Retailers fear steam

[tgr]

http://www.guru3d.com/news/retail-threatens-to-ban-steam/

Looks like retailers are sulking that Valve are ahead of them in the race to figure out how to get us to buy games, so they want to ban Steam in games which they should be resellers for, instead of just making a better alternative.

Welp.

[Chimpy]

Even providing that there is not as much clout in the brick and mortar games store/retailer anymore, if Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Best Buy don't get on board with this, all it will do is spell doom for those stores boycotting faster.

[Kail]

Article's a bit brief for me to really know what they're on about.  

I have no problem with retailers insisting on a "No Steam" version for their stores.  The amount of hoops I have to jump through to play a game should be as low as possible, and if going to a brick and mortar store is going to require me to go through Steam anyways, why would I ever go to a store?  Seems like a valid complaint to me (see: sinij's Civ V adventure).

If, on the other hand, they're saying "We won't sell Fallout at all because it's available on Steam," that seems like they're screwing themselves out of sales.  Obviously I don't know the actual numbers, but I can't imagine that brick stores sell so much product that they could force an agreement like that without taking a fairly serious financial hit.  It's hard for me to feel much sympathy for brick and mortar retailers when the last time I went to one, there were more copies of Halo: Reach on the shelves than there were PC games in total.

[Lantyssa]

I can't ever find decent PC games at brick and mortar stores.  No loss to me if publishers call their bluff.

Seems like a valid complaint to me (see: sinij's Civ V adventure).

That just cemented the idea in my head that Steam-only is a good thing.  Thanks!

[Ingmar]

I think "valid" is very near the bottom of the list of words I would use to describe Sinij's complaints about his Civ V adventure.

[tgr]

My interpretation is that they want to refuse to sell games if they use steam technology, so that they can try to get their cut of the download market which they're hideously late for, and they probably would have a rather large problem with making a service which could compete with steam/impulse.

On one hand I want there to be multiple providers, but on the other hand I don't want to have too many different providers that I buy games from either, since we're looking at what should become a permanent relationship. I reckon I'd set the max at 2-3 providers, unless they were to use the same strategy Matrix Games do, where they allow you to download the game from them for 1 year after purchase, and they also give you the possibility to get a physical copy sent to you via mail at no extra cost.

As for Lantyssa's comment, I have to agree. Each and every time I've tried to buy a game at my local brick and mortar store, they've either been sold out or they simply haven't even thought of buying it. Good luck finding a purchaseable version of games such as Jagged Alliance 2, for example.

[01101010]

Jesus Joseph, brick box stores still sell pc games? 

I'd say it's a nonissue since the bulk of their sales come from consoles. Once you start seeing shit being sold on XBOXlive and whatever playstation uses, brick box stores will be primarily hardware and "support" stores.

[IainC]

The article is more than a little misleading. Many retailers already have issues with Steam enabled games because they don't like the idea that the game they are selling comes bundled with a competing service. Retailers pay in advance for their games (digital distributors don't) so they more important to publishers than their market share of PC sales might suggest. This is already happening, game studios are being told by their distributors that major retailers will be unhappy to the point of refusing to stock the game if Steam is chosen as the multiplayer solution instead of an alternative such as Games for Windows Live. Obviously GFWL sucks balls so there was a bit of a push back and apparently the retailers aren't so much against any integration of Steam, just for where you need to go through Steam to activate the game and play it. If the game uses Steam for matchmaking but can otherwise use a regular desktop shortcut to launch and the Steam layer is largely transparent to the player (i.e. it doesn't put the Steam store in your face when you play the game) then they are mostly ok with that.

So a more accurate description would be retailers don't like selling a route to their obsolescence and publishers can't afford to ignore them and this status quo is unlikely to change for a while.

[Hawkbit]

Jesus Joseph, brick box stores still sell pc games? 

I'd say it's a nonissue since the bulk of their sales come from consoles. Once you start seeing shit being sold on XBOXlive and whatever playstation uses, brick box stores will be primarily hardware and "support" stores.

PSN is already selling about five or six big name titles that I'm aware of, granted they've been on shelves for a year.

Once Gamestop started trimming their PC selection down to a couple shelves of rattyass looking boxes, I started going elsewhere.  Frankly, I don't see a need for brick and mortar stores in my life.  I buy 80% of my titles from Amazon and I only spend money at Gamestop when I'm doing tradeins.  And I'm swearing off tradeins due to the ridiculous prices I get when giving them my games. 

Bring on the Steam holiday sales...

[01101010]

I am addicted to Steam's under $10 list. Sure, I am soo 5 years ago, but my pc is uber comparatively 

[UnSub]

I really wished they named who they were talking to.

Steam is assisting in a negative feedback loop around physical PC sales: Steam can offer the titles in a way that is probably quicker, possibly cheaper, definitely more convenient and with greater range than a physical store, so people move away from the physical store, meaning that the store drops the number of PC titles it sells, leading to players having to go to Steam for PC games, and the cycle repeats. So Steam's success is helping pull PC titles off the shelves.

That said, there is a portion of the PC gaming market who'd prefer not to download, so if retailers do start refusing Steam-released games there could be an impact on sales for some titles. Guess it depends how confident the dev / publisher is that Steam sales will make up for any lost physical sales.

[tgr]

I'm not entirely in agreement that it's all steam's fault. Obviously they're not exactly trying to stop us from choosing them rather than a physical copy, but the increasing hostility of misc publishers towards consumers have made the drawbacks of steam (even when weighed up against the hilariously superior convenience of use and range of titles) more or less irrelevant, at least to me.

I didn't start using steam seriously until I got fed up with EA, UBI and others' hijinks, along with the consolification of too many of today's AAA games, which has either forced me to look to a different genre, or to look to indie developers instead.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't start using Steam until the only way I could get a game was a pre-order at a brick and mortar.  If I wanted to wait a bit to see how things shook out, or wanted to keep my budget low for the month, or felt I'd rather get it on sale, I was SoL unless I used Steam.  Once I got past that must-have-first-day mentality, the stores game me no option.

[Sparky]

Steam is a piece of shit.  I really hate having access to all my recent games on the whim of Valve.

[Thrawn]

Steam is a piece of shit.  I really hate having access to all my recent games on the whim of Valve.

What Steam do you use?  I was a HL2 release date Steam user and I have never been unable to access/install a game.

[Musashi]

So a more accurate description would be retailers don't like selling a route to their obsolescence and publishers can't afford to ignore them and this status quo is unlikely to change for a while. until Steam inevitably makes them obsolete anyway.

FIFY

Also.  Fuck Steam/No Fuck You thread.  Here we go again.

On topic.  It's only a minor loss to me, and a boon to the looney toons Sinij's, if they stop bundling Steam with their versions.  Who cares.  As long as it's possible for me to enable the game with Steam on my own, then I really don't give two shits.  Sucks for Steam.  But you can't have everything.

[Azazel]

I really wished they named who they were talking to.

Steam is assisting in a negative feedback loop around physical PC sales: Steam can offer the titles in a way that is probably quicker, possibly cheaper, definitely more convenient and with greater range than a physical store, so people move away from the physical store, meaning that the store drops the number of PC titles it sells, leading to players having to go to Steam for PC games, and the cycle repeats. So Steam's success is helping pull PC titles off the shelves.

That said, there is a portion of the PC gaming market who'd prefer not to download, so if retailers do start refusing Steam-released games there could be an impact on sales for some titles. Guess it depends how confident the dev / publisher is that Steam sales will make up for any lost physical sales.

Well, except that specialist game retailers like EB devote only a tiny fraction of their store space to PC titles, and have done so for several years since before Steam became the PC juggernaut that it is today.

OTOH, I do prefer a physical copy of the game to a download in general, even for Steamworks titles. And I often circumvent Steam's localised pricing by purchasing boxed copies from Europe. (Which is Australia is a part of). 

[Azazel]

I'm not entirely in agreement that it's all steam's fault. Obviously they're not exactly trying to stop us from choosing them rather than a physical copy, but the increasing hostility of misc publishers towards consumers have made the drawbacks of steam (even when weighed up against the hilariously superior convenience of use and range of titles) more or less irrelevant, at least to me.

I didn't start using steam seriously until I got fed up with EA, UBI and others' hijinks, along with the consolification of too many of today's AAA games, which has either forced me to look to a different genre, or to look to indie developers instead.

You need to buy yourself an XBox or PlayStation to go with your PC.

[tgr]

You need to buy yourself an XBox or PlayStation to go with your PC.

I have a 360 that I was given by work like 5 years ago or whatever. I

LOATHE

using the pad. So um... I'm going with "no".

[Kageru]

Well, except that specialist game retailers like EB devote only a tiny fraction of their store space to PC titles, and have done so for several years since before Steam became the PC juggernaut that it is today.

This. The retail stores were the primary reason people believed PC gaming was dying, given that there was a tiny selection on a single shelf hidden somewhere at the back of the store. And now they are whining they're not a part of the market?

It was almost as bad watching Australian retailers complain people were buying online yet not seeing that as inevitable when the games (and pretty much everything else) are 50% cheaper and with a wider variety.

In any case they're free to use whatever economic muscle they feel they have. But attempting to stand in the way of consumer desire for cheaper and more convenient product generally isn't a long term winning formula. It is also cute they're complaining about steam having the potential to control the market and they're going to use their retail monopoly to make sure no one can do something like that.

[Azazel]

It was almost as bad watching Australian retailers complain people were buying online yet not seeing that as inevitable when the games (and pretty much everything else) are 50% cheaper and with a wider variety.

Heh, all of what you said is true.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/retailers-call-for-gst-on-overseas-sales/story-e6freqmx-1225945938206

That's not from game retailers specifically, the shit we buy is too small to get hit by GST, etc. But I really do polish my inexpensively-purchased items with their tears.

I have a 360 that I was given by work like 5 years ago or whatever. I
LOATHE
using the pad. So um... I'm going with "no".

Tools for the job, baby. Learn it, love it. Or turn in your gamer card. 

[tgr]

Tools for the job, baby. Learn it, love it. Or turn in your gamer card. 

If having a gamer card requires using a pad to play FPS games, then consider my gamer card handed in. I'd unironically rather sit and play war in the pacific and be a full-on neckbeard all day than play FPS games with that atrocity of a control mechanism. But this is not exactly a new viewpoint from me, so that's probably hardly a surprise.

This. The retail stores were the primary reason people believed PC gaming was dying, given that there was a tiny selection on a single shelf hidden somewhere at the back of the store. And now they are whining they're not a part of the market?

The store I used to go to actually only moved the PC games to the back of the store sometime this year, so to me the "omg pc gaming is dying" began around starforce/spore, and got worse as more and more games became mere console ports. That is, until I embraced steam. I've unironically spent more on steam (and to a lesser degree, Impulse and GOG) this year than I have in brick and mortar stores the past 2-3 years combined, maybe even longer. Mostly because yay updated awesome old games, some because awesome indie games I never would've seen anyways since "shelf space is expensive yo".

[Azazel]

Who said anything about FPS?

I said tools for the job. ie Fighting games and beat-em-ups, some third-person games, driving games, rhythm games, sports games. If you only play FPS and RTS and MMOGs(?) then sure, stick to PC-only.

[Malakili]

If you only play FPS and RTS and MMOGs(?) then sure, stick to PC-only.

Welllll, that pretty much describes me.

[Azazel]

That's cool. It might also be the case for tgr as well. We seem to have had some crossed wires there when he took my "L2PwithController" to mean he should use it for FPS games. While I've taught myself to play console FPS games over the last year or so (mostly due to my wife's machine being underspecced for Borderlands)  I don't expect anyone else to do so. It is nice seeing them on the big TV screen though. (cue Sky).

[tgr]

The reason I singled out FPSes is because that's where most "l2pw/controller" discussions start and usually end. Well, that or 3rd person games, but I tend to lump both types into the same category. I never think "strategy games" when someone say "consoles", nor do I really think "driving games", albeit those at least work because there's at least steering wheels for the consoles. What I do think of when I think of consoles, however, is fighting games, beat'em'ups, platform games and the like.

So yes, FPS, 3rd person, RTS, MMOs and driving games pretty much defines my gaming tastes, which pretty much limits me to the PC. My main problem is that it seems like the majority of the "AAA" gaming industry is hell-bent on ruining the FPS and 3rd person genres for me, either through asstastic console ports (yes, even mass effect 2, where you for example duck behind a crate before you can jump over it, even on the PC), delays on launch compared to the console, or just a complete lack of a launch for the PC (like RDR, which was the last console game I bought, where fighting is either an annoying pan-fest (no autoaim) or simply press auto-aim, select target, fire). And don't get me started on SW:TFU. And now, failing all that, they have the audacity to tell me when or if I can even play it (Hi UBI/EA, etc).

[HaemishM]

Fuck Brick and Mortar stores in the ear when it comes to PC games. IN THE EAR. Steam wasn't anywhere near the successful service it is now 5 years ago when those same B&M stores started assfucking the PC game market - their declining PC game sales are mainly due to their policies of pushing those PC games into the darkest, dustiest corners of their stores. On top of that, they started refusing to carry in stock copies of any PC game that wasn't published by one of the big name pubs, so their dark, dusty shelves looked like 60 copies of EA/Activision and 0 copies of anything else. Steam is the financial fucking savior of the PC game industry and any PC game dev idiotic enough not to use them deserves to go out of business. If the B&M stores had started doing their digital distro services 5 years ago instead of the shafting given to the PC game industry described above, this wouldn't even be an issue.

[DLRiley]

Lolz, so the B&M stores are complaining about not getting the cut from the sales of games they don't even put on their shelves. I know three game stops that don't even have a PC gaming section and the ones that do haven't changed a single item on their shelves in 5 years.

[Cadaverine]

When the mouthbreathers at Game Stop started looking at me like I'd sprouted a second head if I asked about a PC game that wasn't Warcraft, or Call of Duty, I stopped bothering.  If I absolutely need a box, I'll get it from Amazon, or Best Buy if I just can't wait.  Everything else I can get online without having to dick around, and I don't have to worry about losing, or scratching the dvd, etc.

[Kageru]

The retail stores have no interest in online purchase anyway and would not have come up with a steam equivalent. Their real money is in re-selling and that needs you to come into their store to drop off your old "physical objects".

[MisterNoisy]

I've long since converted to the 'if it isn't on Steam, it wasn't released for PC' mentality.  I'm hoping that the next generation of consoles goes DD as well, though there are other issues at play there (why stock a low-margin gaming console if you're not going to be able to sell software to that guy later?).

Hell - if MS starts distributing Windows on USB sticks or digitally, I won't even need an optical drive any more.

[DLRiley]

I like my library of games I didn't actually install on my computer bought along time ago, on steam where i can install and uninstall at convenience. I see no real reason for a Console DD system not to be able to do the same. You won't even need to pump money into external harddrives or usb, standard hard drive space available on xbox and ps3 aleady should allow for the 3-4 games most console gamers play at any given time anyway. Hell you can have the game leave behind your save-game files which won't use that much memory and can be ported on cheap flashdrives just like the old memory cards.

[Merusk]

The circle of stupid is nearly complete:

Brick and Mortars complain that steam is unfair because it cuts them out of the profit loop.

Now a Game dev complains that Brick & Mortars are unfair because it cuts them out of the profit loop.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20022957-17.html?tag=mncol;title

[Kageru]

At which point steam is jumping up and down going "pick me!".

Though if it's a choice between money going into the retailers hands or the developers hands I'm generally happier with the latter. But the problem is the developers also want games to carry premium pricing which provides a strong incentive for people to try and find ways to get the games cheaper (rental, re-sell, pirate). They need to both embrace online sales and pass the discounts from the more efficient distribution and death of rental / re-sale onto the consumer. Which they're very unlikely to be interested in considering.

[DLRiley]

At which point steam is jumping up and down going "pick me!".

Though if it's a choice between money going into the retailers hands or the developers hands I'm generally happier with the latter. But the problem is the developers also want games to carry premium pricing which provides a strong incentive for people to try and find ways to get the games cheaper (rental, re-sell, pirate). They need to both embrace online sales and pass the discounts from the more efficient distribution and death of rental / re-sale onto the consumer. Which they're very unlikely to be interested in considering.

Which is fine. Gives room for the indie games to flourish. There is a big price war going on between Indie Devs and Major Studio's and the fun part is the gamer for the first time in forever is actually winning the war, well PC gamers that is.