PC Games Net $13.1 Billion in 2009 as Digital Distribution Grows and Retail Sales Shr

[shortylickens]

Limited bandwidth? When i only have 20gb a month to use, the B&M option is much better, not to mention slow download speeds...

/If i had traditional cable/dsl etc i'd actually prefer steam

If you got dial up then I can see how downloading an 8GB game would suck. It would take about a month of leaving it on 24 hours a day. Cable/DSL you could leave it on overnight and have a buttload of games available in the morning.

 

[Tristicus]

If you got dial up then I can see how downloading an 8GB game would suck. It would take about a month of leaving it on 24 hours a day. Cable/DSL you could leave it on overnight and have a buttload of games available in the morning.

DSL is slow. I wouldn't like Steam without Cable.

 

[KMFJD]

If you got dial up then I can see how downloading an 8GB game would suck. It would take about a month of leaving it on 24 hours a day. Cable/DSL you could leave it on overnight and have a buttload of games available in the morning.

My speed sometimes aproaches 1mb , usually 3/4 of that....plus with the measly 20gb cap, steam really isn't an option for me.

 

[Genx87]

I have a 10Mbps line for 29.96\month from Charter. No caps. And Steam is awesome. I do wonder what B&M stores are going to do to make up for lost revenue. I see BB have a really small PC game aisle now. Their CD selection is getting small as well. I suspect once more bandwidth comes online and people start downloading movies like they do MP3s the DVD section will shrink drastically. I guess they will have to stick with hardware items that cant be downloaded.

 

[SunnyD]

Obligatory: PC Gaming is dying.

lol.

 

[Sureshot324]

Nice to hear some positive news about the state of pc gaming for a change.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

I can understand going B&M sometimes, like for Target clearances. But, that's about it...

I can understand going digital download sometimes, like for Steam clearances. But that's about it...

I honestly will never spend more than $10 on any Steam game based on the chance that they could, at their discretion, cancel my account and lock me out of all of my digital purchases.

 

[Genx87]

I can understand going digital download sometimes, like for Steam clearances. But that's about it...

I honestly will never spend more than $10 on any Steam game based on the chance that they could, at their discretion, cancel my account and lock me out of all of my digital purchases.

How many people have had this scenario happen? And what were they doing to have such drastic measures taken? That is a pretty far fetched reason to not buy from Steam. They are in the market to make money. Kicking people off without reason hurts their business. They dont gain anything from it.

Digital download is the future for games. Might as well embrace it imo.

 

[shortylickens]

Nice to hear some positive news about the state of pc gaming for a change.

You could just as easily ignore all the bullshit negative news. The main reason I get depressed isnt from what I hear but what I experience myself. Every time I play a crappy game I get worried things may completely go to hell. But when I play a good game I start to believe and hope again.
Then I get disappointed. Then I cry. Then I fap.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

How many people have had this scenario happen? And what were they doing to have such drastic measures taken? That is a pretty far fetched reason to not buy from Steam. They are in the market to make money. Kicking people off without reason hurts their business. They dont gain anything from it.

Digital download is the future for games. Might as well embrace it imo.

Oh I've embraced digital downloads, I'm just not going to risk an entire library of full-priced games to one single entity. I've purchased a few Steam digital downloads and a few non-Steam digital downloads.

Another reason not to spend much on those games is the fact that I can never transfer ownership of those games.

 

[Maximilian]

This is garbage, pc gaming is dying because of X Y Z reasons!

Seriously though this is the first positive thing ive seen about pc gaming since the starcraft 2 announcement, good to see :thumbsup:

 

[mindcycle]

I buy mostly retail boxed versions of PC games from places like gogamer.com. Haven't picked up a boxed copy in an actual store in years though.

I have purchased a few DD games. Mainly indies that don't have a retail product out. I don't know.. I just prefer having a physical product still along with game manuals and whatnot.

 

[Renob]

Limited bandwidth? When i only have 20gb a month to use, the B&M option is much better, not to mention slow download speeds...

/If i had traditional cable/dsl etc i'd actually prefer steam

Get more bandwidth dam 20gigs dam thats low.

 

[quadomatic]

Get more bandwidth dam 20gigs dam thats low.

Yeah that's even worse than mine, campus internet only 90 GB a month (3GB up/down per day).

However, that doesn't mean I can't go to the Chicago Public Library and use their unlimited wifi. Go to one of the upper floors in a corner where not many people are around, and you've got a free 10 Mbps connection!

 

[McWatt]

Recall that in 2009, the games industry as a whole saw a decrease in year over year sales. I can't access the appropriate sites from work, but I believe http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/modernwarfare2/news.html?sid=6242844 will attest to that if you haven't yet seen it reported.

At the same time, a subset of that shrinking industry, PC game sales, increased by 19%. Not only is PC gaming not dying, it's making console sales performance look embarrassingly bad by comparison.

It's true that PC AAA games other than WoW don't sell as well as the top AAA console games. This implies that the PC game industry is broader, with a greater number of titles selling well to make up for the less impressive sales of the top few titles.

 

[MarcVenice]

If you don't like attaching several games to one steam-account, make several accounts That's what I did with several games I knew I would play, but only once or so. So then I gave the account away to my little brother or whomever, and voila ...

Selling your games on steam is kinda shitty though. But then again, most games won't fetch you more then 5 dollars after some time. Personaly, I don't sell any ...

 

[TheJTrain]

You just have to reform your idea of buying games when you use a digital service.
Or rather, you are forced to use the concept that they want you to use with most software.

Instead of buying a copy of a product which you can use however, you are buying a personal license for the software. It's an entirely different concept.
When I buy Windows, I install it on a computer, and people use that copy of Windows when they use that computer.
Imagine if I bought Windows and I used that Windows on whatever computer I was at, rather than using what was installed on it (if anything). It's a totally different idea. The product is not there for me to use, my license is there for me to access. That's what Steam is like, and other forms of DD are similar.

Some people (like you and myself) don't like this model, others seem to lap it up and drool all over it, to the extent of forsaking cheaper priced non-DD options in favour of buying a game through their favourite DD portal.
Personally I prefer my software to be more openly usable.

Understood and agreed - they want us to reform our ideas, and some have but some haven't. I know what the Valves and the EAs and such want, you and I just refuse to give it to them for as long as there is an alternative. Others don't understand why we don't, and hitch their entire catalog to Steam's wagon, but to each their own.

 

[Martimus]

I still prefer purchasing at B&M. I refuse to use steam.

I like how people equate digital downloads to Steam. It is almost like people making a copy of something saying they are making a Xerox of it. Steam is a good service, but it has many downsides. I prefer Impulse for ease of use, more options, and less restrictions; but I prefer Steam for the awesome deals they have on occasion. I only hope that Impulse gets more of a following, as I don't want Steam to be my only option down the road.