What if steam closed shop?

If steam decided for some odd reason they no longer want to run their network/store, how would that affect the games people bought?

What if you closed shop?

I mean, it's self-explanatory, right? You're not only fucking over consumers, but developers as well.

Steam has the most amount of games out of any single service in the world. It can't happen randomly, and as long as business keeps going at this pace, it can't happen (unless, of course, another program is made by Valve or some other technology makes digital downloads as they are right now irrelevant).

You can download/claim your cd keys ....not that it will likely happen in our gaming lifetimes.....

any games relaint on online services will likely require some other support, or be simply unusable.

But its just like saying "What if Sony discontinued playstation to focus on toasters"? ... well shit happens...

It would be very bad for indie devs they wouldn't have a big platform to put their games on

They wouldn't do that, at worst they'd probably sell the service to be under new management and/or ownership. However those coming in to take over would probably try to retain as much of the original staff as they could to facilitate the transition goes smooth and can continue making money all the same long into its new management. Surely new decisions will take place that may change the service some, can never know what that can be until it happens.

Interesting / curious scenario: what if the company that bought Steam (or any other company people have their digital rights and CC/personal info in) got bought by the Chinese? After all, they are notorious for their state sponsored corporate espionage and cyber-spying, even cyber-terrorism? As and their latest 60 Minutes segment showed they'll even resort to Cold War style tactics to get what they want. Do we really want to entrust our personal info to people like that?

I'm aware that it's not going to happen anytime soon. It's just scary to think with my steam library what would happen.

@n64dd: by the time steam closes, a new, bigger dd store would have taken over and you'd have re-bought your games there, and would have stoped using steam for a long time.

Steam will probably release a patch that gets rid of the Steam DRM. I mean it's been done for the Securom versions when they went digital. Plus, the Steam-published games may move over to GoG.

Ea would attempt to muscle in as a direct replacement, while trying to cut your bollocks off with a pair of hedge shears.

People would backlash but eventually they would win. Hell would reign for a thousand years.

Possibly, but that's a lot of cash.

This is as meaningful a discussion as hypothesing if banks or governments for some "odd reason" decide to call quits.

They would find a way for me to play the 112 games I've purchased on their service.

That would be a lot of work making discs and such for a lot of ppl.

It wouldnt happen, but they would probably have a way to download game (even for a limited time) that didnt need steam DRM

Most likely they'd patch out the Steam requirement and leave a data base of games available for those who own them to download, of course that would only be available for a limited time.

More chance of an Iranian national becoming president of the U.S. than Steam closing shop any time soon.

What about the glitch that was showing people's personal information not too long ago? They could get hacked and have all their clients info leaked to the web causing class acting lawsuits and such to close them down.

This is more of a discussion of going digital only over having physical copies. Steam is just the platform to represent it.

No one will get hacked from the recent glitch. A name, a list of library games, the title of a recent purchase and/or an email address is not enough information for someone to get hacked.

If it was internet commerce would not exist.

@GarGx1: lol That's not what I said. A future hack or glitch could give away that info.

Last I remembered. If Valve had to close up shop, the last update they'll make for Steam is to make sure the games you bought are your games.

No doubt there'd be the ability to play those same games without the need for Steam DRM. You can already backup any and all games locally, without the need to re-download from their servers.

@uninspiredcup: Dude, go to Gog, it's better than steam, lol at having to bow to ea.

GoG isn't better than Steam, it's going in the right direction but it's still inferior.

@nyadc: The only thing it's weaker in is the amount of games, it's quickly getting the games, as a service it's 10000% better.

Plus a less scummy company.

If they did, Gaben's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren would be paying reparations.

I cant see it happening soon

Interesting scenario. Who knows.

Yeah I honestly wonder how it would play out.

To be fair, GOG is owned by a public company, as opposed to Valve which is a private company. The former is inherently more capable of being scummy.

How so? Because it's "DRM free"? You do realize out of the countless thousands of games on Steam that very few have actual boogeyman DRM and the ones which do only require initial activation's and that's it, once it's installed it doesn't matter, online, offline, whatever, you have access to your game indefinitely. There's also barely an actual community, something Steam has greatly built, GoG Galaxy is 2005 Steam, it's that rudimentary and they're way behind the curve. Steam is a platform with so many things and features to offer that GoG does not, GoG Galaxy is only a storefront with built in MSN messenger if you want to get down to it...

The "DRM free" sales pitch that GoG put's forward is born from community ignorance to the reality of what is around them and makes the situation of DRM seem worse than it actually is, much worse. To compound this further it's going to cut itself out from having available games which have DRM platforms attached to them, Ubisoft games with Uplay for example.

I've been on Steam pre-dating its public inception, GoG has nothing to offer that Steam is not already doing vastly better. I don't care about DRM free sales pitches to soak up tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists, I care about what you can offer and what you bring to the table.

its funny.you get the same replies every time there is a mention of "What if Steam closed down"..I mean..there is a chance they would shut down just like there is a chance of anything shutting down. Ive seen business go under or just close up even though there were always turning a profit. Sometimes you are just ready to "close"..IF Steam shuts down "and at some point it will" I would assume your games are gone. I doubt they will worry with supplying everyone the ability to download a million games.I mean,what the worst that can happen to them? Someone bad mouth them on social media? Why would they care if they are no longer in business? AND im sure you cant sue them because im sure it says somewhere in their contract about "severs crashing,or going out of business"etc..

They would get rid of the DRM and let you play what you've bought

This thread again...

I think I remember Valve stated years ago that they would make all games playable without Steam in the unlikely event that this happened.

Steam works in offline mode now so you would just need all of your CD keys which are registered to Steam and a source from which you can download the games you have a key for. Something Valve could easily do no doubt.

It would be as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and then suddenly silenced.

I saw that somewhere too.

It'll be just like the budget disc version of STALKER: CoP and World in Conflict. The requirement for CD keys was removed for both. Then there is Sacred Gold. The original had CD keys as well. The budget version removed requirements for both the CD key and the disc.

I imagine Steam will be the same.

I imagine that if steamn is shutting down that something has gone terrible wrong and all of gaming is pretty fucked

Ha!

Beat me to it :P

You mean like how Greece got bankrupt which lead to the banks prohibiting people from withdrawing money?

Valve already answered this question. They would lift restrictions on all their games.

What makes you think they would care?

What makes you think that they wouldn't? especially if they want a reputation to build another business elsewhere.

I don't think it's that hard for Steam to make its games client-free. Remember, a lot of Steam games used to be Securom games before they were converted to Steam games.

A simple patch would do as well. id used to make the disc a requirement for Quake 2 and Doom 3 when they first released. Then, on the very first patch for both games, id got rid of the disc requirement.

That's anything but an "odd reason".

For the same thing to happen to Valve, Valve too would have to become bankrupt as well. Now how likely is that going to happen?

@putaspongeon: Dude, uninspired HATES CDPR. Just saying...

I have 50+ games in my steam account I have not played through yet.

Greece....an entire country went bankrupt. Italy, Portugal and Spain are getting there. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. AIG would have gone bankrupt if not for the government bailout. Any one of those entities are hundreds if not thousands of times bigger and richer than Valve. And we're comparing a game developer to investment banks and insurance companies here.

At this point, anything is possible. It's also fair to say that a major part of the reason why those giants went bankrupt was because too many people one time thought the same way you do now.

• I'm like a rape apologist because I'm not freaking out about licensing policies and DRM that in 12 years and 4 months has not been a detriment to me in any capacity? Like I said, you're a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist who thinks everyone is out to get you.

• Valve is a scummy company? Because of what? What is your experience with Valve and Steam that deems them scummy?

• GoG has no DRM, and? You do realize that access to my Steam games has never been compromised right? There is such a thing as offline mode.

• Steam has countless classics and thousands of other games GoG does not, not to mention multiple features and a community.

• GoG doesn't screw over their fans? How is Valve screwing over their fans in relation to Steam?

• You're confusing DRM with licensing policies, DRM has nothing to do with licensing policies, it's authentication of the validity of your license to use a game. What if GoG went under right now, right this second and you didn't have your games downloaded? You're fucked, so don't act like it's any different on Steam. The fact is I've been on this platform for over 12 years and access to my games has never been an issue, also I've never seen anyone's access revoked that didn't grossly violate the SSA and get their account locked. My games are on my computer and I don't live in a world of what if's, I live in a world of experience and with my resoundingly long 12+ year experience with Steam, none of the things you're scared of have happened.

What is your experience with Steam? Let me see your account, I want to see how long you've been on this platform you're so afraid of and I want to hear your personal experiences with all the things you've been freaking out about and bitching over.

I believe Gaben stated there is a contingency plan in place that would patch out all games to be self sufficient in the unlikely occurrence something should happen to Steam. If not, I'm fairly sure that these games would be grabbed, cracked, and put on the web for free distribution. If all else fails, I think we'd probably see a class action lawsuit the likes of which we'd never see again. People would not let such a thing happen without a serious fight with significant backing behind it, I don't care what the ToU says...