Steam. Uplay. Origin. Good Old Games. Gamersgate. Games for Windows Live. Impulse. Battle.net.
How many other DD services will we see in the coming years? Depends on what other companies, publishers, and distributors want a piece of the DD pie.
My guess? At least two more new services will pop up within the next two years. Likely coming on the heals of a major publisher suddenly wanting to jump headfirst into the PC market. (i.e. someone like Capcom, Square-Enix, etc)
shintakie10 said:
Hows that change what I said?
The ability to take away somethin someone has legally bought and paid for with quite literally any reason they think is good enough is anti-consumer whatever company or platform it comes from.
Aside from that, if you're defendin Valve I don't think puttin them in the same boat as Microsoft and Apple's ridiculously jacked up ideals on ownership does them any favors.
Either way I don't buy products from them.
I buy my music on Amazon and my games on GoG or in retail stores if its not on GoG. If I buy it in a retail store and it requires Steam/U-play/Origin to play or I can go fuck myself, I take option C.
And as for games on the Xbox and Playstation, so what? The only way that Microsoft and Sony can stop me from playin my games I have, even if their EULA's state its only a license is to physically come to my house and take my disc away. Is it fucked up that they claim the disc I own isn't actually somethin I own? Sure, but there's fuck all the can do about it.
If I may?
Bullshit. Valve can no more "take away" your games than can Microsoft or Sony.
Every game I've purchased on Steam is nicely and neatly stored on two external hard-drives. Funny thing, Steam itself has a back-up utility built into it. So Steam actually made the back-ups for me.
So, even if Valve does for some reason decide to cancel my account
(which, despite others doom-and-gloom claims, would only happen if I wanted it cancelled or if I'd done something egregious like credit-card fraud. I.E. offenses worth real jail time.) I still have full use of every game I purchased.
If your account is just banned you still have full access to your library of titles. You can download them at any time. You simply lose access to the Storefront and many of the online features.
You only lose access to the Steam servers; and subsequently the ability to download your games; if your account is closed.
But again, that only happens if you choose to close it or you do something seriously illegal.
I'm actually getting sick of hearing people scream about Valve "being able to take away your games whenever they want to!" It's simply not true. And more people would realize this if they just looked into it beyond reading someones claim that Steam screwed them over via posting (often doctored) pics on Reddit.
On a final thought, even if Valve does arbitrarily disable your account without cause, you can very easily take them to claims court. In fact, as long as your claim is less than $10,000, Valve will even foot all of the legal bills.