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Steam has 70 per cent of PC pie News
PC News by Robert Purchese
Brad Wardell, boss of Stardock and digital distribution platform Impulse, reckons Valve's Steam is miles ahead of any competition in the PC gaming download market.
"Our estimation is that Steam - as the current market leader - enjoys approximately 70 per cent of the overall digital distribution market with Impulse at 10 per cent and all others combined at 20 per cent in terms of actual dollars generated per month," wrote Wardell in a company report this week (spotted by Gamasutra).
Wardell also feels Valve is beginning to monopolise on its position by integrating Steamworks tools into games at an early development stage and essentially locking them out from other digital distribution platforms.
"Another trend we have seen in the past year has been Valve’s successful work with getting Steamworks licensed as a DRM solution by major publishers. Once a game requires Steamworks, it is effectively cut off from us, which limits our content," he said.
"The problem is that it is not practical for us to install a game that in turn requires the installation of a competitor’s store and platform in order to play it."
Wardell said Valve and other competitors had "a significant headstart" signing regional distribution content, but admits that getting content quickly is "an ongoing challenge".
Impulse and Stardock found fame with Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords and Sins of a Solar Empire.
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Bravestinsane
20/11/09 @ 15:29
0
Well i use Steam never had any issues with them, as long as they don't turn into pricks and rack up prices because they have the largest market share i will continue to use them all.
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cianchristopher
20/11/09 @ 15:31
+8
I'm only buying games on Steam in the future (hold on, hold on)....
I won't be needlessly wasting money on overpriced games - I'll get em on a weekend deal type thing! Of course, by the time they're on a weekend deal, they'll also be cheaper elsewhere - but if the difference is only €5 or €10 and the game looks great, then the ease and convenience of Steam does it for me. I don't want them to have a monopoly though! MONOPOLY = BAD |
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+20
I used to buy a lot on steam, until they introduced their ridiculous 1$=1€ conversion rate. Haven't bought anything off them ever since, simply because I won't pay the same or more than I would pay for an actual physical copy.
If they can sort this nonsense out, i'll reconsider. But since stuff like this makes them oodles of money, i doubt they will. |
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0
Personally I started using Steam cause I was forcd since i got access in Counter Strike: Source Beta. I was iliterally forced to use Steam and ive bought only recently a couple of things of them and I seem to be using more and more digital copies of software cause Im out of space for physical.. Yes, you literally cant even imagine the thousands of pieces all the way in my storage room downstairs :/ So in a way im still forced to use Steam and even more, just not cause of them no more :P
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+2
I think I'm the same, started using Steam as I seem to remember it being mandatory for CS:S back in the day… always sort of had it on my system since that and HL2/Eps1+2 but never bought another game on it until Monkey Island SE was going cheap and then the L4D2 deal. Would never pay the full prices on it but it's worth keeping an eye on when the rare good deal pops up.
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hiddenranbir
20/11/09 @ 16:10
+1
The steam works going into the games core is really bad for store-neutrality.
Imagine the ability to tie a game to your email address and then being able to choose which platform to download it from. |
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+3
Actually I don't mind paying a slight premium over physical copies for downloaded games if I'm guaranteed being able to download them again as many times as I need too (which is hardly ever more than once). Beats having physical copies lie around gathering dust. I'm too much of a pack rat to sell them on once I'm done, plus I never finish half the damn things anyway.
EDIT: meant to add that I've used Stardock/Impulse, Gamers Gate and Steam in the past, Steam is my least favourite of the three as it's usually the most expensive - Impulse give you a proper €/$ conversion rate at least!
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 20/11/09 @ 16:36
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My account got hacked yesterday. Hundreds of euros worth of games on it in including mw2 and l4d2, i was shitting it. They had it back to me within 5 hours. Well happy with Steam. Yeah, games are a lil more expensive on day 1 than they are at retail. But 6 months down the line theyre usually cheaper. As long as they keep up the good work i dont see any problems with them having a monopoly on the digital distribution of PC games.
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-1
I really like steams weekend/midweek deals i've bought many a game on it.
I've also had problems with sites like D2D especially where the selling point is early access or a midnight release and them messing it up. Steam on the other hand typically overestimate so i've usually had games before i expected to get them. |
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+7
If you like a Valve game, you're gonna have Steam installed. It's the same 'using one product to leverage another' scheme that we object to whenMicrosoft uses it.
Microsoft uses it to heap dung upon us - here's windows, have IE with it, and your homepage is MSN, look at the adverts here it means more money for us. Although Valve use their games to leverage a quality product on us, shouldn't we object on 'philosophical' grounds? Don't we want a level playing field where digital download services have your equal attention and you can judge each one?
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 20/11/09 @ 17:01
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-9
Steam will eventually be it's own undoing. Every fucken day it seems it downloads another update to it's client with negligible improvements while the programs overall resource footprint gets more and more cumbersome. Each month it feels slower than the one just passed.
What was the last update? Some fix for Left 4 Dead 2 achievements? People aren't going to tolerate this kind of shit much longer. |
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curtlikesmeat
20/11/09 @ 17:36
+5
Never been a fan of Steam sorry, I don't like having to connect to the internet to play single player games (the main annoyance came from when I HAD to get an internet connection to play Half Life 2 on release, as at the time I didn't have access to one).
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StooMonster
20/11/09 @ 17:45
+2
Yeah RABicle, in my PC's system tray Steam takes a massive 9,588K memory and uses 00% of CPU cycles ... the program's overall resource footprint gets more and more cumbersome.
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sarcasmoidosis
20/11/09 @ 18:20
+2
In terms of smoothness, usability and prices Impulse > Steam. But their game list is so small. I'm still a "gimme the box" kind of person, but when the retail CE of Dragon Age was delayed, Steam started winking at me more and more.
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notmyrealname
20/11/09 @ 18:30
0
dumb headline, suggests that it has 70% of total pc software sales..
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I agree StooMonster, I've just finished playing L4D and after exiting it's using a massive 9.7m of memory and eating up a frankly ridiculous 0.0% of my CPU too! I know I could have simply told it to exit steam after I finished playing L4D2 but if I did that then what the hell could I complain about? You can appreciate the bind I'm in!
It's easy to point a shaky finger and scream "monopoly!" This talk of Steam "monopolising the market" because other companies use the Valve DRM and that DRM requires Steam is a bit daft and smells of sour grapes. They could consider it Steam having an exclusive, like, you know, the exclusives Impulse enjoys. If they could get a big game to pick their DRM and so ihave it nstall their software including their store then I'm sure they'd have no problems with the whole thing.
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most recently on 20/11/09 @ 18:31
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In terms of smoothness, usability and prices Impulse >
Prices, yeah, sometimes. Smoothness and usability seems terrible to me. I am using it, but I don't like it. There seems to be a major update every bloody time I am launching it, and the whole thing feels sluggish and unintuitive to me.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 20/11/09 @ 18:31
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Sunyavadin
20/11/09 @ 19:05
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I always buy hard copies cheaper than Steam offers, so there's no point to me using it. Take how my mates were recently coming in their pants and racing to buy Stalker a couple of months ago on Steam when it was a fiver. Despite the fact I was able to buy it new on Amazon for £2.
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hiddenranbir
20/11/09 @ 19:45
+1
Spaaaace Rangers 2 is in top 6 in the customer survey Stardock had, hell to the YES
Usability of Impulse is improving constantly, hence all those frequent updates. Very easy to grab their ear and give feedback. I managed to fix a pricing error within 15 minutes. Not to go all Windows 7 tv advert but Impulse was my idea!
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most recently on 20/11/09 @ 19:48
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+2
This is interesting.. especially with the amount that people complain about DRM!
I've never complained about DRM, so I don't feel addressed, but just for the record: Steam and DRM like activation limits is not the same thing. The world isn't black and white. It's perfectly reasonable to complain about some forms of DRM, but to still use Steam.
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most recently on 20/11/09 @ 20:09
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cairbre1977
20/11/09 @ 20:40
+3
I wont be embracing digital distribution until it is cheaper than retail at the moment I find it is alot cheaper to actually buy the psychical product be it from amazon, play or a high street shop than to download it from Steam or any of the others.
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Bravestinsane
21/11/09 @ 03:20
-2
@the_mtfr
I understand competition is good but rivals to steam there is none, there all crap. If they made a better service i will use them until then... @Artemus I never said they should rack up prices i said they shouldn't do that because that would make them pricks and i would stop using them. Perhaps you should re-read what i said. |
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@JahB
Are you in not in the UK then? I remember when regional prices first came things were way too expensive. Then when GBP pricing came along it was not so bad. I hear things are bad on the continent though. As for buying games, I hope steam do not get a monopoly but I can't help feel that if they do I will be partly to blame since I use steam almost exclusively... Weekend deals are just too tasty |
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+3
Steam's OK I guess.. until your Internet goes out and you want to play Trackmania with your friends in local multiplayer, but Valve don't trust you enough to let you play unless you can connect to them.
I support Stardock on my site because Impulse has a good range of software on it (and they pay commission ;) but personally I will always go for a boxed product given the choice, unless digital is lots cheaper. Sometimes it is, Galactic Civilizations was $1 on Impulse yesterday! I snapped that one up |
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steviepunk
21/11/09 @ 13:30
+2
Can't say I've ever had any real problem with Steam (but then, I've never tried to play a game without my internet connection), but I do have to say that I really like Impulse as a platform. when I want to play Gal Civ, or Demigod, the games just load, unlike playing Steam games. It's really annoying having to wait a minute for Steam to load and login me in before I can actually get at my game!
I still prefer the buy the boxed games though, but these platforms are very good for picking up some well discounted games from time to time! |
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Back when Half Life 2 was released, I wasn't connected to the internet. So in order to install the game, I had to left my PC switched on overnight, on a pre-paid dial-up connection. Of course it *was* HL2 and you *could* enjoy the single player campaign without being connected, so all was forgiven.
By the time the Orange Box was released I had moved to ADSL, so I didn't think twice. I also started paying attention to (and taking advantage of) the various offers. Currently my Steam collection counts over 30 games and to be honest I'm satisfied with their service. They are reliable and fast. The 1$=1€ currency rate has bothered me as well, but it's not actually forbidding when you buy something on offer. The only other digital delivery service I've used (apart from indie developer's own e-shops) is direct2drive during their latest 5GBP sale. In my experience, while the actual transaction was fine, I had trouble downloading the 5GB install file I purchased because it was really slow, so once more I had to leave my PC switched on overnight but this time on a 11 Mbit ADSL line. I don't know if that's a common problem with d2d though... |
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IronCladChicken
22/11/09 @ 14:23
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@JonFE
Why did you need to leave your PC connected all night to install the game? |
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i installed impulse last night as i wanted to compare some prices with steam and a couple not on steam, and to be honest the price was either the same or so little difference doesnt matter. So as steam has alot of extras like the friend lists, achievments, intregration etc i would rather have all my gaming in 1 place so that means steam. As far as iam concerned as long as it works iam happy.
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-1
I'd never buy a game from a company that knowingly sells broken games for a year, calls their customers liars when they bring up the problem, threaten the press, and finally decline commenting on the issue when the whole deal is exposed.
Stardock and Impulse will hopefully crash and burn and Brad Wardell end up as a janitor at a real game company. |
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+1
@IronCladChicken:
If you're asking about Half Life2, the installation disk I had at the time had to be decrypted during the installation and that was taking very, very long over the 33.6 Kbps dial-up connection I was using. Not to mention that Steam's servers were kind of busy as well... In d2d's case, I didn't want to install their download utility so I had to download the 5GB file with my browser. I wasn't sure if the download would be resumed if interrupted, so I did it in one go but the download rate was really slow (~150 Kb/s). |
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