Steam Is 70% of PC Digital Distribution Market

[Kollega]

No surprise - Valve were pioneers of digital distribution.

 

[L33tsauce_Marty]

Impulse is such a stupid name. Who the hell is going to ask their friend if they have a 'Impulse account'? Steam is 1 sybil and easy to say.

Ah, but you forget, these people are PC gamers, and they, unlike you, have the ability to use polysyllabic words in everyday conversation.

What do you mean? I'm a PC gamer and I can use complex and frightening words, but the name Impulse isn't going to catch on as much as steam did.

 

[Abedeus]

I will still use Direct2drive over Steam or Impulse. Unless there's a better sale.

 

[Doug]

I buy from both myself. I'm glad Digital Distribution is taking off though. It's very convenient and, you save a lot of money with offers and such.

Me too, but I have to say I do the bulk of my buying on Steam - Steam links everything up for me, something that Impulse doesn't do currently... and I'm sorry to say, its already too late for them in my case, because having 2 accounts with different companies creates a barrier between the games on each one. So even if Impulse introduce, say, Impulse Achievements, I won't switch to them.

Its a shame really, as Stardock are a really good company, on par with Valve when it comes to treating their customers well.

 

[ratix2]

While I'm certainly not buying into the Randy Pitchford school of Steam-bashing, I think it's important that even the most ardent Valve fanboy recognize that despite Steam's dominance, having competition like Stardock's Impulse is a good thing. A total monopoly on digital distribution would mean that A.) the service could charge whatever its operators felt like and B.) the operators would have little reason to improve.

very true. before impulse and their weekend deals the sales over steam were few and far between, now you have them every week like clockwork.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Impulse is such a stupid name. Who the hell is going to ask their friend if they have a 'Impulse account'? Steam is 1 sybil and easy to say.

Ah, but you forget, these people are PC gamers, and they, unlike you, have the ability to use polysyllabic words in everyday conversation.

What do you mean? I'm a PC gamer and I can use complex and frightening words, but the name Impulse isn't going to catch on as much as steam did.

I could care less what it's named. So long as I can get good deals and efficient, reliable purchases, I'll use it. Trust me, the addition of a syllable isn't going to make a difference to anyone.

 

[Xanadu84]

I hope your making enough money to keep Valve on its toes, Impulse. And I hope that your service nets you enough returns to be comfortable, I really do. But I can't justify buying anywhere except Steam personally. But your efforts in providing an alternative has perked my interest in Sins of a Solar Empire. So...there's that for you.

 

[Asehujiko]

I think that impulse could have easily had a 20-25% share if if didn't suck so much.

 

[Canadaftw]

Only 70%? I thought that it would be more like 80.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Guess what. The Gaming Companies Don't care what you both think.

OT: This really isn't that amazing. Its more understandable that people would want to get digital Games due to the fact that its more organized then a pile of games sitting on a Shelf or floor. Now lets tally the people who pirate the games lol.

Why is it nearly every article about PC gaming has piracy brought up?

 

[JeanLuc761]

Guess what. The Gaming Companies Don't care what you both think.

OT: This really isn't that amazing. Its more understandable that people would want to get digital Games due to the fact that its more organized then a pile of games sitting on a Shelf or floor. Now lets tally the people who pirate the games lol.

Why is it nearly every article about PC gaming has piracy brought up?

Cause if your going to factor in all percentages and get a correct answer you have to factor the 3 major Outlets. Digital Downloading such as steam. Buying from a store like best buy. And lastly downloaded illegally.

Depends on the answer we're looking for here. This article is dealing with revenue gained from digital distribution, which is something that cannot be gained from pirated copies, and claiming each pirated copy is a "lost sale" is merely speculation.

If we were trying to find out how many copies of the game were being played regardless of if it was purchased or not, then piracy figures would be relevant.

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

Doesn't surprise me, Steam is massive.

 

[JeanLuc761]

true. I guess Money Earned compared to possible earnings would need to factor in Torrents but as is doesn't

I think most of the reasoning behind that is that it is purely speculative (and 99% guaranteed to be wrong) if you assume each pirated copy is indeed a lost sale.

 

[Vierran]

Well competition does breed better prices generally but i fear sometimes that with exclusive content on one network which ever it is stifles this in a way.

 

[Fearzone]

I've used direct2drive a couple times with good results, and got Sins and Demigod off of Impulse.

Steam, though, I find to be so intrusive that I have it installed only when I need it to download an exclusive demo, and after I get bored of it, which is usually pretty fast if I get it off steam, I remove steam as soon as possible.

Impulse sits quietly in the background. It's a much better service IMHO.

 

[AceDiamond]

Most of you gamers out there don't care. You play a game once and either trade it in, or shelve it. But people like me who love to replay games, who don't give up on a title just because something newer and shinier is out, don't support things like Steam. Bad enough that digital distribution has taken hold, and that future releases may become unavailable in-store, but to tie in a retail-bought copy to some online fucking service, no way. Fuck Steam, fuck Valve, I don't want it.

So basically your fear is that Steam or some component thereof will eventually cease to be and thus all online play for those games will stop. Nevermind the fact that Valve is amazingly good about putting out SDKs for just about everything they make so that, if someone needed to futz around with Steam architecture to spoof an internet server to continue playing a 10-year-old game, they would find an SDK from Valve that could help them with that. Nevermind the fact that many games have dedicated fanbases who make their own Internet server components in order to keep playing old games, and thus this fear is mostly unfounded because of precedent.

I know exactly where you're coming from. Up until 8 months ago my only options for PC gaming were always older games. And yet I'm not freaking the hell out about something that hasn't happened yet nor is about to happen. Why is that? Is it because of my past experience? Maybe. Is it because of the predictable pattern of modders and other 3rd party entities ingenuity in breathing life into old games? Probably.

But mostly it's because I consider your tone hilariously disproportionate to what's going on. Apparently Valve is the only company who's somehow going to be a dangerous entity, nevermind the fact that Blizzard, Microsoft, and many other companies are already jumping on the forced Internet Architecture bandwagon if they haven't done it already (BNet 2.0, Games For Windows Live, etc.)

Like it or not this trend seems like it could end up being the new big thing for a while, (personally I'm 50-50 on it. It works...for now) but the community at large will always find a way to still play games through the Internet as long as the will and interest is there. Don't blame other companies for your purchase choices because that's always a calculated risk.