One more note, it's really the retailers' fault. They've known about online distribution forever, but instead of quickly signing up independents like Steam and Direct2Drive to sell games for them (thus getting in between them and publishers and reserving their place in the food chain) they just doddered around in their stores like the world wasn't changing around them. And here they are, out of date and on the way to being history. Nothing new to see there.
UK Retailers Threaten to Ditch Steam Games
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
I know this is in the UK, but I have to imagine some stores here have similar feelings, too. I know some try to stay with the trend, given that I'll notice a recently marked down game that was on sale on Steam, but I know that can't sit well with them, or with their distributors.
Can't blame them for wanting to take action, though not carrying the games isn't going to do anything but funnel more people to Steam or to online retail. Amazon doesn't seem too bothered to carry Steam games, and if you've got the choice of Steam and Amazon, maybe people will decide they don't need the local brick and mortar after all?
Can't blame them for wanting to take action, though not carrying the games isn't going to do anything but funnel more people to Steam or to online retail. Amazon doesn't seem too bothered to carry Steam games, and if you've got the choice of Steam and Amazon, maybe people will decide they don't need the local brick and mortar after all?
You have to use Steam, but you are not absolutely required to purchase the games from the service. I think a store eliminating games from their stock just because they use Steamworks would be a horrible business plan. I heard from a Gamestop employee that at the midnight release for Black Ops they did have people waiting in line for the PC version. If they knew about the Steamworks connection is unclear, but they are still spending money in a brick and mortar store so there is revenue to be gained by carrying the games.
You know, I don't think not carrying Steam games would actually change a damn thing.
Hell, since you need the platform for the game anyway it's most simple (though maybe not quicker) to just cut out the middleman altogether.
Often a hell of a lot cheaper as well. I can't remember the last time Walmart or Gamestop sold a hot game for 50% to 75% off.
Hell, since you need the platform for the game anyway it's most simple (though maybe not quicker) to just cut out the middleman altogether.
Often a hell of a lot cheaper as well. I can't remember the last time Walmart or Gamestop sold a hot game for 50% to 75% off.
This:
As deth2munkies & Ubermetalhed so rightly said, hard-copy retailers need to understand that competition is vital to a healthy capitalist consumer economy. But competition isn't just about cost, it's also about the quality of service & product the retailer provides. As an example:
The last hard-copy game I bought (in fact the only one in well over a year) was StarCraft II from Game, purely because I fancied a change from downloading all my games. It wasn't until I got home with my boxed game that I realized Game had charged me £5 more than they'd said it would cost online. When I 'phoned them to explain this, instead of the apology & refund I expected I was essentially told that it was my tough luck, & that the price given online was only for particular Game shops (true enough, there was a condition given in the small print). When I explained to the ambivalent, bored sounding voice on the 'help'-line that if that was the case they'd lost any future revenue from me, the response was a disinterested 'Yeah, OK.'
Obviously I most definitely won't purchase anything from Game again, & it's their own fault.
And this:deth2munkies said:
Besides, there are anti-monopoly laws in Great Britain & Northern Ireland which Steam does not break, other retailers simply have to rise to the challenge of the competition instead of attempting to scupper it through underhanded conspiracy.Ubermetalhed said:
As deth2munkies & Ubermetalhed so rightly said, hard-copy retailers need to understand that competition is vital to a healthy capitalist consumer economy. But competition isn't just about cost, it's also about the quality of service & product the retailer provides. As an example:
The last hard-copy game I bought (in fact the only one in well over a year) was StarCraft II from Game, purely because I fancied a change from downloading all my games. It wasn't until I got home with my boxed game that I realized Game had charged me £5 more than they'd said it would cost online. When I 'phoned them to explain this, instead of the apology & refund I expected I was essentially told that it was my tough luck, & that the price given online was only for particular Game shops (true enough, there was a condition given in the small print). When I explained to the ambivalent, bored sounding voice on the 'help'-line that if that was the case they'd lost any future revenue from me, the response was a disinterested 'Yeah, OK.'
Obviously I most definitely won't purchase anything from Game again, & it's their own fault.
This is a fantastic example of the double-edged nature of most capitalist concepts. Monopoly is basically a four letter word, but it's only actually bad when it harms customers. If the result of a monopoly is lower prices, better service, and an overall better experience, there's really no reason to remove it. If anything, steam has shown us the failure of "competition" to lower prices and progress the industry.
heck it is the same here in the states._marrow_ said:
if retailers carried isles upon isles of pc games it would be one thing if steam was hurting their bottom line, but seems odd when they carry hardly none and complain steam is killing sales for them.
last time i bought batman aa at walmart, i went on lauch night at midnight
, they had all of 3 copies in the entire store and that was out of the box directly. i mean they do not get many games and the games they do get are short shipped so they do not have many copies. and do they not have direct to drive and the other online distribution services over there? every publisher has their own digital service form atari to ea to activision. just the fact that steam is more versatile and in many cases just plain better than the others it wins.
especailly in the eu with the bandwidth caps and whatnot that are imposed in many areas, it would seem on the face of it retailers have little to fear period. if you can buy a disk and save 4 to 12 gig of your bandwidth for the month.
and what about sony and microsoft pondering the possibility of the xbox 720 and the ps4 or 5 going completely digital? it has been something rumored for years and already the handhelds have gone almost exclusively dd, while i think it is silly to be thinking that people would want to spend days dling a blu ray game on anything but the fastest of the fast high speed internet. there are a ton of advantages for the major console makers in doing so that are hard to ignore even if it made the lives of their customers miserable. including harder to beat drm and pure profit on every game sold.
if microsoft and sony went that way then it would be a body blow to the retail industry since the vast amount of software sales are for consoles anymore lest via pure retail.
couldn't this, you know, backfire?
"So you spoiled brats prefer our competitor eh? Well we'll just remove ourselves from the picture entirely. That'll learn ye!"
"So you spoiled brats prefer our competitor eh? Well we'll just remove ourselves from the picture entirely. That'll learn ye!"
(1)According to Wikipedia: Number of games using Live released in 2009: 16. Number of games using Live released thus far in 2010: 13 (counting Chaos Rising and Episodes of Liberty City as separate games). Hmmm...LoganN said:
To be fair, Wikipedia lists five games planned to be released this year with Live, although it's likely that only Tron Evolution will see a release date before the end of this year (Fable 3 PC is pretty much guaranteed to miss this year, Australian Rules Football has been rescheduled to 2011, CarneyVale: Showtime is formally AWOL and Flowerz's out of nowhere).
(2) Perhaps, but when Steam launched, there was no competition. When GfWL launched, it was explicitly competing against Steamworks (i.e. there was no Games on Demand yet, that didn't come until two years later).
(3) I stand corrected, unless you consider "time = money". Microsoft is notoriously slow at publishing patches, and woe betide you if they reject a patch. In comparison, Valve has one check ("Does the Steam Overlay still work?") which, frankly, if very difficult to fail. Thus, they are far, far quicker with the patches. Faster patches = better PR = more sales due to word of mouth.
(4) Largely because they haven't released a PC version of one of the games they publish since Gears of War. With Fable 3's delay, excuse me while I be skeptical about their support for the system.
I could also point out GfWL's other failings (e.g. locking you out of online saves if you go offline, undisclosed and arbitrary install limits, etc.)
I presume this is only for pc copies if so that's not that bad because I only see remakes on the pc shelf's in any store I go into to if any. the only thing I'm unhappy about is the fact steam is becoming a monopoly but if they keep their good deals and their support for indie games it won't be that bad.
Look, we're just voting with our dollars here, and the old Gamestop model is just losing out. Honestly, I hate that chain anyways and I think they're a terrible company to do business with and it's their own fault. They don't hire people that know what's going on, but then don't train them or empower them to help you or even pay them enough to give a crap about it; they have poor stock levels and their used prices are a joke.
So if there's another store to shop at, I will, and if there's another way of getting my games while not giving money to a company that I don't want to support, you'd better believe I'm going to do it. These stores don't have some kind of right to our business, they've gotta' earn it like everyone else.
So if there's another store to shop at, I will, and if there's another way of getting my games while not giving money to a company that I don't want to support, you'd better believe I'm going to do it. These stores don't have some kind of right to our business, they've gotta' earn it like everyone else.
I agree with the game stores. Im sick of buying a game and then finding out i need steam to run it.
Particularly when that game has no need to go online at all. Like mafia 2 which needs steam and i have no idea why as it has no multiplayer or online side to the game at all. Or fallout new vagas which also has no online compatability.
Steam should just stick to there valve games or games with multiplayer/co-op as the only good thing about steam is its handier for playing with friends. Not to mention if your account gets hacked you loss all your games.
Particularly when that game has no need to go online at all. Like mafia 2 which needs steam and i have no idea why as it has no multiplayer or online side to the game at all. Or fallout new vagas which also has no online compatability.
Steam should just stick to there valve games or games with multiplayer/co-op as the only good thing about steam is its handier for playing with friends. Not to mention if your account gets hacked you loss all your games.