Couldnt agree with this more! Are they actually out of their minds?
Steam last time I checked had a client base of what? 5 million users - with on average about 1.5-2.5 million online at any given time.
What kinda arsetard would actually think that publishers are going to be swayed by an empty threat when they have such a huge market right there on a system which is already so popular.
Stop stocking the games, then where do they go? Steam. And whoop-de-do an even bigger audience for them to sell to. Really?
On top of that, Steam is a platform which supplies on demand and is instantly accessible (especially on the old impulse buys) - no way are publishers going to abandon a straight to market platform like steam because a couple of retailers can't find a way to top it.
Im not saying Steam isnt without its flaws...but its a still a helluva lot better than brick and mortar stores. I would love to see Steam bring in a rewards system - that WOULD kill off the competition.
And where there may be a small hike on prices, you are paying for service. And has already been said - just wait for the deals. They are on every week
I have to admit that it made me laugh when the retailers said that they still have the power. I can't remember the last time that I bought a game at a tradional bricks and mortor store as
1. The selection of games is absolutely dire and has been shrinking due to console games.
2. They are usually overpriced and so I can get it cheaper either on Steam, or through online stores.
I can see the time when PC games will disappear from normal retail shops as unlike consoles we don't need a physical product, we can just download it.
Steam sells PC games, I would have thought that the problem would be if console games ever went digital, last time I went into any "game" store in the UK you are lucky if the shop stocks even the current top 10 PC game. At best you may find a copy of WoW.
The shops are wall to wall console games, infact the local shop sells 10 times more DVDs than PC games and its been that way for a while. Last time I bought a PC game it was off the internet, the local store offered to order it in for me (with a deposit) and it took nearly two weeks to turn up.
So never mind digital they are getting killed and have been for a long time by internet ordering, digital downloads are just the next step.
The great thing about digital downloads, no wait, no limited stock. The new CoD game came out this week.
Local game store: Limited stock, pre-order now, £5 deposit to reserve a copy.
Digital Download: pre-order game unlocked at release. some games even have preload so you can download the game before hand ready to play on release.
A lot of people are commenting on the price of Steam games compared to boxed games, but I have some thoughts on why they may be similar, or slightly higher costs.
You may think that buying the game from Steam, you're not getting a disc, or a box, or paying for distribution, or paying the wages for members of staff to sell them to you (at retailers) or work in the warehouse (at e-tailers). But don't forget Steam need to store the games, the patches, your saved games (if applicable), demos and videos etc on their servers, which have setup and running costs involved, as well as all of their staff.
Also, don't forget that you're paying for the convenience of getting games much quicker (if you have a decent internet connection) than buying online, or even buying from a shop, unless you live next door, but you still have to go to midnight openings or wait until the shop opens in the morning. You're also paying for the convenience of them storing all your games for you and being able to redownload them at any time with no additional cost. And you pay for the convenience of not having to find, download patches and install them, it does it all for you when they come out.
So, you may end up paying a couple of quid extra for games at release, but you get a lot in return for it. And if you're like me, you can wait a while until the prices come down and are in line with retailers and e-tailers.
I have used Steam for a long time now, but only for Half-Life and never really bought anything on there until a few months ago, now I make most game purchases on there. The only exception was BF:BC2 which I bought on Play for £15, but now I wish I had paid the extra couple of quid to get it on Steam as I would've had been able to play with my friends on Steam without hassle.
Considering there's only about 2.5m online at any one time, I would be VERY surprised if they had 25m accounts. If they did, that's an awful lot of inactive accounts.
Source: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
I only have it running when I want to play a game, maybe lots of other people do that?
DRM is what puts me off lots of hard copy PC games, except for a few you generally get games without 3rd party DRM on Steam, and their own system is pretty decent in comparison to the Securom monstrosity. If retailers have all this influential power they should ask publishers to ease off on screwing over PC gamers so much on hard copies. I can't think of much else that would put people off really, unless you want to have a game running the second it's released - hard copies are often cheaper albeit not by much and you can sell them on when you're done. But this and having to have the disc in the tray are both additional pains caused by DRM.
25 million accounts source:
http://store.steampowered.com/news/3390/
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