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

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?

[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.