Steam Rakes In Almost $1 Billion in 2010

[fyasko]

PC gaming needs a steam competitor in order to thrive again (90's). cheaters modders and hackers are why i am apprehensive to dive back in to gaming. The love for all things half life and counter strike turned me off in the 90's(quake head and ID fanboi)I am in the process of building an i7 2600k machine... even now i can't stand COD black ops, MW2 with ID's engine is far superior...

 

[guardianangel42]

[citation][nom]photonboy[/nom]"Steam for Linux and OSX"While Steam is going to OSX and Linux you will NOT see very many games making this transition. The reason for this is DirectX which is Microsoft code. Additionally you have to tweak drivers as well but the real difficulty is DX9/10/11.I don't see Linux ever taking off although we may see a couple games working on it.If you are going to GAME on the PC it make most sense to do it through Windows and Linux/OSX users can easily dual boot.[/citation]

This argument has no validity. Half Life 2, Portal, and the Left 4 Dead series are all on Mac right now and they run on DX9. If the limiting factor were in fact Microsoft's code and they were being stingy about it, those games would never have made the transition to Mac.

A more limiting factor would be the drivers. Steam must have to emulate a Windows environment or something because games are designed to be compatible to a wide range of hardware but if the driver structure is different then it would encounter problems.

 

[silicon_ghost]

I stopped going to GameStop when the PC section shrunk to a small rack. Are retailers at all surprised we turned to online services like Steam? They chased US away with their attitude.

 

[cappster]

[citation][nom]silicon_ghost[/nom]I stopped going to GameStop when the PC section shrunk to a small rack. Are retailers at all surprised we turned to online services like Steam? They chased US away with their attitude.[/citation]

I feel the same way you do with going to GS. The PC rack is WAY too small and when you ask about a PC game they give you a the same dumbass look they always do. Steam is so much better than going to the store and having to store all those discs. I have about 30 games on steam and about 10 additional that I have boxes for. Yep, I am done buying the boxes so they can sit on my self and serve no real purpose.

 

[Lamiel]

I love Valve. I love Steam. I love that their DRM is so light. I love that they don't care how many PC's I install my games on. I love the store, the community and everything else. I think almost any PC gamer in his/her right mind loves Steam. But unfortunately, they're not the ultimate solution for me when it comes to buying and installing all my games. The one problem with digital distribution is that many of us have monthly caps on how much we're allowed to download/upload, and that makes purchasing a new game from Steam, near or at the end of the month, a very risky proposition indeed; with no indication of what the file's size will be, and no clue whether or not it will cause us to go over our limit, those of us in this situation will more often just decide to forgo the pleasure. My ISP allows me 20GB/month total DL and UL, and it's very easy to blow through that, especially when you have an entire family that's using the net. Many of you may not know that the broadband industry as a whole is trying VERY hard to move towards a low cap/high overage business model; they've oversold their capacity in so many markets, and rather than spend the money on increasing that capacity, they'd rather reduce the throughput of their subscribed customers and also pull in a little extra coin by hitting people with overage fees. Many analysts believe it's inevitable that we'll all be on short leashes in a few more years. I hope not, but if that does happen, services like Steam won't be doing so well anymore, and we might see a resurgence of the physical media format.

 

[nexus9113]

[citation][nom]guardianangel42[/nom]This argument has no validity. Half Life 2, Portal, and the Left 4 Dead series are all on Mac right now and they run on DX9. If the limiting factor were in fact Microsoft's code and they were being stingy about it, those games would never have made the transition to Mac.[/citation]

Actually the HL2 engine is not exclusively DX9. There are many effects that were introduced in DX9 that are now available in OpenGL, which is what OSX runs in. There is no emulation whatsoever. What has to happen in order for a Windows game to be ported to Mac is that the engine has to have compatability with OpenGL. So yes, everyone is correct in that DX9/10/11 is the limiting factor with many games not being ported to Mac, since the two API's function quite differently on many levels.

Now for the article at hand:

Digital distribution becoming the almost exclusive means of obtaining software is much more realistic situation on PC than on consoles due to the large hard drives available, lack of shelf space given in retail stores, and the lack of ability to resell your games (nobody allows PC trade-ins anymore). Consoles, not so much, since most users never swap out HDD's (there is only 1 console that supports such an upgrade), there is a large amount of shelf space given at retail, and the fact you can trade your games in for cash or credit, which would not be possible in a digital distribution situation.

Personally, I don't buy discs anymore. I've gotten tired of losing shelf space, worrying about wear and tear, or even oxidation of the discs causing them to no longer function (and yes, CD's do expire). I also love the fact I don't have to haul around a CD binder when I travel to keep my collection with me.

Now if you don't have a fast connection for whatever reason (sharing 1 connection w/ roomates, live w/ parents and they don't want to shell out for a faster connection, can't afford it, etc) it can get painful to download a new title, but you can usually find something else to do while you wait.

All in all, I've never believed the "PC gaming is dying" myth. People have been saying it for years, and I've yet to see any signs that the claim has actual merit. There are always over 1 million users logged on to Steam at any time of day, and there are plenty of classic games that still have active communities and servers running.

 

[davcon]

Been using Steam since day 1 and it's no surprise.
Bought 4 games this past Xmas sale.

 

[welshmousepk]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]I look at this a different way in that our kids are playing far too many hours of video games and need to actually get outside and see sunlight.[/citation]

A stupid statement in so many ways. The average age of a gamer is 33 I belive. And surely its not children spending the most money on games.

 

[Guest]

Steam is nice, but a sell your game feature to get rid of titles you no longer want or at least a give to friend would be nice, Sucks balls that you can't onsell a game once you have purchased it, Consoles can do it FFS!

 

[eddieroolz]

I used to be quite against Steam and vowed that I'll never use it, but I gave in during Christmas and used it to buy Company of Heroes for $5. It's been great so far.

The only thing that may hurt Steam's future expansion is the internet bandwidth caps. For example, CoH was 10GB - or 1/10 of my monthly usage cap.

 

[tburns1]

Does anyone else think the Steam interface sucks for browsing game titles?

 

[dawolf74]

Yes tburns1, you can't open multiple tabs, and when you want to go back to the list you were browsing it takes you to the first page of the last search, not the last page you were on.

I have been pretty frustrated by this "feature" many times. There is so much goodness in steam though, that I let it slide.

 

[Jarmo]

So everything sold through Steam rakes in about the same as World of Warcraft by itself.
All other digital download services + all other mmorpgs combined probably come close to that as well.
Store sales make for.... the remaining quarter or the remaining half?

BTW, I bought about a dozen games in steam christmas sale. Touched one or two of them by now.

 

[bustapr]

lol at all the people who missed out on free Portal

 

[gm0n3y]

I actually own all of the games in that list except for CODBlops, most purchased during the winter sale this year (2k games, bethesda, and thq packs). Normally I'll buy maybe 4 games a year for ~$150 total. Since I started using steam heavily over the last couple of years, I've bought probably 100+ games for ~$400-500 total. So I win because I get hugely discounted games and the devs/steam/gaming industry win because I spent more $ on games. Long live Steam and its competition (I love Steam, but without competition it will get a lot worse).

 

[schmich]

Do people realize this is revenue and not net income..?

 

[tavix]

But i bet their profit isn't much bigger that 100.000$...Just think about it...

 

[Sizomu]

But Still! WOW!.... NOW pls Optimize steam more so it uses NON of CPU power

 

[ImagineTek]

[citation][nom]tavix[/nom]But i bet their profit isn't much bigger that 100.000$...Just think about it...[/citation]

Well unless you really believe that they are only making 0.001% profit per game, I think your numbers are out by a couple of orders of magnitude at least.