According to a report on trade site MCV, two "big-name digital retailers" for the PC market are staring down the barrel of financial ruin, while two major British retailers are reportedly considering a ban on games that include Steam integration. "Publishers don't give a shit, they don't care what happens to the customer. Which is the crucial point, because Steam do," the director of "a fledgling Steam rival" told the site. A fledgling rival, eh? Direct2Drive, perhaps? GamersGate? Impulse, maybe? The criticism of Steam - an online multiplayer platform and digital shopfront run by Half-Life developers Valve - doesn't stop there. "I've fought hard for my customer, and never before have I had to give my customers away. Steam is killing the PC market and it is no wonder digital retailers are failing", the unnamed director continues. "Steam is locking down the market." See, here's where these digital competitors have it wrong. Yes, it's hardly an ideal set of circumstances that a single company is effectively taking over the mainstream PC downloadable market. More competition would be good for everyone. But there's a reason Steam is so dominant: it's the only service that's doing things right. The sooner competing services quit bitching and start putting together comparable platforms where you can shop, play and communicate as easily as you can on Steam, the sooner we'll take their criticisms as something more than just sour grapes. As for the bricks-and-mortar retailers, there are reportedly fears that selling boxed copies of games that include mandatory Steam integration is only going to encourage customers to not only shop online in the future, but shop with Steam, which is a competitor to these own retailer's digital shopfront ambitions. As a result of this, "two major retailers" in the UK are threatening publishers that they will cease stocking games that include such a requirement in any form. Source: Valve Is Killing The PC Market, Apparently I don't think I've actually used anything but Steam to buy games online. The few times I've tried through either EA or another site have been terrible. Steams weekend sales don't help the competition either as I doubt they'd be able to match Steams prices but like the author in the article said, unless the competitors up their game they have nobody to blame but themselves. It is a bit frightening thinking how much of a monopoly Steam seems to have right now but I'm sure if they hiked up their prices and started charging for the service people wouldn't use it and there'd be uproar. Hence why I'm not too bothered about the situation right now.
It almost sounds like people playing an online game, one person is dominant so that is when the other people use the cheapest ways possible to get ahead. Valve is an amazing company and if there is anyone I would want to support it is them. They are really the only developers that I know of that will fully care about the consumer, which is an extremely rare trait in a game company and other people are trying to ruin it because they want they profit. Its quite pathetic what people will resort to because they weren't the first to come up with a brilliant idea.
If anything Steam is keeping the PC gaming market alive, i'm sure they are a lot of arcade / indie games I would have never played if it wasn't for Steam. I think it makes PC gaming more accessible for people with limited knowledge on computers, games auto update and some games copy your saves to the Steam servers... all you have to do is sign in and start playing. Games on Steam can be a little over priced, however overall I would say Valve has done a lot to save the PC gaming market... especially when most games on Steam don't have excessive DRM.
There can't be such thing as 'Steam killing the PC market', as any market is flowing naturally. If Steam or any other digital distribution platform works and customers prefer to download most of their games, then so be it. The fact that some retailers already start to 'fight' this trend is only showing that Steam has become a platform that actually works. Compliments to Valve! This news doesn't mean that the retailers are going down or anything, in fact, Steam remains a service a gamer either totally likes or hates. I do like to have a physical box in my hands for some games, like the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever. And I like the view of my Xbox 360 games racket up in my closet. I only use Steam for their special deals and promo's that let you download games for kinda nothing (holiday sales ftw).
Heh, if Steam is killing the PC market, then CIS countries have no PC market! In Russia and Ukraine, there are 4 main PC games publishers: 1C, Akella, Buka and Novyy Disk (NewCD), if you bought a licensed game, then there's a 99,9% chance that the game is published by them. Usually Steam is used here by schoolkids, while other people either prefer buying pirated CDs, license or just download stuff from the internet (the cheapest way) I can speak for my hometown and the town where I live now, asking anyone if they heard of Steam gives you one common answer: "The shit that answers for licensed server online Counter-Strike gaming", so usually CS gamers here use private servers That's about all common people know about Steam
Can't blame you for wanting to have something physical of something that's so infamous . Think I am in the beta for the game as I bought Borderlands on Steam (before friends convinced me to get it on the 360). As for Pantamorphs reply; I'm still surprised with people who hate Steam for outdated reasons (IMO) but to hear some PC gamers may have never heard of the service is quite surprising. Perhaps it's more prevalent in some countries than say in Russia and the Ukraine.