It doesn't force publishers to do anything. Even with Steam's cut, they're making significantly more than they did when selling via physical media.
Why are there no competitors to steam?
- Thread starter jsmoke
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It doesn't force publishers to do anything. Even with Steam's cut, they're making significantly more than they did when selling via physical media.
In some ways, yes. Unlike Facebook, which killed established social networks such as MySpace or Hi5, Steam faced zero competition when it started growing. It used to be a nightmare with its bugs, unresponsiveness and crashes yet there were no alternatives so it kept evolving.
I believe the reason for the lack of competition in the first years (2004-2007) was the belief in the management positions of big publishers that PC gaming was dead. They were wrong and now Steam is cashing in on it.
Do you have any figures for this? Why aren't they lowering their prices to push out cd key resellers?
edit: Nvm I realised why. I still hate the fact I can't return something easily within a couple of hours. Pre orders seem to be ok as long as it is within the pre order period still.
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Soldato
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You take that back! Valve are the best thing to ever happen to PC Gaming, FACT! All the other co called "competitors" are rubbish and are just trying to spy on us for their never ending greed.
Remember that Steam are in their own right are publishers, for instance an indie dev can put their game straight on Steam and Steam itself will handle all the distribution, marketing etc.
CD Key resellers use dirty tactics to achieve their low prices, one of which is buying them in bulk with Polish currency. If you do some research you will find that most of these key sites are based in Poland because games can be obtained for dirty cheap there.
You take that back! Valve are the best thing to ever happen to PC Gaming, FACT! All the other co called "competitors" are rubbish and are just trying to spy on us for their never ending greed.
HATS!!!!
I got requests almost weekly about my Bills Hat.
I ended up selling the damn thing on the community market for £7.
People sure do like their Hats.
I don't have any figures to hand, but there has been a few talks by people in the games development industry where they discuss and outline the costs of producing physical media products compared to digital only, and how that affects their profit/cut of each sale. Lorne Lanning of Oddworld Inhabitants has talked about it a number of times, for example.
Of course, I think a lot of people forget that this is what Steam's cut covers, as well as profit.
Some, not all though. A lot of people don't really know about these sites either, however those that do sometimes can't be bothered with the hassle of having to activate games with a VPN, and in some circumstances have to use a VPN just to be able to play the game.
I'll buy a cheap key if it just needs activating via VPN, however if it requires a VPN to play then I stay well clear.
90% of the time the region locking isn't an issue, only the triple a titles bother to do it such as call of duty.
Almost all the other games still can be activated with polish/russian keys.
Even the biggest sites use regions to their advantage, it's just the nature of the cd key business.
You could have just made your inventory private, would've stopped the requests.
Plus, don't they sell for more than that?
yup about $50 apparently
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The vintage ones do, mine was just a regular.
Sure i probably could have gotten a little more than that but i just wanted to get rid.
I installed origin for crysis 3 but apart from that I'm the same. All my games are on steam
Hehe
Soldato
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You can buy them for 4 TF2 crate keys at the moment, these are £1.50 each so £6
In Lord Gaben we trust!
Soldato
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Why are there no competitors to steam?
Because millions of us had to create a steam account to play Half Life 2 and have stuck with them since
I guess it's like banks, people tend to stay with the same company.
Because millions of us had to create a steam account to play Half Life 2 and have stuck with them since
I guess it's like banks, people tend to stay with the same company.
I think my biggest problem with both Origin and UPlay is that neither make much effort to stock anything but their own titles.
Yes there are a few selected titles there but neither platform could seriously replace everything that Steam has to offer.
Yes there are a few selected titles there but neither platform could seriously replace everything that Steam has to offer.
Surely thats the best thing about Origin, they sell EA games so no reason to use them.
As for Steam, people can play the fan boy card all they like, but people like both Valve and Steam for good reasons, and dislike EA for equally good reasons.