It is time to publish PC games as Steam exclusives

For over 25 years now PC games have been available on disks and in boxes at retail stores around the world. This business model is now well and truly broken because most people would rather steal games over the internet than pay for them. Game publishers have tried a number of protection strategies (DRM or Digital Rights Management) but none of them work and they cause a great deal of resentment amongst legitimate users. Why alienate your customers?

[Le-mo]

Finally Bruce, an article that makes sense.

[DethWish]

Oh yes.
Though you should still use the cd-key activation system that Valve used for HL2 etc.

[jay2]

Are the way of the future.

[DeadlyFire]

Digital is the way of the future, but I doubt digital downloads will become exclusive digital downloads for awhile longer though. Alot of pockets of North America have less than 1 Mbs internet. I know I live around them. I have 3 Mbps. Its better, but still takes awhile if you want to download something.

[Charmers]

Nice dream but it won't happen anytime soon. When a game appears on steam the chances of me buying it shoot up 100%. Unfortunately software companies seem to be stuck in the past or they want to try and extort more money out of people wanting to digitally download (EA store anyone) rather than offer them a discount for no shipping/cd duplication fee's.

I still don't think the time is here yet for Steam exclusivity though, many people want the outdated physical media and manuals which is fair enough. However this current situation where only a few BIG titles get released on steam needs to change. Every game that comes out on the PC should be on steam, if a software company doesn't do that .. well then they obviously don't want my money.

[whatis]

I've managed to avoid it for this long but it looks like I'm finally going to have to bite the bullet and install it when left4dead comes out.

[TheIneffableBob]

Any reason why you hate it?

Yeah, it wasn't exactly the best service when it launched, but now it's pretty much the definitive online gaming service.

[Vazz]

I'd probably quit buying games if they all became steam exclusive. I hate steam and I'm a collector so yes I want the boxes and discs.

Steam is just the same online drm crap that EA does(minus the installation limits on spore). Except since everyone hates EA(with good reason), they get all the bad press.

Also Steam has been hacked/cracked(whatever you want to call it) so hard it's not even funny. Which makes this article pointless since he didn't do enough research and thinks steam is safe from pirates.

I'm fine with digital downloads, I've bought games through digital download before but making games exclusively download only is not the way to go.
Plus more and more cable companies are putting bandwidth caps on our internet here in the US. Obviously making it even harder for digital downloads to become the norm.

[f789790]

Well I guess I'm not going to be opening my HL Episode 3 box. I'm going to buy it then pirate it. Then I can sell it and Valve gets their stupid money.

[JDW]

Maybe for people with fast internet connections.....but your comments are just ignorant.

I lose evenings just waiting for patches to download nevermind waiting for a full game to download.

Steam is my least favourite application on my computer, it's slow and annoying.

[snp]

I don't really mind if digital downloads take over, but i think there's better ways personally (for instance the value added 'user generated content' doesn't work unless you have access to a legit key to access EA's servers for Spore - see, problem solved, no protest, boxes remain, and no draconian DRM needed.)

PS: Be careful with this sort of remark: "85% of these PC gamers are software thieves". Point in fact 85% of people simply affirmed they'd 'pirated software'; there was no further breakdown on what that meant (whether these were pirated versions of legitimately owned products (in which case it's technically piracy but 'thieves' is a bit of a long bow), whether they spawned a sale but were tried in place of an unavailable demo etc.)

[radio0o]

I will never buy PC games again if they are exclusive to that stupid steam service.