Steam gets almost all the PC games sales now..How do you feel about this ??

[MURDEROUS G]

Revenue isn't the same as profit.. /obvious statement

I didn't say anywhere that revenue was the same as profit, so I have no idea what you think the point of this post is.

If you actually read more than the first sentence of the post you quoted you'll see that I later framed that revenue figure in the context of their operating costs to infer that their profits must be substantial.

Here, I'll quote it for you seeing as you apparently missed it the first time around:

Think about the kind of revenue figures they must be looking at now, and bear in mind this is a business with comparatively minimal operating overheads.

edit: you really don't know what you're talking about at all

they'll go where they think the money is, which, as a business solely concerned with making it's shareholders money is what they are supposed to do.

Valve are a privately held company, their stock is not traded and they have no shareholder accountability whatsoever.

 

[chris-82]

I am fundamentally against the concept of a private organisation having the power to confiscate items you've bought because you have been deemed to have done something they don't like or don't think is right. I can imagine there are numerous reasons why they might want to 'ban' your account but none of these reasons should result in the loss of products you've paid for. If somebody has done something criminal, use the legal system. Publishers are not a law enforcement agency.

Even simple billing issues seem to be fair game..

Agree

 

[MeMeMeMe]

NOBODY is too big or immune from failure. The difference being when your car manufacturer goes bust it's a damn nuisance but you don't lose your car. When DFI when bust your motherboard didnt stop working. When your digital distribution platform company goes bust, what happens?

You wait ten minutes till some enterprising hacker produces a steam unlocker program that allows you to continue playing all your legally bought steam games.

The same argument can be made about nearly all retail games bought too. Any game from a big publisher requires online activation. What happens when you come back and try to play that game a year or two after you've bought it, and the parent company is gone and the activation servers no longer exist? (Or for that matter, you try to install it after your activation limit is exceeded.)

Limiting purchases based on the possibility of a company going bust, when that company is very mature, and very well established, is daft. Apply that to everything else in your life, and you would never buy anything.

 

[MeMeMeMe]

This doesn't make sense to me. Plenty of websites offer downloadable games, where are your figures on steams market share? Here's an article I pulled quickly from google (2011) which estimates otherwise

From that article:

Steam itself shows a respectable growth of more than 150% but still loses more than 10% of it's market shares to it's new contenders. While Valve's digital distribution platform still holds a comfortable 55% of the market Amazon, GameStop and Microsoft grabbed 10% each on market entry, trailed by EA with 5%.

55% is 'most' (though only barely). and with each of its biggest rivals having less than 1/5th it's market share, I'd say it qualifies as the biggest by far.
I wonder how much the market has changed since that article.

 

[[TW]Fox]

You wait ten minutes till some enterprising hacker produces a steam unlocker program that allows you to continue playing all your legally bought steam games.

Unacceptable to have to rely on that.

The same argument can be made about nearly all retail games bought too. Any game from a big publisher requires online activation. What happens when you come back and try to play that game a year or two after you've bought it, and the parent company is gone and the activation servers no longer exist?

Equally unacceptable. Are you saying that crap practice which puts at risk your purchases is ok as long as other people do it to? Neither are desireable, are they?

Limiting purchases based on the possibility of a company going bust, when that company is very mature, and very well established, is daft. Apply that to everything else in your life, and you would never buy anything.

Generally speaking when a firm goes bust it doesn't result in everything the customers ever purchased from them vanishing into thin air, so this is not relevant.

I have numerous games on Steam so clearly I don't limit purchases - but I am perfectly entitled to be deeply unhappy at the whole thing.

 

[Boge]

When your digital distribution platform company goes bust, what happens?

Good Qwestchun

Err. You don't OWN anything?

You do not.

Own.

Anything?

 

[Boge]

Call me a luddite but I'm getting far more fun out of replaying System Shock 2 again just now.

Yeah it took some setting up and I had to work to make it work but boy oh boy ...

No Spoon feeding required

 

[Jarrastafari]

55% is 'most' (though only barely). and with each of its biggest rivals having less than 1/5th it's market share, I'd say it qualifies as the biggest by far.
I wonder how much the market has changed since that article.

Most isn't the same as "almost all" though. Would be good to get some up-to-date figures.

 

[MeMeMeMe]

Unacceptable to have to rely on that.
Generally speaking when a firm goes bust it doesn't result in everything the customers ever purchased from them vanishing into thin air, so this is not relevant.

Yeah, but steam is no different to any other non-indie game publisher in this regard. Even if they don't digitally distribute the game, you still need to activate the game online each time you install it, and this isn't a new phenomenon.

So, there's no reason to use this as a point against steam.

Also, games aren't like, say, cars or tvs. The time spent with most games is fairly limited, like books or movies. You play/read/watch for a few hours, or until you finish it if it interests you enough, and then you never look at it again. For a very few games, you might come back to them over and over again for years, but they are the exception, and if steam went bust, you'd have no hesitation picking up a bargain bin copy from another reseller later.

So it's really a non-issue.

 

[orderoftheflame]

Good Qwestchun

Err. You don't OWN anything?

You do not.

Own.

Anything?

Gabe has said on many occasions that there is a system in place with regards to that meaning that everyone will still retain full access to games they have through steam.

You have to take his word for it, but I'm not sure why they'd downright lie over something like that.

 

[Schizo]

Why is everyone bitching about steam ?

Dont like it then dont use it,i would rather use steam than origin.

Yes im a steam fanboy

 

[Rezident]

The best online service will and should get the most sales.

Personally I usually don't buy my games on Steam (apart from Steam Sales) 'cos they're too expensive and I don't mind waiting a few days for delivery and launchday bug removal.

 

[Outline]

So basically, we've established that Steam don't get all the sales.

Some people don't like Steam, and won't use it.



O - K

 

[Macro]

I didn't say anywhere that revenue was the same as profit, so I have no idea what you think the point of this post is.

If you actually read more than the first sentence of the post you quoted you'll see that I later framed that revenue figure in the context of their operating costs to infer that their profits must be substantial.

Here, I'll quote it for you seeing as you apparently missed it the first time around:





edit: you really don't know what you're talking about at all



Valve are a privately held company, their stock is not traded and they have no shareholder accountability whatsoever.

wow, nice attitude, do you work for valve or something?

I never said you said revenue equals profit, I pointed out that having a billion in revenue doesn't mean you can't go bankrupt. Borrow and then sink 10billion into development costs of a console that flops and you're potentially dead in the water. Have a widespread hacking and privacy/personal details problem and you could certainly lose enough new custom so costs outstrip revenue almost overnight. Unlike a lot of companies Steams opcosts will be relatively fixed. Even if no one buys another game this year they still have to maintain the service for people who have previously bought games with them. Random numbers but it illustrates that 1 billion in revenues even with low operating costs doesn't mean you cannot end up in financial problems. Simple enough for you?

As for them being privately held rather than public so they have no "absolutely no accountability or shareholders whatsoever" you seem a little confused. Even private companies have shareholders, the shares just aren't publicly available or traded...

When you make comments like "you don't know what you're talking about" you may want to look a little closer to home...

 

[Notorious]

if you buy from steam, its pure profit for the yanks (steam/devs). I bet they dont pay the VAT value on your purchase back to HM revenue and customs, if they dont pay why should we pay it to them.

If you buy from a UK PC game seller like zavvi (game is american owned). You letting UK ppl profit from game sales, giving UK ppl jobs and the tax value on the software is probably getting to where VAT is supposed to goto. + theres UK laws on owning physical media that **** in the face of the steam "Your license confers no title or ownership in the Software" BS

most yanks are anti competition (crazy vs the UK), look at any UK dev'ed game on steam and i bet they give it a crap score.

Same as both the yank CBS owned metacritic and gamerankings game score systems.

No one should give any power to any american owned company who could potentially lobby in our politics/laws or try and sabotage our future.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

As for them being privately held rather than public so they have no "absolutely no accountability or shareholders whatsoever" you seem a little confused. Even private companies have shareholders, the shares just aren't publicly available or traded...

When you make comments like "you don't know what you're talking about" you may want to look a little closer to home...

Go back and read my post again, and please point out where I said that a private company has no shareholders. For the second time now, you've just made something up and pretended that I said it when I didn't.

If you're going to continue to post in this thread, please try to do so on the basis of actual real events, rather than arguing with the voices in your head...?

 

[Macro]

Not sure why you continue to feel the need to post quite so personally and that kind of attitude to be honest...

Go back and read my post again, and please point out where I said that a private company has no shareholders. For the second time now, you've just made something up and pretended that I said it when I didn't.

If you're going to continue to post in this thread, please try to do so on the basis of actual real events, rather than arguing with the voices in your head...?

You seem a little confused so I'll try and make this simple for you...

Fox Said:

Plus no company is too big to fail. It only takes a dodgy aquisition of a competitor or a boneheaded commercial decision to tip a company into the red. Then where are your games?

To which you replied:

Valve is estimated to have made $1bn in revenues in 2010, and Steam has grown at a year-on-year rate of around 200-300% since then.

To which I replied:

Revenue isn't the same as profit.. /obvious statement

Which was to illustrate that strong revenue doesn't mean a company could not go bankrupt, that depends on profits and liquid assets. I illustrated this further with my follow up post showing the fictional although potential scenario of borrowing and investing heavily (i.e. $10s of billions) into a console that flopped.


Later I said:

a business solely concerned with making it's shareholders money is what they are supposed to do.

Now I do agree "solely" may be too strong a word, however you don't seem to be disputing that although it's hard to tell what point you're actually trying to make to be honest so forgive me if that's wrong. I do kind of expect you to reply with "yes... yes.. that's what I meant..."

to which you replied:

edit: you really don't know what you're talking about at all

Valve are a privately held company, their stock is not traded and they have no shareholder accountability whatsoever.

To which I replied:

As for them being privately held rather than public so they have no "absolutely no accountability or shareholders whatsoever" you seem a little confused. Even private companies have shareholders, the shares just aren't publicly available or traded...

Clearly by definition the company has accountability to it's shareholders, be they private or public.

Frankly I haven't made anything up and your aggressive posting along with mock indignation hoping to shift the discussion to vague and clearly inaccurate attempts to paint me as "making things up" is laughable and does your credibility no help.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I think what he means it that as the company is privately traded it has no legal duty to maximise shareholder value.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Yeah, but steam is no different to any other non-indie game publisher in this regard. Even if they don't digitally distribute the game, you still need to activate the game online each time you install it, and this isn't a new phenomenon.

This is just as unacceptable so it isnt a valid reason why it's ok for Steam. It's just yet another thing thats bad about the current PC Game market.

Also, games aren't like, say, cars or tvs. The time spent with most games is fairly limited, like books or movies. You play/read/watch for a few hours, or until you finish it if it interests you enough, and then you never look at it again. For a very few games, you might come back to them over and over again for years, but they are the exception,

Strongly disagree. I routinely play games I've purchased years ago. Perhaps thats how you game, but it isnt how everyone does. Got addicted to Locomotion again last month - no idea whether the company that made it is still trading or not, but it doesn't matter either as it had no impact on my ability to play it.

and if steam went bust, you'd have no hesitation picking up a bargain bin copy from another reseller later.

So it's really a non-issue.

Ah, good point. It's really a non-issue if the company holding all the games you've bought in the last 5 year goes bust because you can just buy them all again

Amazing.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Why is everyone bitching about steam ?

Dont like it then dont use it

I think people are bitching generally about similar systems. Everything I've said applies equally to any of them, not just Steam.

There is no choice but to use them. The only way to avoid it is to simply find a new hobby and stop playing games. Even if you do find a game in a shop it's almost invariably a requirement to use Steam/Origin/Uplay to actually play it.