Square Enix may launch their own version of Steam

[BFG10K]

We already have enough garbage with Steam/Uplay/Origin/Rockstar Club/etc DRM payloads masquerading as “services”. We don’t need another.

I won’t buy any more of their games if they tie them to a mandatory client.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/57523/square-enix-launch-steam-digital-storefront/index.html

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yea...I have to agree. This is the rabbit hole we have been railing against for years. Sure, we EVENTUALLY accepted Steam, but it really doesn't mean every fricking game company needs one. They are bloated and unneeded. One centralized location is fine. I to this day have not bought another Origin game for this simple reason. Steam and GOG are enough already.

Steam contrary to what everyone likes to say, is not a monopoly. You can purchase games to use on Steam from many many places. The problem is all these other places (aside from GOG) only allow their own games, and don't allow their games anywhere else (although at least on Origin you can buy some games at other places to use there).

 

[sandorski]

Ugh.

 

[BFG10K]

Steam contrary to what everyone likes to say, is not a monopoly. You can purchase games to use on Steam from many many places. The problem is all these other places (aside from GOG) only allow their own games, and don't allow their games anywhere else (although at least on Origin you can buy some games at other places to use there).

Actually Steam's very much a monopoly. All Steam keys eventually end up on Steam. Also some Uplay and Origin titles are available on GOG.

How do I play L4D on Origin?
How do I play HL2 on Uplay?
How do I play Portal on GOG?

It's not possible because Valve vendor-locks their games to Steam. EA/Ubi can't lock theirs (yet) because Steam is a monopoly and it would be financial suicide to do so. But rest-assured, they all want what Valve has.

 

[ImpulsE69]

You are trying to combine 2 different things. Valve as a game developing company may be a monopoly (in terms of the limited number of games they actually release and being required to be on Steam) but Steam as a storefront is not. Steam as a storefront goes way beyond anything Valve as a game company does. They are NOT the same thing and it isn't an excuse for 30 storefronts trying to copy it. They were first to market and eventually got it...sort of right. I'm not saying I agree with the overall concept, but I certainly am not going to blindly go along with every game company deciding they need their own advertising storefront for their own games. We as consumers don't need 15 different clients to run a game. This is why the distinction between Steam and actual Valve games is important. As long as Steam willingly allows other storefronts to sell keys to non Valve games on Steam, then there is no issue and that is not a monopoly. Monopolies imply no competition, and there is competition with Steam. If they were to ever stop allowing that, yes, there would be something to discuss.

The problem here is that there is no clean solution. You could say all games can be sold/ran off any platform (if that were actually true), but there is always going to be a segment that can only play on their own platform. Regardless as other companies attempt to further segment, the less I'll be inclined to bother with them.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Sigh. No Squenix I'm not going to use your store. GoG + Steam + Origin + copy protection from UPlay is my limit. No more.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Yea...I have to agree. This is the rabbit hole we have been railing against for years. Sure, we EVENTUALLY accepted Steam, but it really doesn't mean every fricking game company needs one. They are bloated and unneeded. One centralized location is fine. I to this day have not bought another Origin game for this simple reason. Steam and GOG are enough already.

Steam contrary to what everyone likes to say, is not a monopoly. You can purchase games to use on Steam from many many places. The problem is all these other places (aside from GOG) only allow their own games, and don't allow their games anywhere else (although at least on Origin you can buy some games at other places to use there).

I'll agree that I am a big Steam fan but the bolded part could change at any moment. Gabe becomes sick or simply retires to play with his knives and sells steam to another person/company. They could easily start asking for more royalties to host games on steam. Do oyu think MS or apple or any other company would be so generous with steam?
While I am not a fan of another drm/download service that doesn't mean more are not welcome to at minimal keep prices stable.

 

[Igo69]

If it is not on Steam or can't be activated on Steam I will not buy it.

 

[shortylickens]

If it is not on Steam or can't be activated on Steam I will not buy it.

Right now everything they have worth playing is already on Steam.
What amazes me is that companies with a just a handful of Windows games honestly believe they need their own distribution platform.

 

[sandorski]

Right now everything they have worth playing is already on Steam.
What amazes me is that companies with a just a handful of Windows games honestly believe they need their own distribution platform.

That describes Valve when they started Steam. That said, they had bigger plans. Things would be better if some B&M Store, like EB or some other, had the vision to setup their own. They didn't though and now we have Stores more akin to Gaming Consoles.

 

[UglyDuckling]

Honestly i barely have many games on Uplay or Origin, and thew i do were either free or games i REALLY wanted that were not on Steam.

471 games Steam, 57 Origin, 7 Uplay..

Do the math.

 

[shortylickens]

That describes Valve when they started Steam. That said, they had bigger plans. Things would be better if some B&M Store, like EB or some other, had the vision to setup their own. They didn't though and now we have Stores more akin to Gaming Consoles.

Valve already had a bunch of publishers ready to jump in with them. EA and UBI have a huge library each, Microsoft too.
But Square has a tiny Windows selection. Unless they got plans to remake all their Dragon Quest games. Which would make me cream my shorts.

 

[Aikouka]

I think the only launcher that I don't mind apart from Steam would be Blizzard's Battle.Net launcher. I cringed a bit when I saw that the Quake Champions closed beta test required you to get a new Bethesda Launcher, and to get the free games from Twitch Prime, I need to download the Twitch Launcher. (Thankfully, I've heard that it's only required to download it.) I already have uPlay and Origin, which I pretty much never use. A lot of it just comes down to the fact that while Steam isn't perfect, it hasn't really given me any issues that would push me away.

 

[Yakk]

Ideally for users an open source, possibly blockchain type neutral portal would be great since they have to be loaded up anyways. Most probably won't happen and every corporation will want their own portal riddled with hacking possibilities on every single one of them. Not great for users at all.

 

[Elixer]

Square Enix doesn't have much of a choice here, if they are looking to maximize profits.
The choice they have is, sell it on steam, and steam takes a cut out of every sale, or, they start their own service, and keep the profits themselves.

We don't know how big of a cut Steam takes, but, it seems it is bigger than people think, since starting their own infrastructure & all those related costs aren't cheap.

Sure, they could go with GOG, or perhaps Origin or Uplay, but, those places will still take a cut out of every sale.

 

[gorcorps]

Square Enix doesn't have much of a choice here, if they are looking to maximize profits.
The choice they have is, sell it on steam, and steam takes a cut out of every sale, or, they start their own service, and keep the profits themselves.

We don't know how big of a cut Steam takes, but, it seems it is bigger than people think, since starting their own infrastructure & all those related costs aren't cheap.

Sure, they could go with GOG, or perhaps Origin or Uplay, but, those places will still take a cut out of every sale.

The whole gamble is if you make more money by having your own service minus the users who won't use another launcher, compared to just letting stream take their cut and not worry about the backlash.

Plus there's the cost associated with starting and developing all of it from scratch. The idea of doing such a thing when steam is already so well rooted is very odd. Steam must take a much bigger cut than I thought to even entertain that this other option would be more cost effective.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The whole gamble is if you make more money by having your own service minus the users who won't use another launcher, compared to just letting stream take their cut and not worry about the backlash.

Plus there's the cost associated with starting and developing all of it from scratch. The idea of doing such a thing when steam is already so well rooted is very odd. Steam must take a much bigger cut than I thought to even entertain that this other option would be more cost effective.

It isn't more cost effective. If you were a game maker would you not want your product on as many storefronts as possible to reach as many people as possible? These companies trying to 'take control' and limit it to just their own sites are short sighted and thinking they'll get some huge money grab by doing this by giving them more 'front space' while really they are just limiting themselves. There is a lot of cost behind what Steam does and to the scale that Steam does it. There is practically zero reason for Square to set up their own at this point. They don't even have the PC catalog to really support it. Maybe they won't remove their stuff off Steam - and this is more of a Uplay scenario, but that isn't a good idea either and will alienate potential buyers if they don't get it right early on.

 

[JTsyo]

I always wanted to try out Anno but never did due to Uplay. Only reason I finally broke down for Origin was Battlefield. I don't think Square has any games that would make me download their launcher.

 

[Yakk]

Actually make a small launcher compatible with Steam/GOG like what Creative Assemblies & Stardock do, I'm ok with that.

A complete other purchasing platform like uplay, forget it. Uplay & additional DRM also discouraged me from Anno.

 

[NTMBK]

Could be worse, could be Windows Store exclusives.

 

[Larochepiano]

I love Square, but this is too much. As someone mentioned "if it doesn't work with Steam I'm not buying it" I feel the same way and I'm a hardcore gamer. On the other hand, I understand that each company wants their own platform, but my friend let me tell you, you cannot beat Steam. People tried in the past and failed if you can't beat them, join them.

 

[KMFJD]

Considering how bad the patching system is on FFXIV i'm gonna say hell no.

 

[cbrunny]

I'm firmly in the "I can't even fathom why anyone would care that much about it" camp.

 

[Rifter]

I only buy steam games, i drew the line years ago that im only going with one DRM storefront/service and that was steam.

I havent even played ME 3 yet because its not on steam and ME1-2 were some of my favorite games of all time.

 

[cbrunny]

ME3 will never be on steam. Neither will andromeda. seems like such a small price to pay, but to each their own.