News Gearbox: Valve has too much power

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/10/08/gearbox-valve-has-too-much-power/1

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has voiced concern about Valve having too much power in the PC market.

 

then dont use steam. looking a gift horse in the mouth. value started up a distribution system that suits dev.s and customers

 

Bit-tech, what does gearbox say about their power level?
- ITS OVER 9000!!!
lol

 

That's easier said than done. DOW 2 for example requires Steam for online play. Which is just as bad as requiring GFWL. If other companies follow DOW 2 then we're screwed.

 

Games for Windows Live = EPIC FAIL
Steam = EPIC WIN

Until other companies pull their finger out and make something as good and as un-intrusive as Steam, Valve with have the advantage.

 

It requires GFWL too

And they're not the only 3rd party to require steam, Empire: Total War does too. Not just for multiplayer but to install it too like HL2 does (I think DoW2 does as well).

 

DOW2 requires both Steam and GFWL.

edit: beaten to it by Veles

 

DoW2 requiring both? EPIC MEDIOCRITY!

 

I will take Steam over Securom any day of the week. Until a better DRM system is developed, Steam will continue to pick up, well, steam. Steam is easy and secure. It is everything the customer wants.

 

GTAVI uses both GFWL & Rockstar Games Loader (both of which are horrible systems) at least Steam isn't intrusive and annoying. I don't have a problem with using a system like that but I would prefer one which is separate to the games. I like the fact I can load all my games through steam and have the steam friends enabled to chat with mates from in game. I'd rather that then xfire or other forced game clients which have worse features and lack style and simplicity.

 

I went into town the other day to buy Aion. The Sainsburys I visited had one game for sale on PC - and that was WoW.

Valve and Steam do more for PC gaming than ANYONE including that impotent PC Gaming Alliance or whatever it was called.

 

That's politics though. Games don't have to have both unless the power that be say so.

 

I find it cute how everyone instantly rushes to Valve's rescue. The fact of the matter is, though, in both creating their own games and the platform that they distribute them on, there is a major conflict of interest, especially because competitors use that platform as well. The cut that Valve gets from distributing those games may also be disproportionate, as Pitchford hints at, and frankly, as a consumer, you are getting a raw deal with Steam, since your games are tied to the platform. Yes, it's easy and convenient and better than most other digital distribution systems, but you don't truly own your games - and if Valve goes under, do you really think that the first thing on their mind will be to let Steam work independently of an Internet connection? Do you really think that as their offices are being cleared out, they're going to have the time or the manpower to get things up and running for all of their users? And that's to speak nothing of all the third-party publishers - are they going to let you play their Steam-bought games offline? It's possible that that's part of the agreement in using Steam, but it also may well not be, and I don't think Valve would have the time in the event of a bankruptcy to go through negotiations with all those different companies (nor would they want to talk to Valve at that point, except through law suits, for that matter).

 

Greetings!

Especially if you pay in Euros.

 

I kinda agree. What if there was a competitor to HL3, for example. Valve sells HL3 for £34.99. Competitor also sells their game for £34.99. Valve says "oh, you need to add distribution tax onto that" and takes it up to £44.99, whilst charging their own game nothing.

It skews the market, so the only way to directly compete would be to charge less and then it's not accurately representing the merits of the games in terms of profit (ultimately what it comes down to, publishers / investors dont back games that dont make money), because Valve is dictating the market.

 

One thing i've noticed about steam is that unless they're having a sale it's usually cheaper to buy a boxed copy, in my experience. Case in point DOW2, i paid £25 from amazon and yet dispite requireing steam to run it was £10 more expensive for the digital copy

 

Ok look at it this way with steam the games are a little more expensive.
but look at what you get unlimited ability to down load your games you don't get that with EA and that is a big thing you get totally free online community stuff voice chat messaging all in one place think about if Microsoft GFWL was as big as steam you would have to pay for everything and i mean EVERYTHING

 

Thats the trick as far as I'm concerned. When steam has a sale its usually cheaper than anywhere else so I snap up as many games as I can, which keeps me going for a long while. When a big new title comes out though, I would always buy it from amazon or play etc.

I don't think Gearbox should really complain. There are other distribution services on the market and the retail channel still exists. If they wanted they could provide the download themselves without requiring the platform. Best case in that scenario you just sell the serial code and let bit-torrent distribute your files. Save a ton of bandwidth that way.

 

Until GFWL or any other system is as polished as steam, and has as many features and as much choice of games, comsumers will vote with their wallets.

I'm all in favour of someone developing an open standard for in-game chat, in-game voice, multi-player game setup, update provision, DRM etc (basically all the things Steam does). Problem is, the system would need to charge consumers for it to make it worthwhile.

As for the whole 'what if Steam goes Bankrupt' arguement, I can't see it happening tbh.
If it somehow did, it wouldn't be a sudden thing, like we wake up one day and the steam servers are all dead and nothing works.

 

You can play most of the games in steam without it running at all. Just go to steam apps folder and run the game from there. It works for Fallout and GTA and prob others to...