MelasZepheos said:
I really sympathise with these guys. The way digital disribution is going, Valve have basically set up a monopoly, and will, in the same way as Microsoft and Apple did, probably be very very hard to dislodge now.
What I see Valve as having done is very sneakily gone behind everyone's backs, and very under the table, and set up Steam before the advent of digital distribution, and I think in the coming years we are going to see their company practices get very ugly as theystruggle to maintain their vice-grip on the industry.
But yeah, Valve are teh aw3som3s, greatest videogame developers, they made half life and thus everyone must worship the ground they walk on. Anything I say will just be ignored and get me attacked by the legions of Valve fanboys, when they're not being bent over the table by the ep 3 release date.
Well for a start, banning games that require Steamworks only shoots themselves in the foot, if they don't have a game I want, I'll just go "Okay I'll buy it on steam then, and given them ALL of my money". If they don't carry it, they don't get any slice of the pie, and steam gets all of the pie. How they thought this was a good idea, I will never know.
Although how you've come to the conclusion of "Valve have gone behind everyones back and sneakily set up a service" boggles me, how else do things get invented other than people inventing them before other people? Is Thomas Edison a slimy back hand dealer for inventing electricity before "anyone else got a chance", is Alexander Bell a monster for inventing the telephone because he didn't say "I'm going to invent a telephone now, everyone else get started on them now so you all have a fair chance at inventing them and so I don't start a monopoly!" Is George Beauchamp(Rickenbacker Guitars) a complete dick for inventing the guitar and having a monopoly on them for the 6 months to a year of their invention? NO he isn't, and all the other recognizable brand names of electric guitar rose up in the next four years, innovating and offering viable to alternatives to Rickenbacker. As it stands, no body has managed to create something that offers a service even close to equal to what steam offers, even the upcoming EA origin shot itself in the gut before it even started by telling us you're not allowed to download stuff a year after you buy it.
Valve invented Steam because it was a useful service to deliver games and offer a social service and chat program/game organizer/join games of friends service that doubled as a non intrusive, turn off able DRM system. It's not Valves fault they have a monopoly, it's other businesses fault for not saying "Hmm, that seems like a good idea, I want in on this" nearer the start, it's no good leaving it for almost a decade and then other companies only just starting on it, then saying "STEAM IS EVULZ FOR HAVING A MONOPOLY!!11!" that's just bad business practice.
Seriously they're a business, complaining at them for managing to have a monopoly always puzzles me, surely if you sell something, you'd prefer to be the only one doing it, so people only give their money to YOU. Because that's what businesses are designed to do: MAKE MONEY. If they were being out of order or bought people out, or did aggressive takeovers I'd understand but they don't and I can't imagine they would to be fair (not that they need to, it's not like they actually have competition). Heck the money they've made from other companies steadfast refusal or 8 years too late reaction to creating their own digital distribution channel is enough to get a ride back to which ever planet you come from, under the table man.
Steam started before the advent of digital distribution, because it WAS the advent of digital distribution (or at least in terms of a stable decent service, I don't know if it was actually the first to do digital distribution of games). You can't say they're playing dirty because they invented something, otherwise anyone that invented anything would be labelled as such.
Also, if you call me a fanboy for refuting your sensationalist bizarro world point, I'm going to have to stab you.
Akalabeth said:
What value does buying a game off Steam give you?
You can't resell it to a 2nd hand shop.
You don't actually own the game, because if Steam ever goes tits up guess what you can't play it.
It's basically a full priced rental.
Well for a start I can access it any time because I don't have to carry physical copies of games around with me, I also don't need to put a disc in my pc. Steam also has an offline mode which means you can play the games without being connected to the internet and the only games that require steam to be running are Valve games(Half life, L4D, Portal and TF2 and even then you can crack it if you're in a pinch, and I think uninstalling steam and then launching the games from program files works, although I'm not a 100% on that one but I seem to remember doing it with Half Life 2 before I had an internet connection)and magicka, which is a special case because it was part published by valve.
Everything else can be launched independently of Steam by going into program files and launching the .exe from there, which DOESN'T require steam to be running. Non valve games are launched through steam to enable the overlay, which is why you can add games to the launcher and use steam in game for games that you didn't even buy or aren't available on steam, like I do with League of Legends, Minecraft and Starcraft 2. All buying a game through steam means is that you can download it if you log on to steam on a PC that doesn't have that game installed on it.
Valve also have stated that in the event of them having to shut down, they will release all Steam purchased games to be completely independent, then all you have to do it burn the Installer to a disk and voila!
