Digital Distributors Boycott Modern Warfare 2
- Thread starter Greg Tito
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Okay, isn't there a bit of a problem with their strategy? If all the other digital distributors boycott it then people are going to have to buy it from steam if they want to download it (and not pirate it). Their practically giving them a monopoly for this title! Okay I understand that they don't want people to have to download steam if they download it from them, but there going to have to do that if they want to download it legally. Plus if they use one of these other digital distributors more anyways then just downloading steam won't change anything. They'll still be able to get other games from the digital distributor of their choice.
Direct2Drive is a very required niche for digital distribution. There are plenty of people who hate the need to start up an extra program with unwanted features - Steam - to play their game. They just want to install it and play it. I'm not one of those people, but they have to be sympathized with, and D2D is perfect for that.
There are only a few non-Valve games that actually use Steam to its full end. This includes Red Orchestra, Killing Floor, and perhaps a few indie games like Rag Doll Kung Fu (which no one ever plays)
There are only a few non-Valve games that actually use Steam to its full end. This includes Red Orchestra, Killing Floor, and perhaps a few indie games like Rag Doll Kung Fu (which no one ever plays)
Quoting just in case a million posts show up before I finish typing.Sevre90210 said:
I actually really agree with that, because as others have stated, it is, in fact, not a bad business decision. It makes a lot of sense because, as has been said repeatedly, why should D2D and others sell a product which features and seemingly fully endorses a competitor company? Think of it like this, before Nintendo Power started using Ads constantly, and began to promote other consoles, it would have been unheard of for them to mention, let alone promote, a series on another platform. Unless they singled out the only entry on their own, as they did with Castlevania by omitting non-Nintendo entries to the series on a timeline once.
Not that I had plans to by MW2 anyways, because I just don't find those games enjoyable. But Katna314 brings up a very good point about using Steam just to play a game that doesn't even require it (logically, not specifically). Spore is a good example of this. It forces you to turn on EA Download Manager, even though simply playing the game has no use for it whatsoever, it's just another stupid process that's going on in the background slowing down your computer.
Sadly, many Valve-made games DO force you to use Steam while playing them, even if you purchased the boxed version that has the discs and everything. I hate having to turn on Steam when I play Portal, but I'm kind of unable to turn that feature off.
Dear LORD. Activision Blizzard are up themselves. I can't wait till the whole Modern Warfare thing blows over so we can get back to more important things.Greg Tito said:
On topic: I agree. The idea of D2D selling the game, only to have them "sell" Steam along with it is a stupid idea and they're doing the right thing by not selling it. I don't think it's so much of a boycott. That word is thrown around so much these days.
Me too, nothing like making a hypocritical stand when it's going to have the loudest effect. There is also that my experience using Steam to authenticate a D2D game sucked, I got messages of it not being authenticated for a day before it actually went through.Ranooth said:
God damn I hate steam, thank god they are boycotting it. It's stupid how devs force so many layers of DRM that ultimately acheive nothing (also I particularly hate having to use the steam platform, I know that many a fanboy will hate me for this but it's nowhere near as good as impulse). Especially ones like steam that are such a royal pain in the ass to work with (I live in Australia, our internet sucks balls, how about not having stupid update systems that we cannot work around).
Man steam breaks killing floor. I get why they're using it, and in that instance I'm not particularly against it (as nobody else was likely to sell it and it would get banhammered before you can say zombie survival down under if it tried to go retail). The steam overlay kills it (regularly crashes it on all of my mates computers), can't lan 2 offline profiles of the same account (I really don't want to have to buy a game twice so I can play my brother in a lan, every valve game I'd tried this with allows it, as does UT2004 so I don't understand where the baring comes from) and the server connection is hardly perfect (though the ingame one isn't good either). It certainly isn't accurate to say it uses steam to it's full end, it (Steam) isn't executed as well as it is for valve games (again, I'd like to point out how pants on head the updating system is for steam).Katana314 said:
The article wasn't even about the pros and cons of DD services, it was about how Direct2Drive was driven to a forced boycott, and that is exactly what it is. Activision set up a lose-lose situation for Direct2Drive, and the repercussions will definitely show in the future.Dys said:
Their reasoning behind not selling it is because they are being forced to add in third party software (it so happens it's their main competitor). I'm well aware of what's happening, my point is that I'm glad their doing it outside of their own agenda (I don't particularly care if they promote their competitors), as it's a dick move to force gamers to install steam (especially with games that have no need for it, like dawn of war 2). I'm a little crushed that retailers haven't take a similar stance, as steam still directly competes with boxed copies, hopefully sometime soon this annoying trend of annoying extra programs will be optional.Dnaloiram said:
As far as I can tell, you're agreeing with me. Well, maybe not with the retail, since retail and Digital Distribution are two separate venues, each with their pros and cons.Dys said:
I just want to make sure, you think it's a dick move that Direct 2 Drive users have to install steam, because they are competitors, right? If so, then I completely agree with you.
I think it's a dick move that any platform other than steam is forced to isntall steam. Retail is different from digital download, but they are still competing. D2D are completely justified in refusing to sell the product, and I only wish more distributers would follow suite. So yes, we are in complete agreeance with the D2D issue, and I also think that retail (and all digital platforms) should take a similar path. They don't force you advertise retail when you buy impulse, or promote impulse when you buy D2D so why should distributers cooperate with publishers who give competing platforms special treatments?Dnaloiram said:
That's actually not true (at least not unless you got it digital download from EADM in the first place). I bought my copy of Spore retail and it runs fine without EADM. (Which is good, since EADM is such a piece of crap that it crashed four times [in a row] the one time I did try to install it, and crashed again [and exited] when trying to run.)Hiroshi Mishima said:
That's true. When I bought Fallout 3 via Steam, I discovered that the achievement system etc was tied into the GFWL crapware. (Good news: you can play without GFWL, and if you do, game startup is much faster. Bad news: if you do, no achievements.)Ozu08865 said:
So I can understand (and applaud) their position, even though I like Steam. But I suspect that they've taken it way too late to do anything more than drive customers to their competitors.
The dick move is most likely on the part of the developers of MW2, though. Steamworks is specifically targeted as an API for working with Steam, for games sold via Steam. If the games are being sold via other channels, they should be using the APIs for those channels instead.
It's long been a pet peeve of mine that if games want to provide achievements, they should include full achievement browsing UI in the game itself, and merely use platform APIs to register them with the outside world when applicable. So a game sold via Steam should get in-game and Steam achievements; a game sold via GFWL should get in-game and GFWL achievements; a game sold for PS3 should get in-game and PSN achievements; a game sold for PC retail (or through a service that doesn't have an achievement API) should still get in-game achievements. A game sold via Steam should never need GFWL, or vice versa. Similarly a game sold via Steam should use the Steam DRM, and one at retail should use something else non-Steam (even though that usually tends to be Safedisc or Securom). There shouldn't be any crossover -- it's a platform packaging thing.