Steam Now Selling Non-Gaming Software

[irh_1974]

Although Amazon and Steam both sell games it is a totally different market, Amazon I buy and the disk is delivered to my house in a few days - Steam I click a button and depending on the size of the game and my internet speed it is available between a few minutes and a few hours - Amazon the disk can scratch, break, get lost - Steam it is always in my available list when I log in, even after a reformat, new PC, friends house, etc. As far as service goes Steam is offering more benefits, especially as you can always go into offline mode and play without being connected to the internet for either LAN multiplayer or single player and if re-downloading all your games again is a ball-ache if you do trash your PC, your games folder can be backed up and just copied over again, all it needs to do is authenticate what you have is what you bought and no other downloading required. Amazon may well be pissed at being competed with, but they had the opportunity to invest heavily in digital distribution instead of being a massive mail-order warehouse for physical products, but they didn't. So strictly speaking it is Amazon that is encroaching on Steam's market. There will always be people that want to buy a physical copy and they will always be able to sell it as long as it is available, but they see physical media dying a slow death so either provide a better digital distribution method or you don't get my business. Wouldn't take a lot of effort to convert a warehouse into a datacentre, just be wary of making another "Origin" or it will be a massive fail.

 

[back_by_demand]

I was just thinking, Steam said it will never sell out, but never said it wouldn't buy or merge another company, how about it Steam merged with Netflix - Steamflix? Games, Software, Movies & TV shows? A Linux based set-top box could make this a reality for the living room even for those that don't want to have a PC attached as a HTPC.

 

[Guest]

in addition to traditional cd/dvd versions amazon offers competitively priced digital download version of most games.

the only difference is amazon digital downloads are not subject to steam drm and subscription model.

its basically the plain old software that you would have gotten on a dvd, but delivered to you digitally.

well unless its a steam, ea, gfwl, ect title that requires an account and use of those services as well.

 

[djscribbles]

I love the examples given to define "10% off" in the article.

 

[Guest]

re: steam will never sell out

1st never is one of those words...

2nd sadly eventually all living organisms pass away

so then what will happen to steam? will the people running the company then feel the same way?


i guess one can say as long as jabe controls and is running the company he will not be selling it, well unless he changes his mind 😉

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]jbx007[/nom]re: steam will never sell out1st never is one of those words...2nd sadly eventually all living organisms pass awayso then what will happen to steam? will the people running the company then feel the same way?i guess one can say as long as jabe controls and is running the company he will not be selling it, well unless he changes his mind[/citation]
There are some ways to protect the status after he dies, such as a foundation or co-operative, maybe even set up as a charity, all are do-able

 

[Guest]

interesting thought but i dont think too many kids ( and/or people) are setting up foundations, cooperatives, charities or any type of organization when they subscribe to stuff on steam 😉

the agreement does not cover those but it does say that you can't use the software in location-based site
, so perhaps the above would fall into that clause

and again they can amend the agreement at any time in any way, so if you did setup on of the above and they catch you and dont like it they can simply add it to the agreement and block you

so you end up losing access to any and all software that you have tied to that subscription

it looks like they have thought it out pretty well. so keep that in mind next time you hand over $60 for a game from them when you could go to someone like amazon.com and pay the same, but not be under a subscription, but a regular software license!

still i do have several hundred games from them, well over $1000 accumulated over a great many years, my bad i guess 😉

 

[Guest]

wow here is a new clause in their agreement that i did not see in the past

basically you agree that you will not allow use of your Account by individuals of any terrorist supporting countries


so terrorists you can't play on steam (that's so funny in a strange way, so when you play medal of honor 2010 lets say the taliban side can't be played by the taliban and virtual allied soldiers ingame are safe from being virtual killed by terrorists, only virtual terrorists played by non terrorists, i guess steam legal has our backs)

 

[wildwell]

Cool. I can only see this as good news. ;-)