Stardock Criticizes the Age of Steam
- Thread starter Keane Ng
- Start date
Nonsense. He talks like there aren't ALREADY other services that have tried to do what Steam does (AOL and EA just to name two major brands whose digital distribution services/stores can't compete).
I've refused to buy into the whole steam thing. I prefer to have a physical copy of my game, for obvious reasons. Unless it's an EA game, with their stupid installation limit.
They both do exactly the same thing, except steam does more.
And anyway, you can't very well go saying that Steam won't succeed just because it got a foothold first, because this is different from things like facebook and myspace. Anyone can pick up a profile and move on to another networking site, but you can't very well just move onto a new distribution platform after you've bought all your games on steam. You'd be giving all those games up. In a case like this, as long as the games you own on steam are locked exclusively to steam, their head start pretty much means an easy victory.
And anyway, you can't very well go saying that Steam won't succeed just because it got a foothold first, because this is different from things like facebook and myspace. Anyone can pick up a profile and move on to another networking site, but you can't very well just move onto a new distribution platform after you've bought all your games on steam. You'd be giving all those games up. In a case like this, as long as the games you own on steam are locked exclusively to steam, their head start pretty much means an easy victory.
While I do like Stardock's attitudes in regards to gamers and giving to us as much as they'd expect us to give them as developers (Look at the Gamer's Bill of Rights that they created which is rather fair in my opinion) and for that reason, I have bought several of their games purely to support but them even though I'm not really a fan of their games. Sins of a Solar Empire was was entertaining the first time through but once you've played it the once, even for a few hours, that's it. It was a lot shallower than I had originally realised and boiled down to ultimately building up a force of ships and rolling over every star around you. And to be frankly honest, their Impulse platform is horrifically unstable, prone to crashing and updating games with it is a struggle at the best of times and that's if it doesn't crash from a host of different reasons for which there appears little in the way of a remedy other than try again and cross your fingers. Where as with Steam, it's handily stable and updating your games is done with very little in the way of hassle.
Seeing as that steam fucked the pricing on games recently, they have lost a lot of "loyal followers".
Funny thing is, Stardock isn't wrong or right. Obviously there is truth to "both" sides, but we can't see too far in the future.
Funny thing is, Stardock isn't wrong or right. Obviously there is truth to "both" sides, but we can't see too far in the future.
Well, lets hope that Stardock steps up their game then. I'm all for competition in a marketplace, but Stardock doesn't seem to have anything going for it that separates it from Steam.
What Stardock should try to do is assert itself as the place of digital distribution for indie games. I have a feeling that indie games are really going to start taking off in the next decade and Stardock might be well to try to corner that market early.
Ultimately, they are both developers who produce really fantastic games and are extremely committed to excellence and the gamer. I hope they both do well.
What Stardock should try to do is assert itself as the place of digital distribution for indie games. I have a feeling that indie games are really going to start taking off in the next decade and Stardock might be well to try to corner that market early.
Ultimately, they are both developers who produce really fantastic games and are extremely committed to excellence and the gamer. I hope they both do well.
They lost costumers that bought games in Steam, the problem is that most of those "loyal" costumers already have a big library of games that needs Steam to run, so depart from Steam entirely is unlikely.ElArabDeMagnifico said:
And I keep mixing Stardock with Starbucks...