03 The Sombrero Kid says:
impulse is defiantly the best of the rest, but saying it’s superior because it lacks features is just daft, you don’t need to log into steam community or add any friends, you do need to alt tab out of an impulse game if you want to browse the web or check the time, steam even opens this service up to it’s competitors, the didn’t have to.
06/11/2009 at 14:25 TotalBiscuit says:
To me control of what I do with my games is far more important than in-game instant messaging nonsense. Until I can play any game I download via Steam without having Steam loaded and without an internet connection, then Impulse will be the superior platform. I dislike anything that takes up unnecessary system resources and gets in the way of playing the games I legitimately purchased. DRM is a far bigger issue to me than in-game chat and achievements.
06/11/2009 at 14:40 The Sombrero Kid says:
that’s a much more compelling argument and one I’m much more inclined to agree with, I’d say valve should’ve mandated that all the games play nice with the offline mode, unfortunately they do not and this is a right pain in the arse.
06/11/2009 at 12:55 dontroel says:
A bold, but intelligent move by those competing digital download sites. I applaud them. They are, of course, not doing this for the customers (though the blurb about ‘protecting users from trojan horses’ in the linked article by D2D (of course) tries to elude to this); they are trying to protect their business’s by trying to fight against a clever move by a big guy. But in doing this, they help keep the playing field fairly level – and this ultimately benefits us, the customers.
Also, the fact, that Valve/Steam may be widely perceived as ‘a bunch of good guys’ is (as cliffski noted) entirely beside the point. They probably won’t keep that emblem infinitely; and, the flipside of the nuisance in having to trade and maintain a relationship with numerous services with varying levels of flaws, is that we can do exactly that: Pick and choose where we want to buy our stuff.
06/11/2009 at 13:07 Monkeybreadman says:
My thoughts……. without Steam, PC gaming would be in a dark cold empty place….. so cold….
06/11/2009 at 13:12 Monkeybreadman says:
WHOOOOPS, I think whats lacking is a third party (preferably a deep pocketed one) with a vested interest in PC gaming. At the moment we have retailers and developers
06/11/2009 at 13:15 The Sombrero Kid says:
exactly given the choice between valve and gamestop…
someone like zenimax should get into the Digital Distribution biz they seem to be pretty hands off money lovers.
06/11/2009 at 13:14 Binni says:
It’s WIN for Steam…plain and simple. They get all the business and besides….why don’t the other download services get of their lazy asses and offer something like Steamworks on their services? Also Steam has the best community features by far. Impulse are nice but incomplete but gamersgate and d2d don’t even pretend trying.
06/11/2009 at 13:14 Daniel C says:
Direct2Drive sells Empire, FEAR 2, Saints Row 2, Zeno Clash and more all of which require Steam? How is MW2 any different? Besides being a high-profile game to make a point with.
06/11/2009 at 13:24 mrmud says:
“Being a high profile game enough to make a point with”
06/11/2009 at 13:53 Ginger Yellow says:
Indeed. I notice they didn’t do this boycott with any games that require GFW either, even though that is a combination of DLC store and (useless) ancillary services.
06/11/2009 at 13:22 Rei Onryou says:
To be honest, I would expect Valve to make a statement about this fairly quickly. Not only that, but to actually work with the other DigiDistributors to come to some agreement. There’s no real reason for them to not do so.
I wonder how many people Valve will have to fly over in order to settle this latest can of worms…
06/11/2009 at 13:29 Craig L says:
I do the same thing (pay slightly more to have it on steam) most of the time. I like having everything centralised so when I get fed up I just look at a long list of games I have, double click one so it installs, then play it. Lovely.
Saves logging into different DD services or digging out installers/disks for me. Plus I auto sign-in to steam anyway because I always use it for the overlay.
06/11/2009 at 13:32 The Sombrero Kid says:
i think they should progress to a shared server architechture for authentication tbh, so that no matter which DD service one you’re logged into you can authenticate on another ones server, that’d help smooth things out.
06/11/2009 at 13:34 PHeMoX says:
Bad move on their part as this will undoubtedly mean more Steam sales of Modern Warfare 2 for Valve.
To be honest, I don’t see a problem with their Steamworks stuff.
06/11/2009 at 13:34 Harper says:
Why would any self respecting PC gamer buy this overpriced crap anyway? They do know they are getting ripped off right?
06/11/2009 at 13:43 TotalBiscuit says:
Because they lack self-control and are easily lead.
06/11/2009 at 14:01 bansama says:
Well the pricing depends on the region. You consider it overpriced at $60 USD or the pound equivalent, but both of those prices are still cheaper than standard pricing in some countries. I’d happily pay the US price for the game (it’d be cheap for me) but then, I have to wait to see how much higher Square Enix are going to mark up the price. Knowing them, it’ll be set to at least $80 on Steam (if they bother to allow to be sold directly that way) or $100 or more via a limited retail release (and that will be the standard version, not any fancy version with night vision goggles or whatever).
06/11/2009 at 13:52 kadayi says:
I’m interested to see how Activision CEO Bobby Kotick responds to this. With guaranteed money rolling in every month from WoW as well as Diablo 3, & Starcraft waiting in the wings he can probably afford to take the hit of removing all of Activisions back catalogue off all 3 portals if he wanted to.
06/11/2009 at 13:57 bansama says:
Has GamersGate ever sold a game coupled with Steam? I honestly can’t think of one and I know they don’t currently sell any Activision titles.
But they do sell Red Faction Guerrilla which automatically ties itself to Impulse — it doesn’t seem to actually require Impulse, but then it doesn’t give you a choice as to whether you want to attach it to Impulse or not either.
06/11/2009 at 14:29 Javier-de-Ass says:
no, gamersgate never sold steam games. the reason red faction guerrilla (and majesty2 and any other goo drm game) is also added to your account on impulse is because of the way goo drm works. wherein you’re supposed to be able to download goo titles for anywhere that sells it as you own a copy of ‘the game’ and not a impulse copy of the game or gamersgate copy of the game specifically. it’s pretty much the ideal solution, while steam is bullshit and horrible. hehe.
06/11/2009 at 15:58 bansama says:
In the case of games using Goo though, how does patching work? Are you then forced to patch through the Impulse client (like all Impulse sold games) or is a standalone patch also provided? If there is no standalone patch, then it’s still the same situation as Steam considering that the Impulse client (which must be run to patch Impulse sold games) also comes combined with a store interface.
But seeing as the only Goo game I have (RFG) doesn’t appear to have a patch yet, I still don’t know how that will work.
06/11/2009 at 14:02 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
If you don’t want Valve to have the most power in the pc market, STOP IGNORING THE PC MARKET!
That should help.
06/11/2009 at 14:21 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
Excuse me, I misread the article and probably missed the point.
06/11/2009 at 14:03 meeper says:
I think the reasoning is cut and dry for D2D, Stardock, etc: If they offered MW2 via their stores, then they’re giving Valve a direct line to their customers. While many of us interweb savvy people having multiple clients installed, I know of several casual PC gamers who only have Steam or only have Impulse.
It’s be like Ford stenciling the telephone number of a GM dealership on the hood of each new car they sold.
06/11/2009 at 14:11 Andrew J says:
I discovered one scary thing about Steam yesterday, when my account was disabled for reasons unbeknownst to me. I can no longer play any of my games.e
06/11/2009 at 14:12 Andrew J says:
I discovered one scary thing about Steam yesterday, when my account was disabled for reasons unbeknownst to me. I can no longer play any of my games.
06/11/2009 at 14:14 mbp says:
But…but..but…
I thought we had all agreed not to buy the PC version of MW2 anyway?
06/11/2009 at 16:38 D says:
They know of our arrangement and thats why its the perfect game to take a stand like this over.
06/11/2009 at 14:22 Javier-de-Ass says:
on the part of gamersgate at least this isn’t a ‘move’ or new turn for this game, they never sold steam anything games on their site. and I have specifically asked them about this before because I fucking hate steam and was afraid one of the games would have a steam something in it that would just annoy the shit out of me.
in an interesting turn today, gamersgate just added saintsrow2 to their catalogue. a steam free saintsrow2. damn I wish this had come like whenever saintsrow2 come out, early in the year or whenever. would have definitely got this over the horrible retail version that’s completely nailed to steam and worthless on its own.
06/11/2009 at 14:23 1stGear says:
Nice. “We’re going to refuse to carry MW2, thereby forcing everyone who wants to buy digitally to buy from Steam! That’ll show ‘em!”
06/11/2009 at 14:26 Leeks! says:
I ultimately think it’s a mistake for D2D and others to do this. On one hand, a big, mega-seller like what MW2 is destined to be has the most potential for damage to their respective customer bases via steamworks, but on the other, what they’ve essentially done is made sure that everyone is going to buy this game with steam. It isn’t as though a digital distribution platform can have a stranglehold on ‘X” region or “X” demographic, either: it is very, very easy to simply install one with the features (and the games) that you want, so I doubt it will even have much impact on Infinity Ward’s bottom line.
So, Valve will sell more games and I doubt Infinity Ward will sell any less. Nothing is made more or less convenient by any significant degree for customers who wish to buy online (and, frankly, I think Steam is the best digidistro platform there is anyway). The only one hurt from this is D2D and the other’s who refuse to sell the game. I think, if you’re a company getting into the digital distribution game, you do so with a certain understanding that you’re doing so in Valve’s house. All of the competitors aligned against Valve are just screaming in the void.
06/11/2009 at 14:41 Lilliput King says:
This is sad day. I want Impulse to be successful. They’re my /favourite/.
I suppose they must be doing okay, though.
06/11/2009 at 14:49 TotalBiscuit says:
Obviously they’re doing well enough to justify ignoring the biggest title of the year. Good for them, sticking to their guns instead of caving in to easy money.
06/11/2009 at 14:45 dsmart says:
This is just silly and they’re just shooting themselves in the foot. There are two sides to this. As someone who has games on Digital River, Steam, Gamers Gate, D2D, Game Streamer, Metaboli/GameTap, Real Netoworks (+700 affliliates) etc – but not Impulse (guess why that is), here is my take on what is really going on.
Publishers don’t have to us Steam for distribution. But if you want your games on their marketplace, you have to use it. This is no different from Microsoft enforcing Games For Windows compliance where you can pick and choose how far you want to go – though you have to be in some mandatory compliance regardless.
With Steam, all you need to have games on there, is to use their SteamWorks wrapper. You do NOT have to use their DRM (SteamWorks CEG) as that is optional – just like leaderboards, Stream Cloud, voice chat etc etc. You only have to use the Steamworks wrapper which is mandatory for the game to be authenticated, sales tracked etc. This is why you see some SecuROM games on Steam.
If you want to use the SteamWorks DRM (aka CEG), you have that option too. Must like all ther other SteamWorks stuff you get for free.
On Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Real Networks etc – you have a choice of which DRM scheme to use. The most popular being SecuROM. Though some Starforce, Tages and even SafeDisc games are on there. These publishers all have licensed (from Sony DADC, Starforce etc) backend which allows them to authenticate and generate serial numbers. They pay a per unit royalty to Sony, Starforce etc.
Impulse is similar – though imo is sub-par compared to the likes of integrated solutions like Steam, Metaboli/GameTap etc
ALL publishers who want their games on various sites, HAVE to adhere to the standards set by those publishers or they can’t (or won’t) carry your game. e.g. you can’t insist on using SecuRom on a publisher site that does not support it. You have to use what they support or your game won’t be sold there.
Steam games can be sold at ANY publisher site – even on retail discs. What makes this possible is that Valve generates the serial numbers for the product, then gives it to the developer who then hands it over to the publisher who adds it to their server backend so that each purchase is given a unique key. This is how come you see some Steam authenticated games on D2D. When the game is installed, the Steam client downloads it and asks for the key. In this case, the authentication is done by Steam servers, not – for e.g. Direct2Drive Sony DADC licensed servers.
Unlike Steam enabled games, you CANNOT sell ANY other DRM enabled game to other sites in this manner because they would have to setup their own authentication servers (e.g. SecuROM) or rely on a third-party (in this case then DRM developers) for authentication. Steam just makes is easy and seamless. Valve handles the authentication and auto-patching automatically.
So for baseline Steam use, you only have authentication and auto-patching. Here’s the really kewl thing. Since Steam has a FULL image of the game on their servers, if you wanted to sell direct, all you have to do is give out keys. The end user fires up the Steam client, enters the key and downloads the game. Directly from Valve. In fact, thats how we sell Steam versions of our games through BMT Micro (our store frontend) and Digital River. We populate the dB with keys and give out a Steam key with each purchase. If you have Steam installed, it is a no-brainer. If you don’t, you have a link (in the purchase email) showing you where to download the Steam client from. You install, enter key, download game.
Steam is by far the best scheme to date. And in this Shacknews post, I explain in detail why Steam remains popular. And why some are rightfully jealous and/or worried.
This about face by Direct2Drive et al – while understandable – is foolish. If they sell a Steam game, THEY get the revenue. NOT Valve. What Valve gets is possibly a new Steam user. And this is just free advertising for them. And given that they have 20m+ Steam users, my guess is that only very few gamers out there don’t already have at least ONE Steam game already installed.
So all they’re doing is saying that they don’t want to continue to support Steam’s continued growth. Well gee, since the genie is out of the bottle, its kinda late for that.
But here is the kicker. With Steam, you get SO MUCH stuff – FOR FREE – that is not even funny. PLUS not only is it all trivial to implement, the royalties that Valve doles out to Steam publishers is on par with what these other sites give out. And THEY have NO added value whatsover – unlike Valve which gives you all this stuff and everything you need to be successful on the platform.
Which is why they’re all worried. They can’t undercut Steam – nor compete – in any, way, shape or form because they were all sleeping at the wheel. The only way they are going to compete is to provide a better service (lol!!), better pricing, games that you can’t get elsewhere. e.g. You can only get Stardock games on Impulse.
So this has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that they no longer want to help increase Steam’s client install base.
IF the publishers want to have their games on D2D, GG etc, they can do a SecuROM build. Obviously they see more value in a single solution (Steam) than in multiple solutions (ALL of which can be cracked on Day One and with ease). This is no different from e.g. Best Buy having the exclusive on something like Crime Craft. That can be either because Best Buy gave out concessions to have the game exclusively or because other retailers didn’t want to carry it.
My guess is that Activision is not going to cave in because while this is only news now, it has probably been brewing for awhile now. Both the online and retail versions of MW2 – like Valve’s own games as well as others (e.g. Killing Floor, Fear 2 etc) use Steam. My guess is that the combined sales of the game on these other services pales compared to Steam. So why bother with the extra work of having different DRM schemes?
From my perspective, the ONLY danger (and concern) that I have about Steam is that Valve gets to choose which games go on there. When you have situations like this MW2 thing happen, small devs like us can’t even pull a stunt like this because if we do – thus alienating our other partners – there is a chance that they won’t carry our games. And if Valve passes on publishing them, we’re farked. Thats the real concern that I see here regarding Steam. e.g. to have a game on D2D, GG etc – all I have to do is contact my a/c manager, give them the details etc. The game goes up.
With Valve, they are more of a traditional publisher in that they get to pick and choose which games they want on there and which they think would do well with their subscribers.
Is this wrong? tbh, I’m not so sure.
I personally ran into this issue a few months back because apparently Valve doesn’t feel that space games do well on the service. Its their service and I trust that they know it better than I do. So I left it at that. After all, my space games are sold everywhere else – so if someone wants those games bad enough, they know where to go. They don’t have to be on Steam to be sold nor to be successful. On Steam – despite their install base – you’re only as successful as your game. Just because its there doesn’t guarantee sucesss. Its not like we’re comparing Walmart to Best Buy which, in those two instances, takes volume into account. With ESD, you don’t have that luxury due to the type of goods being sold.
After all you either want 1000 games on Steam, with 50% crap or you want 500 games on there with 10% crap. Valve still has to foot the bill of those crap games and they don’t ask you the publisher for anything in return.
Unlike retail publishers who can pull non-performing products from the shelf, throw them in the bargin bin, return them to the publisher etc – while issuing chargebacks to the publisher – you can’t do any of that with ESD games. So once your game is on there, thats it. The distributors (e.g. Valve) has to hope that good, bad or ugly, the game sells enough for it to a) pay for the resources it is using up b) pay Valve for hosting it
And with Steam, you get world class tools, real-time reporting, an AMAZING publisher support staff etc.Apart from competent support staff (I can only speak for the services that sell my games), you get more – in terms of publishing tools and such – by going with Steam, than you do elsewhere. It is a one stop shop. And thats why it is powerful and popular all at once.
Think about this for a minute. Paradox Int. a publisher that also owns Gamers Gate. Yet, you can find Paradox games at all the competing sites – including Steam. Same with the likes of EA, Atari etc. Guess why that is.
So them not carrying MW2 because of the Steam client is akin to biting your nose to spite your face. At the end of the day, you lose. And its not even about competition because, quite frankly, none of them have anything to compete with the VAS that Steam offers developers.
Disclaimer: My games on all these services, use different DRM schemes – and so, no Steam. Only our games sold on Steam and through our own web store (powered by BMT Micro and Digital River – who don’t give a rat’s ass either way – as well as the upcoming retail releases) use the Steam version. I’m not stupid. :)
06/11/2009 at 14:50 TotalBiscuit says:
“Impulse (guess why that is),” – Oh I dunno, maybe they have standards ;)
06/11/2009 at 15:05 Monkeybreadman says:
Can you say that again?
06/11/2009 at 16:29 Gutter says:
tl;dr
06/11/2009 at 16:29 kalidanthepalidan says:
That could be the longest comment I have ever seen.
06/11/2009 at 16:43 Obdicut says:
Thanks for the interesting perspective.
I do think that this action, at this point, is totally baffling.
The only thing I think you might be missing, the only only thing, is that MW2 seems like it may severely disappoint and piss off people who buy it, and perhaps the other digital distribution channels are actually not wanting to carry it because of that. That’s pretty dumb, though– but so is the action itself.
As you said, the genie is out of the bottle. If you’re afraid of people simply having Steam, you’re not prepared to compete with them. That’s all.
08/11/2009 at 05:02 Levictus says:
Thanks, for the interesting read. Regarding Steam and the space games thing, do they actually not allow some space themed games or what? I didn’t quite get the implication of Valve thinking that space games aren’t that popular on Steam.
06/11/2009 at 14:45 Jahkaivah says:
At first I thought it was being boycotted because all the recent multiplayer bollocks.
That would have been awesome.
06/11/2009 at 14:51 Lilliput King says:
@TB “nor a connection to the internet after the initial activation.”
+ @to Starky “It’s frustrating not been able to let a friend (in the same house) play one game on steam while I play another.”
Offline mode is dead useful in that it provides a workaround for both of these problems. You need to load up the game once in online mode, then switch it to offline mode and you can play it indefinitely, while not actually being logged in to the account the game is on (so someone else can log in and also play the same game or a different one from the same account, though you have to trust them with your details.)
For non-valve games, this usually means you can play a game through LAN as if you had multiple accounts and copies of the game, while only having the one. You can also /then/ use Hamachi to play the game over the internet with friends on a VPN.
I don’t think you’re supposed to do any of these things, though.
06/11/2009 at 14:54 Lack_26 says:
Aww, and here I was hoping it was over the bad treatment we PC gamers were getting. Oh well, I guess I’ll pretend it is.
06/11/2009 at 15:12 Patrick says:
What a crock. They certainly don’t care if a game has Securom or GfWL. Then again, they aren’t posing a threat to their business, either.
Not that I’m buying MW2 regardless.
06/11/2009 at 15:12 Lilliput King says:
@Derek
“Steam games can be sold at ANY publisher site – even on retail discs. What makes this possible is that Valve generates the serial numbers for the product, then gives it to the developer who then hands it over to the publisher who adds it to their server backend so that each purchase is given a unique key. This is how come you see some Steam authenticated games on D2D. When the game is installed, the Steam client downloads it and asks for the key. In this case, the authentication is done by Steam servers, not – for e.g. Direct2Drive Sony DADC licensed servers.”
I guess I just don’t see this as that revolutionary? Impulse can do it too.
Impulse, like GoG, also promises no platform based DRM. If you consider no DRM a “sub-par” solution then fair play to you, but don’t tar it with the same brush as the other platforms you mention.
I’m not some kind of anti-fanboi, but be fair. Steamworks generally doesn’t actually provide much for the consumer. The anti-piracy is fairly pointless for us as we’ve bought the game; Steam Cloud is barely used except for valve games, same for the steam matchmaking. And I’m not a massive fan of DLC in general, though that may be nice for some people.
06/11/2009 at 15:12 nayon says:
Most people here are forgetting that Steam is also a social service. Direct2Drive et al don’t offer this. With Steam you can talk to your friends while ingame, and just jump into games together with your friends. Any other services that do this? Say Xfire and I will shoot a kitten.
06/11/2009 at 15:28 TotalBiscuit says:
Why X-Fire is more feature rich. I’d call Steam’s in-game messaging system a nuisance rather than a feature. I’m sure it has it’s uses but I keep mine off, why would I want to answer inane questions while I’m gaming?
06/11/2009 at 16:17 Stupoider says:
I like the Steam Overlay. Saves me from alt-tabbing, especially in games that take ages to reappear on the screen.
06/11/2009 at 16:20 jalf says:
But the social stuff works fine even in non-Steam games. It doesn’t require the game to use SteamWorks or otherwise integrate with the service. The overlay *just works*. So in itself it’s hardly a reason for integrating SteamWorks into the game
06/11/2009 at 22:01 Wulf says:
I love the Steam overlay, it’s great for social people who love to socialise. It’s also handy for trading bits of info, links and such, back and forth. And as another pointed out, it just works. I can’t say I like the idea of Steamworks, but I do love the Steam overlay, and that’s why I have pretty much all of my non-Steam games added to Steam, too.
The overlay is the greatest invention to gaming in a long time, XFire tried to do it, but the XFire coders really aren’t professionals, they don’t know all the tricks to keep things slim, to keep bandwidth and resource usage down. If one’s computer were a highway, Steam would be a tiny little Beetle, and XFire would be a chain of 20some 18wheeler trucks.
And that’s probably the key to Steam’s success. I don’t like DRM, I don’t like Steam’s DRM, I don’t like Steamworks… but… Valve knows technology, and the overlay is a pretty damn sleek thing. Though I do wish they’d map the gecko engine onto those shiny DX surfaces rather than the IE one, but that’s about my only complaint.
06/11/2009 at 15:13 I Hate Popular Things says:
This entire thread reeks of VALVe derangement syndrome.
06/11/2009 at 19:34 Ryx says:
I was going to yell at you before I read your name.
06/11/2009 at 15:15 Bogie says:
A message to Infinity Ward:
Quote from Treyarch:
“Thanks to everybody who voted Call of Duty: World at War for the 27th Annual Golden Joystick Awards. We are thrilled that CoD:WaW was awarded both Multiplayer Game of the Year and Nintendo Game of the Year!
This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our dedicated fans.”
Or dedicated servers!
A PC isn’t just a mouse and keyboard connected to an XBox 360.
06/11/2009 at 15:25 Dracko says:
lol yeah it’s not like anyone plays it on console or anything
06/11/2009 at 15:27 TotalBiscuit says:
Console FPS’s, lol.
Also I don’t think anyone really takes the Golden Joysticks seriously.
06/11/2009 at 15:31 dsmart says:
@ Lilliput King
Who said anything about revolutionary? Did you actually not get the gist of my missive?
Who cares if Impulse – or any other service for that matter – has anything compared to Steam? Apart from the fact that they don’t – Steam’s ease of use, install base, plethora of tools (you don’t have to use ALL of them, but they are there) makes it more of a compelling platform than any.
If you go and compare Steam to Impulse, I will shoot the next kitten.
And Impulse does have a form of DRM. Lets not even go into that stupid argument again.
GoG has no DRM. No interface. No keys. Nothing.
Now go ahead, compare Impulse to GoG.
You simply can’t be serious.
06/11/2009 at 16:25 jalf says:
Ok. GoG: Games just work. Even on modern systems. They actually *support* the games they sell.
They don’t double the price for Europeans.
They allow me to download and even copy games, as much as I like. They don’t require me to be online (or have a finicky offline mode that only works when Steam decides to)
Steam: You have to install their client. You have to have their client running. You can only download their games through that client, and you can’t copy the games to another system. If the game doesn’t work, you’re screwed. Most games rip off Europeans to the extent that I can save around 50% just by buying from online retailers.
And best of all: The Steam overlay works fine even with GoG games! Which leaves me wondering, which particular feature of Steam is it that I’m supposed to be pining for when I buy games on GoG?
I’m sorry, but in this particular comparison, I don’t see a single strong point for Steam – except perhaps the weekend sales. Sometimes, they have some very good deals there.
06/11/2009 at 16:46 Obdicut says:
Jaff, when asked to compare GOG to Impulse, why did you compare GOG to Steam?
06/11/2009 at 17:01 Comment system, what comment system? says:
You can, in fact, copy steam games from one PC to another. I did this when I built my new machine to save some download time.
You do have to log into your account to play the games you copied, just like if you downloaded them fresh.
06/11/2009 at 15:37 dsmart says:
On the flipside of all this, Steam sells games which use IGN’s technology- that Godawful thing they call GameSpy. Now wait until Valve actually stops carrying games that use it since it competes with their own solution.
06/11/2009 at 15:47 abhishek says:
If Valve dropped Gamespy games from their service, they would get hit with accusations of anti-competitive behaviour in the blink of an eye. Funny world we live in.
06/11/2009 at 16:44 jalf says:
Isn’t the entire point that it *doesn’t* compete?
IGN doesn’t like selling things that includes Steam’s *marketplace* services.
They don’t have a problem with selling things that supports Steam’s social services (the matchmaking part, or the friends list part) – at least that’s how I understand it.
So why would Valve object to selling games that includes IGN’s *social* services? It’s not a competitor. It’d be a competitor if it integrated directly with D2D (which is IGN’s marketplace service) – but how is Gamespy, the matchmaking/social service, a competitor?
07/11/2009 at 03:59 Cedge says:
@jalf:
Uh, Steam absolutely offers social gaming services. Steamworks can provide everything from game hosting, to friend tracking, to matchmaking, to stat tracking, to forums. Gamespy is absolutely a competitor to Steam.
06/11/2009 at 15:39 Urthman says:
Wow. I’m shocked at how thoroughly everyone has capitulated to the aggravation of Steam’s online activation.
I love Valve, and I can see that Steam is a great service when you want the stuff it provides. But if all you want to do is play Half-Life 2 and Portal single-player and you don’t have broadband internet, it is an absolute nightmare.
I have broadband now, so it’s not so big a deal, but it still makes me angry that I can’t even play a stupid freeware Half-Life mod without Steam logging into the internet. Otherwise I constantly keep Steam in offline mode, but always worry that it’ll get stuck in online mode and my connection will go down and I won’t be able to play the games I bought.
Half-Life 2 & Portal are really the only games I can think of that are worth putting up with that shit. MW2? Fear 2? No way.
Actually, I had no idea that there were games other than Valve games that could only be played by going through the Steam online activation hassle. I’m not at all surprised D2D etc. would balk at selling a game that required Steam. Imagine if mp3.com couldn’t sell the latest Beyonce album without requiring you to install iTunes.
06/11/2009 at 15:55 Lilliput King says:
Exactly! Derek, take note.
06/11/2009 at 15:53 Lilliput King says:
“Did you actually not get the gist of my missive?”
It was long, one sided, incoherent and dull, but I think I picked it up.
“Who cares if Impulse – or any other service for that matter – has anything compared to Steam? Apart from the fact that they don’t – Steam’s ease of use, install base, plethora of tools (you don’t have to use ALL of them, but they are there) makes it more of a compelling platform than any.”
This doesn’t make sense. “Who cares if a platform has features comparable and in some cases better than steam, for steam is better.” You’re in a peculiar position here as you consider DRM positive (for obvious reasons). Which I suppose means Steam is even more wonderful for its tendency to ‘stack’ DRM methods on top of eachother. GTAIV is the best example. Steam’s DRM policy isn’t really internally consistent, and I’d say it suffers for it, but really, the consumers suffer more.
“If you go and compare Steam to Impulse, I will shoot the next kitten.”
You don’t have the BALLS.
“GoG has no DRM. No interface. No keys. Nothing.
Now go ahead, compare Impulse to GoG.”
I see your point, but it’s flustered rhetoric. Steam’s feature set doesn’t outstrip Impulse’s to the extent you imagine. Similarly, more features isn’t always a good thing. For those of us who buy from GoG, the lack of features is considered one of its positive aspects. You just get the game, as many times as you want, playable from whatever machine you want, for a decent price, with none of the peripheral crap. Impulse is similar.
“You simply can’t be serious.”
Why are they good for me, as a user? I can’t really see it.
06/11/2009 at 15:57 Hug_dealer says:
I support this motion as long as it sells less copies of mw 2.
06/11/2009 at 16:04 dsmart says:
@ Liiliput
Which is why you should’ve stayed in school and paid attention in class. Don’t blame me for your own inferiority complex.
06/11/2009 at 16:09 TotalBiscuit says:
Or purchase Rosetta Stone – Derek Smart translation edition.
06/11/2009 at 16:36 autogunner says:
seriously derek i have no idea how the rubbish you spew makes any sense to even you.
06/11/2009 at 16:40 Lilliput King says:
Wow.
06/11/2009 at 17:34 Heker says:
Is dsmart just a troll? He seems to just be insulting people.
07/11/2009 at 09:25 whalleywhat says:
Welcome to The Internet.
06/11/2009 at 16:08 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Oh dear.
06/11/2009 at 16:08 dsmart says:
@ Urthman
Absolutely valid point. For the most part.
Using the iTunes argument, you do realize that tunes you buy through Apple are locked to their service, right? How about stuff you download from other services?
Which is why I use AmazonMP3 for my online music purchase. I buy it. Download it. Put it where I want.
Steam is a “service oriented distribution system”. If you don’t want to use Steam, buy your games elsewhere (e.g. D2D). Thats why you have a CHOICE. So go vote with your dollars – after all, they are YOUR dollars.
In this instance, Activision is forcing you to use Steam in order to play their game. I’m not sure what the furor is about, but my guess is you ALREADY have Steam games installed. So its not like you’re a virgin or anything. That ship already sailed.
06/11/2009 at 16:19 Urthman says:
I don’t understand why you’re saying YOU HAVE A CHOICE when the whole topic here is games like MW2 where you don’t have a choice whether or not to use it with Steam.
And yeah, you understood my iTunes point. Forcing D2D to sell a Steam-locked game is like forcing mp3.com to sell music with iTunes DRM on it.
I don’t buy music with iTunes DRM and I won’t buy games with Steam DRM unless they are at least as good as Half-Life 2. The online activation nightmare is the reason I haven’t given GTA4 a try even though it’s only $20 now.
06/11/2009 at 16:12 Heliocentric says:
GTA 4 on steam is the only version without limited activations. Just a thought.
06/11/2009 at 16:14 Wisq says:
I continue to be amazed by Infinity Ward’s ability to piss people off.
Was this all some sort of long term experiment? Build up a reputation in the PC world and then see how fast you can destroy it and alienate not just the customers, but the retailers as well?
Obviously, the next target has to be Steam itself. They’re the only party that MW2 remains in good standing with.
06/11/2009 at 16:25 Gutter says:
It is an experiment.
And if it works (eg : MW2 see strong sales from console + PC) the experiment will expand to a LOT of games. All those dedicated servers automatically installed in Steam when you buy a game? I’d bid them farewell if I was you.
Seeing how my local video game retailers already reserved about 30 spaces on their shelves for both the the 360 and PS3 version, I think that the experiment will be more than conclusive for big publishing boxes. Don’t be surprised if 2010 is the year of the gimped PC releases.
Infinity Ward isn’t trying to alienate anyone as much as EA is trying to change part of it’s business model, and it will work just like when the Sidekick (and then the iPhone) changed mobile content distribution to a closed model, despite every cell phone fan boys complaining throwing a fit over it.
06/11/2009 at 16:29 Tei says:
Symantec sould label “Modern Warfare 2 PC” as a Troyan and autodelete it, if detected. Its a malicioud program, than wen executed show a game on the screen, but is designed on the purpose of either “consolize” the PC market, or move the PC gamers to the console market.
06/11/2009 at 16:31 Gutter says:
And that surprise you how, exactly?
06/11/2009 at 16:30 dsmart says:
@ Urthman
This thread is about publishers NOT carrying MW2 because it uses Steam. This has NOTHING to do with YOU and YOUR choices – or lackof. Get a grip.
Fact is, you DO have a choice if you feel so badly about it being only on Steam:
Don’t buy the game.
Or get a console.
Or lament on discussion boards – where nobody gives a rat’s ass either way – about how you don’t have a choice, about how Valve is teh evil empiAH – or whatever.
06/11/2009 at 16:32 Bumsplikity says:
Its crazy. Two weeks ago i was going to get this game. And now im not, because of how gay they made the PC version. And i just can’t bring myself to play a FPS on a console anymore. So now i don’t know what November 10thish game to get.
06/11/2009 at 16:34 dsmart says:
In relation to this, I still remember how pissed I was when Paranormal Activity wasn’t showing in my area.
Or how the IMAX version of Star Trek really wasn’t IMAX (it was gimped)
Or how most PC games from large publishers are just gimped console versions.
In time, you get over it. Why? Well because, believe it or not, you DO have a choice. The very act of being pissed about it is a choice that you get to make. By the same token, you can just shrug and move on.
06/11/2009 at 16:38 dsmart says:
My guess is that all those chest thumping on boards about not getting the game, are really going to get it. Yeah, we developers know all too well how that works.
To wit:
- despite the “boycott”, L4D2 pre-orders are 4x that of the original game
- the MW2 pre-orders still eclipse anything before it – even with the “suspect” 180K online protesters – all of who are going to get it anyway.
You’re all going to get it, just saying you’re not going to get is that FALSE sense of pride and entitlement that stupid, pointless and time wasting online petitions – generated by a bunch of whiny girlie men – are about.
06/11/2009 at 16:42 Gutter says:
Doesn’t the “reply” button work for you? I remember how RPS used to work as well, but I am not sure who you are replying to at all right now.
06/11/2009 at 16:42 The Sombrero Kid says:
i was never going to buy it, & i still ain’t because it’s predecessor was a stale experience. as with l4d2.
06/11/2009 at 16:48 jalf says:
Huh? You’re saying that despite the developers surgically removing everything that made the game attractive, we will all get it?
Just like we’re all going to get L4D2?
I’m sorry… I’m going to drop a bombshell on you: There’s more than one person who’s buying games. My reason for buying a game is not going to be the same as your reason, or anyone else’s reason. There are people who are in love with L4D2, and have always been. And there are people who dislike it, for a variety of reasons, and will not buy it. Just because L4D2 is getting more preorders than L4D did, that does not mean that everyone who complained about the game, have caved in and preordered it.
And likewise, just because MW2 looks to be a huge seller ,that hardly means that every single one of us are going to buy it.
Statistics. You may have heard the term. There is a difference between “lots of people buying a game”, and “everyone buying a game”. It may be subtle, but it’s there.
06/11/2009 at 16:49 Lilliput King says:
“we developers”
Heh.
06/11/2009 at 17:05 Gutter says:
@ Jalf : Whats your point? Do you think that game publishers all sit there, weighting YOU into the equation, when it’s obvious that there is more than enough people out there who aren’t asking for any special treatment for the same sale?
You speak of statistic, and yet chose to ignore that people with the same “high game standard” as you might not even be a blip in the statistics that publishers are looking at. At some point, publishers know that they will lose money by doing what they do, but they also know that they will recoup most of that money elsewhere (no dedicated servers mean less support inquiry, 9 vs 9 means less people bugging them about lag, etc…).
Believe me, any decisions around MW2 has been vetted by people who have access to way more sale stats that you’ll ever do.
06/11/2009 at 17:19 lumpi says:
- MW2 preorders seem to at least include console sales. Console success was never in doubt. But CoD4 was a PC fail (“Because they toookuourrreJOOOOOOBS!”… no wait “Because athempiiiiiiiiirrraaaaayyts!!!”) and I see little reason for MW2 to be any different. Less reason than ever, to be precise.
06/11/2009 at 17:37 Spod says:
Derek – seriously, is there any need to be quite so obnoxious? I realise that people have strong opinions on this thing but there’s no need to be such a cock about it.
06/11/2009 at 17:44 Centy says:
You know I read a big long article by someone who felt victimised and said very similar things. Springs to mind that you are to ignorant to see the face in the mirror mate. There’s really no need to be such a cunt about this though freedom of expression is fine but you are no better than a mean spirited little troll stirring up trouble trying to justify your sense of purpose. Idea’s above your station much?
06/11/2009 at 17:49 TotalBiscuit says:
So since I have coded at least 1 game that is actually playable by normal human-beings, does that make me a developer with more pedigree than Derek Smart? I wonder… Granted, it was a quiz in BASIC when I was 5 years old and I’m pretty sure I mis-spelled words like clown and quiz, but hey, it still had a better interface than anything Derek’s vomited forth.
07/11/2009 at 06:07 CaseytheBrash says:
I’m not getting it, though it has zero to do with Steam. It mostly concerns the attitude they have towards the PC “version” of the game. At this point it’s a bit silly they even bothered.
06/11/2009 at 16:41 Almighty Narshe says:
I wish everyone would stop getting so worked up about MW2. It’s just a new Call of Duty game, which wasn’t that exciting until a load of teenage americans decided it was.
06/11/2009 at 16:47 Pamplemousse says:
You’re quite a horrible little man really aren’t you Derek?
06/11/2009 at 16:50 Obdicut says:
His points have been perfectly reasonable. He’s acting all internet-mannish, but his points are better-made than anyone else in the thread, as far as I’ve seen.
The long and the short of it is:
Doing this now, after tons of games are already on Steam, makes no sense. None at all. It’s “I’m shocked, shocked to see that there’s gambling going on!”
06/11/2009 at 21:12 Urthman says:
There’s a big difference between the tons of games that are “on Steam” and the handful that require Steam. Before this thread I didn’t even know there were games outside of Valve’s (and some of the indies like Audiosurf) that were only available using Steam as the DRM.
06/11/2009 at 16:50 dsmart says:
@ Gutter
Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t. Weird that.
06/11/2009 at 16:51 dsmart says:
@ Jalf
READ what I wrote again. And if you’d like me to translate, tell me what your native language is and I’ll hop on over to Google Translate.
06/11/2009 at 17:08 subedii says:
I believe that D2D also sells Empire: Total War. A pretty popular and long lived PC franchsie, that also makes use of integrated Steamworks and reguires a Steam installation. The same with Dawn of War 2 IIRC.
Sorry, this reads as headline grabbing to me. At least in D2D’s case they’ve already been doing just this for a long time now.
As for Impulse, I like Impulse, but frankly they sell THEIR games linked to Impulse, and you need it if you’re going to play (at least if you want to patch and go online. It’s been a while since I bought a store-bought copy of one of their games). That statement coming from them now is pretty much just blatant hypocrisy.
06/11/2009 at 19:00 dsmart says:
Exactly! And you don’t see Steam, IGN or whoever, clamouring about it.
06/11/2009 at 17:16 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Out of curiosity, is it possible to find out just how much advertisement was placed on IGN’s promotion of Modern Warfare 2? Direct2Drive isn’t the only online distributor with their panties tied up in a knot, but is it even possible to divorce a news portal as IGN, the fact that publishers rent advertisement space in said portals and IGN’s coverage and future review of MW2?
I’d be surprised if MW2 scored less than a 9 at IGN, and it would seem reasonable to assume they would want some manner of return for this in the form of larger profit from IGN-smeared technology in D2D. If this was true, then it would probably imply something worse – a move to have online portals establish a larger grip on the distribution and advertisement of specific games, not only with distribution but also advertisement, news, reviews, etc.. Steam, being entirely its own thing, would certainly scare D2D.
06/11/2009 at 17:26 subedii says:
I’d guess that IGN having ownership of D2D might have something to do with it. Although to be honest, I think it’s also because right now Modern Warfare 2 is the popular target of the moment for PC fandoms, so you can always stand to gain more ground by advertising against it on reasons that you had no problem with before.
I don’t know, I guess that’s a calculation that largely comes down to how much D2D thought they might have gotten from selling MW2, compared to how much advertising and awareness they can milk out of this current fiasco.
But then, I say that largely because I’m sceptical of D2D’s motives here.
06/11/2009 at 17:40 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@subedii: True, there’s no denying everyone wanted a slice of MW2. My though was more along the lines of other reasons that could’ve moved them in this direction. It seems such a weird stance, not on its own – again, MW2 is bankable – but how it goes against their previous D2D offerings. If the major digital distributors wanted to take action, they could have made a stand much earlier than this and come off more like concerned digital outlets rather than greedy hypocrites.
06/11/2009 at 17:46 subedii says:
I have to agree that IGN is probably milking it for all its worth, like you said it’s a big title. Although if I’m going to be fair, I can’t really single out IGN for conflict of interest with D2D any more than I can Valve with Steam. The main difference to me is that as far as I’ve seen of Valve, they haven’t really abused that relationship to try and hurt other devs (if anything it’s the opposite, with Steam heavily advertising games like Killing Floor, which if nothing else, is pretty much a direct competitor to Left 4 Dead). IGN on the other hand, are going to play this up for all its worth.
06/11/2009 at 17:59 Greg Wild says:
Don’t care. Looks shit at any rate. Would have bought it straight over Steam or on Amazon anyway.
06/11/2009 at 18:00 Lagmint says:
Honestly, at this point how many people are still getting it? If you’re a moron who actually thinks that buying this for the ‘single player only’ doesn’t still fund them for their multiplayer retardations, buy the physical copy SECOND HAND. Seriously, they get nothing for it, and you’re not pirating the game and trying to look good over it.
06/11/2009 at 18:06 Spod says:
You can’t get the game second hand unless it’s a console version. You buy the PC version and it links to your Steam account and that’s not transferable.
06/11/2009 at 18:17 Vinraith says:
More power to them, I can certainly understand where they’re coming from. Unfortunately, I think all it’s really going to do is lose them some sales and line Valve’s pockets that much more.
Then again, I’m only barely holding myself back from a Gamersgate shopping spree, maybe I should do them a favor and stop resisting…
06/11/2009 at 18:24 Obdicut says:
Where are they coming from?
I honestly don’t get why they’re doing this now, and why they’re not doing it for all their games, if it’s worth doing for one.
06/11/2009 at 18:50 Vinraith says:
I think a game with these kinds of anticipated sales numbers is the anvil that broke the camel’s back. They’d have been more credible if they’d taken a stand when this nonsense started, of course, but better late than never.
Like others, I’d rather this was about how badly IW is mistreating PC gamers, but I’m fundamentally sympathetic to any digital distributor that has a less intrusive model than Steam (which is virtually all of them, of course).
06/11/2009 at 19:35 Obdicut says:
So why aren’t they pulling all their games? Why just this one?
I don’t see any way this action is both meaningful AND honest.
06/11/2009 at 19:44 Vinraith says:
“I don’t see any way this action is both meaningful AND honest.”
It’s not, but it could have been. It’s also not going to be effective. If they were going to take this stand, they needed to take it quite awhile ago and be consistent about it, not panic when they realize the scale of the problem and fail to react in a sensible, effective way.
06/11/2009 at 18:57 Mark S. says:
I just got back from sitting in the sun, zip lining and waterfall rappelling down in Costa Rica, and i come back to this…
when can i go back.
06/11/2009 at 18:59 dsmart says:
@ Spod
If you actually read the thread sequence, you will see that not only do I respond “in kind”, but I don’t take prisoners when stupid twit decides to make it about me, rather than the topic at hand.So if that makes me a cock, then fine – I’d rather be a right cock than be a spineless Ad Hominem tit.
Ignorance is no excuse either – which is why one should READ. COMPREHEND. then SPEAK. If you don’t muster the first two, then STFU because your opinion won’t count for much more than noise anyway. Some of us want to have a serious discussion without wankers looking for attention throwing much all over the place. You know yourselves.
I am all for Free Speech – but nowhere does it say that I have to be tolerant of interweb dweebs.
People who CHOOSE to be victims are the same people who drive around without seatbelts, have despicable vices. And voted for George Bush. You can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.
06/11/2009 at 20:33 Spod says:
Sorry Derek but you really do not come across as someone who wants to have a proper discussion.
“If you actually read the thread sequence, you will see that not only do I respond “in kind””
That’s some real playground logic there. If you’re interested in a reasoned debate, don’t rise to trolls – you’re absolutely failing at that in this thread, and it’s doing you no favours whatsoever.
06/11/2009 at 20:35 Centy says:
“I’d rather be a right cock than be a spineless Ad Hominem tit.”
Yeah but the only thing people will see is the former.
06/11/2009 at 20:41 Centy says:
“Some of us want to have a serious discussion without wankers looking for attention throwing much all over the place. You know yourselves.”
Clearly they don’t or you would see the massive hypocrisy there.
06/11/2009 at 19:11 dsmart says:
@ Vinraith
Indeed. Which is why this makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. I mean seriously, who do they think they’re hurting? All they’re doing is driving THEIR customers over to Steam because I am quite certain that there are folks out there who don’t have any Steam games as of now. But when you consider the size of Valve’s own games – which were the original driving force behind Steam – you have to wonder if there are in fact any gamers left who don’t already have at least one Steam game.
If only it were as simple as bitching about dedicated servers, then we could all go home and spare the kittens. But sadly – apart from this Steam issue – it goes way beyond that.
tbh, I’m happy for them. If you can’t count for anything, at least stand for something. I remember how many pricks pirated the first COD4 game. I didn’t see any of you fellows crying foul out there wailing at the pirates. So this is really nothing more than payback and an attempt to make money from their hard work. When you have a strong IP such as this, you can pretty much get away with anything. EA has been doing worse shit for years – and to the extent that its not even news anymore, just “another EA farce” you can read about and chuckle.
06/11/2009 at 19:19 Vinraith says:
“I didn’t see any of you fellows crying foul out there wailing at the pirates.”
Actually most any mention of “I’m going to pirate this on principle LOLZ!!!” on RPS is met with a few comments about how the douchebag in question is just exacerbating the problem. It doesn't accomplish anything, of course, because selfish short-sighted assholes are selfish short-sighted assholes whether you yell at them or not.
06/11/2009 at 20:36 Spod says:
“I remember how many pricks pirated the first COD4 game. I didn’t see any of you fellows crying foul out there wailing at the pirates.”
Why should they have to – that’s IW/Activisions problem. If people paid for it then they’ve done all they need to to support the product.
07/11/2009 at 06:26 CaseytheBrash says:
Piracy is part of doing business, on any platform. How much money did they make as it stood, how much WOULD they have made if the price was even lower? And above all, how many pirates are really viable consumers? For them to play the victim and rake in millions upon millions is a bit much. Now business models are becoming so restrictive they have to be losing revenue because of that alone.
06/11/2009 at 19:46 Railick says:
I figure Direct2Drive will end up selling this even after all this "Taking a stand junk" They know as well as we do that the only people they're going to hurt with this move is themselves. They're not going to convince IW to remove steam from the game at this late point (since IW isn't going to lose any sales from it after all) Steam probably gives them a better deal any how : P
Also LOL @ DSmart , you know what I'm talking about.
06/11/2009 at 20:04 dsmart says:
Right now, IW has bigger things to worry about.
06/11/2009 at 20:22 Shadders says:
I may as well throw in my opinion.
I’ll begin by being slightly off topic and explaining what I want for my gaming fix. I hate the different DRM systems publishers feel the need to silently install on MY PC when I have purchased their game. I REALLY hate the fact that the same DRM software does not uninstall when I uninstall the game. I have had email correspondence with one of these DRM software makers asking for assistance to remove their product after the utility they provided failed to work. It was basically “yeah some stuff can’t be removed”.
Now, I understand that piracy is a problem and developer & publishers want to protect their investment.
What I like about Steam is that it IS the DRM. It’s unfortunate that some games on Steam still have third party DRM, but on the whole, Steam does say when a product has this. They cocked up a little while back by not showing this for a game but they corrected it quickly after a forum thread pointed it out. Mind you, the info about extra DRM is great for me, because I can refuse to purchase it and say why on the forums.
Even with Steam acting as the DRM, it does not install rootkit-like software in order to do its job. Download, verify (unlock) and play. I play all of the games I have on Steam offline (those that don’t require an internet connection of course).
I like the fact that I can backup all my Steam purchases. Wipe my PC and restore them without having to download them all again. Yes, you have to go online, but the process is way shorter than download gigs of games.
So if a dev or publisher decides to go with Steam to the extent of using Steamworks, as long as they are sensible and don’t add DRM, good luck to them.
I do agree that competition is a good thing, and I’d hate to see a situation where there was no competition for Valve. Mind you, I would not mind seeing Games for Windows Live die.
06/11/2009 at 20:22 schragnasher says:
And thus we enter the new frontier of digital marketplace exclusives….it was bound to happen. Could of seen it a mile away, in the end something will have to give. No one wants to have 13 different login’s for digital marketplaces. Sadly it will get worse before a workaround is found. Be ready for it, but itl work out over time.
06/11/2009 at 21:05 dsmart says:
Exactly.
06/11/2009 at 21:07 Vinraith says:
Which, of course, will increase piracy rates even more.
06/11/2009 at 20:32 Railick says:
I don't even know HOW To set Steam to offline mode and generally I don't even know I'm going to be offline until I'm already offline : P
06/11/2009 at 20:35 Vinraith says:
It’s an option off the “file” menu, and easy enough to set, but 99% of the time I (like you) have no idea I’m going to be without an internet connection when it actually comes up. I’ve been locked out of my Steam games often enough to be very hesitant to buy anything else on the service, despite otherwise quite liking it.
08/11/2009 at 05:53 Pantsman says:
Without an internet connection, attempt to sign in. It will fail, and report the failure in a window. The window will have three buttons. One of these will say “Start in Offline mode”. Click that one.
06/11/2009 at 20:46 mroaes says:
Get the pirated version for the single-player experience.
06/11/2009 at 21:54 Vinraith says:
Please, please tell me you’re being deliberately ironic.
06/11/2009 at 22:02 Railick says:
The pirated version doesn’t come with night vision goggles!
06/11/2009 at 21:13 captainlinger says:
i don’t really care that steam is doing this. they’re trying to lock in a bigger piece of the marketplace. if impulse or d2d had the sizeable piece of the digital download pie that steam does, they would have tried to broker a similar deal with Activision. sorry, but actually saying that steam is a trojan makes them lose all credibility to me. and from what i’ve seen they ALL have some form of DRM. only GoG can truthfully say DRM free (along with cliffski).
06/11/2009 at 21:50 Railick says:
Not true Captainlinger I tried to priate Gratuitous Space Battles and when I attempted to install the file a window came up called "Gratuitous Digital Rights Managment"
The message inside stated " Please enter the 10 , 100 character key codes e-mailed to you when you purchased this game (From 10 different e-mail address in 10 different countries) and then figure out the Chinese GO puzzle on page 4 of the PDF file hidden on your computer randomly when you attempted to install this game in order to enable this game for 10 minutes.
When I failed to put in the key codes before the 5 second timer counted down to zero it deleted my entire computer.
Shadowcat “It hammers at my retinas like an evil woodpecker of pure energy”
06/11/2009 at 23:11 Lilliput King says:
“Get the pirated version for the single-player experience.”
IW will inevitably blame piracy for the poor sales of MW2 on PC. I think it’d be better for all of us if the blame isn’t justified.
06/11/2009 at 23:20 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Modern Warfare 2 pushed back to November 13 on Steam?
http://gamerlimit.com/2009/11/modern-warfare-2-pushed-back-to-november-13-on-steam/
06/11/2009 at 23:21 Railick says:
I feel an Lolasarus coming on
07/11/2009 at 00:05 kwyjibo says:
This is just D2D saying that they can’t compete with the features and service that Steam offers. It’s admitting that if they sell Steam games, then you’ll end up abandoning D2D and loving Valve.
It’s pathetic that they’ve tried to wrap it up with a customer rights issue. Claiming that they’re trying to save you from installing third party software (what, like DRM, punkbuster, and whatever other shit), when they’re only desperately trying to save themselves.
Still, it’s a fucking News Corp company, so I’d never buy from them anyway.
07/11/2009 at 01:33 subedii says:
I’m thinking of a term. Rhymes with “FusterCluck”.
07/11/2009 at 10:12 Jon says:
Some of the accusations people are making about Steam are hilarious. I don’t think you really know what you are talking about if you think one of these other services have that much over Valve’s service… I can understand not liking some of it’s features to an extent but it’s not like its some massively invasive program as some make it out to be.
07/11/2009 at 20:03 Vinraith says:
No other service performs a “phone home” check every time you try to PLAY (not install) a game and locks you out of said game if said check fails. There’s no way around the fact that Steam is the most invasive of the popular digital distribution platforms .
07/11/2009 at 15:31 Vander says:
All your base are belong to Valve.
07/11/2009 at 16:20 Hmm says:
Instant notice of new releases, simultaneous international release, comments about quality, multiple versions to pick from, no DRM, ripped versions for smaller downloads, even swift post-release support if it doesn’t work, and all in a file I can backup and store where I want. If torrents went commercial it would be the best service there is.
07/11/2009 at 19:33 dsmart says:
So I decided to go all pro on this issue and why I think its just bad biz all around.
10/11/2009 at 16:54 Little Green Man says:
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