Steam Sux! andor Rox!

[alanschu]

Maybe that's why Steam works better than Origin (and is more successful).

 

Skeptical.  Steam likely works better because it's a reasonably well polished, heavily iterated and mature platform for delivering games.  The presence of Steamworks has very little to do with Steam's capabilities as a digital developer.  It might ensure Steam's success, but only because by incorporating Steamworks they ensure Steam's relevancy, since Steam is required.

 

 

 

Cutting deals where Steamworks DRM is applied to all versions of a game, making Steam a requirement if you want to play the game, is a move which has no positive benefits. Whether Steam as a whole is positive or not has no relevance.

 

Steamworks typically provides benefits to developers (which is non-trivial).  I'd argue that this has no benefits, as it reduces the cost to the developer.

 

 

 

So now Valve's crime is providing an easy avenue for devs' to sell their games? Like you said there are companies such as EA and Matrix who do fine without Steam, so there's no reason to think everyone else can't either if they just try hard enough, right?

 

Sorry, even as a steam fan this is starting to grate on me.  It has nothing to do with "an easy avenue for devs to sell their games."  The presence of Steamworks is not required to sell something on Steam.  The only thing that mandates that a game must be used through Steam is Steamworks.

 

While there are advantages to a developer for using Steamworks, as a consumer - if you aren't a fan of Steam (for whatever reason), then the presence of something like Steamworks sucks if there's a game that you want that has it.  As a consumer, it's perfectly valid to feel that Steamworks' contribution to the gaming population is a net negative because to them, all Steamworks really does is mandate that Steam is required.

 

That said, Steam's my preferred platform and as long as Steamworks delivers on what developers need of it, and Steam remains top dog, it's easy for developers to go along with it.  The problem with this, from a competitive standpoint, is that barriers to competing becoming very, very high.  Another company can offer everything Steamworks has to offer, and more, but ultimately their position is undermined because Steam has the install base to support it.

 

So while you may be happy that Valve and Steam are whooping ass and taking names, a product you would otherwise find superior to Steam (and that developers themselves may find superior) has additional barriers because of things like Steamworks.  At this point, Valve has minimal incentive to continue to make Steamworks as awesome as possible.  It needs only do enough to make it enticing for developers, while leveraging the market share that Steam has as it's additional argument, rather than the quality of what Steamworks delivers.

Edited February 26, 2013 by alanschu

[Dream]

Skeptical.  Steam likely works better because it's a reasonably well polished, heavily iterated and mature platform for delivering games.  The presence of Steamworks has very little to do with Steam's capabilities as a digital developer.  It might ensure Steam's success, but only because by incorporating Steamworks they ensure Steam's relevancy, since Steam is required.

But all those things go hand in hand. The massive success that has allowed Steam to be so polished and heavily iterated is, in part, directly attributable to Steamworks. You can't really separate the two.

So while you may be happy that Valve and Steam are whooping ass and taking names, a product you would otherwise find superior to Steam (and that developers themselves may find superior) has additional barriers because of things like Steamworks.  At this point, Valve has minimal incentive to continue to make Steamworks as awesome as possible.  It needs only do enough to make it enticing for developers, while leveraging the market share that Steam has as it's additional argument, rather than the quality of what Steamworks delivers.

I can get that argument, but the way I see it Steam's been top dog for a while now and they've shown no sign of slowing down their attempts to improve the platform (from a consumer standpoint; you'd know better if they've been improving the dev tools as consistently), so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they'll pull a **** move and just sit on their mountain of market share someday, but that's not exactly a viable long term business strategy in this day and age and I think they know that.

[Mamoulian War]

If it would not be viable long term business model, Microsoft would out of business...  It is the same over and over again from the second half of the 90's where Windows was the required platform for anything... And many other products, despite offering better alternatives, were just forced out of business... remember OS/2 anyone?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

[Dream]

If it would not be viable long term business model, Microsoft would out of business...  It is the same over and over again from the second half of the 90's where Windows was the required platform for anything... And many other products, despite offering better alternatives, were just forced out of business... remember OS/2 anyone?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

For every company that that worked for you can name just as many, if not more, for whom it didn't. Ford, Blackberry (remember when smartphone and Blackberry were basically the same word?), Blockbuster, etc.

 

As for Microsoft; their strategy isn't exactly working out too well nowadays is it. The whole market is shifting toward devices that don't even use Windows, and while MS has finally made its own tablets and smartphones it really is a case of too little too late (not to mention Apple is growing by leaps and bounds in PC market share as well). So even your example really supports my point more than yours.

[Kissamies]

I don't love or hate Steam, I'm somewhat indifferent about it. I used to hate it when it was new and didn't work so well. The whole concept of always having some extra program running on the background was offensive to me. Even the server browser was and remains worse than some dedicated browser programs at the time. Over the years however, it steadily improved and I got more used to it. Still, I resisted buying anything directly over Steam for a very long time until I tried some sales. I still only mostly buy anything on Steam from sales. I think it's convenient for games that are more casual for me and I wouldn't really want to use it with games I'm more serious about.

 

Don't love it, but I'd rather have everything just on Steam than have my games spread out on half a dozen similar platforms. I think I should use GG and GOG more, though. Their model is more attractive.

[Gfted1]

 

Except a lot of these devs probably wouldn't even exist without Steam to sell their games through. Not everyone can be Minecraft and sell millions of copies through sheer word of mouth.

Or, they'd be happily selling their games through other DD sellers, sellers with a lot less leverage over them.

Is there anything preventing them from doing so now? Do they have to sign a contract with Steam for X amount of games or anything like that?

[Zoraptor]

per se, no. Practically? if they've gone steamworks there's no push to provide alternatives as they can guarantee that 100% of their customers are- by definition- steam customers, they've in effect glued themselves to a monopoly supplier. And if they've gone steamworks then any sales through other vendors are irrelevant, they all get routed through, vetted by and ultimately approved by steam. If any DD gets into serious competition with steam they can kill that service, and that competitor will have been selling the steam shopfront and client for all that time as well. Facebook_piggies.jpg works as well for companies getting 'free' services as it does for individuals. And if they haven't gone steamworks? Well, no one (except some steam advocates, upset at others getting choice) are complaining if that's the case.

 

It's rather like saying that there's good 'competition' in the car market, if the car market consisted of 90% Toyotas being sold. Oh, but you can buy your Toyota with its Toyota service contract and Toyota accessories purchasable from the Toyota shop from a Ford dealership or a GM dealership or a Nissan dealership so there's 'competition'. Except of course if those dealerships are selling 90% Toyotas there isn't any actual competition, because these 'rival' dealerships exist at the sufferance of the company that supplies most of their vehicles, and the 'competition' will exist exactly as long as it remains 'competition' instead of competition.

[Gfted1]

What about releasing their products over multiple DD sources? For example Obsidian is releasing P:E on Steam, GoG and (iirc) physical disks. Why wouldnt all developers follow suit and "cast the biggest net" for future releases? I guess my question is, what leverage does Steam use on future releases? A higher percentage of sales on Steam goes to the developer? Something else?

[Zoraptor]

I answered that pretty much. 'Free' features and ease of use, the knowledge for pre-existing steamworks users that 100% of their customers are already on steam etc. I don't know in a provable court-of-law sense if there's additional leverage, but there is some evidence that there's some... influence applied, in a Fat Tonyesque "nice company you've got there, shame if something happened to it" way.

 

For Paradox as an example, they got rather publicly peeved at some rather overt steam antics- delayed, disappearing patches, an expansion that turned up months late, applying expansions as irreversible patches etc- and had some very clearly stated policies- no preferred DD vendors, DRM free, they were going to put Connect onto all future games, sell on GOG when they started selling new games etc. Yet barely a year later they've done a full 180 and are steamworks only, and would have been only a few months after- for example- Fred Wester's tweet looking forward to selling on GOG if there hadn't been uproar about CK2 being steam only. So there was an alternative- which, ironically, used the (defunct, got killed off as Paradox could not go toe to toe with steam over their TOS change as EA did with Origin; they don't have 2 billion in cash reserves) Connect interface but never had any real support, all the best and first sales were on steam sellers and there was barely any mention of there being an alternative. As I said earlier, there is a certain amount of amusement to be had watching someone run around praising steam to the skies when you know perfectly well that a year or so ago they were being highly negative about it, but I'd personally prefer them to have stuck with their DRM free no preferred vendor policy rather than kowtow to steam, and watched an episode of Hannity to get my amusement fix.

[alanschu]

With regards to CK2, I found an old (paradox) thread that states that the GamersGate version doesn't require steam.  Interesting.

 

 

Most of what I enjoy about Origin bashing is the vast amounts of deja vu I have from when Steam was released.

[Malcador]

Well I don't think Valve is perceived as tainted as EA is, which colours a lot of it.

[alanschu]

At this point yes, though I'd consider a lot of Valve's Sainthood comes from Steam as well (ironically). 

 

When Steam was first released it had mountains of resistance, even up until Half-Life 2 times and beyond.  It was routinely called a "Steaming pile of ****" among other things.  I personally got burned by the Steam activation of Half-Life 2.  Lots of vitriol tossed towards Steam for being a requirement to play one of the most anticipated PC games of all time.

 

Although true, EA's reputation is certainly not comparable to Valve's.

Edited February 27, 2013 by alanschu

[Tigranes]

I'll just concur with alanschu rather than repeat everything:

 

 

While there are advantages to a developer for using Steamworks, as a consumer - if you aren't a fan of Steam (for whatever reason), then the presence of something like Steamworks sucks if there's a game that you want that has it.

 

And in the end, I'm not a developer, I'm a consumer. I'm willing to go pretty far to understand support what is good for developers like Obsidian, but it makes no sense for me to actively argue against my own interests, and the current Steamworks trend is without question bad for the consumer. 

 

For all of you that love Steam, getting rid of Steamworks-exclusive deals would not harm you in any way. So I don't know why you'd actively defend Steam taking away choice from other consumers.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I don't see what the problem with Valve stopping games using Steam as a platform for other stores, like a Trojan Horse. You can release on other stores, but you can't use Steam as a platform, especially to move costumers to other stores. In the end, that could have hurt Valve quite badly. Now Microsoft is moving in that direction, they've put a barrier between the user and other stores, and placed their store in front of that barrier, unlike Steam however, Windows is not free. There's positives and negatives in being an open platform. Do Microsoft want to lose market share and gain competition in operating systems to dominate the software store market on Windows?

 

Option 1: A publisher with several large franchises, many development studios, and lots of money opening a store. Option 2: An independent developer with two big franchises, one development studio, and not so much money opening a store. There's clearly a difference there. Ubisoft and EA getting to together, that could be a dangerous move for consumers, and the big publishers tend to follow each other. Also people don't like Ubisoft and EA for various reasons, how they've treated developers, franchises, and consumers has sucked, we fear that they'll carry on this pattern of behaviour with stores. People don't mind Steam because Valve has competed with service and pricing. There wasn't allegiance to Steam in the beginning when 3rd party games first came up, just because they had to use it for Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 did not mean they were going to buy other games on it. Apart from service and pricing, there's still not much tying people to Steam as a store.

 

Where I have a problem is Steamworks as a platform, heavily leveraged exclusive games, is that it's closed. I hated Gamespy Arcade for the same, but that was always a piece of crap, Steamworks has gotten progressively better. I don't mind Origin, Uplay is a piece of crap. Valve are competing with other platforms with pricing and service, but in this case for developers not consumers. It's created a bad situation for consumers, in they have to run a bunch of different software for no good reason for them, with different accounts, some of them absolutely terrible.

[Zoraptor]

I don't see what the problem with Valve stopping games using Steam as a platform for other stores, like a Trojan Horse.

In theory, it's fair for them to block such things. The trouble is that while steam objects to being used as a platform for other stores it is itself happy to itself be inserted into the products other stores sell, ie block others from bundling their exclusive shopfront but do the exact same thing and bundle your own shopfront into products sold by others. Ultimately, if EA or Paradox or whoever wanted to bundle their own shopfront into their products it is for their own benefit, if they do the same with steam's shopfront it is primarily for steam's benefit as steam gets the cut on dlc and their store bundled into all copies. It's good business sense if you can get away with it, but it's also hypocritical and not something you could get away with if there was proper competition.

 

Or to put it another way, every steamworks game sold on Gamersgate or Impulse or whatever is a "Trojan Horse" for steam just as much as ME3 sold on steam would be a "Trojan Horse" for origin.

[Dream]

and the current Steamworks trend is without question bad for the consumer.

Without question, eh? Here's one: if Steamworks is part of the reason Valve is able to have such a massive chunk of market share and that market share is what allows Steam to have its sales then how is that bad for me (assuming Valve doesn't go all evil empire once it takes over the internet)?

[alanschu]

 

Here's one: if Steamworks is part of the reason Valve is able to have such a massive chunk of market share and that market share is what allows Steam to have its sales then how is that bad for me (assuming Valve doesn't go all evil empire once it takes over the internet)?

 

It's more difficult for a product that is better than steam, that meets even more of the needs and wants that you have, from being delivered.

[Tigranes]

It's also bad for anybody who for whatever reason does not prefer Steam in the present, and whoever does not prefer Steam in the future. We consumers are narrow-minded by default; one of my major annoyances was the broken Offline Mode, yet many people thought that was trivial because their lifestyles meant they were always online. All it takes is for their circumstances to change, or for Steam to add a new 'feature' that does not jive with their gaming life, for Steam to lose its luster. 

 

The above logic is pretty simple. If I don't want to use Steam, then Steam is bad for me. If I want to use Steam, then there's no positive or negative behind Steamworks... until I don't want to use Steam. Compared to that, it's a pretty convoluted reasoning to say "But despite those real & potential negatives I like the exclusives because that might be how Steam is able to give me the sales I want on a lot of different games". 

[alanschu]

To be fair, he was asking "for me."

 

It should probably also be noted that there's a bit of an ardent capitalist in me that also accepts "If gaming goes down paths that I'm not comfortable with, I'll stop gaming."  For instance, I didn't buy games that required Ubisoft's always online.  Seemed a bit too far for me (to the point where sessions were interrupted when the server went down, for virtually no tangible benefit to myself).  Although for something like Diablo III, where I only play the game online anyways (and the benefits of being "closed battle.net" are very apparent), it's a non-issue.

 

 

I actually have a policy of telling people on the BSN that if they have major issues with EA, and consider EA/BioWare to be an unethical company, to withhold their money and not buy (or even pirate) our games.  You owe it to yourself as a consumer to do so.  What I find strange is the rationalizations people come up with, such as "But BioWare is one of the few that delivers on the type of game that I want" which gives me the impression that people don't fully understand how much control they have over their gaming.  To sidetrack slightly as an analogy: If someone tells me how much they hate Day One DLC then goes out and buys Day One DLC because they just have to have that content, they haven't done a very convincing job of telling me anything more than "This is something I wanted to get... I would have preferred to pay less money for it."  Which is an obvious position for any consumer buying anything.

 

So similar with Steam:  If a game has Steamworks, and you hate it, don't go and buy the game and implicitly support Steam/Steamworks (not saying anyone in this thread does that).  As a responsible consumer it's the only rational decision you can make.

[Dream]

 

 

Here's one: if Steamworks is part of the reason Valve is able to have such a massive chunk of market share and that market share is what allows Steam to have its sales then how is that bad for me (assuming Valve doesn't go all evil empire once it takes over the internet)?

It's more difficult for a product that is better than steam, that meets even more of the needs and wants that you have, from being delivered.

 

 

But would that better product even exist if Steam hadn't paved the way for it. Also who's to say that Valve wouldn't adopt that new product's features in order to improve Steam (probably by poaching the people that developed those features).

 

I'll admit that Valve has certainly done things that one may consider anti-competition, but at the same time I feel that in the end they have our best interests in mind (if only because it's in their best interests to do so). Beside that though I think whichever way you feel about it the issue is a skosh more complex than "we'd all be better off if Steamworks was never invented."

It's also bad for anybody who for whatever reason does not prefer Steam in the present, and whoever does not prefer Steam in the future.

While that may be true; you yourself opened the door to the concept of self interest.

but it makes no sense for me to actively argue against my own interests

[AwesomeOcelot]

 

 

I don't see what the problem with Valve stopping games using Steam as a platform for other stores, like a Trojan Horse.

In theory, it's fair for them to block such things. The trouble is that while steam objects to being used as a platform for other stores it is itself happy to itself be inserted into the products other stores sell, ie block others from bundling their exclusive shopfront but do the exact same thing and bundle your own shopfront into products sold by others. Ultimately, if EA or Paradox or whoever wanted to bundle their own shopfront into their products it is for their own benefit, if they do the same with steam's shopfront it is primarily for steam's benefit as steam gets the cut on dlc and their store bundled into all copies. It's good business sense if you can get away with it, but it's also hypocritical and not something you could get away with if there was proper competition.

 

Or to put it another way, every steamworks game sold on Gamersgate or Impulse or whatever is a "Trojan Horse" for steam just as much as ME3 sold on steam would be a "Trojan Horse" for origin.

 

 

Valve will allow stores like Origin, Live, and Uplay to be bundled into products on Steam as well. It's not so much about bundling the store, it's that they then freeze Steam out of continued revenue from that game. It's not the same situation at all.

 

I don't believe Steamworks actually effects which store I use, it's certainly not going to stop me from using GreenManGaming, Amazon, or Origin. I used Steam for ages without buying any games from it, with it at minimal and launching at my games library.

[alanschu]

 

But would that better product even exist if Steam hadn't paved the way for it. Also who's to say that Valve wouldn't adopt that new product's features in order to improve Steam (probably by poaching the people that developed those features).

 

Irrelevant.  The point is that excessive Steam exclusivity prevents it.  No one is saying that Valve won't adopt that product's new features.  However, if said product never gets created (since it's not financially sound to do so), then Steam doesn't get to see what good ideas other companies come up with either.

[Tigranes]

 

It's also bad for anybody who for whatever reason does not prefer Steam in the present, and whoever does not prefer Steam in the future.

While that may be true; you yourself opened the door to the concept of self interest.

>>but it makes no sense for me to actively argue against my own interests

 

 

Uh... exactly. It's in your self interest to use Steam if you like it. Not so much to defend its profit strategies when it hurts consumer options. It takes some convoluted speculation to take up the position: "Even though I would still have the same access to the same games without Steamworks exclusives, I want Steamworks exclusives to actively detract from other gamers' experiences, and possibly my own should I ever not want to use Steam, because I speculate that in some indirect way it might have made them offer better sale deals."

[Dream]

Uh... exactly. It's in your self interest to use Steam if you like it. Not so much to defend its profit strategies when it hurts consumer options. It takes some convoluted speculation to take up the position: "Even though I would still have the same access to the same games without Steamworks exclusives, I want Steamworks exclusives to actively detract from other gamers' experiences, and possibly my own should I ever not want to use Steam, because I speculate that in some indirect way it might have made them offer better sale deals."

It's not really speculation to conclude that massive profits from its huge market share is what allows Steam to have its sales.

[AwesomeOcelot]

It's not really speculation to conclude that massive profits from its huge market share is what allows Steam to have its sales.

The sales generate massive profit, the increase of units sold make price cuts more profitable. Can you do this with a lower market share? Perhaps not, but you also don't need a market share as big as Steam's to do it, Amazon does it, GoG does it. Edited February 27, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot