Is Steam becoming the main way for pc game distribution?

[Czar]

Now that EA and Ubisoft have joined Steam, who is left?

Blizzard? as long as they have world of warcraft they have no reason to use steam

Who else?

 

[BladeVenom]

I wouldn't call it the main way, but it's certainly mainstream now.

 

[Modelworks]

It will not be the main way till broadband is everywhere and cheap.

 

[Jeff7181]

I don't necessarily like Steam, but in this age where broadband is common, I like being able to buy games online. Steam... Direct2Drive... good stuff.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Who knows, but Steam definitely is picking up... steam.


I personally don't love steam myself, it still has a lot of logistical issues to figure out (getting patches out in a timely fashion for non-valve games is a huge problem at the moment for example), but it's actually very competitive in terms of pricing and does away with a lot of the overly elaborate DRM schemes that have been coming out as of late. I can't vouch however if EA games for Steam also still have their built in protections, but long story short... Steam and its relatives aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Hopefully ISPs will not continue to impose ever stricter gigabyte per month caps. If they continue, you can bet that it will hurt digital distribution of games and (non-cable company PPV).

 

[ultra laser]

Originally posted by: Czar
Now that EA and Ubisoft have joined Steam, who is left?

Blizzard? as long as they have world of warcraft they have no reason to use steam

Who else?

I think Blizz has a more cost effective game distribution setup. They just use bittorrent. You can download WoW and all the expacs, as long as you have an account.

 

[postmortemIA]

This could help fight the piracy, but i am afraid pirates know how to hack even Steam...

 

[homercles337]

Im using it a lot more since the HL2 disaster. I still miss having the manual and box for storage though.

 

[Oceandevi]

Steam is pretty damn cool. Now when it first came out..... jesus that was a mess.

 

[TridenT]

Originally posted by: ultra laser

Originally posted by: Czar
Now that EA and Ubisoft have joined Steam, who is left?

Blizzard? as long as they have world of warcraft they have no reason to use steam

Who else?

I think Blizz has a more cost effective game distribution setup. They just use bittorrent. You can download WoW and all the expacs, as long as you have an account.

No, you can download the games without an account. You just can't play them without a WoW account or a CD Key.

 

[Zenoth]

Originally posted by: Oceandevi
Steam is pretty damn cool. Now when it first came out..... jesus that was a mess.

I've never had a single issue with Steam since day one, except for when their servers would go under maintenance or would shut down for whatever reason, but the program itself never failed on me. There was I believe just one time when one of their updates killed my Internet connection (eating all bandwidth) but they fixed it only a few hours later, no big deal there.

And Steam is the only tolerable DRM out there, at least I can install Steam on as many different computers as I want. And I really like the Valve's GCF archiving system, when I reformat my main HDD (OS) I keep my steamapps folder in my back-up drive, and when I finish installing whatever OS all I have to do is install Steam with the minimal installer (no games included), start it once to update the interface, close it, put my steamapps folder back in the main installation directory, start it up again and voila, 15+ games installed and ready to go, I wouldn't want to imagine how long it'd take to do it manually (and that's without mentioning the inclusion of modifications and my own configurations, all back-up in there as well).

 

[Superrock]

I thought this was a survey. In which case I would say yes.

 

[TheVrolok]

It's definitely getting there, especially if they keep running these insane deals. The number of games I own through Steam has probably reached, maybe even exceeded, the number of games for which I have hard copies. I do miss having the boxes on my shelves though, I liked being able to look at 'em quickly.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

i actually don't miss the boxes...they always ended up getting scattered and eventually lost. biggest example is TA which i bought 3 times and have proceeded to lose all 3 times. now i just have the isos on computer.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: ultra laser

Originally posted by: Czar
Now that EA and Ubisoft have joined Steam, who is left?

Blizzard? as long as they have world of warcraft they have no reason to use steam

Who else?

I think Blizz has a more cost effective game distribution setup. They just use bittorrent. You can download WoW and all the expacs, as long as you have an account.

Big Content is pushing ISPs to block all P2P traffic, including BT. Some, such as Comcast, have already tried, despite a public backlash, and continue to do so, despite an FCC ruling telling them they couldn't.

 

[ShawnD1]

Steam will not be mainstream until it's worth buying a game on Steam. New games are listed as roughly $65CDN on Steam, but are $50 in the store. In Europe the prices are more like $100 on Steam and $40 in the shop. It's crazy. Nobody is going to pay twice the price and get less of a game (no physical copy).

 

[datalink7]

I prefer direct2drive.

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Steam will not be mainstream until it's worth buying a game on Steam. New games are listed as roughly $65CDN on Steam, but are $50 in the store. In Europe the prices are more like $100 on Steam and $40 in the shop. It's crazy. Nobody is going to pay twice the price and get less of a game (no physical copy).

Move to the US.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Steam will not be mainstream until it's worth buying a game on Steam. New games are listed as roughly $65CDN on Steam, but are $50 in the store. In Europe the prices are more like $100 on Steam and $40 in the shop. It's crazy. Nobody is going to pay twice the price and get less of a game (no physical copy).

Move to the US.

Its still in US dollars for us in Iceland, even after the financial meltdown here buying games through steam is cheaper than in the shops.

Too bad about the isp download caps though

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

I'm surprised it's taking this long. I want all PC games on Steam. I don't really care about selling used games anymore, for me the convenience of downloading anywhere and features like steam community outweigh that.

 

[Emultra]

Download caps should not exist. They're a ridiculous, archaic abomination.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: AlgaeEater
Who knows, but Steam definitely is picking up... steam.


I personally don't love steam myself, it still has a lot of logistical issues to figure out (getting patches out in a timely fashion for non-valve games is a huge problem at the moment for example), but it's actually very competitive in terms of pricing and does away with a lot of the overly elaborate DRM schemes that have been coming out as of late. I can't vouch however if EA games for Steam also still have their built in protections, but long story short... Steam and its relatives aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

This is what I kind of like about it. Having to be connected to the net to play games can be a pain, but I think it's a lot better than SecuROM and some of the other DRM schemes out there.

One thing I'd like, though, is the ability to sell games and transfer licenses.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Steam will not be mainstream until it's worth buying a game on Steam. New games are listed as roughly $65CDN on Steam, but are $50 in the store. In Europe the prices are more like $100 on Steam and $40 in the shop. It's crazy. Nobody is going to pay twice the price and get less of a game (no physical copy).

Just wait until after the nuclear war then you can buy Steam games with bottle caps

 

[Eeezee]

Steam is now mainstream, but Stardock is still using its own solution. Steam is a great distribution method and uses DRM that users don't mind. Why fix something that's not broken?