Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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.
SSC
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!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
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.