Report: Steam Has a Monopoly Over PC Gaming

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Release a digital distribution system that's fair to both players and developers? that's not anti-competitive, that's called getting it right
 
Valve rightly deserves all the success they've had with Steam. Steam wouldn't be very popular without Valve's Counterstrike, Half Life, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead games. Not to mention Valve provides a lot of additional content for those games free of charge and actively supports gamer community mods. With Apple increasing their market share, Valve see's this as a whole new seemingly untapped market. Gamers don't buy Apple mostly because there are very few games worth playing for the Apple OS, among other reasons. This move will be good for both Valve and Apple, but to call it a monopoly just shows they don't understand what the word means.
 
It wouldn't matter to me who I get my game D/L's from except that Steam has no limit on how long my games will be available for me to re-download.
 
I love steam, the in game overlay is sexy, all my gamer friends are all in one place, They have fantastic sales, they do huge hardware surveys that help game developers understand what components people are running. I don't have to worry about CD Keys, It updates my games automatically, and it tracks my achievements for free.

Show me something better that is suffering because of valve's anticompetitive actions, and I'll cry foul. Until then back AWAY!!!
 
as a pc gamer, i actually wanted gfwl to work. while it's cool to hate on microsoft, they have been my os of choice for games since after pc dos. the reason i wanted it to work was for a) so i could put my console hosehead friends in their place in cross platform play and b) so microsoft will stop putting so much money and hype into the crapbox and give their breadmaker some pc game love...

the reason i use steam is cuz... well... mostly because halflife 2 kinda forced me to start using it... but also cuz they do pretty cool deals on games on occasion... and after a while i developed a fairly large library that i didn't mind adding to...
 
Steam has done everything right. Be careful calling it a monopoly because that implies bad things to come. Other companies do not compare to what Steam offers. So long as they keep modest I will continue to support Valve/Steam.
 
I would say it doesn't. It just offers the best service, so why wouldn't everyone use it.

I was just on Steam a few minutes ago and noticed that there's 1.3 million people online, and that's in the down hours. That more people then xbox live (they passed the million mark a few weeks ago)
 
I imagine the unnamed source mentioned in the article works for either Ubisoft or EA. Of course *they're* going to think Steam's unlimited downloads, automated patch updates, great sale prices, community and everything else that makes it an actual service beyond just digital copy protection is 'anti-competitive'. As would anything else I didn't mention that publishers can't/won't provide for their paying customers.
 
It's not Valve's fault they are in the position they are in now. They saw the trend coming and have worked on giving the customer what they want. They got their monopoly by offering the best product, how can you punish a company for doing that?

... monopoly monopoly monopoly... monopoly... k got it out of my system now.
 
I use steam a lot simply because I play TF2, but I dont always use it to digital download a game. In face the last game I bought online, Battlefield BC2; I bought off EA because they had it on sale for $40; and it downloaded in 15min and runs fine. When Crysis 2 comes out, I will buy it wherever its cheapest.

Maybe the competing services need to do a better job of advertising. I didnt even now EA had a direct download store until I saw the BFBC2 ad.
 
Steam does it better, faster, and cheaper than everyone else. One key characteristic of a monopoly is undercutting the competition, trying to remove them from business entirely. No one is really competing on the same level as steam, so....
 
Haha... no.

They're the only (worthwhile) dog in town. But that's not because there isn't plenty of space for more dogs. You know, figuratively speaking. It's because no one else is putting up a good effort.

I'd be concerned if steam was the only way to buy games and steam charged unfair prices. If Steam could have even a half change of charging $60 for a $50 game I'd be worried... but they don't. Everyone would go buy somewhere else.

But for the same price, Steam is the best way to go.
 
What about Direct2Drive (who also sells Mac games)? Sure they don't have things like free weekends and weekend deals, but they certainly offer a good selection of games for about the same price anyone sells games. And most of the time, it's pretty much like downloading an ISO.

I'd point to Impulse and Good Ol' Games, but I don't use them as much.
 
[citation][nom]intelliclint[/nom]I'm not happy that Steam requires you to login and stay connected to play the games. They do track what you play, and how much you play it, whihc I'm not to happy with. I do like the accessablity, specials, and downloadable content. As far as I know valve has helped Indie games out, where no one else would touch them.[/citation]

Offline mode buddy, learn it, use it.
 
Even if Steam was a monopoly, which it isnt, I can't say I would really care. Steam has great prices on games and always has some awesome discount going even on new games. Valve is good to its customers, plain and simple, and I am happy to support them with my money.
 
been saying this for ages.

the biggest problem is that the store, and the actual distribution and management system are intertwined. I dare say the same is true for all the other competitors too tho, so they can pipe down!

the problem is, you should have one log in. one client. one collection of games, one friends network ect. and you should be able to buy from ANY online store, NOT just the steam store. the "Store" and the "distribution/client" methods should be INDEPENDENT. I'm not even saying there should only be ONE client. Ideally, you would have many clients, and many stores that were all interchangeable as they all used the same packaging and distribution method, obviously controlled by an impartial 3rd party. as it stands, the store bound to everything else is anti-competitive. hell, even with the itunes store, you don't HAVE to use itunes to play the music, you can export songs in and out. allowing you to use the store and the itunes client independently.
 
"Even [Valve] being a developer and a publisher at the same time means that other developers feel like they could be second-rate citizens (or at best, on the same level as all the indie games on the service),"
Click to expand...

You can ask pretty much any dev on Steam. They go to it (hell even EA went to it and dropped their DRM for Steam) because they know it will get sales as well as reach 15 million more people easier than regular marketing can.

Ask any "Indie" dev who went to Steam and they will tell you a love story on how Steam saved them from becoming another nothing company due to VALVes great service.

Steam may hold more but just because they are breaking a long held boundry of bringing games to Mac by no means makes them a monopoly on digital distribution. The other ones who cry foul just wish they though of it first.

There are other alternatives out there with great choices but most of them are more controled than Steam. On Steam if you get a game through it, you can use mods and as a guy above said, D2D doesn't let you do that.

If anything, VALVe is doing more to keep PC gaming alive than any of the other companies because not only do they offer their own games that push boundaries, they also offer competitions games and I bet more of those games would sell via Steam than a store.

VALVe is awesome. All others are fail.
 
My problem with steam is the same as with literally any other digital distribution system. Used games. The first sale doctrine.

I still use them when I can get the price half off or less, but when it's a choice between buying mass effect 2 on amazon with no draconic copy protection or having it forever tidally locked to my steam account I'm not getting anywhere near choosing steam.
 
I would like to point out that as far as pricing goes, all prices are set by the developers/publishers. The reason MW2 was the same price at Best Buy and on Steam is because Activision set the price, and Valve doesn't control it.

As a common Steam customer I currently love their service. Its handy, its easy, the friends list and community tools are nice. I like that they get stats, play time etc. While I know that means they are gathering somewhat personal info, it doesn't include my name etc and it is gaming time. I game a lot, surprise surprise.

Does it have flaws? Sure. I worry that if they somehow vanish they won't be able to ensure I can play all my single player games without the Steam connection. I don't worry about the lack of hard media as I prefer the ability to d/l the game unlimited times to having to track a disc.
 
I would like to point out that as far as pricing goes, all prices are set by the developers/publishers. The reason MW2 was the same price at Best Buy and on Steam is because Activision set the price, and Valve doesn't control it.

As a common Steam customer I currently love their service. Its handy, its easy, the friends list and community tools are nice. I like that they get stats, play time etc. While I know that means they are gathering somewhat personal info, it doesn't include my name etc and it is gaming time. I game a lot, surprise surprise.

Does it have flaws? Sure. I worry that if they somehow vanish they won't be able to ensure I can play all my single player games without the Steam connection. I don't worry about the lack of hard media as I prefer the ability to d/l the game unlimited times to having to track a disc.
 
Steam gets my razzies. Hate it. Intrusive. Some games will work off-line other games won't and there is no way to tell which is which. I do not game while on the internet and I don't want something running that isn't the game I'm playing. And there is little else to be had except mail-order or brick and mortar and the games available there are paltry.
 
I haven't seen any comments on the following but if they already did, my bad. Steam is GLOBAL. It's the only channel for me to LEGALLY purchase games in my stupid-ass third-world country. Other developers only have Steam to thank for the money I have paid them for their games.
If Steam is hurting developers so badly, why did my PowerColor Radeon 5850 come with a Dirt 2 CD Key? Not only did it help me (as a Steam user), but obviously Codemaster (who isn't owned by Valve that I know of) also saw a value.
If Steam is considered monopoly it's because the competition haven't been as successful. Maybe I'm wrong, but as a user, Steam has both allowed to purchase games which I otherwise couldn't, and I believe both me and all those developers benefit.
The only reason that drives me to be passionate about Steam, is that it has allowed me to support an industry that has given me so much. Nobody is obligated, from my point of view, to agree with me in this pro-Steam way. But please, let's focus on the problem (lack of successful competition) and not the symptom ("too much" success from one player in the market)
 
GO STEAM, back when Half Life 2 forced me to use it I HATED it. Now some 4 years later I love it. I don't have to worry about scratching my disks anymore and being out $60 for a game. Nothing is worse than picking a game up after 6 months of no use just to find the disk popped off the spindle and scratched it all up and you can't play it.
 
My only issue with Steam is when it is required for retail games. I should not be force to use Steam if I bought the hard copy of the game. That is intrusive and forceful, much like any monopoly would act. Of course this is the choice of the publisher and therefore they are primarily to blame for forcing Steam on me if i don't want to use it.

That said, I still like Steam now that I have a bandwidth cap large enough to make it a viable platform (used to be on 12GB... ugh). It's nice not to have to re-install my games.

Also, to those saying that they set good prices: Valve do NOT determine the price of the games, the publishers do. Compare the US mirror with another country's mirror and you'll see a difference in price in USD, sometimes up to a 30USD gap.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom