Sometimes I wonder if the Escapist Editors/Writers read my posts, turn them from rambling rants into more professional pieces, and then post them. Not a serious accusation, but I've been saying similar things for quite a while.
Strictly speaking though I do accuse Valve of "evil empire" type behavior. I compare them to Wal*Mart rather than Microsoft however, though you can draw analogies to both. Basically there is a desire for game companies to go digital so they can remove costs like packaging, shipping, and distribution and take the money they would use for that as pure profit. The Escapist ran an article interviewing the guys from 1C which spelled out exactly the differance in how much money they make digitally rather than with packaged products.
The thing is that Valve is smarter than a lot of it's competition, or seems to be. Where most companies and digital services are putting their products up for the same price as retail (and pocketing the savings as cash, contrary to what gamers were promised) Valve reduces their prices on games frequently. The holiday sale last year being a key example, but they also rotate sales twice a week (midweek and weekend usually) and those sales can range from 10% to 80%. Showing how much of a discount digital distribution could technically stomach if it wanted to (but doesn't).
The thing is though that these sales make Valve seem like the "good guys" and undercut the competition, what happens when Valve has effectively destroyed all the competition? Everyone is using it because of ease of development, and because it WAS cheaper. Now they can raise their prices and there is no one left to face them. Even if called "sell outs" and all kinds of bad things will it matter? Remember Wal*Mart dominated to begin with as a group of good guys where every employee was given stock in the company (to begin with) and had prices lower than anyone else because of what later were labeled predatory pricing practices.
Today I'd like to believe in Valve, but while I take advantage of it, I can't help but feel that I've seen this all before. Truthfully I'm one of those that sort of feels it's best for us as the users/consumers to stick with the Brick and Mortar "disc in hand" way of doing business. Albeit I can't see the gaming community rallying in any meaningful fashion around those lines.
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To play Devil's Advocate however, I will also say that another Escapist article (Seamus Young I believe) made a point about how too many digital services being a liability. With everyone jumping on the bandwagon you can require 3 or more passwords and login credentials just to take advantage of all the features of a game (including communities and such). The alternative to having a "Monopoly" like Steam is of course everyone and their brother running their own service, which is going to result in chaos.
Arguably I feel that the ideal way for things to turn out would be for there to be 2 or 3 digital platforms which compete with each other, as opposed to engaging in cartel behavior which is similar to a monopoly (ie when groups that are supposed to compete coordinate so they won't have to compete). Cartel behavior being the biggest problem with the gaming industry as it stands now.
The bottom line is that a lot can be said for standardization.
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Finally I will point out that a lot of the suits in other countries are basically attempts to nail American businesses. Understand that we have been involved in numerous trade wars with Japan (remember whent he price of RAM exploded through the roof?) and since the advent of the EU a lot of our staunchest allies have become our biggest competitors. Needless to say anything they can do to gimp American juggernauts like Microsoft is something they are going to do. It's hard to really use them as reinforcing examples of anything when they target by and large American interests using any excuse they can usually. That's just how things work with international economic competition, and we've been ridiculous ourselves with some things for similar reasons.
This is not to say that Intel or Microsoft were not monopolies, and didn't need regulation, but really you can't point to things done by rivals (note I do not say enemies) of the US as part of cutthroat international trade.
