That and Steam essentially competes with Steam by not charging publishers for key generation. So Steam generates keys, keys get distributed to Amazon, GMG, GamersGate, and a bunch of other sites (plus boxed retail activation) and those sites compete with Steam on pricing/sales.
Computer games can’t be compared to books or even music CDs, because games can’t wear out. If I buy a used book instead of a new one, I know there’s a good chance that the spine is already cracked and the corners of the pages might be dogeared. I might consider that acceptable for the price, but I might also decide that it’s worth paying full price for a new, known-immaculate copy. And even with CDs, the disc might be scratched, or there might be a coffee stain on the liner notes. But a used copy of a digitally-distributed computer game is going to be identical to a new copy, so there’s no reason to get anything but the cheapest available.
Thats a fair argument but the Oracle vs UsedSoft case I cited above has set a precedent that most EU countries are likely to follow. First sale doctrine applies even for digital only products. No one has yet taken Steam to court over this, but if they do in the EU they will likely win. Then Valve will either have to allow re-sale of games in the EU or stop selling games in the EU. Somehow I think they will choose the former.
DRM is the main reason why I almost never buy games these day. I bought X-Com, it come with a DVD and I have to download the game through Steam, not even sure why they give me the DVD, just sell the game as a giftcard with the code for activation.
Only games I buy nowadays are from GoG.
They are living in the past. Eventually these idiots will wake up to our current digital reality.
But none of these games are “competing with Steam” - none of these games are sold anywhere else. The only way they are “competing with Steam” is if someone says “I want to buy… some random PC game” rather than “I want to buy League of Legends” (In which case, Steam isn’t an option) or “I want to buy Orie and the Blind Forest” in which case, it’s Steam or… someone who will sell you a Steam key, which I daresay Steam gets a cut from.
DRM now a days is transparent to the end user. And when it’s not you are usually warned about it.
Steam games do not have to have Steam DRM. Although you will need to run steam to install them, once they are installed you can click on your desktop shortcut without ever running steam to play them.
Which is why I don’t really care. DRM has affected me exactly 0 times in the past, oh, 4 years or so?
::shoulder shrug:: And for exactly 0 bother I get cheaper games, and a platform where all my games are kept updated, and my saves are backed up, and where I can download and install mods with a click of my mouse?
It’s awesome. I remember actually running into someone on Neogaf who actually WANTED to go back to the 2004’s of PC gaming. Complete with having to hunt down game patches on download sites and forum boards.
So glad PC gaming left that shit behind.
They don’t. Steam generates third party retail keys free of charge. Steam only gets a cut from games sold through the Steam store.
Sorry the first sale doctrine is still a valid idea in our digital reality. You buy something, you own it and you should be able to sell it. The caveat is you have to prove that you really deleted all your own copies and can’t use it anymore. This is called the exhaustion principle in legal terms and with Steam thats dead easy. They can revoke an activation from one user and pass it to another.
It’s Steam that will have to wake up to the realities of the legal world, rather than the other way around.
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Ironically, stricter DRM may be what will eventually lead to a used digital games market.
There are certainly some games for which there is competition with Steam. For instance, I bought Civilization 3 as a stand-alone game, before Steam even existed, but now, it’s available on Steam as well. I don’t know if it’s still available retail from anywhere else, but it might be, and you could certainly buy a used copy.
There’s even current games competing with Steam. Witcher 3 has both a Steam version and a GOG version. GTA V has the Steam version and the Rockstar version. In both cases, the best discounts to date have been on the non-Steam versions.
Ubisoft sells its games both via Steam and via their own store for Uplay. The Ubisoft store sales are always terrible but, again, the best deal on the newest Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games have been for Uplay versions via third party retailers.
No, it’s not. All that stuff works with DRM free digital games. And Steam is not completely transparent–you have to be logged in, and it will force you to type in your password if you’ve logged in on any other computer (like, say, on your netbook or tablet to play on the go). And that’s Steam–Origin randomly forgets your password every time it updates, and again makes you type it in.
The only way I deal with it is extensive use of offline mode, so that, when my Internet goes down, it doesn’t take my games out of comission. But that’s more work than I used to do–to the point that I’ve started just pirating my Steam games after buying them.
As for the first sale doctrine, I’ve also been buying them all as gifts, so I could give the Steam code out to someone else once I’m finished. Though I’ve not actually done that yet, as I’m kinda slow at finishing games as of late.
Wait, what? You’re saying that when you buy it as a gift, it lets you install the game and also generates a code you can use to give the same purchase to somebody else? That doesn’t seem right.
The word “works” needs a double dose of scary quotes around it. Hunting down info on the games I own, whether there are patches, where I can download the patches, dealing with patches in 4 zip files I need to manually combine… no, just no.
That’s not “working” in my book.
Having Steam logged in and in the background at all time sis not necessary, but it sure as hell is convenient and issue-free for me.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me at all. You’re complaining about entering the Steam password (again you don’t need to) once in a while, but aren’t worried about hunting down patch data for your games? What about all those forum password, and download site password you’d have to type? What about all he time you’d need to waste hunting down what game out of your whatever numebr you ar eplayign now, needs a patch
This is a seriously ridiculous line of argument.
Why is steam so dominant? Because their product is better and cheaper than the competition. Why would you buy from the Microsoft store because you own an Xbox, or the Sony store because you own a Playstation? Because that’s literally your only option.
By analogy, imagine Ford suddenly came up with clearly the best technology building cars. Every car they built got 60 MPG and required no maintenance and ran for 500,000 miles. And not only that, but they were the same price or cheaper than other cars. Obviously Ford would suddenly utterly dominate the car market.
Whereas if you’re in North Korea, your only option is to buy Kim Jong Un Is Cool brand cars because all other competition is legally banned.
You’re essentially saying that Ford and North Korea are the same, because Ford has no real competition either. But Ford does have competition. If they started screwing people over or charging high prices, all the other car manufacturers would be around to start running them into the ground. In this scenario, Ford is only so dominant because they’re got the best, most consumer friendly product.
PC is a completely open platform. If some new company entered the market with a better product, people are free to switch to it. The same isn’t true at all for MS/Sony, where which console you own dictates the only place you can get (digital) games.
They are not at all the same and it’s ridiculous for you to say they are.
Yes…and no.
You can buy download codes from some 3rd parties, at least. I know Gamestop, for instance will sell Playstation & XBox digital delivery games. You still have to use the codes through the respective stores, but it’s not really any different than the games that require Steam activation…except the prices are generally worse, rather than better.
It doesn’t work like that of course. If you use the code yourself, it won’t work for anybody else.
Amazon sells digital activation codes for PS4/XB1 games. I couldn’t offer an opinion on the pricing since I’m not in the market to compare them but they are available.