Is Valve's Steam Anti-Competitive?

Absolut187 writes "Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford says Steam's domination of digital distribution is 'dangerous,' and exploits small developers. 'Steam helps us as customers, but it's also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that's not totally fair. ... Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it's providing. ... There's so much conflict of interest there that it's horrid.' Pitchford's comments came as part of an interview with Maximum PC, and he thinks Valve should spin off Steam to its own company. Is he right? Is there a better answer?" Update: 10/10 at 02:00 GMT by SS: Randy has clarified his remarks in a comment here at Slashdot. He makes it clear that he likes Steam a lot, and for several reasons, but thinks stronger competition would benefit the industry as a whole.

Comments

...should we be outraged?

[maugle]

Steam gives you an easy way to reach customers, and takes a cut of the profit in return. You think they're taking too much, don't put your game on Steam. Where's the problem here?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am outraged. That is why I don't support steam with my dollars.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[DigitAl56K]

It's a terrible service that provides little merit outside of a unified friends list.

.. and the ability to log into the client anywhere and have it download all your licensed games and updates to them automatically. Although I do remember some prior /. story about license problems across territories.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem at all. In fact, I wish no one would put their games on Steam. It's really bad enough having to even have it installed for Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead. It's a terrible service that provides little merit outside of a unified friends list.

This crap gets a +4 Insightful? What's the matter mods? You find out your supposedly "clean" hacks were no such thing when VAC bit you in the ass?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the cost. Paying as much as 50% more on steam (except those few that get discounted for a while) to not have any physical media is worth it.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

A good example is Dawn of War II.

You could buy it in a shop, or on Steam, but part of being on Steam meant it had to be activated by Steam, including the shop bought version.

So here's the problem, Steam is an important channel and you'd lose a lot of sales if you didn't use it, but in using it you're also handing control of your software including activation of it to Valve even if you also want to distribute via standard hard copy retail.

Should games companies really be stuck with a choice between handing access control to their software to a competitor or losing out on a large amount of sales?

From the customers point of view Steam also takes away the ability to even sell games activated by Steam, but bought on physical media second hand. I can sell everything in my house on second hand, from my toaster to my toilet seat, I can even sell my naively bought rootkit DRM'd Sony music CDs second hand, but there is one thing I can't sell second hand due to an artificial restriction- my copy of Dawn of War II.

Quite why so many people on Slashdot are anti-DRM and are quick to slag off Sony for using it, Apple for using it, EA for using it but for some reason, give Valve a free pass, despite Valve's implementation being one of the most restrictive on the market. As with all DRM, the piracy excuse doesn't even come into play, because cracked copies of the games are always up before Steam has them up anyway. The fact is, Steam is anti-consumer, and is anti-competitive. Personally, I wouldn't mind so much if it even worked properly, but half the time I load up Defcon I'm forced into trial mode because it can't authenticate with Valve's servers.

Steam is a problem, it's anti-competitive and takes away fundamental consumer rights. Just because Valve makes good games, and Gabe tells us he hates DRM, doesn't excuse Valve or Steam from the fact that when it comes to DRM, their system is worse than just about all DRM that the music industry has churned out.

As Steam grows in marketshare the problem only becomes worse, developers will struggle with sales if they do not use it, and can we be sure that for example, if Valve releases Half-Life 3, the same day Gearbox releases a game, that Valve, knowing the activation servers will see heavy volume wont give priority to those activating Half-Life 3 over those activating GearBox's game?

It's a classic illegal abuse of monopoly situation, if Valve obtains (if it doesn't have already) a monopoly or near monopoly in digital game distribution, can we really be sure that Valve wont leverage this position to give itself an advantage over competitors which then depend on it for financial survival?

Is it acceptable if more and more games follow the path of Dawn of War II, such that even store bought games depend on steam, ultimately decreasing people's reason to even buy in store in the first place that Valve will siphon off, possibly even destroying in the long run retail software chains, becoming the soul or near soul provider of games?

Even if you disagree Valve and Steam's blatant potential for conflict of interest is not a problem now, you cannot disagree there is potential for major problems down the road. Gearbox is not the first to complain, Gamestop have refused to stock games that require Steam activation in the path for exactly the reasons in the last paragraph.

Slashdot, grow the fuck up for once, put your fanboyism away and take your morals back out the bag and treat Valve like you'd treat Sony or Microsoft when they fuck the consumer and act in an anti-competitive manner as Valve are.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Ash Vince]

Actually it does, it provides an easier way to meet the mass market than the alternative, which is the main games distribution companies like EA. You want a conflict of interest, try doing business with them and releasing a game at Christmas when their flagship titles are coming out.

I know Steam has its detractors as they do not allow resale of titles, but it also has its benefits.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[GMFTatsujin]

GOG want you to own your games and play whenever you want. Steam want you to rent your games, and play when you're connected to their servers and it's economically convenient.

What you do with your dollar is up to you.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[morari]

I can install from a CD and manually update the games much quicker than it takes Steam to download them from scratch. It's just another obtrusive form of DRM that gets by because it has a few conveniences.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[CyDharttha]

I'd list out tons of rebutals to your claim, but I'm way too lazy. A few though... bought the Orange Box when it was new, for $45. 6 games in there. Bought UT3 on sale for $12. Normally $20. Buy a pack of great indie games for $20.. Braid for $10, entire ID collection (some 10 or more games?) for $75. I love just clicking to get a new game, but that's the way I am with everything. Similar case, if it's not on Hulu, I usually don't bother. I'm a sucker for easily accessible media. Wave of the future dude, 100% electronic.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

My internet was down earlier and I was still able to play my steam games. Your not locked into online online unless your playing an online game.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Lulfas]

You can play when you're not connected to their servers just fine. You don't pay per month, so the "rent" thing doesn't really apply. And once you download a game, you can make your own backups from within Steam just fine.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[TheKidWho]

Your argument fails for the fact that it was the developers choice to use Steam to activate the game. There are tons of games that are on steam and are also available for retail and do not require steam in any way shape or form to run.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Archfeld]

What are the options should steam go away ? I've personally only had very minor interaction with the service when it first came out, HL era. Can you expound a bit on the steam backup ? physical media involved ? What happens if/when my drive fails ?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

and, oh look, all your games were unified on one account. $100s down the swanny for you.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Suzuran]

So don't cheat.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Hadlock]

Steam is the best way to buy/play games, bar none. Until something better comes along, I'll continue buying my games exclusively through Steam. That may be several years; the only other option for PCs right now is "Windows Live", or whatever the bullshit was that I had to download to get SF4 to install.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Hadlock]

That's a pretty weak argument for someone with a modern connection. It took me about 30 min to install the orange box (about 4.8gb) on my home connection. If you account for time spent looking for the original disk, it's about neck and neck for the physical install vs. the online download these days. If you're buying a new game (if you're me, that's about 90% of all games played) then it's usually preloaded onto your computer until release date. That means it's faster, in that you don't have to drive to gamestop, or swing by there on your way home from work, and run through a messy installer. You just click on it, and it runs, first time and ready to go.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Ash Vince]

I recently reinstalled Steam on a new machine after losing my account details from the old machine and having not used my account in 2 years. I had lost access to my old email account I signed up with so I had to provide them with the credit card details I signed up with. Now I have access to all the games I have ever bought using Steam. This is better than most game I bought a physical copy of as I am great at losing or damaging the discs or manuals.

The people here complaining about "renting" games are just whining they cannot buy a game, then take it back and resell it after they have completed it. This is something almost all game publishers expressly forbid in the licence you agree to when you install the game, but it seems easier to blame Valve for enforcing this that it is to blame the people who put it into their licence that Valve enforce.

This guy who gave this interview is the CEO of Gearbox Software right, does anyone here actually know if they encourage the resale of their games on ebay or if they ar just as opposed to it as all the other games publishers? I notice he has posted a comment here so maybe he will now also say how much he loves the idea of us all reselling his games and him not seeing a cent.

I am not saying he has to support this point of view since I do not anyway, but I am saying that an awful lot of the people posting here need to grow up and realise he has an entirely different issue with Valve than they do. What would please him would probably not make a blind but of difference to all the people here complaining they can't resell a game they have bought after they have played it from start to finish and had many hours of enjoyment from.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it's a backup. Of all the data involved in the game. You can do anything with it and it saves you from having to download the whole game again, if you care about that.

If your drive fails and you didn't take backups, you reinstall Steam, log in again, and download everything again. If Steam fails, Valve have said they'll release cracks for all the games. (And a lot of Steam games are already cracked, so you should be okay even if Valve renege on their promise.)

It would be nice if Steam was a bit less restrictive, and I hope the second hand market survives digital distribution somehow. But Steam's advantages outweigh its trade-offs, in my opinion.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Red Cape]

No physical media involved, it makes a copy of your folder so you can keep all your games/maps/etc. From there, you can move the backup anywhere. If your drive fails, well, you'll lose your personal game files if u didn't copy your backup somewhere else. But with Steam, you can download the entire game again unlimited times. The only restriction is that you can only be logged into Steam on one computer at a time. This is makes it hard to share accounts with people, which is expected. Personally, I think Steam is extremely useful. Like many others have said, if you don't like the distributor, distribute your game with someone else. Valve doesn't have a monopoly on online distribution, they just happen to be good at it.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[PopeRatzo]

I bought a new computer and was able to get all my games back in one easy interface. Not bad. I haven't bought a game in the store for a long time.

If Steam is getting "too much marketshare", can't someone else come up with their own interface for downloading games? Are you telling me that Steam is "too good" and has to be destroyed?

At least they give you something for your money, unlike some others. Health insurance companies come to mine. I still haven't figured out what value they add to the equation.

Naw, Steam is OK in my book. Nobody's forced to use them, and if I download a "demo" game from TPB, Steam doesn't get in the way.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[poly_pusher]

I have moved my steam account folders between multiple computers. All I did was copy the steam folder in it's entirety"no small task depending how many games you have" and drop in whatever folder on your new computer. I actually find steam to be a very reasonable means to purchase content. However, I still have some hangups. My attitude is that steam and my computer are a console and that the games I have installed are the discs. I can't have steam logged in on multiple computers at once without going in to offline mode. If I have 10 games "purchasedf through steam" and 3 consoles "a pc with steam and games installed," I should be able to log into steam through as many computers as I want but only be able to play games that are not currently being played on other other consoles " a pc with steam installed" unless I purchase a second copy of the game. Currently they are still too restrictive. Also, regardless of retailer profit margins, I want to see that savings passed on to the consumer. If a game is significantly cheaper to distribute online I want to pay the corresponding price, I do not want to pay for the other people who go to Best Buy to pay for a boxed copy that had to be manufactured, shipped, and taxed locally.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

excuse me. In the third 'graph, I said "mine", meant "mind".

Thank you and good night.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[roguetrick]

Main argument is by forcing steam to come with valve software, valve leveraged something other competitors couldn't. I'm sure you agree with that concept, though I don't think its bad enough to call for antitrust.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Lulfas]

The guys who responded you covered it pretty closely. It really is the most failproof system I've seen so far. Once you download a game, you do not need to connect to the Steam server ever again to keep playing it, unless you are playing it online (which is the same as every game anywhere, really). It is a 100% separate entity. I keep an external hdd with all my games from Steam on it, just in case.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[bonch]

I can do the same because Steam lets me back the games up to disc. If you're still clinging to physical media in an era of digital distribution, you're backwards and afraid of change.

The DRM claim is misinformed because, thanks to Steam, I don't need to go through a disc check or activation step in the game. Sometimes there's a product key for non-Steam games that have been ported over, but Steam helpfully pops up an overlay with the key so I can type it in. There's less DRM getting in my way than what you have to deal with.

You just have a fear of progress. Installing from a CD seems slow and archaic today.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Mister Xiado]

So, you should be required to have internet access to purchase and play a singleplayer game that you purchased in a brick and mortar store? In ten years, every version of Quake and Doom that I own will still work. I won't be able to play Portal.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Kreigaffe]

Steam began as a way to distribute Valve software. It worked, other people wanted in. End of story. No antitrust. There actually ARE several companies with a front end similar to Steam, but they all came later, and haven't had as many or as big of titles as Valve has had to wedge their foot in the door.

More competition would be great, obviously. Lack of competition (which isn't precisely true, anyway) is not antitrust, it's that nobody came up with something like Steam before Valve (at least not in a way that was successful). Not a matter of monopoly, just a matter of being the biggest kid on the block. A bit like iTunes, except at its head is a big ol' fat guy rather than the hipster deity.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[promythyus]

But but but but! *Runs crying to mummy*

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

VAC bans don't equal Steam bans. You might not be able to play on the vast majority of Valve game servers, but you'd still have access to the game for LANs or whatever.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[icsx]

Small time indie developers also get a larger share over at Steam sellings than in retail, which is alone a major risk anyway.

My only wonder is, how much bandwidth Steam really eats per month? Is 500 Terabytes enough?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Jurily]

That's a pretty weak argument for someone with a modern connection. It took me about 30 min to install the orange box (about 4.8gb) on my home connection.

As someone who moves around a lot, it would've taken me two months. I have a 3 Gb/month data cap.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[KDR_11k]

No, he says that that's not a fundamental issue with Steam but with those who put games on it, a retail version is not required to use Steam even if a Steam version is available and if the retail version does it anyway that's the fault of the developer/publisher of that game, not Steam.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[roguetrick]

Its still pretty easy to see the conflict of interest between a game developer and a game publishing platform. I agree with the author of the article on that. If misused i an anti-competitive way, that conflict of interest could be quite bad. Two major FPS's being released at the same time, one of them is Valve's and the other one being denied hosting on steam? Or even at a lesser sense, the fact that Steam doesn't take a cut of the distribution of Valve's games, considering it all goes to the same company. Valve hasn't moved in any directions to indicate anti-competitiveness, but the potential for abuse is there.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is in 5 years time if it is IMPOSSIBLE to make money from games without releasing through steam, that steam effectively become the 800LB microsoft/WalMart gorilla of PC gaming.

Steam are already notorious for not bothering to reply to developers. If nothing is done to force real competition, you will end up with Valve being the company that decides what PC games do, and do not get made. That means the only FPS games are ones that don't directly compete with Half Life and other Valve properties.

Do I REALLY have to spell out on SLASHDOT how monopolies are bad for consumers?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long will a download take when the server no longer serves it up?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[KDR_11k]

Games For Windows Live isn't really a Steam competitor, its focus is on online play and account management, not digital distribution of whole games. Sure, Steam can do all of the GFWL features too (and better) but its main purpose is digital distribution which has competitors in stuff like Impulse or Direct2Drive.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Hadlock]

Yeah, but Street Fighter 4, bought and run through Steam, which boasts online play "with friends", requires Windows Live (and an MS passport account, ugh) to play with your "friends", who must also have Windows Live accounts. Ugh. It's really sloppily implemented, and I wish all of the 100 or so reviews I'd read about the game simply said "this is a poor PC port of a console game" so I could have just bought the console version. There's no steam integration at all, which means you can't challenge people to games through the steam chat (as you can with TF2, DODS, L4D etc)

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

and then sit trying to validate it for 2 hours...

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Nathrael]

Maybe, but you have to de-ass your chair and take a walk to the nearest shop to *get* said CD (which likely contains a game bundled with much more intrusive DRM than Steam). Your argument is invalid.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[drinkypoo]

Steam is the best way to buy/play games, bar none. Until something better comes along, I'll continue buying my games exclusively through Steam.

There is already something better, it's called Amazon. I get a box and a CD, I usually get it for less than retail price, and I am able to exercise my first sale rights to resell or modify the work. (Steam prevents both, when cheating prevention is used.) Steam prevents you from exercising your legal rights over products you have purchased because the law treats software differently from software-and-a-CD. Therefore, Steam is an inferior option. Until a digital distribution system that permits resale comes along, I'll continue buying my games exclusively in boxes. In fact, after being unable to play Half-Life 2 from backups because my internet connection was down and Steam backups don't work until Steam has been updated and "blessed" by Valve, I would say that Steam is dramatically inferior in every way except convenience. I'm willing to have the mail delivery chick drive up my driveway, honk her horn and hand me a package when I order a game, and I don't even mind waiting three days to get it. With the size of games today, and my pathetic internet connection, I'd have to wait at least that long to download them anyway.

In summary, Steam is a means of depriving you of your legal rights and forcing you to phone home to Valve periodically, and supporting it is supporting evil. Don't support Steam!

Re:...should we be outraged?

[KDR_11k]

Eh, Dawn of War 2 has the same problems and there is no console version of that, it's not the port nature but the nature of devs deciding to use GFWL instead of the superior Stream features.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[R4nneko]

Says you, games here cost $90-110 AU new at retail (thanks EA for deciding that new PC games should cost the same as console games).

They cost US retail prices in most cases on Steam, so I can save myself a good $40+ on a game purchase. Unless the publisher on Steam is being a terrible company and raising the AU price. Which some do, such as THQ and Southpeak for example.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[PopeRatzo]

Its still pretty easy to see the conflict of interest between a game developer and a game publishing platform.

No, it's not so easy for those of us who don't work for Steam's competitors (if they had any).

Must there be a difference between a book developer and a book "publisher"?

Must there be a difference between a software developer and a software "publisher"?

Would you say that a company that makes something can't own the store that sells it?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[morari]

I seem to remember having to spend a good long while waiting for every single file within Half-Life 2 to validate within the Steam network. That's not "less DRM". Just wait until Valve goes bankrupt, shuts down their servers, and all of your home-made backups are worthless because they're tied to Steam.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[RalphSleigh]

And I for one am glad they stop people modifying the games I am playing online with them. Your right to modify ends the moment you join someone's game sever. I am also prepared to trade resale for being able to just click a game on the list and have it download and just work 99% of the time. YMMV.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[roguetrick]

I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying there is a potential for anti-competitive practices. I'm not calling for preemptive government intervention to fight something so ethereal. I just think there is a conflict of interest between Valve's position as a digital distribution platform and Valve's position as a developer. What I'm saying is I'd like to hear more intelligent discussion about that and the ramifications of it. I'm undecided if its a good thing.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Talgrath]

Ironic, since EA owns Valve and most of its game releases are also available on Steam.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Loadmaster]

EA does not own Valve Software. They may distribute retail versions of the software, but EA does not own Valve.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Tynin]

Another bit of awesomeness is you can have your account logged in as offline on as many computers as you want. So if you have a fun single player game you can share your account with friends / family, and so long as they all behave and keep the account set to offline, you all can play the single player game at the same time and only buy a single copy.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Fred_A]

I know Steam has its detractors as they do not allow resale of titles, but it also has its benefits.

That and the fact that the prices are typically a bit higher on Steam than elsewhere are pretty much the only things I could hold against them.

Despite that, most of the games I buy today, I get through Steam (I don't own any consoles) and they're way better than any of the alternatives (digital distributors) I've tried such as EA or the Metaboli store.

Of course, people who are hooked up to one of those weird ISPs that cap their usage won't find digital distribution of media a very attractive prospect. As an aside, I still don't get the point of those capped contracts for broadband in this day and age. What's the point (beyond the obvious screwing the customer, ok, stupid question really) ? Extra-fast email display ?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[jipn4]

Steam began as a way to distribute Valve software. It worked, other people wanted in. End of story. No antitrust.

It's not that simple; in principle, there could still be anti-trust violations. However, Steam doesn't have enough of the market yet for that to be a concern.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Kalriath]

Unless you're in Europe, because... you know... 1 Euro = 1US Dollar.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[R4nneko]

Oh totally.

Just like game retailers and distributors in Australia seem to have decided that 1AUD = 0.5USD.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Vitani]

So, you should be required to have internet access to purchase and play a singleplayer game that you purchased in a brick and mortar store?

In ten years, every version of Quake and Doom that I own will still work.

I won't be able to play Portal.

Not true. Steam allow you to make backups of your games (something I can't do with most of the games I buy from brick and mortar shops) and restore them, then play in off-line mode which never connects to the Steam servers. I know this because when I moved house, and didn't have the Internet for two weeks, I re-played through Half-Life 2 which I'd bought through Steam.

Steam is not perfect*, but so long as there's off-line mode you can still be playing Portal in ten years time

* The sooner they add the ability to transfer non-duplicate games to other accounts the better!

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is entirely up to the developer of the game, not Steam or Valve (unless it was Valve who made the game of course). For example, take Call of Duty 4 or Fallout 3. You can get these games on any console and it will not have Steam. You can get both these games on PC *without* Steam. You just also are able to download them and buy them through Steam. It is entirely up to whomever is creating the game and wants it published to decide how to distribute it, and it is entirely up to the consumer to decided which version s/he wants to buy. Grow up.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[uncledrax]

OK, seriously.. how would it be anti-trust?! Maybe is alot of other shops fold up.. but if every other person with my skillset dies suddenly, and I to be held in violation of the trust laws? If Valve was playing dirty, then you have those violations.. but I haven't seen anything (yet) to indicate Valve is playing dirty.

There are many large outlets/retailers for software titles. You have to remember to include brick-and-mortar stores as they are also outlets for software. Total guess here, but I think Best Buy and WalMart are both larger then Steam/Valve.

IMO, what people should be pissed about is the big name publishers like EA using Steam/DirectDrive/whatever to keep a larger piece of the pie (since they no longer have to give WalMart a cut from those sales..).. of course the company has to price the title the same as what they put in Walmart, or else Walmart would refuse to carry the title at all... so on and so on.

As for competition.. there was alot more in the realm of digital-software-delivery once upon a time.. problem is I personally want a strong provider for my digitial delivery, esp since they do have a bit of DRM-like stuff onboard it the titles they supply. Yes, I can run Steam in Offline mode.. but I've had issues trying to patch a few titles that I got on steam and the patch hasn't hit Steam yet.

Disclaimer: I am a developer on a FPS mod (read: free) that is available via Steam.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[uncledrax]

...but in using it you're also handing control of your software including activation of it to Valve even if you also want to distribute via standard hard copy retail.
Should games companies really be stuck with a choice between handing access control to their software to a competitor or losing out on a large amount of sales?

FALSE.
When I bought X3:TC on Steam, Steam supplied me with the software key for my purchase, however, I still had to goto X3's site to actually activate my copy of the game. Also the copy of Fallen Earth I bought, same deal.. I still had to go and activate/register on the FE site.

From the customers point of view Steam also takes away the ability to even sell games activated by Steam, but bought on physical media second hand.
I agree.. however your option is to not buy Digital-Delivered software in the cases where it's available in a Brick-and-Mortar, or steer clear of 'Steam Required' titles [or the 3rd nefarious option, Pirate it..]. Use your dollah-vote.

As for requiring Steam, how it is worse then requiring 'Games for Windows Activation' ?.. or in the case of DoW2, both! :/

Re:...should we be outraged?

[kalirion]

And once you download a game, you can make your own backups from within Steam just fine.

Wait, can you play those backups without launching Steam?

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

you would also have your computer and or laptop with you with the games already installed and im sure you could EVEN go to god forbid a retail store if you have such crappy internet.... it's not the online retailer's fault that people such as yourself with a connection cap account for .1% of their business which they don't feel like entertaining at the moment ...

its like on slashdot common sense doesnt apply ..... its like oh look new 21" rims,

and then everyone starts complaining but my car is 16" , i have a caterpillar drive, these new 21" rims r no good because i have a caterpillar drive ... like ffs people

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Ke3g]

Agreed. I personally use steam when I'm on my Windows OS and it 'works' and I don't have to worry about any CD's laying around getting scratched or anything. I know that my games are on there and I can always download them (and at a speed faster than anything else I download). Nobody is being forced to use Steam and if Steam had any competitors I would honestly be annoyed, I don't see a point in anyone competing with Steam unless Games for Windows Live suddenly lets you download games you buy and creates a 'Steam-Like' system. Then THAT would be a competition considering: Games for Windows Live (or whatever it's called) uses your X-Box Live login and still gives you achievement points, some Steam games give you achievement points but not 'all of them'. Not that I care about achievement points but nowadays that's one thing people care more about than a quality game. Anyway I would say Steam is good enough for me, I don't see anyone else being a competitor for Steam really. I've always seen Valve as a part of Steam really I can't picture valve games leaving Steam it would screw everything up for those who own their games on Steam. Anyway with any regard Steam seems fine to me as it is now.

Re:...should we be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange that I can play portal on an airplane without and internet connection. Yes any achievements I got were not uploaded until I connected. Check your facts before you post.

so do something about it

[magarity]

Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that's not totally fair
 
So start a competitor with policies you consider to be fair.
 
And stop whining, btw.

Re:so do something about it

[Delwin]

My digital distribution channel list for work has 10 names on it and Steam isn't even #1. While it may dominate in the US it's by no means the largest channel internationally.

Re:so do something about it

[Quothz]

There's nothing wrong with complaining about monopolies.

No, and I'm usually the one up on a soapbox railing against 'em. But Steam isn't a monopoly. There needs to be a special barrier to entry for a company or industry to be one, and I just don't see it. There's no legal bar, like with government-granted monopolies or Google books. There's no incredible infrastructure needed, just reasonable bandwidth and servers. There's not a "desktop" barrier in which users only benefit from one similar product. There's not even an "I wanted to be the car" barrier that caused so much consternation in my youth. Nobody's accusing 'em of coercion. Popularity alone doesn't a monopoly make.

Re:so do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

I love people that whine about other people whining and then claim they weren't really whining like you're about to do.

Re:so do something about it

[magarity]

There's nothing wrong with complaining about monopolies
 
No, you just sometimes waste your breath doing so. Monopolies are only bad when they engage in coercive activities to keep out new competitors. Natural monopolies on the other hand, are not really bad compared to the benefits. Imagine what the landscape would look like if there were 20 companies all stringing power lines to every neighborhood to compete for home electrical power.
 
This game software "monopoly" being complained about is 1: not a monopoly because there are several competitors I can think of without even searching and 2: its potential competitors have barriers to entry that are really low. The complainer is a CEO fer cryin' out loud - he must know some people with cash and starting up a new web based service with policies he considers fair wouldn't have any outrageous barriers to entry.

Re:so do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

There are competitors. For example Archive Games has a selection of free and pay-to-play games, from indie developers. It's not perfect, but it does have some support for Linux.

http://www.archivegames.net/

Re:so do something about it

[zach_the_lizard]

Imagine what the landscape would look like if there were 20 companies all stringing power lines to every neighborhood to compete for home electrical power.

It might look something like it already does, though I doubt that 20 companies would exist on any given street. It might be more akin to one company laying fiber on the street, while another company runs cable, and another one runs telephone lines. With the duplicated power lines will come extra redundancy and competition.

Re:so do something about it

[joocemann]

Dude, I responded the same way and went so far as to write gearbox. Randy wrote me back, personally, and cleared it up. This article is sensationalist exaggeration and bullshit, thats what it is. I knew my critic-o-meter was off today! I should have known a journalist will say crazy junk just to seem cool.

Here is the link to my post (right here in slashdot comments) where I quote him from his e-mail to me.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1399359&cid=29700749

Re:so do something about it

[Bigjeff5]

Monopoly is a specific word that has a certain meaning, and it's more than just market dominance.

Part of what gives a company a monopoly is that they have exclusive control over access to a resource, or near enough that it doesn't matter. This control alows a company with a monopoly to prevent competitors to be able to compete by restricting the resource outright or by charging fees that are so high the competitor cannot possibly provide a competitive service at a competitive price.

The obvious example is Microsoft, who had a monopoly on the browser market by virtue of the fact that businesses and consumers were entrenched in Windows. It is obviously not reasonable to expect millions of Windows users to change operating systems just to run a browser, so the ability to tie Internet Explorer in to Windows in such a way that no browser could perform at the same level, as well as coercing retailers into not including competing browsers with no recourse for competitors, was clear evidence that Microsoft was controling a limited resource - lower level access to Windows and the ability to bundle software with Windows - which gave them a monopoly.

Now, on the flip side, they do NOT have a monopoly in the OS market. There is nothing Microsoft directly controls about PCs that prevents someone from installing an alternative operating system on the same hardware.

Other examples of monopolies are telecom and cable companies - these are government enabled monopolies, whereby only certain companies are permitted to install new cable. A competing service would find it very very difficult to run new lines or use existing lines in an area with full coverage by a single provider. This kind of monopoly really disgusts me, since the government is supposed to prevent monopolies not create them. Note that the monopolies were originally used as incentive to build the networks that would not have been profitable to build otherwise, but that was ages ago and we have long since paid for it by now. The splitting of Bell helped, but frankly it has only reduced the monopolies to regional monopolies instead of a national monopoly. It isn't a whole lot better, as competition is only less stifled than it used to be.

Re:so do something about it

[interval1066]

I have to agree. I've been a steam user for years and I find it useful. Anti-competitive is the term for the ones who can't compete quite as successfully as the successful competitor. What a world we live in when its possible to "level" the playground by whining about anti-competitive behavior to legislators.

Re:so do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

No, with the duplicated power lines comes higher entry cost to the market (LESS competition), a whole lot more inefficiency in the market, and it looks ridiculous. Open infrastructure is really good for everyone except the company that laid the infrastructure (usually with government grants).

Re:so do something about it

[selven]

Microsoft does have an OS monopoly. A large amount of software is written only for Windows, most university grads only know Windows, some computers only fully work on Windows, and Microsoft actively encourages all of that.

Re:so do something about it

[Kreigaffe]

None of that makes a monopoly. A large amount of tires are made for cars, most people only drive cars, some roads only fully work with cars, and car makers actively encourage that. Because travel by boat is a small, niche market. It's not that car makers force the boat makers out of the market, it's that the boat makers are not making the most popular and useful product.

And then there's the people who travel by stilts. I hear there's still a fair bit of compatibility problems both with roads and waterways, but you can always customize your stilts to work properly!

Re:so do something about it

[Trepidity]

That analogy doesn't make any sense. If all cars were made by one company, they would be a monopoly, for the reasons you cite.

Re:so do something about it

[slackbheep]

As someone who lives in northern Canada I can only say this about Bell: They can suck the fattest part of my ass, then choke and die in a fire. Prices continue to rise, while services stay the same or get worse. I might see a 3g network before I die, but given the five years or however long it took them to get the promised 1X network in after selling us the phones I'm not holding my breath.

Re:so do something about it

[Kreigaffe]

A monopoly on cars, perhaps, but not a transportation monopoly. And a monopoly isn't necessarily illegal, either. Patents guarantee a monopoly on something for a certain length of time.
Some companies might make a product that no other company wishes to -- not through any anti-competitive actions, just because they're the only ones who make something. I believe there's only one company in America that makes Limburger cheese. That's not because they're stopping anyone else from making it, it's because the market only has room for one company.

Re:so do something about it

[Vicegrip]

It should also be pointed out that Microsoft bundled its own store entry point as part of Vista called Windows Marketplace, where downloadable software for purchase is available. Actually as I check my "Windows Marketplace" link in the Windows (to make sure I have the names right) Control Panel, I see that the store has possibly not been successful as I am now greeted with: "Windows marketplace has transitioned from an e-commerce site to a reference site". I wonder what happens to the digital locker on my PC if I upgrade to Windows 7.

are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[MagicMerlin]

A company creates a digital content distribution service that is (almost) single handedly keeping pc gaming alive and we speculate how unfair it is. To great things go great rewards...losing sight of that simple principle shows just how into twilight we have gone.

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[maugle]

Re: Digital distribution that's keeping PC gaming alive

There's one other thing that's revived PC gaming for me, and digital distribution does it by default. Apart from games I bought on Steam or from GOG, only one of them doesn't force me to insert the %^&*ing CD in order to play. This is despite the fact that games load just about nothing from CD these days because it's too slow!

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[Jared555]

Typically they literally load nothing from the cd. They just check to make sure it is there (and legit) and after that you can just eject the disk with no issue.

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[Mr680x0]

Re: Digital distribution that's keeping PC gaming alive There's one other thing that's revived PC gaming for me, and digital distribution does it by default. Apart from games I bought on Steam or from GOG, only one of them doesn't force me to insert the %^&*ing CD in order to play. This is despite the fact that games load just about nothing from CD these days because it's too slow!

You do realize that most common games have a no-CD crack available for them, right?

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[Hadlock]

No, I think ad revenue is down across the board and all the journalists went to a "making sensationalist headlines work for YOU" seminar, and some of the slashdot editors went along to it. Even the relatively even-keeled slashdot has become rather fox-news-like in terms of sensationalist stories about nothing. It's one thing to break news about the Patriot act, NSA monitoring US citizens without warrants, etc but putting sensationalist bullshit about a very well liked company and their digital distribution service is a new low (actually I think this is the second or third time I've seen an anti-valve article in the last couple of months here on /.). I've noticed a few other sites like Boing Boing have become exceptionally sensationalist and using 2nd and 3rd tier (and lower) tactics to get pageviews, rather than building a solid base of regular viewers. It's really sad, and I hope the marketing company that they both hired gets cut soon, it's really hurting independent media quality by following these tactics. I don't mind the occasional story poking fun at SCO, but dammit, not every story needs to be sensationalized!

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is great except it exposes one to potential virus/rootkit infection from untrustworthy sources, or the game in question is a multilayer game--in which case modified binaries are detected by anti-cheater software, and you're always booted.

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[jonwil]

More and more games are using newer DRM (e.g. newer versions of Securom) that lock the game to your hardware instead of requiring the CD (e.g. Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 has such DRM).

The benefit to the publisher with this is that they can produce one version of the game for both digital sale and retail stores and from there only one set of patches.

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[Lehk228]

for that you can usually use bin/cue blanks. not whole images but ones that have just enough to pass the CD check, so usually around 100k or less, sometimes a lot less.

Re:are our brains leaking out of our heads?

[Behrooz]

You do realize that most common games have a no-CD crack available for them, right?

Typically, games also have a no-pay cracked version. Given that there's a not-inconsiderable risk to running software without a chain of trust, if it is necessary to have to install cracked content to play it without a CD, obtrusive and annoying cdchecks make it increasingly likely that a game will be pirated outright.

Sadly, many publishers are dumb and don't pick up on the fact that annoyance increases pirating. Another reason that the convenience factor of Steam/Impulse is good for sales...

A system designed by greed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-competitive... really?

Wow... who would imagine.

Re:A system designed by greed...

[master5o1]

Wow... who would imagine.

WOW isn't on steam.

Well..

[Renraku]

As much as I like Steam, they'll always be anti-competitive as long as you cannot unlink and resale games to other people. It ensures that Steam NEVER has to compete with itself for a sale, that is, no one can get a Steam-exclusive game and then resell it to another person, without selling their entire account off.

I have no issues with letting them dominate the market if they'd allow games to be resold or transferred between accounts. They haven't, to my knowledge, been anti-competitive towards other companies. There have been many attempts to set up a decent network like it, but many have failed. Why? They want to encrypt/encode your games, but limit their bandwidth to a T-1 that serves hundreds of thousands of customers, AND tell you to fuck off when the game doesn't work.

Re:Well..

[BikeHelmet]

It's worth noting that for Valve's exclusive games, when you buy bundle packs containing copies you already have, you get more copies which can be given to friends.

Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply for third-party games.

I can understand the publisher's desire to lock a game to every customer. It ensures every sale gives you profit. I also understand that in the case of Steam, that's giving us much lower prices. Unlike most other platforms, Steam is flooded with quality games that go on sale for between $5 to $15.

When's the last time you got an XBox360 game brand new for $10? You can take your rights of sale and shove them... somewhere. I'll lose at least that much money trying to sell a game I picked up new, so resale doesn't really concern me much. Plus, after I sell it and lose $10+, I don't have it anymore.

One thing I would like to see is Valve not allowing non-Steam DRM in games. I hate it when games have double-protection(like Universe At War), and then it doesn't work because of the non-Steam DRM.

Re:Well..

[Kesch]

I'm actually pretty surprised by the prices on Steam though. Despite a strong second-hand market for PC games, the prices on Steam (and PC games in general) still seem to have some strong pressure from somewhere (piracy?). New game prices sometimes start below their console ports, and the price gap just widens from there. On top of that they offer sometimes crazy good sales and some amazing value bundles. Of course, they're not the only digital distributor with good deals. The recent D2D $5 sale has had me buying tons of games.

Are these two companies both being driven by some pricing pressure in the market, or is Valve just pro-consumer and everyone else is racing to catch up?

Re:Well..

[The MAZZTer]

Well with digital distribution you cut out the publisher/distributor, and you can either turn that cost into profit or cut ti out of the cost of the game.

And of course since it costs mere pennies to distribute, once you make up the cost of producing a game you can set the price point wherever you want and it's pure profit.

Re:Well..

[Bigjeff5]

If you've signed an exclusive contract, then obviously you would be in breach of contract if you sold somewhere else. Duh.

That's actually you (the developer) creating an incentive for Valve to promote your software more than they would promote non-exclusive software. It's a business decision, and the company that has to live with it is the one that made the decision.

Re-selling is an entirely different beast. If you want to own a physical copy of a game you can sell to someone else, you should buy a physical copy. What you are doing with Steam is effectively purchasing a subscription to the game, rather than buying a copy. You can tell by the fact that you can download the game on any computer and play it, and have it installed on multiple computers at once. This is not possible with purchased copies, as you are violating copyright every time you install the game on a new computer. Of course you can break the law if you want, but I'm assuming you are an honest person.

There are competing services, by the way, which allow you to purchase digital copies of the software. If you don't like Steam, go with one of them. There is nothing limiting you to Steam except yourself.

Re:Well..

[Ash Vince]

As much as I like Steam, they'll always be anti-competitive as long as you cannot unlink and resale games to other people.

Sorry, but you will have to explain why that is anti-competitive. It might not be the most consumer friendly policy, but it certainly does not stifle competition. I also note that most games are cheaper on Steam which is why I always thought you were not allowed to transfer ownership. Thhey are in fact completely open about this, when you buy a game you know it is limited to you, so you have choice: buy it anyway, or do not buy it and go and pay more to get a hardcopy that still probably prohibits resale, but only in licence you can safely ignore.

Please stop blaming Valve for actually enforcing a policy that almost all game publishers actually desire anyway, blame the publishers. This is like whining about Apple for using DRM they openly disliked but the music publishers insisted on. Apple ultimately refused to use DRM, but only after they had enough clout in the marketplace for it to make a difference.

Anyway, maybe we should all just hope Valve go under and Microsoft take over as the primary method of online game distribution. They are sure to be completely fair with their track record. They are also in a perfect position to take over the market as most games are played on their platform anyway.

Re:Well..

[VGPowerlord]

When's the last time you got an XBox360 game brand new for $10?

You mean like Turtles in Time Re-Shelled, which costs 800 MS Points ($10) on the Xbox Live Marketplace?

Or did you mean other than the Xbox Live Marketplace? Of course, that would make the comparison unfair, since XBLM is the 360's Digital Distribution system.

Re:Well..

[ScytheBlade1]

Not that you're incorrect, but I should point out something here. Valve has a publisher/distributor. EA. They are responsible for all of their boxed/physical copies.

It is also EA that is tossing up a $25 million USD marketing campaign for Left4Dead 2.

There are ups and downs to the whole publisher/distributor option.

Re:Well..

[VGPowerlord]

For that matter, nearly everything in the Xbox Live Arcade is between 400 ($5) and 1600 ($20) MS Points.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve have looked at their data and figured out that you sell a LOT more games when they're cheaper. Like on the order of 4000% more sales for a 70% price drop. Lots more profit. I imagine they're trying to get that message across to their clients.

Re:Well..

[Tomji]

Steam always tags 3rd party DRM. I never buy them and I am sure at some point they can proof to customers that removing DRM increases sales.
Looking at you Crysis!

Re:Well..

[jsoderba]

I don't see any general price win on Steam. It is quite common for me to see DVD editions available for a third or half the cost of a Steam game. The most recent example is Grand Theft Auto IV, which is €50 on Steam but €30 including shipping at several local (Finnish) web shops. I remember Mass Effect being €40 on Steam/€20 in stores for a long time as well. Pretty much any big title seems to drop much faster in local shops.

On the other hand, the Weekend Deals are great and I check them every week. (I picked up the Hitman Collection a few hours ago, in fact.) But Gamer's Gate, Impulse and D2D also have frequent sales.

Re:Well..

[Turiko]

perhaps these prices are so low, but that's America. Over here in europe, we are forced to cash out 60+ euros if you want to buy a brand new game. Oh and one year later, the price will still be the same.

over here, steam just sin't a viable solution. You can get a game for €10 in a retail shop, but on steam it'll still cost you €50 or more.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

When's the last time you got an XBox360 game brand new for $10?

What do you mean by brand new? Games newly released or are you just trying to ignore the significant discount that is obtained by buying games second hand?

Re:Well..

[BikeHelmet]

You mean like Turtles in Time Re-Shelled [xbox.com], which costs 800 MS Points ($10) on the Xbox Live Marketplace?

I meant full games that cost tens of millions to make.

Re:Well..

[BikeHelmet]

There was an equivalent to Steam for the UK - but I can't remember the site offhand. It wasn't important to me at the time I saw it. I just remember the prices being okay.

Re:Well..

[KDR_11k]

When's the last time you got an XBox360 game brand new for $10?

Yesterday actually but that was without a manual or box, only the disc (of course you get neither a box nor a manual with Steam either), I suppose some idiot didn't notice that GameStop only puts empty boxes on shelves and stole one. A better comparison might be PC games which have piles upon piles of great games that are a few years old for a tenner a piece, console games just don't drop that far (and aren't available on Steam either).

Re:Well..

[Turiko]

If it's UK only, then it still isn't worth much - it just means america AND uk have an online shop with good prices.

considering all the sale blastst they get when they do a weekend sale, i really wonder why they don't lower the price of older games.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth noting that for Valve's exclusive games, when you buy bundle packs containing copies you already have, you get more copies which can be given to friends.

They only did this for one package, the Orange Box. Half Life 2 and the Half Life 2 episodes are the only items that you can get extra copies of and "gift" them to other people. I had the entire half-life 1 backcatalog when I bought the Valve Complete Pack and it didn't allow me to re-gift the games I already had copies of. It was still a good deal (I went in knowing full well that I would be "wasting" all of the games in the pack that I already had copies of) but apart from HL2 and its direct sequels you can't give anything to friends.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth noting that for Valve's exclusive games, when you buy bundle packs containing copies you already have, you get more copies which can be given to friends.

Last time I checked (a few months ago) this was a one-time deal available only for the Orange Box and only usable for two games within the Orange Box (a member of Valve's staff confirmed this on the official Steam forums). I myself am stuck with multiple licenses for one or two Valve games that I cannot sell or even give away for free and I've run across dozens of other Valve customers stuck in the same situation.

Re:Well..

[VGPowerlord]

They only did this for one package, the Orange Box. Half Life 2 and the Half Life 2 episodes are the only items that you can get extra copies of and "gift" them to other people. I had the entire half-life 1 backcatalog when I bought the Valve Complete Pack and it didn't allow me to re-gift the games I already had copies of. It was still a good deal (I went in knowing full well that I would be "wasting" all of the games in the pack that I already had copies of) but apart from HL2 and its direct sequels you can't give anything to friends.

I kind of feel sorry for you, as I bought the Valve Source pack in early 2008, before it was discontinued. It was the Valve Complete Pack minus the HL1 games. It was also $79.99, as opposed to $99.99 for the Valve Complete Pack.

As I recall, it got discontinued shortly before Left 4 Dead came out.

Re:Well..

[VGPowerlord]

Microsoft launched Games On Demand (Downloadable versions of full Xbox/Xbox 360 games you could buy in stores) a few months ago, so I don't expect that they'd put any games on sale through it quite yet.

Having said that, the Xbox 360 titles on it are usually $19.99-$29.99, cheaper than you find them in stores. They also have the old Xbox original titles on it for $15 or so.

Prices compared to retail?

[Jared555]

Technically the service valve provides takes the role of packager, distributor, and store so if you add up the amounts those companies normally get (on an equally priced game) and it is a similar amount then it shouldn't be any big deal (for the developer). Especially since valve may have to distribute the game a hundred times.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[arbiter1]

games on steam are same price as in a retail store, minus the cost of shipping the game to the store, box, cd/dvd.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[BikeHelmet]

If ordering online, you also save shipping and handling from the eStore to you.

In my case - I'm Canadian - Steam saves me 12% tax. (more depending on province)

And I usually wait for things to go 50-75% off before purchasing, which puts my Steam cost at about 20% of retail cost.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[Fneb]

Not true. Generally speaking, games are more expensive on Steam than online retailers. As an example, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is £29.99 on Steam. On Play.com, it is £17.99. Risen is £34.99 on Steam, £24.99 on Play.com. In fact, from the games listed on the front page's scrolling display that have identical retail products as of the time of writing this post, the only game with identical prices on both places is Left 4 Dead 2 (and only because Steam has reduced the price by a few quid temporarily).

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[The MAZZTer]

Do other online retailers tend to have awesome sales every week like Steam does? I've never used other online retailers but brick-and-mortar stores NEVER put their games on sale. Ever.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[Fneb]

You do occasionally get a decent deal on Steam, but most of the time any temporary price reductions of games just bring prices down to around what is expected from online retailers of games, some of which, including Play.com and Amazon.co.uk, offer free delivery (on orders above £5 for Amazon, and all orders from Play.com). I've seen the price of Dawn of War 2 bounce around all over the place on Play.com. Right now its at £24.99 but I've seen it go right down to £11.99. Price on Steam? £34.99, same as when it was released back in February.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[Jared555]

I was referring to the % of the price that goes to steam vs the developer compared to stores/distributors/manufacturers in retail. Sorry that I wasn't clear.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[Adradis]

The overly high prices in Europe (Which I'm assuming your from, based on the money-type shown in the post) is something that Valve did a while back. No one has gotten an answer from them, but in the US end of things, the prices are fairly decent.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[Draek]

Generally speaking, they aren't. In Europe they may be, but everywhere else Steam costs the same or less than retail, specially here in South America where it's common for the same game on Steam cost a third of what it sells for in retail.

I've heard that Play.com has lower than average prices thanks to abusing some loopholes to avoid paying taxes, too, but I don't know how valid those claims may be.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[ensignyu]

I think it's because retail products take up physical space, so there's an incentive to clear inventory. With digital distribution, they can sell as many or as few copies as they want in order to maximize revenue.

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[arbiter1]

with steam its all rolled in to a nice client to do everything from

Re:Prices compared to retail?

[KDR_11k]

In continental Europe Steam's pricing is mostly fine, I think UK retailers abuse some clause in their shipping contracts to sell at lower prices and recover the difference from the manufacturer so they can sell games at prices the rest of the continent considers insane.

you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not fair!! you made somthing very useful and are making to much money bawwwllll!!

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[cayenne8]

Ok..what the fuck happened to slashdot?

I can't get to my damned comments section on my personal page anymore....

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[DocHoncho]

They "improved" the profile page. The first thing you see when you click on your name should be your most recent comments. If you want to see more (crazy, I know) you have to futz around with the "Many more" button on the bottom.

It's pretty much a clusterfuck, like the rest of Slashdot 2.0.

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[cayenne8]

"They "improved" the profile page. The first thing you see when you click on your name should be your most recent comments. If you want to see more (crazy, I know) you have to futz around with the "Many more" button on the bottom."

I don't even see a freakin' "many more" button anywhere on that page.

Currently using Firefox on an old mac G3.....

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[cayenne8]

I found the button..but it still doesn't take me to the 'normal' view..where I can see my posts easily to see how each is rated and how which ones have how many replies....

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[Kreigaffe]

Don't click on your user name on the left under the "Slashdot" logo, look to the upper-right corner.

Yeah, it sucks.

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[mikael_j]

I you go to slashdot.org/~username/comments you should still get the "classic" view.

/Mikael

Re:you are making to much money!!!!! bawwwwlll

[Thing 1]

Yeah, a single click used to give me what I want. Now it takes two clicks, and I don't know how to change it back to what it was. Hey, maybe in a couple months, it'll change so it'll take 3 or 4 clicks! That's progress!

What I do when I want to see my comments: click on my name, then in the right column about 1/2 way down the page (of around 1100 pixels, Firefox on XP), I click the "Comments" heading (in white text on a gray background).

Although, I just noticed that if I click the "Thing 1" link which is just under the "Post Comment" heading, I get the original "user info" page that I was used to. Of course, that's not exposed via a single click on any of the regular pages, I just happened to notice it was here and clicked on it while I was (and in order to help with) documenting the above, and found that it behaved differently. Yay, progress!!!11!

Yeah! Competition!

[Iriscal]

Right, because I want to have to register for and keep track of seven different digital distribution ser-- Oh, wait... Steam... iTunes... Rhapsody... Playstation Network... *Counts on fingers...*

Voluntary = exploitative?

[MrMista_B]

How on earth is a voluntary service exploitative?

In the same way I guess that a story exploits people who voluntarily buy from them.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Re:Voluntary = exploitative?

[Artifakt]

I'm not saying Steam is an example, but why can't a voluntary service be exploitative? People volunteer to do business with a high speed ISP, for example, but that ISP may be the only provider in the area, and lobby for laws to keep municipalities from establishing a competing service, so as to keep the price up, while also getting subsidies from the federal government. You volunteer to do buisiness directly with the company, but you also have financial involvement with them you didn't volunteer for - surely there can be exploitation there even by libertarian argument?
      Many of us believe a company can also exploit a relationship just as an individual can, even without government coercion being involved. Individual exploitation can take many forms. People get married voluntarily (at least in most parts of the world), but what if one person is a lazy bum who has broken many promises made, and constantly reminds the other person that their religion forbids divorce except for adultery? Sure the other person could change their religion (again in many parts of the world), or ignore what the preacher says. But if they don't, is it wrong to say "Girlfriend, that lazy bum is just exploiting you - tell him to get a job and pay his share of the rent or get out!".
      Personally, I can think of many things a company can do that are exploitative. Employment is a voluntary relationship, but when a company asks its employees to do additional unpaid labor to keep their jobs, that's exploitation. Customer is a voluntary relationship, but what if the business sells rebranded knockoffs as the real thing?

Re:Voluntary = exploitative?

[ivucica]

If my water utility company is overcharging me, how is that not exploitative? I could cancel the water service ... but who in sane mind would do that?

While Steam is not a utility for a player, if we think of a gamedev company as a person, then it's - like any other publisher - pretty much that company's utility service in that it needs a distribution channel.

I don't claim Steam is overcharging, since I have no idea what their percentage is and I don't care to Google it up. Probably they don't overcharge, compared to other publishers.

Re:Voluntary = exploitative?

[Talgrath]

Yes, but Steam is not a required service; even if you're a developer you have a ton of other options besides trying to "make your own water". Aside from Steam, you can distribute via brick and mortar stores and other online distributors. Granted, Steam is required to play Valve's games, but Valve has the right to do that with their own creations; if you don't like it, don't buy their games. Even if you put a game on Steam, you can put it on other services or brick and mortar stores.

Re:Voluntary = exploitative?

[ivucica]

Again, remember I know nothing of Steam's pricing and don't care to investigate at the moment. Let's presume they overcharge (as in TFS).

Yes, but Steam is not a required service; even if you're a developer you have a ton of other options besides trying to "make your own water".

You can also theoretically get bottled water from local grocery store. Maybe it's cheaper to build a tank of water and when it empties, order the "water truck" (or whatever it's called in English) to ship some more water. Still...

Aside from Steam, you can distribute via brick and mortar stores and other online distributors.

Of course. But does the premium for reaching Steam players have to be high? You're also making presumption that it's all equal -- if it's equal, why is Steam overcharging?

Granted, Steam is required to play Valve's games, but Valve has the right to do that with their own creations; if you don't like it, don't buy their games.

Undisputed. We're talking about developers' relations with Valve and Steam.

Even if you put a game on Steam, you can put it on other services or brick and mortar stores.

You already said that :-)

HUH? Small devs are getting exposure with steam!

[UnknownSoldier]

For the end-user, Steam is great. I've bought a lot more indie games then I normally would simply because I love seeing the weekend deals. Small developers don't have the marketing budget to pay for exposure and steam provides that. Even indirectly when I see my friends playing "Game X" and I decide to go check it out.

If you're a big publisher (or developer), such as Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, etc. you can afford the marketing budget.

The only "legit" complaint I could see is if you are a "middle" publisher and thus are having a hard time compete with both sides.

Gearbox has ported a LOT of First Person Shooters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gearbox_Software) Instead of blaming publishers, why not make a good game that customers want?

pro-capitalist replies

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed at the pro-capitalist replies given the depressing socialist climate of today...

Amen, I say. If you don't like their policies, don't use them. Sounds fair to me. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head.

Valve has a right to set their own policies and prices, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a thankless dog.

Re:pro-capitalist replies

[KDR_11k]

There's simply no reason to intervene, social economy doesn't require that you regulate for no reason.

Re:pro-capitalist replies

[Anonymous Coward]

A socialist politico-economic system regulates for the sake of thankless dogs and bounds innovative thinkers who are smart enough to commit the "sin" of leading a product or service to market dominance.

Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford is whining about Valve not being "fair" (typical response from weaker competition that wants a market leader regulated to death).

A monopoloy can ONLY exist in a non-laissez faire capitalist politico-economic system (monopolies are created through government regulations or other coercive, non-capitalist action). Dont' confuse monopolies with market dominance; market dominance is earned and completely leaves the door open to a competitor to set up shop and do a better job and take away from that market share.

Re:HUH? Small devs are getting exposure with steam

[Darundal]

Can I ask how you think Steam hurts "middle" publishers?

"anti-competitive"

[postmortem]

such a lame word.. what should they do to not be 'anti-competitive' ? deny customers? increase prices 100%? share profits with competitors?

valve has done something right the rest havn't

[arbiter1]

valve made a problem that takes all the crap of needing to keep disc's around that can get scratched. plus they made a system of drm that works and don't treat everyone like pirates. Also don't crash machines and cause more headaches for the legit customer then the pirates.

Re:valve has done something right the rest havn't

[skine]

But does it run on Linux?

Well, yes. Relatively well at least.

Re:valve has done something right the rest havn't

[Anonymous Coward]

and they forced me to log into an online gaming network to play SINGLE PLAYER GAMES.
If thats doing it right, i'll keep doing it wrong thanks.

--Boycotting Steam and all the games on it.

Re:valve has done something right the rest havn't

[Talgrath]

You can play single player games in "offline" mode if you want with Steam.

That depends

[Dunbal]

Steam is less anti-competitive than say, The Pirate Bay?

      What's stopping game developers from hosting their own pay-per-download site, instead of whining about Steam? Then they can keep ALL of the profit (less bandwidth and marketing costs).

steaming piece of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

steam sucks, it uses up a lot of memory for nothing, and forces you to be connected to the internet to play games( even if its for single player). And btw steam is going to die since blizzard is making their new steam aka battle.net 2.0, which is pretty much a blatant copy of the steam service except for blizzard games.

Re:steaming piece of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're just trolling, but for anyone who doesn't actually know how it works, parent is completely wrong. Steam works fine in offline mode, and uses 10-15 megs of memory when idle.

Unfair competition?

[steveha]

Has Valve somehow managed to erect barriers to entry into the market, or in any way block competitors from starting a competing service? Is there in fact anything unethical or unfair going on?

Valve pioneered this area. Now they are reaping the rewards. Anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to start up their own, competing service.

But hey, he's entitled to complain about it if it makes him feel better. That's less work that trying to compete with Valve.

steveha

Re:Unfair competition?

[moon3]

Anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to start up their own, competing service.

Sure and LOL, they were the first carrying titles like Counter-Strike and Half-life, pretty much forcing people to install Steam in order to play these highly desired games. NOBODY would install Steam without some good game already in. You can try to start a competing company with no such games, good luck.

Re:Unfair competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are saying that a good game company that sells it's own games on a service that is willing to sell others is unfair? Hardly. I have downloaded games from other providers with far less customer service for no less money and they have chosen to not sell competing games. Well I don't like having a dozen accounts. I'll stick with a good product with a wide variety of games. If it isn't on steam I wont buy it unless its the next big thing. Why should I?

Re:Unfair competition?

[shutdown -p now]

Sure and LOL, they were the first carrying titles like Counter-Strike and Half-life, pretty much forcing people to install Steam in order to play these highly desired games. NOBODY would install Steam without some good game already in. You can try to start a competing company with no such games, good luck.

So what game did Direct2Drive use to achieve popularity, then?

Also, even if your premise holds true, game market itself is quite competitive. It ain't cheap, but it's certainly feasible for a new entity to come up with a new good game, and then tie that to its new electronic distribution service, just like Valve did.

So, again, what's the problem here?

Re:Unfair competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Valve created both CS and HL, your point is moot. Why wouldn't they put their own games on their distribution service. In fact, there was a time when you could purchase both games before Steam was even conceived.

Re:Unfair competition?

[moon3]

Maybe, but are you sure Direct2Drive is not owned by 2K, EA, UBI or some other 'parent' publisher? I would not be surprised.

Also, to come up with a highly acclaimed game that would draw people into your new digital store is sure possible, but stunt like this needs some high caliber game like GTA or Doom 3 to succeed.

In other words to start a competing store with Steam might be problematic.

Re:Unfair competition?

[moon3]

Exactly that is my point, Valve already had great games to start with, without these games Steam would have a hard time to proliferate.

Re:Unfair competition?

[Loadmaster]

Direct2Drive is owned by IGN which is owned by News Corporation. Big company but not a big parent publisher.

Re:Unfair competition?

[tibman]

Half-Life and Counter-strike were out for YEARS before Steam was even available. We're not even talking about how usable steam was.. it was a nightmare! Steam was completely optional at that point.

I registered my half-life cd-key with Steam around the time the WON servers were shutting down. Steam was horrid, the friends thing didn't work and it crashed sometimes. First Lan party i went to post Steam conversion was a disaster. There was ~250 people there and not enough bandwidth to auth everyone trying to play : / That was pre-offline mode i think.

Also, don't think that half-life was "all that" either.. remember that the time period that Steam launched was the days of Quake3 and Unreal Tournament... half-life looked pretty dated at that point. The only thing that kept half-life around was all the free mods, like TFC, CS, NS, S&I, and on and on.

Ah yes, those were the days.. was gaming on my first home built computer.. an AMD K6-2 on a SOYO 5EMA+ mobo with a Voodoo 3 2000 ! god yes.. that was bamf

Re:Unfair competition?

[moon3]

Ok, but the guy was talking about starting his own Steam-like distribution service. My point was to play Counter-Strike (source) I was required to install Steam (good marketing of Steam itself), now to start "competition" with Steam service would clearly require to have similar AAA game in your offering already and that might be a problem. Forget things like known publishers committing their catalogs into some new 3th party service.

Re:Unfair competition?

[tibman]

And i was pointing out how much of a failure Steam started out as. They didn't start with a great catalog. They started with an aging title that had a great community following it. Steam was an Update and Friends system for all of us who already owned the game... it was certainly not a content distribution system.

I'm sure there are games+communities out there with the same kind of following HL1 had when Steam started out. HL itself was just a heavily modded Quake engine.

Damn i love valve :)

Re:Unfair competition?

[moon3]

heavily modded Quake engine

Interesting, I didn't know that "Source engine" is a Quake engine derivative.

Re:Unfair competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, that's a bit unfair. If you had your head out of your ass when Steam first came around you wouldn't be misleading people. Back in the days of dialup modems, when broadband was first starting to spread around, in order to play Counter Strike and Half Life multiplayer online you had to use the WON network owned and controlled by AT&T. It was completely free unlike most other games where you had to pay to play on the network, which is one of the main reasons Half Life mods took off (the other main reason being Valve encouraged modding and helped modders out; Counter Strike being the most famous Half Life mod ever).

While this is going on, Valve realizes they really don't like their publisher (Sierra; then Vivendi when they bought Sierra) taking such a big chunk of their profits and dictating their work schedules (have to release a game by a certain date or they lose money to the publisher in addition to sharing the profits) so they quietly start working on a new means of distributing games. People are starting to realize how powerful the Internet can truly be if everyone has broadband so the idea for Steam gets kicked around.

Fast forward a year or two and AT&T is not doing too hot. To save themselves they drop non-profitable things, such as the WON network, and reduce their company (just in the last 5 years they've started re-expanding, at least in my area where they DID shrink quite a bit). Valve now needs to figure out how the hell people are going to play their games online as there just won't be any means to without WON.

Valve realizes they already have the answer, Steam, work on setting up servers and then a year or so later when WON goes down Steam goes live. It's buggy and has major problems at first, and Valve straight up tells us that it was released much sooner than they had intended and admit they've never had to maintain/manage a server network such as Steam's before. Most people forgive them almost as soon as the majority of issues are fixed but many people can't stop crying because the world isn't perfect.

And now we get a ton of people like you who think everything is nefarious than the rather more simple truth that shit happens, things change, and some people try to keep things working right. I swear, Valve is probably the single most gamer friendly company in the world. Others like the fans of their games, but Valve is the only one that truly seems to be of the same stock. So get the chip off your shoulder because you "didn't like" the fact things didn't stay the way you were used to.

Damn. Just realized how insightful Star Trek VI was regarding change and the future. People really don't like it.

Re:Unfair competition?

[mgiuca]

I think that was Randy's point -- by requiring people to use Steam to play their games, Valve slung-shot Steam to #1 distribution service. The "unfair" thing is that they are both a game producer and distribution service for all the other games.

Steam helps us as customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does Steam help us as customers? You can't sell your used Steam games and you can't run them completely offline. I have not and will not buy a game that requires Steam.

Use Impulse Instead

[DelitaTheFridge]

So Impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com/) is like steam, but run by Stardock. Games you buy on impulse don't require it to be running ala games on steam. I don't know how their pricing is for game developers, but they sure seem nicer and friendlier than the big behemoth to me, and I'll always buy a given game on impulse over steam if they have it.

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[larry bagina]

From their developer page:

Each month, you will be sent an update showing your sales for that period. The base royalty percentage is 70% but that amount goes to 85% if your website is the referring page

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[TheRealRainFall]

Impulse also has terrible customer service and let's people put buggy as hell flawed games on the market. (See Demigod)

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[DelitaTheFridge]

Demigod was produced by the owners of impulse, heh. It also had most of it's issues resolved for people who could forward ports pretty quickly, and is fun as hell. I'd suggest taking another look if you tried before and it sucked. I mean, I don't doubt that it is unprofessional, but that is a pretty shitty reason not to use a service. Do you actually buy games without knowing what they are beforehand?

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[Tridus]

I'm sure nobody has ever released a buggy game on Steam, right? Or in retail for that matter?

What a silly argument.

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Demigod was also leaked before the release date, and they weren't totally ready.

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Demigod was developed by Gas Powered Games. Stardock is the North America publisher.

Re:Use Impulse Instead

[DelitaTheFridge]

Err, I said produced, I meant published. I knew GPG were the developers.

Inconceivable!

[Renaissance 2K]

God forbid we have a digital distribution service that benefits the consumer!

If Valve takes advantage of small developers, I don't know why those developers continue to flock to the service like flies to honey. And if there really is a conflict of interest, they don't seem to be exercising it. Valve games aren't advertised any more than third-party titles, and the standard non-sale prices are comparable.

Gearbox should make their own, then.

[joocemann]

And quit crying about how Valve did something so great...

Guess what, you can do it too!

But, oh, right... this is America. We now foster the 'lets blame the winners' attitude, to include predatory lawyers that perpetuate it.

Yeah, its Valve's fault. :rolleyes:

Grow up.

Re:Gearbox should make their own, then.

[joocemann]

NO NO NO! MOD THAT DOWN! THAT WAS AN IGNORANT RESPONSE TO A SENSATIONALIST ARTICLE!

I immediately went to gearbox's website and wrote with specific directions to deliver my message to Richard Pitchford. I wrote about, well, basically what I wrote in that first post here... I told him I would not be buying borderlands despite how much I have been waiting for it. Within a short time he actually personally wrote me back and made clear to me that what we are reading here on slashdot is an exaggeration. The writer is using sensationalism to get people to care about his article, that is all.

I will exclude the more personal discussion we had in e-mail and include only the part that he referenced from a forum he posted on to clarify things. I am doing this because I know it is on a forum and I didn't ask him permission to post his other stuff.
-------

As a gamer, I *love* Valve's games. Hell, I've *made* some of Valve's games!

As a customer, I love Steam. I like owning a credential that I can use from any terminal and I like the software. There are other things I like, too.

As a businessman, I appreciate the access to Valve's customers that they are providing with Steam. I think there's value to that access. I'm really happy that the Brothers in Arms games are available on Steam and I think Steam customers are really going to dig Borderlands. I have been and hope to be a partner to Valve for many years.

From an industry perspective of digital distribution on the PC, I think Steam is doing it the best right now. They're in front and they're really getting value out of their leadership position with digital distribution on the PC.

From an industry perspective, I believe that Steam would be even better off if it were a separate company. Trust issues that result from conflict of interest could be mitigated if Steam were a separate company. Take that only as analysis. It doesn't matter how much I trust Valve or how trustworthy Valve actually is - it's just perception within segments of the publishing and development community that, I guess, no one is really talking about. I'm on record in this article saying how I personally trust Valve. I was attempting to comment on perception from some angles of the industry.

I also believe that gamers and customers and anyone making games using 3rd party digital distribution systems would be greatly benefited if Steam had some viable competitors. Competition generally drives higher quality products and services at lower prices. I can't see how anyone could argue against that point. If we love Steam, we should hope that as competition appears that it prompts the Steam folks to go faster and better towards improving the service and the pricing.

In spite of the implication made in this blurb, I do not want Microsoft to control digital distribution on PC, but believe they (and others) could enter the space if they wanted to and help the competitive landscape and even, perhaps, help to standardize the landscape a bit. I believe that because Valve is a game maker that generally "gets it" I think there's a lot of value to the position they have and I'm really excited about the risk they took and the foresight Valve showed in paving the way there.

These are not mutually exclusive feelings and they are all honest and forthright.

-------

Waah waah waah.

[straponego]

Compete if you don't like it. Get a cartel of game companies to fund a copy of Steam. I doubt it will save much money, though.

I've definitely purchased more games due to Steam. I do wish that more of the games supported online backups of saved games, and that it had a default configuration/hinting system for settings such as key and mouse binds. Movement, invert mouse, zoom, jump, crouch, prone, etc: most games of a similar type have mostly similar controls.

Steam is great. They've had the potential to be evil since inception, but they seem to have realized that they'll do much better by treating customers well. I doubt I'll ever buy a game on physical (fragile, wasteful) media again.

Re:Waah waah waah.

[pinkj]

Steam is great. They've had the potential to be evil since inception, but they seem to have realized that they'll do much better by treating customers well. I doubt I'll ever buy a game on physical (fragile, wasteful) media again.

Hear hear! There is nothing more annoying than a DVD or CD that won't read. I understand some of the foibles people have with Steam, but the convenience and great deals more than make up for it.

Re:Waah waah waah.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've definitely purchased more games due to Steam"

For some reason, you've misspelled "rented" as "purchased". Please do not make that mistake again.

You keep using that word...

[panthrkub]

I totally agree. I would not have known about Darwinia if it weren't for Steam, and now I feel like I've contributed to a good cause (a small developer with genuine talent).

There's plenty of competition.

[Carra]

I've bought games from gamersgate, direct2drive, impulse.net, gog.com and steam. Steam doesn't quite have a monopoly yet.

But the only service from this list I like more then steam is gog.com. Steam offers a great service which offers very fast downloads, an easy to use steam app, weekend deals, plenty of community features, achievements... The only thing they seriously fuck up is their price ranges. Direct dollar to euro conversions make me feel ripped of. It also means that new games are always cheaper to get at a retail store. Steam is only useful for weekend deals.

If you offer a service with non intrusive drm, a good community and cheaper prices I'll be glad to buy at your shop. Direct2drive is an example of how not do it. It offers very little community interaction. Their games are country restricted. A £5 game seems cheap at first until you see that others pay $5, it's 40% cheaper and again makes me feel ripped of. And needing both serial codes and activation codes makes things a mess to install. I received 4(!) serials when installing titan quest. Compare that to gog.com where a game plus expansion is offered in one bundle with no DRM. Those games are guaranteed to work with xp & vista. They offer user reviews, fora for each games, advised mods to use... And a game costs $6 even if I live in Europe.

There's room for competition but you need to offer a better service. Not just throw your DRM protected crap at your customers. And while steam is a nice platform there's definately room for improvement.

Monopoly?

[Rycross]

You can put it on Impulse, GameTap, or make it a direct download on your site. You can port it to console and put it on WiiWare, XBox Live, or PSN. Seriously, there's a lot of alternatives here, and its hard for me to think of Steam as a monopoly.

Re:Monopoly?

[rcolbert]

You can put it on Impulse, GameTap, or make it a direct download on your site. You can port it to console and put it on WiiWare, XBox Live, or PSN. Seriously, there's a lot of alternatives here, and its hard for me to think of Steam as a monopoly.

Agreed. Steam has the Valve titles plus a smattering of nice indies. But they're hardly a monopoly. Direct2Drive anyone? Just about every mainstream title is available now as a digital download from D2D except the Valve titles and Steam exclusives. If anything D2D should be the specimen under this pointless microscope.

Re:Monopoly?

[RiotingPacifist]

Monopoly in the antitrust sense just requires a certain market share, I think steam probably have that market share, OFC now they need to abuse it to get this prize

Re:Monopoly?

[VGPowerlord]

Steam has the Valve titles plus a smattering of nice indies.

While I agree that Valve is hardly a monopoly, companies like Electronic Arts, 2K Games, UbiSoft, Rockstar Games, LucasArts, and iD Software are hardly indies.

Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I find Steam quite expensive to be honest. I pay the same price (and sometimes more) than for a boxed version. Whenever i can, i rather use Gamer's Gate.

Re:Expensive

[samsmithnz]

I completely disagree. The prices are often cheaper - new releases often have specials (10-20% off), and they have specials all the time - specials I wouldn't normally see since I don't go to a gamestop/best buy every week. Add to that the ability to preinstall games and be available from any computer (you log into), I think it's brilliant.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you European? Steam seems to screw over Euro gamers, but in North America the prices are generally very good.

Re:Expensive

[Fallingcow]

It's not at all uncommon for newly-released (and thus not-on-sale) games to be available cheaper at traditional retailers, as you can usually find at least one that is running a sale on the brand new game.

The most notable recent example I can think of is Left 4 Dead (a Valve-made game, even!) which was available at some major retail chain (I forget which) for $40 at launch, vs. the Steam price of $50. Buy it at the store, put in your code et viola, legit Steam copy of the game for $40. Buy it from Steam (and therefore Valve) directly, pay $10 more. Weird.

I pretty much only buy Steam games when they're on sale, these days. I still don't get why they aren't undercutting normal retail prices by 5-10%, what with the much, much lower distribution costs they have. Their specials, though--especially the multi-title bundles--are fantastic.

Re:Expensive

[Animaether]

I completely disagree.

You must not be European, at the least, then.

Ever since the product pricing in Steam adopted the traditional "USD = EUR! bend over, lol" method of currency conversion, Steam games have been bloody expensive for Europeans.
No, it's not just taxes. Highest tax in Europe is some ridiculous 25% in Sweden, Denmark and Hungary (most are around the 19% mark). Now check the going rate for EUR/USD: 1.47501.

It really is very often much cheaper to just buy retail in Europe.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

they have specials because they bully the developers into offering discounts or not being listed. Because they control a huge chunk of pc gaming, the devs have no fucking option.

They are as bad as the big evil retail publishers, they have just got a better marketing / shill operation online.

Re:Expensive

[linzeal]

I loathe needless physical media, including books but that is another discussion. I recently ripped and sold/gave away all my DVDs and CDs and will never buy either format ever again after accumulating almost 1k CDs and 600 or so legit DVDs and pry around 500 burned DVDs. It was completely unmanageable and now all of that and more is on a 10 TB raid 6 array in my hallway closet running a stripped down Debian install. Now I can grep for movies/television shows and even nostaligic commercials from my childhood in seconds instead of having to chase down a DVD. I'm currently at 8 TB and I plan to expand the storage by another 10 TB this Xmas if I can get 12 1 terabyte drives for under a hundred bucks.

Re:Expensive

[stub667]

One problem with *all* the digital download distributors at the moment is international pricing. I use Steam for demos and occasionally a special or game that will never hit the shelves here. New release A-list titles are $US 12-18 here, I believe mainly to remain competitive with the pirates selling the title for $US 6 and because the local market just can't afford to pay more when $US 600/month is considered a good wage. The local distributors have worked out how to make a buck but the US based companies don't seem to be interested.

And there are alternatives

[Sycraft-fu]

He might have a point if Valve really had a monopoly. If they because the only way to do digital distribution, ok maybe a problem. However, that's not the case. My personal favourite for digital games is Stardock's Impulse (impulsedriven.com). Same idea basic as Steam. What I like about it is it is better on DRM. They don't apply their own DRM to all games, so some have none at all. Others use Impulse GOO, which is kinda like Steamworks but you don't have to be logged in or run the client, others use 3rd party DRM like on Steam.

Yet another option is Direct2Drive. I'm not such a fan of this one, but it works. I've bought a couple of titles from it.

So if a publisher/developer doesn't like Steam, well then don't use them, use one of the others. Nobody is making you use Steam. Or, for that matter, you could always use Steam but offer a better deal to the others if you like them better. Have your game for $50 on Steam and $40 on Impulse. That way you still get sales from Steam, but you can point customers to the platform you like better.

The other funny thing about the whining is that though the digital distributors take a cut, it is way less than retail. Retail is about a 50% markup. So if you buy a game at Target for $50 the publisher sees $25. Digital distributors don't take nearly that large a cut (it is more like 20%).

Re:And there are alternatives

[zach_the_lizard]

Yep, Steam isn't the only way to go. Not only is there Direct2Drive, but there's also other, smaller, online distributors like Gamer's Gate. There's plenty of room for developers and publishers to add their own distribution methods.

This does give me an interesting idea: image a program that is the digital distribution clone of Trillian or Pidgin. Instead of having to download tons of different distribution programs, visit 50 bajillion websites to download stuff, it would be nice to have them all merged into one program.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Sir_Sri]

retail on games is more like 20% than 50, source http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2006/12/8479.ars (and that's markup, not profit, profit is probably about half of that, the last EB manager I was friends with said they averaged about 7% profit on the price of games over a particular period, which I think was summer but not sure). There's a lot less overhead when you don't have to manufacture a box, manual or DVDs, after all you have to pay for all the stuff even if it doesn't sell.

Either way, I'm partial to gamersgate more than steam or the others. No client, but you're encumbered with DRM, in many cases DRM that is designed as though there was a disk.

Re:And there are alternatives

[rtb61]

The story is nonsense, The only reason steam is picking up market share is because it is mirroring with ISP's, so rather than downloading off it's servers it uses the servers from ISPs all around the world, Steam saves money and so do the ISPs as they are not importing additional traffic into their network. Other DRM digital download distributors want to catch up, they basically have to do the same thing.

Not that I like Steam, I think the service is no what it claims to be, from loading banner adds into games you have bought, to requiring an internet to play games you have bought (it will shut you down at regular intervals until you do the required regular updates). As far a software digital downloads, I'm waiting until download and burn, then install from dvd or hdisk or usb stick (they are starting to get cheap enough) become available. Forget DRMed downloads because you can absolutely not trust them with your gaming investment, they will inevitably try to monetise your investment, either by dumping adds into it or by selling analysis of your gaming habits or the nickel and dime route where they keep charging you for bits and pieces of the complete game.

Re:And there are alternatives

[BitZtream]

He might have a point if Valve really had a monopoly. If they because the only way to do digital distribution, ok maybe a problem. However, that's not the case. My personal favourite for digital games is Stardock's Impulse (impulsedriven.com). Same idea basic as Steam. What I like about it is it is better on DRM. They don't apply their own DRM to all games, so some have none at all. Others use Impulse GOO, which is kinda like Steamworks but you don't have to be logged in or run the client, others use 3rd party DRM like on Steam.

I agree, Steam isn't a monopoly, and there are are better (in my opinion) alternatives that have some of the exact same games.

I've bought from Steam, Impulse and Direct2Drive specifically as well as a few other self distributors. So far, Impulse is my favorite, especially for items that they will sell you a box/cd and the download for a few bucks more. Direct2Drive is fine, but you have to pay extra to make sure you can redownload it later. I understand to some extent, you have to pay to get replacement cd's from pretty much anyone, if you can find someone to help you do so. Steam is okay except its constant requirement to talk to servers and that I can't transfer a game to another account, which aren't problems with Impulse.

Clearly there is competition here, Steam has some shitty policies, feel free to bitch about them and shop elsewhere, Steam will either fix it, or have some other reason they own the marketplace or they simply won't own the marketplace, like now.

Steam, Impulse and Direct2Drive are just examples of the Targets, Walmarts and Kmarts of the Internet, just retail stores, although they haven't worked out the details as well as the brick and mortor counterparts.

You can bitch about them about the same way as you can bitch about BestBuy and Walmarts practices, but calling them a monopoly is just silly.

Being silly is a valid slashdot headline/summary however.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Other concession of Impulse: unlike other DRM'd services, they list what kind of DRM is on a game. At least they let you know what you're in for. I hope publishers give up on the shit soon. I'm really sick of having to pick online distribution services for games based on which DRM package is the least evil.

Seriously, this is truly the age of the company FIGHTING the consumer and calling it "service".

Re:And there are alternatives

[spydabyte]

I'd like to see sources on your markup price comparison. It's an interesting topic. But if you buy a game at Target for $50 on a 50% markup, then that means that the publisher sees 33$, not 25$. 25-50$ is a 100% markup.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Chyeld]

The only AD banner Valve has ever added to a game in Steam are the ADS in Counterstrike (the original) which was released near a decade ago now. I don't see ANYTHING nefarious in that given Valve STILL supports the game and I seriously doubt it's sales numbers in the past five years would have been enough to justify that to anyone in Accounting.

Re:And there are alternatives

[roguetrick]

I'm curious if steam's distribution agreement would even allow you to put it on other digital platforms for less.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Seumas]

Exactly. I have nothing but positive things to say about Pitchford, but I don't agree with him on this one. At least to the extent that I believe I understand his point.

It seems to me that any argument out there is essentially centered around people not merely wanting their products on a digital download service, but _Steam_ specifically. And to do that, they have to give a bigger cut (apparently) to Valve and also compete with Valve's own games.

There's competition out there. I have about 100 titles from Steam, but I also have a few dozen titles spread over Direct2Drive and Stardock's _Impulse_. It doesn't seem like Valve has a monopoly on the business whatsoever.

So the real complaint here -- unless I'm missing something -- is "yeah, but I want my title on *STEAM*. . . but without the strings that are attached!".

It certainly is valid to complain about those attached strings, but suggesting that it is anti-competitive is a bit of a stretch, in my observation.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Drinking Bleach]

Whether or not it's allowed, Epic Megagames already does it. Unreal Tournament 2004 Editor's Choice Edition on GOG.com is $9.99, but $14.99 on Steam. Just one example, I'm sure there's many more.

Re:And there are alternatives

[dougisfunny]

It did kind of get annoying though for a while when it was all ads for L4D, and its like "I bought the game a month ago, stop showing me ads for it."

Re:And there are alternatives

[roguetrick]

Sounds like they allow it then, good on Valve.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

steam do NOT take 20%. whoever told you that is lying, it is way way way more than that.
Ditto impulse.
Typed by someone with contracts with both companies...

Re:And there are alternatives

[kantos]

I can only think of one thing to add to this, MS has put their foot in the market too with Games for Windows Live. So it's not like there is any lack of competition.

Re:And there are alternatives

[zach_the_lizard]

Gamers Gate, so far as I know, does not use DRM in its downloads. I downloaded Hearts of Iron 3 from there, and the game requires no CD key, no disk in the drive, no nothing. You download an application that will download and install the game you bought (different app per game). It will save the install files, too. The only issue is that the place is run by a small publisher, and they don't have a huge amount of bandwidth.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

...Retail is about a 50% markup. So if you buy a game at Target for $50 the publisher sees $25. Digital distributors don't take nearly that large a cut (it is more like 20%).

This isn't quite true, for video games the mark up at the store isn't anywhere near 50%, its more like 10%. I used to run a game store and for a $50 game on the shelf, we had to pay anywhere from $43-$47, with some of the more in demand games not even making us that much.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Pyrion]

Yeah, and the publisher often takes a hefty cut as well if the deal isn't crafted directly between the developer and the distributor. That's the advantage of going direct-download with an online distributor as opposed to signing with a third-party publisher for brick-and-mortar sales.

Re:And there are alternatives

[Pyrion]

The difference being if you went with a publisher, they'd take their cut, and the brick-and-mortar stores take their cut as well. How much do you, as the developer, get per-sale from going the brick-and-mortar route with a third-party publisher as opposed to the direct-download route through Steam/Impulse?

Re:And there are alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

i believe steam takes 40%...

Re:And there are alternatives

[Kalriath]

GFWL is not a distribution platform - it doesn't hold a comparison to Steam at all, save that it is often used in combination with Steam nowadays.

Steam flaws

[Inverted Intellect]

I'm seeing a lot of comments discussing various flaws of Steam, but nothing which I recognize as anti-competitiveness. Now I'm not terribly well informed on what constitutes anti-competitive practices, so I did what any random Joe Slashdot on the street would do, which is look it up on WP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices

Looking at the list of typical anti-competitive practices, I see none which I can imagine applying to Valve's Steam, so I'd imagine that their high popularity with publishers given their high cut of the price is simply due to a lack of good competition rather than Valve pushing all their competitors in online game distribution off the market.

If Steam wasn't ultimately providing a profitable service, I'm sure publishers would simply stick with the physical retail market.

Capitalism... A love story

[TheRealRainFall]

Steam is an amazing product. As one person said before i can download my games anywhere. I can even give a friend my login and they can play my games as long as i'm not playing them. (I'm sure the violates ToS but whatever). I even preordered a product(AION) and played the beta and it was having miserable lag. I emailed and said i was disappointed with the game and would be interested in a refund if the problems weren't fixed by the end of beta. They said they would gladly refund my purchase if the problems weren't fixed. They fixed the problems and there was no problem. Well at least not until i hit level 24ish and the game turned into a grind and i cancelled, but i digress. They are a corporation maximizing profits. Monopoly is inevitable in capitalism without government intervention. If you don't like this you really don't like capitalism. Which is fine. But there's no point in nitpicking a system over one thing when you dislike the entirety of the system.

Comment from the source

[Randy Pitchford]

As a guy who reads, trusts and respects slashdot and the community here, I figured I'd take the time to clarify my position since my intent has been construed out of context. As a gamer, I *love* Valve's games. Hell, I've *made* some of Valve's games! As a customer, I love Steam. I like owning a credential that I can use from any terminal and I like the software. There are other things I like, too. As a businessman, I appreciate the access to Valve's customers that they are providing with Steam. I think there's value to that access. I'm really happy that the Brothers in Arms games are available on Steam and I think Steam customers are really going to dig Borderlands. I have been and hope to be a partner to Valve for many years. From an industry perspective of digital distribution on the PC, I think Steam is doing it the best right now. They're in front and they're really getting value out of their leadership position with digital distribution on the PC. From an industry perspective, I believe that Steam would be even better off if it were a separate company. Trust issues that result from conflict of interest could be mitigated if Steam were a separate company. Take that only as analysis. It doesn't matter how much I trust Valve or how trustworthy Valve actually is - it's just perception within segments of the publishing and development community that, I guess, no one is really talking about. I'm on record in this article saying how I personally trust Valve. I was attempting to comment on perception from some angles of the industry. I also believe that gamers and customers and anyone making games using 3rd party digital distribution systems would be greatly benefited if Steam had some viable competitors. Competition generally drives higher quality products and services at lower prices. I can't see how anyone could argue against that point. If we love Steam, we should hope that as competition appears that it prompts the Steam folks to go faster and better towards improving the service and the pricing. In spite of the implication made in the original source article, I do not want Microsoft to control digital distribution on PC, but believe they (and others) could enter the space if they wanted to and help the competitive landscape and even, perhaps, help to standardize the landscape a bit. I believe that because Valve is a game maker that generally "gets it" I think there's a lot of value to the position they have and I'm really excited about the risk they took and the foresight Valve showed in paving the way there. These are not mutually exclusive feelings and they are all honest and forthright.

Re:Comment from the source

[Megaweapon]

As a guy who reads, trusts and respects slashdot and the community here

You lost me.

Re:Comment from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

From an industry perspective of digital distribution on the PC, I think Steam is doing it the best right now. They're in front and they're really getting value out of their leadership position with digital distribution on the PC. ...

I also believe that gamers and customers and anyone making games using 3rd party digital distribution systems would be greatly benefited if Steam had some viable competitors. ...

In spite of the implication made in the original source article, I do not want Microsoft to control digital distribution on PC, but believe they (and others) could enter the space if they wanted to and help the competitive landscape and even, perhaps, help to standardize the landscape a bit.

So Direct2Drive, GamersGate, GOG.com, Impulse and Metaboli are not viable competitors in your eyes?

Re:Comment from the source

[caladine]

I don't know about you, but Steam is the only one I've ever actually used. I've heard of D2D, but probably won't ever use it. I haven't even heard of the others you have listed.

Re:Comment from the source

[RiotingPacifist]

As a guy who reads, trusts and respects slashdot and the community here,

That is where you are going wrong, we are in fact 90% self righteous troll, fortunately I'm part of the 10% that responds to logic and completely agree that it would be better for everybody involved if steam/valve split. If they do not they will have to take great care to not end up running afoul of anti-trust laws as they are a major part of several markets distribution,PC FPS (particularly at a pro level),engine licensor.

Re:Comment from the source

[AugstWest]

That Randy is such a rebel boat rocker.

Re:Comment from the source

[BikeHelmet]

Impulse is really good, too. I buy from Impulse, Steam, and GOG.

GOG is just a website - an impressive website. It has DRM free installers for all their games. ;)

Re:Comment from the source

[eht]

D2D is very simple, you give them money, they give you a link to download the app, no download manager or anything to install except the game itself. I have only purchased one game through them btu they seem fine, if I want I can download the game again, plus the game I bought had 0 DRM on it.

Other games may have DRM and or other issues.

Re:Comment from the source

[BikeHelmet]

Would Stardock have to split too, then? What about Microsoft and their next XBox, or Apple?

Re:Comment from the source

[Chaos Incarnate]

GOG only sells old titles, so it's out for recent onces. Metaboli doesn't appear to actually sell games. So that leaves Direct2Drive, GamersGate, and Impulse.

If all you want to do is buy games, those three are sufficient. But in terms of the end-user experience, they don't hold a candle to Steam, which is what's holding them back from being viable competitors.

Re:Comment from the source

[__aahurc460]

I really don't understand where you're coming from when you say there need to be other viable options of digital distribution services. There are. Most notably Direct2Drive. Now maybe D2D doesn't offer a "community" portion like Steam does, but who's stopping them? Honestly, the most viable option for them would be to buy out or cooperate with X-Fire and integrate its buddy messaging services with a D2D storefront and then add on some unique features. I made my Steam account on Sept 12, 2003. I hated it in beta and I hated it then. But Valve made a huge amount of changes. Many of them coming from community suggestions. About a year after launch it took on a new face and _really_ caught on. So let's face it. Valve came up with something truly original and molded it into exactly what the consumer wanted. Anyone else is free to do the same. But the question remains, who has ever done better than Valve in Valve's field of operations? Good luck.

Re:Comment from the source

[RiotingPacifist]

I'm not suggesting we force them to split up (well until they break the law anyway), Do you think it would hurt competition to have steam/valve untied?
I don't know about stardock, but I definetly think if xbox360 was not tied to windows we would be in a better situation (the same for tying xbox live to the xbox and the software not allowing 3rd party wireless controllers via bluetooth, etc)

Now that isn't to say we should force a break up of MS, there are no grounds to attack the xbox division AFAIK. However valve are in a position where they have 2 thriving pretty independent businesses and it would be great if they split off steam to avoid any potential conflict of interest (also cheaper than having to buy a few judges when the court rules you have to).

Re:Comment from the source

[Undead Waffle]

I don't see the "trust" issue. And I don't see first person shooters as "competing" with each other. If it's a good game people will buy it regardless of whether they have bought another game in that genre. The only games that really "compete" are the ones that have failed to significantly innovate. And how is this conflict of interest crap different from EA owning one development studio but also publishing and distributing games from other studios?

I actually think there is a benefit for everyone in keeping things the way they are. Valve's reputation is affected by both their service and their games. This gives them incentive to do both well. Also, if players like Microsoft stepped in as a competitor to Steam an independent company would have a hard time competing. Especially since Microsoft "competing" in that market would probably involve as many exclusivity deals as they can pull off.

I also disagree with your idea of "standardizing the landscape". Many people feel Steam's DRM system is reasonably fair. What if the competition doesn't agree? Should we standardize on one of the more obtrusive DRM systems? No, I say let these digital distribution systems implement their own methods and have the customers decide who does it right. We're still at a point where customer expectations are not set in stone.

Re:Comment from the source

[bignetbuy]

What a crock.

Attacking Steam won't earn you points here...or in the gamer community. Steam is fact now.

To introduce these "trust" and "anti-competitive" perceptions regarding Steam then provide not a SINGLE, SOLITARY fact to support such absurd claims makes you a piece of FUD. Talking in vague terms like "perceptions" and "angles of industry". You should be ashamed of yourself. Your initial article and this half-baked follow-up are nothing but a third-rate attempt at passing off FUD as fact. Slashdot isn't fooled by it. Neither am I.

Competition is good. Others have tried game distribution. They have failed. Steam gets it right time and time again. Attacking them because you don't want to pay some percentage for distribution is both dishonest and sleazy.

In closing, I will not be purchasing your game.

Re:Comment from the source

[mordenkhai]

Randy,
I can respect that you are coming from the perspective of a competitor, and commenting on how you would feel better about the distribution channel if it wasn't directly conjoined with one of your biggest competitors. I can really understand that concept.

As a customer, I hope Steam *never* separates from Valve. I trust them, as well as I can trust any corporation, as they have in the past demonstrated that they *really* want my cash, and are willing to prove it. They do it in a variety of ways, creating top notch games, having an easy method for purchase, letting me give away copies of games I already own if I get a second copy in a new bundle, allow me to re-download games regardless of me losing a disk, keep their DRM pretty much out of my way, and often have 50% off sales.

The only reason I know what Borderlands is, is because of the Steam advertisements. I work for a company who goes into retailers and services xBox displays, and evangelizes new releases. Last month it was all ODST, this month Modern Warfare 2 bundle. I haven't heard anything about Borderlands. I'm not suggesting that your game is too small to care about, I am suggesting that one of these channels is giving you more help than the other. That would be the one you think takes too much of a share.

Could there be more Steam like services? Sure there could be. I don't personally want another one. I don't need one. Not until someone shows me how that would benefit me. Stardock is ok, I have a handfull of their games. I prefer the Steam system, I actually like the unified friends lists. I'll buy more games from Stardock, but I'm in no rush to a 3rd, 4th or 5th service.

If you are worried that Steam doesn't earn it's share, then don't use it. If Steam sales are not good enough kick them to the curb. You won't get my dollars, but I'm only a single customer. If you are serious enough who knows, maybe Steam will change their policy towards developers. Those Steam folks seem to really like making money, and they tend to be pretty good at doing things customer would like, I suspect they would do their best even if the customer was another business and not an end user. As many people have said Gearbox can start their own. I thought Valve was weird when they launched Steam. They proved the value of their service to me. Can you do better?

One last note. I really would suggest you do not claim Steam is a "money grab" when you are essentially complaining that you should be making more money from me the customer. Your service is definitely not as valuable to me, at this point. I don't think I have played any of your previous games, but perhaps I am wrong. To say they are "exploiting" is really disingenuous.

Re:Comment from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, I can smell the Steam rising up from that one. Marketing zombie. Shoot on sight.

Re:Comment from the source

[Wallslide]

I believe a lot of the innovation and features visible in Steam is driven by Valve's direct experience with creating and expanding their games. From the basic technology for easy updates of games, to easy modification distribution, to being able to easily store game configuration and items server side - these are all features that were important to Valve for their own games, and are now part of (or becoming part of) the vast number of tools available to 3rd parties releasing on Steam. Even things like the in-game IM client was born out of Valve wanting to have such functionality in Counter-Strike (the "Tracker" beta which existed way before Steam was proof of this). What I'm getting at is that I believe the drive for innovation and experimentation in Steam would be lost on a company which solely viewed Steam as an asset for enabling digital distribution. If Steam and Valve parted ways, I have no doubt that while it's current momentum and leadership position would give it success in the short to mid-term, it's future potential would be harmed.

Re:Comment from the source

[Blaaguuu]

I fail to see where Randy made any absurd claims in the interview, or in his follow-up. He was just stating his opinions on something he obviously cares about, and has a lot more insight into than most people. I for one appreciate him bringing the subject up, as it is something I have thought about a lot. I too love Steam, and I want to see it keep growing - but at the same time, I would hate to see it alone totally take over PC gaming, leaving one company in charge, like with the various console platforms. I like what I have seen and heard from the people running Impulse, and I hope they can gain some ground, but they too are run by a company that also develops their own games. In closing, I already have your game pre-ordered on Steam.

Re:Comment from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

"fortunately I'm part of the 10%"

By my estimate, 98.6% would say that they are.

Re:Comment from the source

[Seakip18]

I'd like to think I'm 80% the 10% and 20% the 90%. But that's just my self righteousness.

I agree.

They are essentially going to control the means to production. A game developer isn't going to be able to move a title UNLESS it goes thru Steam. Just like in days gone past, game retailers were the only place to get your fix. Now, however, thanks to one website, many reached, you only need one place to establish your dominance. Not a physical location in every town to duke it out with the competition.

Steam did this, and did it early enough to essentially make the competition realize they can't win....which means we(customer) lose eventually. Steam just did too good of a job with enough luck of bandwidth being widely avaliable.

Re:Comment from the source

[BikeHelmet]

Do you think it would hurt competition to have steam/valve untied?

No - but it would hurt prices.

Re:Comment from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like sour grapes in the Maximum PC article, and now some fast back pedaling after getting some bad reactions from Valve from your clearly derogatory opinions towards Valve and Steam. I'm still pissed at Gearbox for never delivering on their promise to fix Opposing Force mod bugs....and we are supposed to feel your pain now that you are hoping for Borderland support? Nope. You stepped in it, now deal with it like we had to with your poor product support.

Re:Comment from the source

[Klaus_1250]

Impulse is good, IF you live in North America. Many (popular) titles on Impulse are US, Canada and Mexico only.

Re:Comment from the source

[thetoadwarrior]

You've made money off other people's work via the HL ports/expansion packs and the halo port amongst others. I have no problem with that and love Opposing force, blue shift and some of the BiA games.

So I do think it's a bit hypocritical. Sure Gearbox did dev work on thosse titles and deserve to get paid. Valve may not add input into the dev of the games on Steam but that network doesn't run itself for free so of course they should get some cash.

It just sounds like a case of sour grapes because you have to start making original titles, which aren't guaranteed to make as much and you don't really want to pony up the cash for Steam despite the fact Steam is promoting your games and enhancing the likely hood that it will sell. I certainly didn't know about it before. Now I just have to decide if it will be good enough to ignore the fact at least one of its devs is a whingy fuss bag on the subject of Steam before deciding whether or not to buy the game on Steam. which is the only place I buy PC games these days.

Re:Comment from the source

[RiotingPacifist]

[citation needed] This isn't like os X and apple, where customers would be much better of if ox X were not tied to apple hw, however apple would probably die and os X wouldn't make the cash to keep going. Steam is making money, valve's games are making money, so why would spinning steam of into a seperate compnay hurt prices?
administrative overhead? With the profits they're making a slight overhead is negligible.
steam having to charge valve games? Steam already gets it's cut of game sales, if they split it would just be done formally and it would be the same rate other companies get.

Besides, a slight price hit (not that i accept there would be one), is reasonable price to pay for the benefit of not having a large digital distributor tied to a single game company.

Re:Comment from the source

[Xphile101361]

I don't think Impulse is the solution the source is looking for. Why? Impulse is also ran by a game company, Stardock. Not as big as valve... unless you are in their niche market, then they are huge.

Re:Comment from the source

[BikeHelmet]

True, true.

But why not? Most publishers have released their own games. Perhaps only a few - unless you're Ubisoft or Microsoft - but they've still done it.

Why not Valve and Stardock, too?

Re:Comment from the source

[BikeHelmet]

Steam is playing the role of publisher, correct?

I don't see why companies like Microsoft and Ubisoft can publish games and also make them, but Valve can't? The medium might be slightly different, but it seems to me you're not applying your sentiments to enough companies.

Re:Comment from the source

[bignetbuy]

He introduces bogus issues of "trust" and "conflict of interest" and you can't see the FUD, aka absurd claims? He can't cite ANY case where Steam and Valve have collaborated to screw a publisher. NOT ONE.

Then, while he's bemoaning the "lack of competition" in the industry, he notes that Microsoft has some digital distribution service. Which is it? Does Steam have competition or not?

(The answer is yes...but the competitors just can't measure up)

He's entitled to his opinion as you are to yours. Spreading FUD earns him no points in the industry and hopefully, costs him customers.

Pushing for more competition is good. When Amazon dove into MP3 space, a lot of things started changing with Apple's iTMS. Competition is good. Attacking Steam over absurd and bogus claims of trust and anti-competitiveness is just wrong.

Hope you enjoy the game.

Re:Comment from the source

[sg_oneill]

Your misunderstanding the point here. People are not accusing steam of misproprietous software, rather they are making a similar sort of point, say, some australians make about the queen. Just because the current queen isn't a dictator in behavior, doesnt mean that theres not a risk that we have an absolute executive who COULD be a dictator if she wanted (well sort of , constitution and all that). And we don't know that King William, demented with rage at the early loss of his mother wont declare australia a theme park and make us all walk around in rubber animal costumes for brits to laugh and throw rocks at. Well again constitution, but you get the abstract point I'm making. Just because the current king is enlightened, this tells us nothing about his successors.

You only need to look at the iPhone app store to see where the problem is. As an iphone app developer, theres entire classes of software Im not allowed to write. Up until very recently I couldnt write a VOIP app that worked over 3G/Edge. I cant port firefox because it breaks their 'substantial similarity' rule about not competing with apple apps. So on. Now so far steam has been very good and hasn't nixed any of , say, half life's competitors. But lets say steam does end up being the primary game distribution channel, if they wanted to they could say "Right HL3 is coming out. No first person shooters for the next 3 months" and theres jack shit anyone could do, short of calling in the hounds from the various competition watchdogs which might well go "Meh... computer games are for kids" and ignore it, as regulators oft are prone to do.

Theres other problems too. Valve have to pay precisely zero dollars in fees to a competitor to release a product on steam. Anyone else has to pony up. Thats an immediate unfair competitive advantage.

Nobody is saying steam as it stands is a bad thing. In truth its great (well unless your an aussie with one of those horrible 500meg download limits) , but the potential for abuse is massive, so its not FUD to talk about it before it becomes a problem.

Re:Comment from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Valve has done incredible work. When everyone else thought Steam is going to be vaporware or a joke, they held their ground and re doing great. Granted, it took some awesome games, namely the entire Half Life series to get them started, but they should enjoy the fruits of their labor. Eventually there will be competition, once others realize there is enough of a pie to get a good return, but until then, live on Steam, make as much money as you can.

With Steam, I'll never buy retail agian.

Counterpoints

[BinaryOpty]

Note that there's already been some counterpoints against this story posted elsewhere on the internet:
Counterpoint from John Gibson
Counterpoint from Derek Smart

Slashdot instabilities

[jimmydevice]

Wow, /. seems to be even more unstable tonight. Refresh pulls up different discussions, dropping some seemingly at random. Gud gob Earl.

Steam is quite good at times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, sometimes it can be just a tad slow at times, but usually there is good reason behind it, such as, new updates released to games. You know, this is a good thing here too. Steam keeps all the games up to date for everyone.

Not to mention, Steam does have good deals on games at times.

It's good to be a PC. :)

Valve RIAA now the GIAA?

[teknosapien]

it it the new recording industry almost sounds as if they are taking over the record industries business model

Gimme a second here

[gencha]

You think that if I pay money for a product that can be altered at an any time through the distributor or where the distributor can revoke my right to use the product at any time is somehow bad? I can not believe what I am hearing! Here I was thinking that it was totally awesome to buy a product which I could never resell nor would I have any control over. I personally think that Steam is an awesome platform and am very happy that all these DRM practices strayed far away from it.

Anticompetitive

[ledow]

Does Steam prevent another company setting up a similar service?
Do they force their users into an unfair contract against their will?
Do they force the software authors into an unfair contract against their will?
Does Steam intefere with, or say that you can't use, other similar services?

No? Then it's probably not anticompetitive. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's anticompetitive. Just because they are the only decent online to-your-desktop electronic software distribution network that is popular doesn't mean they are stopping others trying the same. It's only when people play dirty that it's anticompetitive - charging money that people willingly pay isn't necessarily anticompetitive on it's own. If the contracts were unfair, software authors wouldn't sign them. If they could get a better deal elsewhere, they would. But the fact is that ALL the other similar schemes, I've never used, I don't know anyone that has used them, and I have no intention of using them because they just aren't as good.

Anti-competition laws only apply to abuses of such power. It's not like Steam has snatched up every distribution network. It's not like they force other vendors out of business through anything more than providing a better product and getting the best software houses on board. It's not like they force you to install Steam on every computer you sell.

If you have evidence to the contrary and it's hurting your business - take it to court. There's big money to be made in that. Chances are, though, that people are griping that because Valve know they have the best distribution model that people will accept less money overall if they can get onto Steam, because they will make more sales. Pricing yourself as the best isn't the same and forcing your customers to buy.

Thoughts from a game dev

[appleprophet]

As someone who has an upcoming indie game appearing on Steam, here are my thoughts.

First of all, there is no shortage of competition for Steam. Steam is definitely the biggest, but they are not doing anything anti-competitve.

Unlike the console market, it is not uncommon to see a game sold on Steam, D2D, Impulse, and the 15+ other contendors simultaneously, from day one, in addition to being sold by the creator directly. In fact, even earlier than day one, due to the trend of preorders.

If Steam pressured developers into exclusive deals (which they could easily do, due to their size), then sure, I would be kind of pissed. The fact of the matter is that Valve isn't doing that -- they are simply acting like a big, friendly store where developers can put their game for sale. They have been great dudes so far.

They don't have a monopoly

[Random5]

There are other digital distribution systems which are still common names and the market is still developing. Off the top of my head I know of direct2drive and I use Stardock's Impulse system when I can to buy games. It's a lot better than steam, not always cheaper for big games but you can add physical copies of any games you own to it, have it manage updates, your keys, reinstallation when you want without using the physical media. Has a lot less DRM, doesn't need to be running for you to run it's games. Not that i'm hugely against steam, it does some things I don't like (automatically updates games - not an issue now that steam is unmetered with my isp but it used to be, restricts by country when certain publishers demand it).Though being Australian and having been ripped off by publishers through retail (90 to 110 $AUD for a new game, 1 AUD averages 0.8 USD but it varies a lot - 0.9 at the moment, dipped into the low 0.6's at one point), having $50-$60 games from most publishers is great, though there is one which kicked up a stink and made steam charge more to Australians so it wasn't cheaper than retail anymore).

why so many "not a monopoly" posts?

[RiotingPacifist]

Wow it looks like if a company is not MS or google then nobody should even question the conflict of interests they have here on slashdot!? The guy has some good points, agree/disagree but give me a break on all the "they have competitors"/"build your own nobody is stopping you!" posts, I mean most of those posts are just repeating previous ones, of 109 posts (most of them "they have competitors",etc) only 1 has any real analysis/content!

Re:why so many "not a monopoly" posts?

[Entropius]

The issue is that monopolies are only bad when customers wind up with a sub-par product, or get otherwise screwed, because nobody can compete with the monopoly.

This is the case with Microsoft and, some people worry, with Google. But digital distribution systems aren't hard to build. If Steam sucks or treats customers like assholes, people can just make another one. Don't have the cash for massive servers? Use bittorrent or similar.

Re:why so many "not a monopoly" posts?

[RiotingPacifist]

I was bitching about the shear number of crap post, even giving you credit for a some sort of content in your post (as a reply completely OT though) out of 209 there are still less than a dozen posts with any content the rest are just going on about drm/not a monopoly/how much they love steam.

In reply to your points,

The issue is that monopolies are only bad when customers wind up with a sub-par product,

I do agree however I feel it would be better if steam/valve split before they did anything to make them bad. For example without any external regulation, most of the hedge funds in London voluntarily setup a code of practice to prevent stuff like conflics of interest. My point is that you don't need to be forced to do something good for customers companies can and do make changes themselves. In this case i think steam can and should be rolled off before any conflicts of interest arises and before they are a monopoly in any legal sense (let alone real sense)

people can just make another one. Don't have the cash for massive servers? Use bittorrent or similar.

It's not hard to set-up a web advertising (text adverts are low bw), search engine (there are many), webmail (there are just as many) and source code hosting (if you don't have the bandwidth use git or bittorrent) company, however that doesn't stop google being classed as a monopoly and being under the magnifying glass.

Re:why so many "not a monopoly" posts?

[indiechild]

I'm curious: if Steam were to switch to distributing games with no DRM whatsoever (like GOG.com for example), would you still consider them a monopoly?

Personally, I don't consider Steam a monopoly, and I still use it even though it sometimes annoys me and I was burned once -- I bought the Thai version of PC Orange Box for cheap and Valve blocked it from activating because I'm in Australia. I mostly just buy Valve games on Steam though.

develop for the Linux or Palm Pre then... lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying "If you don't like it just don't make games for Steam" is a bit like saying "if you don't like it, just don't make apps for the iPhone". But it kind of sucks to not be granted access to a particularly large market dominated by one company due to crappy policies.

Then again, if you wanted access to the market, you should have invented Steam or the iPhone. I must be at that point in my life where I'm becoming a republican or something.

While both companies completely control their own store (and most would argue rightfully so), it's granted that Apple controls the iPhone more than Valve controls a gamer's PC. There are other options, but it's a bit like saying the Palm Pre is another option. When there are no users there, it really isn't an option, economically, for a developer to target one of those alternative platforms.

I mean you'd might as well be developing games these days for Linux if you're not targeting Steam as your distribution platform. You'll make about the same amount of money as if you went with Direct2Drive or Impulse or a homegrown distribution.

I don't think I'm fully a republican yet, because I do believe that when any company controls a sufficient amount of a market in a powerful enough way, they have some responsibility to enable competition. I don't think they have to hit monopoly levels before they should be demonstrating that responsibility. But I'm also against forcing their hand, as I believe market forces will ultimately prevail. If Steam blocks out competition but yet still succeeds, the competition must suck.

Look at UFC vs. Affliction. The UFC pissed a lot of people off, so they had no shortage of fighters, financial support and big-name support. Until they screwed up and ran it straight into the ground, it was poised to start putting some real pressure on the UFC. Had the 3rd fight happened with Fedor and the event had been a success instead of a cataclysmic failure, I think we'd see a very different, very partitioned MMA fight world today, with UFC on one side and Affliction on the other.

Let Randy build his own damned product

[holophrastic]

If Mr. Randy thinks there should be more competition, then Randy should build one on his own dime -- not try to squash those who have already done so.

When I build successful services, and I choose to charge for them, I don't like it when other people try to make my life more difficult by forcing me to charge less because they feel entitled to pay less. What the hell?

Free markets are exactly that -- you don't like the price, you don't have to pay it. You can offer to pay the developers directly. And they can turn you down too.

Build your own, make it a success, and then complain that you're charging too much. Only then can you determine the price of something.

And by the way, I'd have bet that Steam was originally designed for Valve games, maybe even exclusively so. I wouldn't be surprised if Valve openned to other developers as a service to benefit mankind. However, I'm not surprised that they charge for it. I'm wouldn't be surprised if they charge as much as they can get away with charging.

I do the same.

Steam is the best thing since sliced bread

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for customers of Steam (read : anyone who might has a game he wants to market) it might be. But for customers of those customers (read : those who buy those games) its far from that.

I recently bought a copy of Fear 2. Alas, when I tried to install it I got a "Fear.dll missing" error-message, maybe because my game-machine is simple not connected to the 'Net ?

And pardon me, but there is, for me, absolutily no way I'm going to put money down for a DVD contaning some software I can't even use, everytime I want to install it (and maybe even more often ?), without contacting some far-away server from whom I can beg to please give me the content I allready payed for. Especially not when I'm known to enjoy games of yester-decade as much (or maybe even more) as the current games -- It would (most likely) be impossible for me to re-install games of a few years old onto my machine (and not because of hardware incompatibilities). Either the game will not be supported by Steam anymore (licence-to-play expired ?), I would have to prove I'm the first buyer probably by sending the origional bill to them, or even Steam has ceased to exist, leaving me with a "bought" game that has become worthless without me even knowing when it happens/has happened (throw a standard dice, divide by 2 or even 3 and add 2 to 3 years. That is, if you're lucky, as it could happen next week).

Oh yeah, I recently (last week) bought Fear I (the origional, first version) too (I allready played part of it on a friends computer). Too bad that it suddenly cried that there "is an update available", a message which won't go away (pops up every time I want to continue playing).

The funny thing is that an update will invalidate any saved-games you allready have. To add to this monkey business the site where the update should be gotten from is non-existant anymore. If this company can't even support its own product a few years (or, in my case, a week after I bought it (from a store) ) I allready have bad feelings about an external party like Steam ....

New business models

[Draeconix]

This is an interesting observation. It parallels something I have been considering in regards to the Rock Band and Guitar Hero series, in fact anything which fundamentally is not different from it's predecessor but which is continuously released. For example, the Rock Band franchise illustrates my point nicely. The fundamental game from RB to RB2 to RB:Beatles has not changed. Sure they updated the software with some tweaks (isn't that really just a patch) but the way the game is played stayed pretty much the same. The only thing that has changed is the music available. For those of us that play any of the music based games this is what really maters. I could care less if I am playing RB or GH, I just want to play the songs. I look at this observation about Steam in a similar way, all we really want to do is play the games. We could care less if it is Steam, XBLA, or any other service (as long as it works of course). Why not treat Steam (or the RB or GH franchise) more like a piece of hardware than software or service. Also, if Steam is just the most popular, and by that I mean most user friendly, way to distribute games digitally why not license the technology out to other companies which can then offer their own service with their own selection of games. Personally I used to do a lot of gaming on PC but not much ever online so maybe I am a little out of touch with the online gaming community but when I look around the gaming business, as well as the entire business world for that mater, I see old business models and outdated technology. Isn't it time for us to embrace these new technologies and start thinking outside of the box again? Digital distribution is the wave of the future and just as Netflix is streaming movies directly to a TV set with a little box, Steam will be doing the same eventually (PC or otherwise). In response to another point that someone made about conflict of interest, the conflict of interest is a good reason to spin off Steam into it's own company.

Who is John Galt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, how is Valve "exploiting" people?
How is Steam "not fair?"

If someone has a better service to offer, why don't they just offer it? Valve isn't forcing anyone to use Steam. Nor are they forcing anyone to do anything. They are trading the product of their mind with the people willing and able to purchase it, and I see nothing wrong with this.

It's just like Microsoft. If Windows is of poor quality to you, don't use it. There are a multitude of alternatives. That's how the capitalism works.

Mr Pitchford, your views disgust me.

I don't know about anti-competitive...

[Trogre]

...but I would say it's fulfilling its purpose very well - pushing DRM to the masses.

And people even here seem more than happy to swallow it up.

Whatever!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is absolutely absurd! Direct2drive is a very healthy competitor to Steam. However steam doesnt require me to re-activate every single time I reinstall the game! I can install it on any computer and still access my library. I like steam, because they offer a superior distribution system! This guy is just an idiot.

What we should be outraged for

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that Steam has turned your game sale into a rental.

Re:What we should be outraged for

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off and go and find out what the words "sale", "rental" and "software license" mean before you ever post here again.

Steam isn't the only source of these...

[Anonymous Coward]

> There's one other thing that's revived PC gaming for me, and digital distribution does it by default. Apart from games I bought on Steam or from GOG, only one of them doesn't force me to insert the %^&*ing CD in order to play.

Try games from PopCap, like Plants vs. Zombies. I have the non-Steam version. There's no CD-check. No anything, actually. I didn't do anything but put it in the computer and click "install" before playing the game. And I bought another couple of games from that vendor because I was completely shocked when I found out that I wouldn't need a no-CD crack or to worry about DRM breaking my system.

Steam should be more open

[Anonymous Coward]

I have also seen this problem with Steam. I like it a lot, but it is to closed. I'd like to see Valve open it up more, for example allow no-DRM games. In a perfect world, Steam should be free software and use an open protocol with the possibility of connecting to multiple servers from different companies and organisations...

...yeah, not likely. :-/

a rebuttal

[DragonTHC]

First, saying that steam is a money grab is as asinine as saying that physical media publishing is a money grab. Of course it is. It no more exploits small developers than 2K Games, Ubisoft, EA, or any other software publisher does. Which is to say, yes they all do. Attacking Valve specifically because Gabe and Doug had the foresight and vision to get a foothold in the digital distribution market before it became popular is just plain whiny. Valve's domination over the digital distribution realm is not due to anti-competitive behavior. It's due to a superior service which adapted to the market long before traditional publishers' white haired executives realized they were losing sales to steam. By then, the best option was to publish under steam. Does steam take a larger share than they should? Probably not, given the service they provide. Using physical media presented problems for consumers. Publishers, already wary of online piracy saw digital distribution as counter-intuitive. Valve presented steam as both an answer to piracy and a solution to issues with physical media. But for Valve it was much more than that. By publishing their own games, they effectively avoided issues with traditional publishers. Consumers wanted to get their games online. Traditional publishers wouldn't provide them. Blaming Valve for steam's popularity is both a compliment and ludicrous. The consumers wanted the service.

Second, there is plenty of competition out there for digital distribution. None of it provides quite the same value as steam. Traditional publishers tried their own flavor of digital distribution. Some were very difficult to use and offered only one download of the game. None offered the community features that steam did at the time. Steam continues to improve the service at no additional cost to either consumers or developers. Only Stardock is coming close to Valve. Stardock was offering community services long before their Impulse DD store launched. Other DD game stores are web-based and don't even come close to the services and value that steam provides. So forgive me if I don't share your disdain for steam.

I thought the idea was stupid when I first heard about steam in 2002. I didn't see the potential.

That being said, the only dangerous part is the faith we place in the service after investing thousands of dollars on games on steam. If steam shuts down or becomes defunct, our games go poof. Granted, we have the option to backup our games, though they only work if connecting to the steam service. So the dangerous part is also the most valuable part.

Why go for digital distribution?

[Aceticon]

I buy my games ate physical game stores for a very simple reason:
- If they don't work or they're not what's advertised I can bring them back and get a refund.

This is true for any game I buy: there's no need to investigate the Software License of a game before I buy it (like in Steam) to make sure I can get a refund

Try doing that with digital distribution or even online stores.

Anti-competitive? You must be joking

[Anonymous Coward]

There's always Bittorrent.

Pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

Operation Flashpoint : Dragon Rising

Play.com £17.99
Steam - Was £34.99 now £29.00

Guess what i think....

Pirate Bay

[syousef]

Anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to start up their own, competing service.

Like the pirate bay? ;-)

#1 in Europe and Asia

[syousef]

My digital distribution channel list for work has 10 names on it and Steam isn't even #1. While it may dominate in the US it's by no means the largest channel internationally.

In Europe and Asia I hear #1 is The Pirate Bay ;-)

Diametrically Opposed Arguments

[allcaps]

"I don't trust Valve." later in article: "I trust Valve" - both said by Randy Pitchfork. I can't remember you guys, is there a difference between putting your foot in your mouth and sticking your head up your ass?

mef

[Anonymous Coward]

"Steam", "The Pirate Bay", "Potatoh", "Potahto"