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UK Games Retailers Threaten Boycott of Steam Games
RogueyWon writes "Games industry trade site MCV is reporting that two major UK video games retailers are threatening to ban Steam-enabled PC games from their stores. The as-yet-unnamed retailers are apparently concerned that by selling Steam games, they are pointing their customers towards a competitor and will by trying to bring pressure upon publishers to strip Steam functionality from their games. This could prove an interesting test of where the real power lies at the retail end of PC gaming."
More sales for Steam then?
Sort of. Having worked at Gamestop in the past, I can say that their revenue comes from resale, not first time sales. If it wasn't for the face that broadband isn't accessible to everyone, there would be PC games sold in cases. The profit earned on new game sales is negligible. I'm assuming these companies work in a similar fashion so not selling PC games in the store isn't going hurt their bottom line very much. However, this will prevent some customers from ever entering the store which is one thing that helps drive sales.
While this is true for most games, it's not true for all. New games like Just-Cause actually have steam programmed in to them. They won't work without steam, and you must install it as part of the installer. Once you install the game it's instantly linked to your steam account and you no longer need the disk. I think this is the type of steam integration they are complaining about.
Having used Direct2Drive off and on over some years, and even within the last couple months, I assure you that what will push D2D out of business will be D2D. Their install experience is an inconsistent frustrating mess, they do nothing to remove CD keys from the activation process, and then they add another key on top of it, and finding the ones that actually work for both of these activations is a unique little puzzle to solve for each game you download. Oh on top of it, the activation has to run as administrator or it simply doesn't work -- this information is only gradually bubbling up through their support pages. Their idea of support is to send you to the publisher who will of course have no idea exactly how D2D broke their game.
Oh and if you're dumb enough to use Comrade (which they've been packing in as a drive-by install of some games not on D2D now) then it will "helpfully" find your other games, such as Steam, and offer to overwrite them with patches. Since Comrade can't install anything transparently, at least it isn't going to break your game automatically, yet. And all this, I've yet said nothing of Comrade's store, which pretty much just sends you to the web page -- but the fact that it might prevent you from buying a game off D2D makes me construe this lack as a feature.
Now I do agree that Steam could still become an abusive monopoly, and does need competition to push them to continue to innovate and keep its quality high, but D2D doesn't exactly set a high bar. I could see Impulse being that competition, but not D2D: I will dance on Direct2Drive's grave when I'm done pissing on it.
You could, in theory, have a seperate Steam account for each game.
That's against the Steam TOS and it could cause you to lose access to all your games. Don't forget, as with all DRM schemes, Steam is the true owner of all your games, and they could choose to boot you off for any reason. They are an awesome service so far, but who's to say if you'll actually be able to access your games in 10 years? If that's important to you, then you should probably go old-fashioned and get a disc.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
But on the other hand things like Steam (or worse AC2 style online "activation") are killing the used PC game market for ALL of us not just Gamestop. And don't forget this is DRM folks, which means you play THEIR game by THEIR rules, because YOU never own it! Want to mod it? Not allowed unless they say so. Want to sell it? Not allowed. I don't see how this is ANY different from the Apple walled garden approach, since they have all the rights to do as they please AFTER the sale.
So while I think Gamestop can be serious asses, let us not forget that ultimately all these Steam style distribution methods make for a great run around our first sale rights, and make every "purchase" nothing more than a really expensive rental. They can pull your account, take your games away from you, they have ALL the control in their walled garden while you have none. That is why I have been putting my money where my mouth is and been shopping at Good Old Games where at least I OWN what I pay for.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Impulse still falls short of Steam in my use. There are some serious problems with their backup system. A backup can only be restored to an matching OS install for some reason, which makes no sense. I tried to backup all my games in Impulse when going from XP to Win 7, only to find out the backups were entirely useless. Of course I could still get my games back through downloads, but 50 GB of downloads is nothing to sniff at even on broadband.
Steam on the other hand was about as transparent and easy as it could get. Simply copy /steamapps folder somewhere safe, reinstall steam on the new OS, and copy /steamapps back in. Everything basically just works, and I'm saved the re-download hassle, fortunate considering I'm probably around 100 GB in steam at this point.
Fear is the mind killer.
And as a final thought: How many games actually need to have Steam if they're being sold as physical copies? Wouldn't it be preferable for the gamers if the game disc just installed single player mode without requiring the user has Steam, with the understanding that they can register their key/install Steam for multiplayer?
They can't do that, because they're using Steam's DRM instead of licensing DRM from another party. Yes, yes, we're all prefer no DRM, but that's not going to happen.
And DRM licensing isn't free. It would cost them money to have the game able to use 'Steam or Starforce', and it would be pretty tricky to do. (They'd probably have to swap executables.)
Incidentally, in the past, games have done what you said. For example, Neverwinter Nights originally had some sort of CD-based DRM, but when they came out with the DVD including the expansion packs, not only did they remove DRM from that, but the online patching removed the DRM from older games.
But to play online on various third party servers, you have to have separate product keys. IIRC, they used to be checked against some master server, but I think they patched that out, also, and now the only rule is 'can't use identical product keys on the same server'.
Of course, they relaxed all those rules when the game was years old.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Actually they do refund non-functional games - I've gotten refunds myself from Game, twice. They will try to squirm out of it but all you have to say is that the game does not work in your system and is thus "Not fit for purpose" (this expression has a special meaning as per UK-consumer laws).
Their hole deceitfull approach to making people believe that they can get no refunds at all is say that they will "Refund within 30 days if not open" making the buyer think that (that's the deceitfull part) they cannot get a refund at all if the package is open. In fact, as per UK consumer laws, you can get a refund at any time if the product is "Not fit for purpose" (i.e. does not work, does not do what it says it does, does not work as a "reasonable" person would expect) - what Game is offering is the possibility of getting a refund within 30 days without specific reason if unopened in addition to any refund you might be entitled under your consumer rights for a defective, non-functional or misrepresented product.
I suggest you check the Trading Standards website to learn more about your rights as a consumer. You'll find that there are a lot of rights that you have as a buyer, which of course, sellers will never tell you about.
PS: I learned all of this because at some point I had my own company selling products online - so I read all about the rights my customers had ... and about the rights I had as a seller.
So as a user, Steam offers some value:
1) You don't have to worry about losing your DVD. Once registered with Steam, the game is on your account and can always be redownloaded. If you lose the DVD, no problem, just download it again (Steam will also allow you to create a new backup DVD, if you wish).
2) For games with an online component that make use of Steam's services properly, Steam can handle aspects of match making, such as allowing you to join a server your friends are playing on. The game has to be designed to use it, of course, but the service is provided. Also in all games it provides IM communication with your friends, that functions as an overlay that does not interfere with the game.
3) Likewise Steam allows for small amounts of data to be saved to the Steam Cloud. Things like save games, keyboard mapping, and so on can be saved meaning that when you go to another computer, that all follows you.
4) Steam provides globally viewable achievements. Maybe you think that is silly, but people love achievements. It provides and easy interface so games can grant them, and people can see and share them. Achievements are a massively popular part of XBL, and Steam is a way to get that on PCs.
Now from the publisher's perspective, Steam provides two benefits:
1) Steam stops used game sales. Once a game is activated with a Steam account it may never be sold or transferred. So buying a game on Steam is forever. Once you enter the code for install, that game is yours now and you cannot sell it. Publishers dislike the used market, of course.
2) Steam, or rather Steamworks, is a free, fairly effective, DRM. Steam allows you to use their DRM at no charge, only requirement being your game must be available through Steam. You can sell it other ways too, you just have to allow them to sell it on Steam. For that you get no cost DRM (most DRM solutions are rather expensive) that does a good job of stopping casual game sharing. A normal user can't just copy a game for a friend, it won't work. The warez groups still crack it, as with any DRM, but it stops the casual stuff just like other DRM and doesn't cost anything to do it. Also because Steamworks is a transparent part of Steam many users do not find it objectionable, since they like Steam.
So there you go. Now please, please don't get all bitchy and whiny and point out that the publisher's stuff isn't a value to you. I know that. Like I said, what the value is depends on who you are talking about. I am showing you why they want Steam, why you might want Steam, and so on. I am not advocating it, I am just showing you the reasons that some players like it, and the reasons some publishers like it.
I use both, and I agree with you. I've had consistently better luck with Steam. I think the marketplace is big enough for both, and I hope Impulse does well -- competition is good, and all that. But for now I'll choose Steam if a game is available both places.
The fact that Steam supports my Mac and Impulse doesn't is another big incentive for me to use Steam. I love how you can buy a game once on Steam and, if it's available for both Mac and Windows, play it on either one.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I've played steam games over a LAN with no internet connection, it can be done very easily.
Do please point out a game that people want to mod but cannot because Steam prevents them.
Oh, wait, Steam goes out of its way to ensure that games remain moddable, and some mods are even distributed officially on Steam. Never mind then. I guess you're just spewing scaremongering bullshit like every other Steam hater.
And are you sure gog.com doesn't include any DRM whatsoever? That shocks me. And technically you never own software. You license it.
Check out point three on their about page for a pleasant surprise.