This is capitalism. The superior, best product will make the most money in the short term. Steam has done that. Now they are also achieving a form of lock-in, due to the fact that its incredibly convenient to have everything in one place. The bottom line is that if Microsoft had done this first, we would be complaining about them rather than Valve. If you ask me, I am REALLY glad it was valve, rather than Microsoft that figured this out.

Is Steam perfect? No. But before you bash Steam, ask yourself if its really doing more harm than good. In my opinion, it has done, and is still doing way more good.

Why Steam being dominant is the best for the future: The best thing possible for the industry is for one delivery platform to have dominance in the masses, simply for ready access to the consumer. Right now, it enables small developers to have a direct pipeline to the market. This is the ONLY way that developers can break free of the shackles of publishers right now. Wild indie successes will lead to developers being able to self-finance a lot more, which is something that was completely unheard of five years ago. This is only possible if there is a delivery platform for these games that can reach a large segment of the market. Publishers such as EA will lose their iron-clad grip on the PC market, and we will see a lot more blizzards and bungies arise in the next 5-10 years. Which means we will see far more original, well-made games on the PC. Its not fanboism, its economics.

heroin wrote on Nov 11, 2010, 17:13:
I don't give a shit about retailers. The last several years retailers were shitting all over PC gaming anyway. PC games were treated like adult magazines at a corner store; hidden away and mostly generic shit.

At least with Steam, you see that "indie" category? You think that would ever occur at some corporate retail chain, hell no. Steam is helping PC gaming and gaming in general by supporting the little guys who would have a much more difficult time finding funding, marketing, or distributing; that alone justifies Steam over retailers in my mind. The Braid's, World of Goo's, Amnesia's that are helping to innovate a somewhat stagnant market.

Though, I must say that it pisses me off to have to be connected to the internet to play a single-player game that I paid for.

Anyway, good luck to retailers trying to muscle developers against Steam. I can see it now, walking into the PC section of a Gamestop with one PC game in stock "Muppet Babies: Learn the ABCs".

QFE.

One thing though. Open steam... Click Steam menu... click "Go Offline..." Voila. All single player steam games accessible with no internet.(And in some cases, it even enables default local saving.)

I am telling you though, sooner or later, steam is going to be regarded as a monopoly and something will happen.

That's silly. Steam is only wildly successful because they make both sides happy(Publishers and consumers). There are other platforms that do the same thing, even better(Impulse). Impulse is unwilling to give the same standard of DRM that Steam provides though, so it has less support from the publishers. But in no way will Steam ever be considered a monopoly, unless retail stores stop selling PC games entirely, which will never happen in the US, since about 40% of the country isn't even interested in obtaining broadband, which means no steam generally. Not to mention people like you, which refuse to use it(due to paranoia apparently.)

This is mostly irrelevant, as it doesn't take into account people like me, who do not want physical copies. I would rather have all my games accessible via a platform like Steam. I believe Stardock is doing fine by the way, because it does have exclusives/different demographics.

Will steam kill brick and mortar? No. Will it steal a lot of their sales? Absolutely. The only reason I find to actually purchase a hard copy of a game anymore is if there is some kind of benefit, such as early access, which only applies to MMOs generally. CDs/DVDs/SecuROM/etc are highly annoying.

The biggest thing though? I can reinstall a game 5 years down the line and its already patched and will work? Why would I bother with a hard copy, where all the money is going to the publisher chain and brick and mortar anyways? Support your local indie developer and buy games off Steam(or Impulse), since its the only real platform they have for widespread distribution anyways.