Why dont more publishers use Steam?

^^ question

There was an article I read a while ago about the sales of Bioshock (no link). It mentioned about 77,000 copies were sold with in the month of August. Obliviously there was no mention on digital online sales of Bioshock by the use of Steam and have seemed to have effect the outcome of the retail box. X360 version have sold 6x that of the PC. The total sale of Bioshock by the use of Steam could have increased the 77,000 figure by 100%. Assuming so...

Why dont more publishers use Steam to sell their games? A few names like Atari, EA, Microsoft, and Ubisoft is some of the publishers could use Steam to sale games.

From my understanding developers make more money using Steam.

Publishers make more money from shelf sales. Publishers run the gaming industry not developers :(

From my understanding developers make more money using Steam.

Publishers make more money from shelf sales. Publishers run the gaming industry not developers :(

tenaka2

True, a very unfortunate reality.

Don't know, I ain't one of them publishers.

Send them an email and ask them.

An obvious reason would be that they don't wan't to support steam/ are building their own online shop thingy. ID has done a great thing though jumping on steam with their products. I doubt though that companies like EA etc will support another company in this way. Eaven though it will in the end help themselves. More exposure = Win!

In the end it comes down to personal gain for the companies. Some of them are probably still thinking "we can do it better then steam ourselves".

I just prefer to go out and buy them.

20 minutes into town, 10 minutes to the shop (depending on its relationship to where ive parked), 5 mins in the queue, 20 mins back home. The about 20 mins installing and updating depending on how new the game is.

Total Time = 1h 15m

I would imagine downloading was a damnsight longer(Id guess at about 2.5 to 3hrs), anyway, if I go into town I get to see other games and offers, and dont have to fart around with putting money in the bank to use my debit card.

Another point is, Steam registered games cant be part exchanged, places dont take them, which sucks badly, especially if youre strapped for cash.

ea have thir own online store, ea link. im sure direct2drive has a download manager as good as fileplanet's, or better.

personally, i like to buy games online, and i think it would be cool if online games were cheaper (no pay for packaging, transport etc)

Some developers/publishers are scared of change and have to have others test the waters first, steam only has really took off in the last year. 2 years ago the catalogue was pretty paltry.

EA have their own digital service called EA store, they have spent quite a bit of money on it, and done many iterations (ea downloader, ea link) and they even have built in regional pricing. They know for certain digital is the way to go for PC games, but they won't use steam to distribute their own games, because they won't people using their own service.

MS might use steam in the future but they may go for more advanced stuff with GFW live stuff. Atari and Ubisoft should be using steam soon I would think, they aren't likely to let other publishers run away from them.

Atari was originally coming to steam, I have no idea why they aren't there already

I hate steam. If a game needs steam to run (unless you work around it manually), then the game has ended up on my "Do-NOT-buy" listADG_

*nods in agreement*

lol at steam haters

I hope more people invest in steam as well. They have some decent games in their catalogue nowwith 2k and ID getting on board. It's a great service and it is good for getting exposure for older classics that you can't necessarily find on store shelves. Like I think Deus Ex is on there for pretty dang cheap. That's a really good game and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Also to all you steam haters: get a better connection, get with the times already everyone has broadband.

Steam is a crapy software.... I hate it, stupid updates all the time!!!!omerdv

lol, i guess you like bugs then

lol at steam haters

I hope more people invest in steam as well. They have some decent games in their catalogue nowwith 2k and ID getting on board. It's a great service and it is good for getting exposure for older classics that you can't necessarily find on store shelves. Like I think Deus Ex is on there for pretty dang cheap. That's a really good game and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Also to all you steam haters: get a better connection, get with the times already everyone has broadband.

Citan76

in that case, there would be no reason for the majority to dislike Steam then, wouldn't there?

^^ question

There was an article I read a while ago about the sales of Bioshock (no link). It mentioned about 77,000 copies were sold with in the month of August. Obliviously there was no mention on digital online sales of Bioshock by the use of Steam and have seemed to have effect the outcome of the retail box. X360 version have sold 6x that of the PC. The total sale of Bioshock by the use of Steam could have increased the 77,000 figure by 100%. Assuming so...

Why dont more publishers use Steam to sell their games? A few names like Atari, EA, Microsoft, and Ubisoft is some of the publishers could use Steam to sale games.

Jd1680a

I hope FEWER people use Steam, not more. It is unreliable and a pain in the tail. direct2drive is better because it does a 1-time activation rather than having to constantly check every time you run the game.

[QUOTE="Citan76"]

lol at steam haters

I hope more people invest in steam as well. They have some decent games in their catalogue nowwith 2k and ID getting on board. It's a great service and it is good for getting exposure for older classics that you can't necessarily find on store shelves. Like I think Deus Ex is on there for pretty dang cheap. That's a really good game and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Also to all you steam haters: get a better connection, get with the times already everyone has broadband.

Jinroh_basic

in that case, there would be no reason for the majority to dislike Steam then, wouldn't there?

I have broadband, and Steam is crap. They make it inconvenient for the law-abiding just to make it a little harder for people to warez their product (very, slightly harder). It works right most of the time, but as soon as they have server issues, even the Steam fanboys complain.

The idea that you can only play your game if your online while prevents stealing sure as hell prevents people from playing as well. Its an extreme pain in the ass to have to have a constant internet connection with your gaming machine is a laptop. They are great games but after trying to connect 13 times while on campus is not worth buying. I might as well buy some other game if I can never play it. Best thing to do is fool the machine into thinking that you are already connected.

The idea that you can only play your game if your online while prevents stealing sure as hell prevents people from playing as well. Its an extreme pain in the ass to have to have a constant internet connection with your gaming machine is a laptop. They are great games but after trying to connect 13 times while on campus is not worth buying. I might as well buy some other game if I can never play it. Best thing to do is fool the machine into thinking that you are already connected.

Elduque21

[QUOTE="Citan76"]

lol at steam haters

I hope more people invest in steam as well. They have some decent games in their catalogue nowwith 2k and ID getting on board. It's a great service and it is good for getting exposure for older classics that you can't necessarily find on store shelves. Like I think Deus Ex is on there for pretty dang cheap. That's a really good game and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Also to all you steam haters: get a better connection, get with the times already everyone has broadband.

Jinroh_basic

in that case, there would be no reason for the majority to dislike Steam then, wouldn't there?

I know steam isn't for everyone, and when it first came out it was terrible, but its really improving. Also a lot more big new releases are on steam like bioshock, STALKER, COH, DOW, painkiller and I'm sure I'm missing some. The only thing that bugs me about steam is that their prices should be a little lower, simply because of the no packaging costs, and no profit to the brick and mortar companies, but they still have pretty good deals on older titles. Steam also has some great games that aren't easy to find, like Deus Ex and Vampire Bloodlines.

I personally hate CDs and supporting stores like Best Buy as well, so I get most of my games online, or in some cases ebay. I can understand if you don't have access to the internet 24/7 it can be a pain in the ass, but otherwise steam is getting better each day, and I don't have any big complaints about it.

Edit: Oh, and ADG_, you don't need the CD for any game on steam, which is one of the good things. I hate when I play a game too much and the CD gets destroyed, or it gets lost. You can add non steam games to steam too, but thats one of the big problems with steam right now as you still need the CD and the feature is just generally buggy.

I have a faster internet connection than most people, but I still hate it. It doesn't offer anything that I would like, but adds something I don't like. Does it prevent people from pirating the games? Nope... pirates actually get the better side of the deal, as they don't need Steam to be installed. The only drawback is that they can't play online, but that's how it works with almost all games with MP, not just with steam games Also I prefer to have a hard copy of the game on my desk (not that I ever use the included cd / dvd or read the manual... just to have it) A question though: If I have bought the game (on cd / dvd), do I still need to have the disc in the drive? If the answer is yes, then what's the point? If the answer is no, then I have finally found a positive side of steam. I have heard that you still need the disc in the drive, but I'm not sure, so what is it?ADG_

No you don't need the disc in the drive for all the steam games I have played. Also what is it you hate about it if you have a fast internet connection? It automatically updates all your games so you never have to search for updates. You can pause said updates if you don't want waste bandwith on them. You can have a friends list that allows you to join games your friends are playing. The community feature allows clans to have an easy and free way to communicate with members. It's a fast and easy way to purchase games and often they have sales on games like currently there is a sale on some2k games. They have old games you can't find anymore. The interface is easy to use and the program loads quickly. I haven't seen any bugs at all for a long time on steam. You can download tons of demos and trailers for games if you want to see and try them before you play them. There really are no negatives to steam if you have a good connection. All I see are people being angry at steam but I haven't read any good arguements against it. Obviously those with bad connections would take issue but otherwise what is the problem? I could see people being indifferent to steam but not people hating it. Like someoneelse said though you can play your gamesin offline mode. Ah yes it also has a really good built in anti-hacking program. Although of course some hackers will figure out a wayto get around it but it usually clears out the casual hackers.

They want their money.

I personally like Steam...it doesn't have everything, but its handy.

The pros of Steam don't really affect the average customer, while the cons can be a pain. I remember last time when my internet connection went down and I was pretty much int CS:S back then, well I thought I'd play some HL2 then in offline mode. Buuuut, offline mode didn't work, it still wanted me to connect to their servers, FU to that and no HL2 for me that time ;-(

Even if they may have fixed this issue now, its pretty annoying having to start Steam if you want to play any game you have on there. Some say it starts fast, but its still an annoying extra waiting time to get the game started.

A quite frequent "pro" used also is that you don't need to have your cd/dvd in the drive while you play, this just leaves me wondering if people have never heard about no-cd cracks? They are pretty convenient, and pretty much obsolete this pro-steam argument.

The thing is, we don't really need Steam for anything, people say its nice to buy their games online, but I don't find it very inviting when you can, at least here, buy the same games cheaper in the stores. Really, what's up with the pricing, no packaging and shipping costs, and still its more expensive on Steam than retail.

Hopefully I could shed some light onto the matter why people also dislike Steam, as for me it is DISLIKE, not hate.

One of the negative sides is the need to have some useless software on the computer that doesn't offer anything positive having it there. I couldn't care less about how easy it is to purchase games through it, as I'll never use it. Getting updates through steam or download manually (I usually know about when an update is released and has already downloaded and installed before Steam) I couldn't care less about. I'm more into SP, so the friends/clan features is useless too. So there's only one positive side in having it installed (no need for cd, but that problem has already been taken care of, so nothing new there)...ADG_

Yep, I pretty much agree with ADG_

There just isn't that much of an advantage of using Steam for me. In fact, the part I really don't like is the whole internet connection thing. In order for me to get/install my games, I'm forever obligated to pay for internet connection the rest of my life. What if I want to take a break from the internet? What if I move and don't get internet hooked up immediately? What if I get old, don't want the internet any longer, but do still want to play my games --- I'll always be a gamer hehe :P Using a service like Steam my games feel much more like rentals than purchases.

Anyway, those are completely hypotheticals. I don't hate Steam at all though, and my attitude towards it has definitely softened :) However, I'd still choose the non-steam version over the steam version of games.

Just af ew things off the top of my head;

PROS;

- Cheaper games

-Back catalogue

CONS;

-Updates

-Can be buggy/server issues

-Cant trade games in at stores - even the packaged ones which have to be registered.

-Quicker to go to the shop

-No pretty boxes/bulky manuals.

CONS;

-Updates

-Can be buggy/server issues

-Cant trade games in at stores - even the packaged ones which have to be registered.

-Quicker to go to the shop

-No pretty boxes/bulky manuals.

F4ll3n_1

-Cant trade games in at stores - even the packaged ones which have to be registered.

F4ll3n_1

[QUOTE="Jinroh_basic"][QUOTE="Citan76"]

lol at steam haters

I hope more people invest in steam as well. They have some decent games in their catalogue nowwith 2k and ID getting on board. It's a great service and it is good for getting exposure for older classics that you can't necessarily find on store shelves. Like I think Deus Ex is on there for pretty dang cheap. That's a really good game and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Also to all you steam haters: get a better connection, get with the times already everyone has broadband.

ADG_

in that case, there would be no reason for the majority to dislike Steam then, wouldn't there?

exactly. Steam offers so little to so small a fraction of the gaming community, it isn't worth all that trouble. i have broadband too, and previously a campus T1 connection, but Steam never crossed my mind.

I see no real reason for steam to exist. I think most developers don't either at the moment. They are interested in making the most $$$ for their work, and the terms which steam offers right now are probably comparable to most publishers' (although I'm not certain). It might be cool in the future if distribution over steam cost less, but as of know I doubt that's the case.

I have bought boxed copies even of games which require steam, because I like having hard copies, even though you can't use them by themselves without steam installed (those are pretty much all Source games). I use games outside of steam whenever possible. I don't hate steam, but I don't like it either. I've never had a problem with it, but I've never really been impressed with it either. It's just some entirely useless code running on my system.

Now, they're trying to experiment with things such as a "steam community," which includes stats,and game overlays for friends lists/messaging etc. which is interesting, but again- nothing which I find of much use... yet.

Some people find having an online downloadable service for games great fun, but I don't really care for it. Now, if it actually cut prices due to cheaper distribution, I'd be sold. However, it doesn't (yet, at least - it might in the future, who knows). Games on steam cost the same or even more than hard copies most of the time.

Does it stop or curb piracy? LOL. If you know where to look you will see people reverse-engineering the steam client and downloading games for free right from steam servers. So, in a way - steam actually helps people download games illegally by offering them a service. You just have to have the set of mind to do that kind of stuff and of course be smart enough or at least know where to look. I haven't done it, I just know it's possible. And I like my multiplayer.

P.S. I guess it autoupdates my games... I'll give it that. I think most games have standalone self-updaters or patch notifiers nowadays, but it's probably more streamlined for developers to issue patches to one provider rather than maintain a server and all of their own games.

I'll tell you 2 quick stories.

1 - I have Half Life 2. Original. The BOX, retail version, with he CD key. I can't play it because it asks me to link the CD key to a steam profile, says it's ALREADY linked to an old profile. I can't discover my old profile login or keywork cause the old e-mail I had is no longer active.

2 - I bought C&C3 by EA eletronic downloader. The game don't run when my computer is offline - it must check EACH DAMNEDTIMEwith the server to check if I'm STILL me. I usually only play C&C3 when my connection fails and I'm not allowed to play WoW.

End of story,I did spend my cash and the games don't work anymore cause AE wants it that way because THEY must be safer aganist piracy and people that buy originals should be f**ked in the ass.

I'll NEVER buy something that way again UNLESS I read the contract and it's EXPLICIT that I can play whenever I want, online or not. If the contract says otherwise, I'll just grab the pirate version. They stole me, I can steal too. Long live the offended consumer!

Agreed with the above poster. It definitely opens up more possibilities of issues. Issues with lost account information, issues with connectivity and authentication. Never happened with good old boxed games. Only possibility of failure was if you lost your box with the key in it, or the disk. Much harder to do and much less likely to happen than to get your password keylogged or your login info packet-sniffed, not to mention the hundreds of "I'm your VAC administrator, your account needs to be reset, give me l/p'-type lame phishing scams running on the net that so many people fall for.

Steam places so much responsibility on the customer to keep account info safe... and not being to play offlne in the case of EA Link (I never used that one myself) is just painful.

From my understanding developers make more money using Steam.

Publishers make more money from shelf sales. Publishers run the gaming industry not developers :(

tenaka2

Exactly. Steam is good for cutting out the middleman, aka the publisher. We need more Steam like programs...if we're lucky, we will get more games, more independent developers, and less EA-type publishers.

Steam isthe freaking savior of PC gaming.

I've been using STEAM since 2003 and all i can say about it is, its great.

[QUOTE="tenaka2"]

From my understanding developers make more money using Steam.

Publishers make more money from shelf sales. Publishers run the gaming industry not developers :(

mrbojangles25

Exactly. Steam is good for cutting out the middleman, aka the publisher. We need more Steam like programs...if we're lucky, we will get more games, more independent developers, and less EA-type publishers.

Steam isthe freaking savior of PC gaming.

If you cut out the publisher who will finance the game development? The independent developers don't need a publisher because most of the games are low budget.

The only games I would buy from Steam are the Valve games, anything else I am buying in the store. I will also buy from EA Link as their games are compatible wiith the retail version. I will also never buyanything from Direct2Drive again.

I'm from Mexico and we have a crappy games distribution here, we lack good games and when they reach here is for insanely costs.

But this kind of software like steam and d2d make it easier for us to get this games at the launch date for the same price, instead of waiting several months to get the same game for a higher price or not getting it at all.

I bought the Orange Box on the launch date; took like 5 hours to download, and man I love it. I mean this kind of games will never reach here because the 80% of the internet using mexicans are ignorant who use it to chat, download crappy pop music and watch porn. Mexicans dont know how to use the internet at its full potential so we dont get a good software/hardware distribution.

For example I bought a Dell XPS 710 8800 gtx 2gb ram dual core etc. for $22,000 pesos, which is around 1,8k us dlls.for the same price here we get crappy last generation computers.Thats why I like steam and all that kind of sharing services because we get stuff that other way around we would never get. Yhea its buggy and all. And at the moment I dont have internet cause I just moved on to my new home and I cant play episode 2 XD.

Anyway love it or hate you cant deny its a good idea that could get better with time. This includes movies, music, etc.