Game Stores View Valve's Steam as the Devil

I think Valve have a frighteningly good product. Until competitors offer a service that can compete, I don't think they have the right to complain.

Not saying that the monopoly is a good thing. In Australia we pay US$90 for most new releases, compared to US$50 in the States. But there simply isn't a product anywhere near as good as Steam, so they can get away with it.

Agreed ...

when the retailers can put a store close enough to my home that it is quicker ... and cheap enough that it doesn't cost more (including petrol & parking) then I might consider retail shops again

The fact that rather than attempt to add value to their own services, or provide a better customer service or compete in any manner they are simply attempting to twist developers arms out of using the steam service speaks volumes about these stores...

I havent bought anything from the local games stores in a long time, 9 times out of 10 they wouldnt have a game I was looking for 10 times out of 10 the games were at top end prices even if they were old.

Steam, I dont have to go to town to access, no weather worries. Steam has lots of really good offers on regularly, I rarely pay more than 50% of the RRP. Theres no stock issues, theres no disk to have to put in the drive, no disk to become scratched and worthless.

My local games stores have failed to inspire any sense of loyalty or customer relationship. Now days there are channels I find far more convenient, far cheaper, and offering more variety.

I believe the retail shops will disappear eventually. A retail game can be considered better only by the users who like to have a box with a cd and a booklet and maybe a few other goodies. Otherwise it is a waste of resources. I personally prefer the games to be purchased and stored online. The only reason I would buy a retail game is because it is not yet offered by an online service, which is still the case with most PS3 and Xbox 360 titles. Digital distribution is the future.

When was the last time I sent a paper mail? I don't really remember.

The biggest problem with steam is it forces you to have a internet connection. I hate the idea of a program that has to run(online) for me to be able to play my own game.

I should have the right to play MY game without the need for an internet connection. It's that simple.
The more they do to stop piracy, the more inconvinience they put on the rest of us who actually buy the game legit. Super idea, lets make it so our legit custumers has alot of trouble playing, while the hackers just hack the game and play offline on there own created servers.
And yes i hate steam !

You can access Steam anywhere you are only via internet connection.
Benefits :
1. You can save gasoline price and travelling time.
2. Steams price is cheaper, since you don't have to pay for the physical items such CD/DVD or any printed items.
3. You can download games anytime you want, no out of stock problems.
4. No standing in lines for hours in front of a shop just to get the most wanted newest game.

I can not see any reason for going personally to a game shop except for collectors edition and stuff....but again I like to order those stuffs from the internet and having it delivered directly to me at home.

This feels like a last ditch effort by conventional retailers in the face of defeat by a distribution method truly superior to them. Don't get me wrong, i do like walking into a Game or Gamestation on the high street but i can't remember the last time i bought a physical copy of a game from one of those stores, its always by steam.

I have to say I use Steam a lot, but I do prefer buying physical copies, and frankly ~1/3 of what I have purchased in the last couple of years has been from Steam, ~1/3 from stores and ~1/3 from online shops (e.g. Amazon).

The truth is if you shop around you get better deals (Steam is not always cheapest), and frankly I don't envy the prospect of re-downloading all my games when a hard-drive dies...

My experience of Steam in the UK as a service is second to none but I do like to have the physical product, manual etc and prices on release tend to be high when compared to Amazon etc and until Valve allow you to resell licences I'll only buy their cheap bargain basement releases. Either way the Bricks and Mortar retailers are still left out.

In the UK at least, Steam is rarely (as far as I can see) the 'best' distribution channel for new games. It's generally more expensive (which is daft given the lower costs for them (I assume) and greater effort required by the consumer), particularly with the online sale of boxed goods and the silly way they can get around VAT; furthermore unless you're on a superfast connection it'll take a while and if people have a usage cap (which a lot do) then you're heading straight for it.
The deals can be quite good, but full price is over the top.

I'd have thought a more important point would be for the UK government to stop the stupid loophole that allows Jersey based (supposedly) businesses to be entirely based around shipping goods to the UK without paying VAT. It's not like online sales need subsidising as they're established and ought to have a low cost base - not only do retail stores have to employ staff to serve people, they also have to pay a sixth (from January) of what they charge straight to the government.

The point being missed is that over the last 10+ years retailers in UK have concentrated almost exclusively on console titles, thereby killing off the PC gaming market on the high street. Steam came along and resurrected games on the PC, now that the retailers see this huge market they no longer have much share in, they are throwing a tantrum.

They need to drop there prices and stop whining. As said most never card about the PC market having it put in the back of the shop out of the way then crying when someone (Steam) comes along and sorts it out. That and its great for indie developers who game shops wouldnt even touch cause they would be takeing up valuable shelf space.

I dislike digital distribution, I'm wary of DRM.

Yet I have amassed 40-50 games on Steam. Why? When it's £3.50 for a full retail game, or £5-7 for a games bundle it's rude not to, gotta love those weekend deals. When retailers can compete with that I'll go back to them (and when they don't staff their shops with know-nothing skanks).

everything that goes in the sense of better prices / less hassle / easier shopping for the final users /consumers is good imo...
That's what competition is meant to be, better price/service for the consumer...

Steam is better in terms of installing a game to many pcs and updating it as it lets me use both legally registered while physical copies often don't.That oes for most online stores.

You can imagine the scene in a software publisher...

"Right, guys, which download service are we going to go with?"

"Well, there's Steam - been around a while and has a large user base, then there's X from Y that's brand new and doesn't have a lot of users yet."

"Great - we'll go with that one then - we don't need the millions of Steam users"


Yeah, right.

Foot - gun - bang!

As far as digital distribution goes, i have no problem buying games and software from places like steam/Xbox live etc.
Even buying a film from say the Xbox Live market place, as long as it's not greatly compressed from the original, especially if it's a dvd i can't get very easily.
Music on the otherhand i'd rather buy from shops, as i'd get to rip it to lossless on my PC and have control of my master copy.
I don't buy music downloads very often unless it's something not available on CD (Indie game soundtracks for one)

If i'm honest i don't see why i should go to a game store and pay for example £20-25 for a game i've seen on steam for say only £15 or vice versa so it works both ways

Oh and for those people who say you need an internet connection to play on steam, that's only partially true of some of the more recent titles like Assassin's Creed 2 and Splinter Cell conviction, other games just need a connection for authenticity validation on the initial installation then you don't have to rely on a connection to play.

Overall, i don't mind where i get my games from as long as the price is good

Steam is good at what it does, but I (while I may be the only one) won't be buying anything new off of steam instead of retail. I like to have an actual hard copy of something I'm spending $60 on, especially considering how rarely I spend $60 on a game instead of just not buying it until its cheaper. I like having games tied to my steam account, since for the most part all games require an internet connection already anyway, and the ability to install things on as many pc's as I want is nice. Steam is also a really good source for older games and really good deals (50+% off) on more recent games that haven't gone down in price at retail yet.
Sure, steam really does have a monopoly on being a good digital download source for games, but no one wants more than one of this kind of platform installed on their system at once anyway, it would be too much of a hassle.
Think about it, if we only want one central platform for digital versions of pc games for convienience, that means it has to include all companies that have digital versions. Does anyone really expect Blizzards mediocre battle-net platform or EA's awful digital platform to take on all of the companies that are out there? And if not, why don't they just use steam so we don't have more programs eating our hard drive space and CPU time?

As a sidenote, I personally don't like the whole "lets artificially restrict something that costs nothing to reproduce" (reproduce, not produce, being the key word there) theory behind the digital buisness model, but thats an issue for another time.

Exactly it is almost impossible to find a good selection of PC games on the high street, the shops are far too busy screwing people over on high priced second hand Xbox & PS3 games, no shelf space for PC games any more. So they want us to buy from them over the internet, why should when I can get a better service from Valve

The only possible problem comes if Steam does build a monopoly - as long as other players in the market can distribute all games available on Steam at whatever price they want (subject to agreement with publishers) then it's ok. If Valve can stop that and start pushing up prices (e.g. not giving the good weekend deals) it could be bad for us as consumers - particularly that there are some downsides to digital media (as I noted above, plus you can't sell the games on afterwards etc).
If the non-Steam distributors sell things at 10% less than Steam charges due to the customer base difference than that's good for us, even if steam is built into 100% of new games.