Valve / Steam Dominance Over Digital Distribution

Kenai said:
I've noticed a couple of people now mention Valve just disabling accounts for no reason.

I can't think of any instances of this actually happening, i'm not sure where this is coming from.
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Its when they use either:

1: Stolen credit cards.
2: Games gifted to others with stolen credit cards.
3: Scams involving gifts using dodgy paypal accounts.

Doubt they would disable a valid account without good reason.

But TBH Valve do have a monopoly over PC gamers so lets hope retail & other DD providers carry on providing alternatives. AFAIK Valve set the prices as well the publishers tell them the minimum amount they want to sell it for but Valve decide on how much extra to charge. That's why you sometimes do not see a game on Steam @ launch as there seems to be a lot of difference of opinion between Valve/Publishers on what the price % cut between the 2 should be!!!!
 
to the victor belong the spoils

Valve does well because it does the job the best. Its the nature of the computer industry to have a standard dominate when it perfects the way in which its done.

Someone needs to be even more clever and move the concept forward some more, till then as an online publisher Steam is topdog.
I did buy via Amazon recently just because they had a good price and theres nothing wrong with their digital distribution either, seems competetion is still possible and amazon themselves are fairly dominant also.

Also EA I think has some sucess, none of them are really as comprehensive and innovative as steam has been.
 
Kenai said:
I've noticed a couple of people now mention Valve just disabling accounts for no reason.
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Seems the same as the kids who moan about VAC bans on forums then eventually the truth comes out after protesting innocence for 2 months.

Evilsod said:
Homefront doesn't look that great anyway... looks like its trying desperately to mimic BF while keeping the gameplay identical to CoD
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Looks like gameplay will be similiar to FOW to me which is perfect :)

AWPC said:
AFAIK Valve set the prices as well the publishers tell them the minimum amount they want to sell it for but Valve decide on how much extra to charge. That's why you sometimes do not see a game on Steam @ launch as there seems to be a lot of difference of opinion between Valve/Publishers on what the price % cut between the 2 should be!!!!
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Valve recommend a selling price, they do not hold the publisher/developer at gunpoint. I have never read or heard it mentioned of Valve not selling a game because the developer/publisher wanted to sell it for a lower price.

The reason why you do not see a game on Steam at Launch is down to regional publishing agreements.

Such as with Homefront, it is on sale EVERYWHERE bar the UK, would be odd if THQ agreed a price with Steam for every country bar the UK? This happens with a few games from the bigger publishers and the UK often seems to be the only country which misses out.. mostly is delayed Steam releases, mostly happens to be the same publishers too...

THQ - Darksiders, Homefront
Ubisoft - Settlers, Assassins Creed 2, Silent Hunter V
Activision - None steamworks titles (Such as Blur, Singularity). The reason why the Steamworks titles are not affected is because retail still gets their slice of the pie and the direct Steam prices are inflated (In all likelyhood, to appease retailers).
 
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Gimpymoo said:
However, every now and then you will hear from Indie developers making average to great games not having their works approved by Valve because their product would not fit in with their service which considering they sell Farm Frenzy does make you wonder what their "service" is.

Braid was refused by Valve originally. After it made money on the consoles, they welcomed it with open arms. Did they not expect it to sell as many as Farm Frenzy?
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I never knew this. I thought all games would be put on if the publisher/dev wanted them to. What constitutes an unacceptable game, I wonder. Or is it simply down to a substandard product? (God knows how Magicka got put up.)
 
It does suck that retailers - who have done their level best to kill off PC gaming because there's no second hand market for it - complain and demand retail exclusivity for certain titles because they know they can't compete with digital distribution, and Steam in particular. I've no idea why the publishers go for it, because it surely leads to less sales. For instance both Darksiders and Singularity weren't available on Steam in the UK at launch, but good luck finding the retail copies too. Metro 2033 was a GAME exclusive for a while despite being a Steamworks game!
 
Ravenger said:
I've no idea why the publishers go for it, because it surely leads to less sales.
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It has to be remembered that if these publishers dont "pay the piper" then they will likely find their console games which we all know outsell PC games will find themselves in less "prominent" positions instore on launch week etc.

Maybe it is bluff by retailers as they dont want to lose money either but at the moment, the publishers cant tell them to "stick it" as they need the retail channel for their console games.

I await the day they do tell them to shove it though.
 
Steam is ok , but with any game rental service (after all u dont actually own any steam games) , it does leave u wondering what if
my account does get closed by mistake , all my rental games are gone :(

Oh and the fact that you cannot sell you games on , that really sucks
 
Gimpymoo said:
It has to be remembered that if these publishers dont "pay the piper" then they will likely find their console games which we all know outsell PC games will find themselves in less "prominent" positions instore on launch week etc.
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Publishers have to pay retailers to get their games both into the charts and into the new release and end-cap displays.

I await the day they do tell them to shove it though.
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Me too.

I loved that quote from the marketing director of 1c games when he was told that a retailer had only ordered 30 copies of his latest game (one for each flagship store). He opened his laptop, checked the instant Steam sales figure and said 'In the time it’s taken you to tell me that there is no demand, Steam has sold 45 units'

http://www.mcvuk.com/features/808/OPINION-Retail-vs-Steam
 
Is it really fair that steam makes all the money from most the PC games sold now days...


Gabe most be laughing all the way to the bank & back...How most people now buy all there PC games through him/steam
It most be like owning 1000's of PC game retail shops with no rent/shipping/labour/etc costs to pay..
 
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They do need to keep adding servers though and paying for the ones they have in all those countries... but yeah, they're making a mint.

You'd think all that cash might speed up the release of HL2:EP3 :rolleyes:
 
There's going to be significant costs involved with allowing their customers to download from the servers a 15 gig or so game as many times as they please.

As for the question about it being "fair" that steam gets the biggest slice of the direct download pie, of course it is. They didn't get to this position by waving a magic wand. In times where similar services like GFWL were attempting to turn the PC into a closed platform, steam was offering added value to the customer, providing a service that people wanted at a price that they were willing to pay. I've used various direct download games stores: D2D, gog, eastore, steam, and steam was by far the best experience as far as I'm concerned. GOG would be up there too, until that disastrous PR exercise that turned me off them. Anyway, steam earned their place at the top, and I have no problem with them sitting pretty there for the moment.

After all, if it does somehow go to valve's head and they start acting like a microsoft, there are viable alternatives available which we can use instead. This fact will certainly help to keep them on the strait and narrow.
 
I think in the long run apple would look into buying steam/vavle. It just makes sense to own the best music download store and games store. Oh and a final bird flip to windows users from apple lol
 
ic1male said:
So that means there are no shareholders who could vote for a takeover by EA or something.
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Wrong as there are still shares just they are not traded on the stock market. Those shares can only be bought in a private sale. In theroy the price of a vavle share is the same as when the company started. But its true value is much higher.
 
steam is awsome, valve spent a lot of time and money and are reaping the rewards now, people used to hate the service when half life 2 came out (me included) and look at it now, its the first thing i install!
 
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