Steam Consolidation - Good, Bad, Inevitable, or Impossible?

[Lemur]

Just wanted to raise an issue for my fellow Orgahs to hash out for a bit:

Steam consolidation.

My thoughts: As much as I fear and despise monopolies, I think consolidating PC gaming under Steam is a good thing. My reasons are as follows.

• Steam is the least-worst online distribution system for PC games. None of the competing services such as Origin, Ubisoft's service (can't recall the name of it), battle.net, and so forth, can hold a candle to Steam. Among other things, Steam supports a robust offline environment, which is leagues ahead of the others.
• Steam is the least consumer-hostile of the services extant. (The push to include OS X and Linux are just two of the non-jerkish, non-evil moves Valve is making.)
• By consolidation, Valve will come under scrutiny and legal pressure. Issues such as the First Sale Doctrine (which are being sorted in Germany as we speak) will be worked out more quickly if Valve and Steam are in a clear position of dominance.
• If Steam achieves something resembling market dominance, Valve will come under increased pressure to spin Steam off as its own entity. Which would be a good thing. Probably.

These are my thoughts. Please feel free to rip them to shreds, poke holes in my reasoning, and generally sharpen my argument through vigorous debate. Thanks!

[TinCow]

It's an odd situation. Some industries are absolutely better with monopolies. For example, look at telecommunications and railroads in their early stages of development. Digital distribution is not one of these industries. There is nothing inherently advantageous about downloading all software from one site rather than multiple. However, Valve have carved out an exception to this. Basically, Valve have created a digital distribution system that is so vastly superior to all of their competitors that it has created its own advantages for monopolizing the industry. So, digital download business overwhelmingly favors Steam because they basically supply a superior product. That is fine, but there are dangers. Specifically, if Steam ever starts to use their advantages to actively stifle competition and hinder innovation. At the moment, that's not really an issue. There are few companies in the gaming industry that I think are more altruistic and consumer friendly than Valve. However, that may not always be the case. As of today, the Steam monopoly benefits us all. Ten years from now, that may not be the case.

[johnhughthom]

While I like Steam, I find it strange that an online business with such an actively terrible support system can be described as in any way altruistic or consumer friendly.

[Lemur]

such an actively terrible support system

Hmm, I have not found that to be the case. Given that computer games are some of the most complex software on Earth, and given that PCs are infinitely variable in hardware, software, drivers, OS, etc., I've been mildly impressed by Steam's attempts at support.

Maybe you could go into a little more detail?

[johnhughthom]

Well, to be fair I've only ever had to use Steam Support once, but it confirmed what I've read about it for a number of years, it's pathetically slow. 4 days to receive a reply, and not over the weekend. The issue wasn't technical so I can't really comment on how helpful and informative it is.

I'm not criticising here by the way, they are a business and want to minimise costs, that's life. The most important thing for me is that I have 140 games on my Steam account and never had a problem I couldn't solve myself.

[Ja'chyra]

I hedging my bets atm, this could go the way of Amazon that has such a tight hold on the market that producers (book publishers in Amazons case) complain that they are effectively being blackmailed in what prices they can be charged which leads to lengthy legislative procedures on price fixing and in the case of books a noticeable decrease in the number of pages per book (Terry Brooks, David Eddings Raymond Feist).

That said anything that drives down prices is a good thing for the consumer, to an extent, I don't think anyone will agree with the greed that is often seen by corporations (music, games, books etc with ever increasing profits, why do profits need to increase?) but when prices are driven too low that can only hurt quality which has a knock on effect on purchases which quickly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and that pains me to say as a Scotsman.

Personally I like Steams model atm which offers good sales to consumers and, I would imagine, practically guaranteed sales to small and medium sized developers. I've never used their support side, which in itself says something as I've used Steam for 4 years.

So, so far, I'm a happy customer.

[Voigtkampf]

Just one slight correction: Battle.net can't be really compared to either Steam or Origin, since it is for just a few Blizzard titles, and heavily specialized.

Adding that, my 2 cents: no. Hell, no. It can't be a good thing. Matter a fact, I wish there were half a dozen services on par with Steam. Competition breeds true motivation to improve the service. I wish Origin wasn't such a poor piece of failed promises, much like the games they are selling there lately.

Personally, since I am in the Internet marketing/SEO business, I can draw comparisons to Google. Who doesn't like Google? Google be da king, mon! It rules the Net. Recently they decided to kill Google Reader. Why? Someone in the company decided it wasn't living up to some specified measurements of success and ordered to pull the plug, after years and years this was working perfectly well for millions of users. Google can do that, since they effectively hold about 90% of the online market today. Not even the massive amount of complaints helped, they simply ignored them. Now, if G had only 30% of the market, or only 15%, they'd be listening to their customers.

In short, no.

[TinCow]

an online business with such an actively terrible support system

I haven't ever had to contact them for anything, but there's more to customer support than answering tickets. Exceptional download speeds. Instant installation of all patches. Easy repair of corrupted game files without re-installation. Built-in modding support for games (Workshop). Easy MP matchmaking and system for finding/communicating with friends. Cloud-saving. Ability to play offline. Community-chosen game selection (Greenlight).

Say what you will, but Steam does a pretty damn good job of giving us the features we need to play our games with a minimum of hassle. They've even given people refunds when games turned out really badly (i.e WarZ).

[johnhughthom]

I'm not arguing any of that, just stating that to describe them as 'altruistic and consumer friendly' is over the top.

[Ja'chyra]

I'm not arguing any of that, just stating that to describe them as 'altruistic and consumer friendly' is over the top.

Fair point I think, both of those should be caveated with "To a point", that point will be when it affects income.

[Lemur]

describe them as 'altruistic and consumer friendly' is over the top.

"Altruistic" is a very, very different thing from "consumer-friendly." And the only mention of altruism in the thread, to my tired eyes, has been now.

A company can be grasping and greedy and still be consumer-friendly. In fact, I think long-term greed is best served by being ... consumer-friendly.

-edit-

Oh, I get it, TinCow is to blame. AS ALWAYS. True fact, TinCow was responsible for the burning of the Hindenburg.

[TinCow]

I'm not arguing any of that, just stating that to describe them as 'altruistic and consumer friendly' is over the top.

I'll retract the altruistic bit, since they're as profit-oriented as any business. I think consumer friendly is spot on though. No other download service, not even GoG, offers as many tools to make your gaming experience pleasant as Steam. Many of those tools were added by Valve on their own with no prompting from the community.

[johnhughthom]

The game I play most is Football Manager, which moved to Steamworks only a few versions back. This has caused quite a bit of consternation among players, especially the automatic patching dealie. Versions of the 3d match engine can vary greatly, and not being able to go back to a previous version has annoyed a lot of players. Some people used the 'Do not automatically update this game' feature, assuming, pretty reasonably, that they could update manually when they chose to. Which unfortunately isn't how it works, despite the poor terminology being brought up on Steam forums time and again over the years with different games.

A large number of Football Manager players will not play anything else, and are a lot less savvy than other PC users, Steam has made their game experience much less pleasant.

I don't know why I'm playing Devil's Advocate, I really like Steam, a game not being on Steam is virtually an automatic 'do not buy' from me.

edit: Just answered a post at the FM forums asking about playing with an old version...

[Ja'chyra]

Thinking about it, doesn't Steam in itself argue against paying full price for games, ever.

Take FM as the example, this comes out each year with various improvements or changes, this could be done, in my tiny mind, as a DLC to move you on to the following years game without the expense of paying for a full game.....

I don't know if this would actually work but if it does it an argument for a Steam model, I still think it needs more work though i.e. being able to sell or gift on games that you have previously played.

So, apart from the ramble, I think the Steam model is good, a monopoly not so. I don't work in the IT industry like Voigt, but I do know the impact of putting all your eggs in the one basket, eventually it costs you more.

[Monk]

I wish Origin wasn't such a poor piece of failed promises, much like the games they are selling there lately.

That's really the crux of the issue though, Valve is getting bigger and bigger slices of the market share because they're the only game in town who doesn't suck. Don't get me wrong, Steam isn't perfect and has its share of problems (after ten years it still lacks a decent offline mode. Automatic updates get turned back on without informing you. Ect) but by and large I can play my games with very little intrusion from the platform while doing so.

My experience with origin has been wholly negative, and if Mass Effect 3 was on Steam i'd uninstall Origin and never look back. I am kinda indifferent to steam in the grand scheme, but I'm not going to use sub-par software just to encourage a competitive environment for companies I don't know beyond brand recognition. Origin is the worst offender, and while it might be the biggest of steam's 'rivals,' in its current state it is a complete and utter mess.

If the day dawns that a viable alternative to steam shows up I'll be the first one in line, but it better work this time.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It's an OK thing as long as Valve maintains its current corporate climate. Eventually they won't, due to the old guard retiring and new people with different agendas taking over.

I don't think Steam being spun off into its own company is the answer, because their current setup will only remain benign as long as the current Valve corporate climate remains in charge.

Personally I try to buy directly from the developers whenever possible, which usually only applies to indies.

[johnhughthom]

I see Monk doesn't realise how the automatic update system works either, no surprise as it's completely unintuitive and utterly moronic. When you set it to 'Do not automatically update this game' it simply means it won't update by itself ie not until you launch the game. The only way to turn off updates is to put it in offline mode, which, as you know, sucks. I wonder how many times I've explained this over the past three years, yet I still find it hard to believe myself...

Disclaimer:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I do like Steam. Honest injun.

[Monk]

I see Monk doesn't realise how the automatic update system works either, no surprise as it's completely unintuitive and utterly moronic. When you set it to 'Do not automatically update this game' it simply means it won't update by itself ie not until you launch the game. The only way to turn off updates is to put it in offline mode, which, as you know, sucks. I wonder how many times I've explained this over the past three years, yet I still find it hard to believe myself...

What... what kind of sense does that make. I'll tell you. NONE.

Who thought that was a good idea?!

[johnhughthom]

To be honest, I've always thought this probably comes from the publisher/devs rather than Valve. If you can ensure everybody on Steam is playing the same version you know any bug reports will be the latest version, and of course they can patch anything in or out and there's nothing the players can do about it.

People have been whinging about it for years, never seen an official response. Most people still think it's a bug.

[Monk]

To be honest, I've always thought this probably comes from the publisher/devs rather than Valve. If you can ensure everybody on Steam is playing the same version you know any bug reports will be the latest version, and of course they can patch anything in or out and there's nothing the players can do about it.

People have been whinging about it for years, never seen an official response. Most people still think it's a bug.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from, and for the most part it's a positive. I always like to keep my FPS games up to date, especially if they are multiplayer. Steam's auto-update removes a big headache from the equation in that situation, I can just boot up and play.

But with something like Crusader Kings or EUIII where modding is a huge part of the experience it just causes all kinds of headaches.

The feature is badly in need of a revamp, but if it's on the publisher/developer side, i doubt it'll get one.

[Lemur]

My main gripe with Steam is this: You have to be online to enter offline mode. So if you gamed online, woke up the next morning, and found out your neighborhood lost connectivity, you're out of luck. You cannot force it into offline mode if you were online previously.

This happened to me. I am still scarred.

To this day, I put Steam in offline mode pretty much after every gaming session. Just in case. On the bright side, there seems to be no limit to how long you can leave the app like that. Or if there's a limit, I ain't found it.

[johnhughthom]

I've never had the issue, but I believe it's related to not closing down Steam before shutting down your PC. Supposedly if you do it will enter offline mode with no issue.

I'd stick with your method if I was you though.

[Monk]

My main gripe with Steam is this: You have to be online to enter offline mode. So if you gamed online, woke up the next morning, and found out your neighborhood lost connectivity, you're out of luck. You cannot force it into offline mode if you were online previously..

You can but like all steam systems it's a bit finicky. Steam added functionality a year or so ago to where, if you set your account to save your credentials locally, Steam should give you the option to switch over to offline mode if it can't establish connectivity.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As long as you leave that unchecked it should be okay. I was able to switch to offline automatically at my new place for a week because of that. But.. if you happen to check that box? Yeah, you are pretty sol.

[spankythehippo]

I initially disliked Steam, many years ago. Mainly due to the fact that I wasn't used to such strict DRM. Nowadays, I think Steam consolidation is a good thing, as a consumer. I like the convenience of having all my games neatly organised.

Also, I kind of like the addition of Steam Achievements. But here's the thing. I bought ACIII off Steam. The ACIII achievements are on Uplay, which kind of makes Steam redundant. All Steam does is open the Uplay client. This kind of annoyed me, because of that extra step. Borderlands 2, on the other hand, had excellent Steam integration.

Although I am against monopolies of any kind, I'd have to say that I support Steam consolidation. My reasoning being, this is the games industry. I like to think that developers aren't heartless, and care about the quality of their game, as opposed to how much money they make. That's why I love CD Projekt Red. They don't care about piracy, they care about making a good game. I respect that.

[Xiahou]

Personally I try to buy directly from the developers whenever possible, which usually only applies to indies.

Ditto.

I was badly burned by Steam early on. I bought Half Life 2 right at release, excitedly brought it home, installed it and..... Steam was down.... I couldn't play it. I basically had the whole weekend set aside for gaming, and I couldn't play because Valve decided I needed to phone home to their servers to play a single-player game.

I had a long self-imposed Steam boycott, I use Steam now, but I never pay full price for anything on it. I always remember- I'm buying access to the games, but Valve could take that away at pretty much any time for any reason and I would have zero recourse. People tell me that because they haven't done so yet, I should be happy and think it's a great system. I disagree.

[Papewaio]

The thing I like most about Steam and others of its ilk is when I build a new PC.

Steam is the best of bred as is Google. But so were Yahoo and Netscape.

I've found with Steam most of my titles have had a longer shelf life as I don't have to dredge out a DVD hidden away... And I don't have to put up with a whirring play DVD.

I'm not sure if I could import any of my titles to another service much like email address books. That would be the ultimate piece of mind.

[Beskar]

Only way that Steam could end up not monopolising if they some how split the client away from the distribution. In that sense, if Steam, Gamersgate, Impulse, etc pretty much just used the same 'client', it would solve all the monopolising issues based on distribution.

Unfortunately, Apple and Microsoft are going down the path of trying to control distribution for their own ends, which ends up showing the big flaws of such a 'client' system as the corruption of the new OS's, and the Console online-marketplaces demonstrates this well.

[lars573]

My main gripe with Steam is this: You have to be online to enter offline mode. So if you gamed online, woke up the next morning, and found out your neighborhood lost connectivity, you're out of luck. You cannot force it into offline mode if you were online previously.

This happened to me. I am still scarred.

To this day, I put Steam in offline mode pretty much after every gaming session. Just in case. On the bright side, there seems to be no limit to how long you can leave the app like that. Or if there's a limit, I ain't found it.

Once that was true, but no longer. Not since Empire TW. Found that out while configuring it for my PC (which has never been online). When I start my PC steam looks for a connection and when it find none it asks me if I want to start in offline mode or retry connection.

[easytarget]

Steam is winning in the marketplace, that's where this all gets shaken out in the end.

Valve is being rewarded for being a 1st mover, just as they should be. Long before any publisher had a short clue about digital distribution, something btw they should have been more aware of given they are in an industry that produces a digital product, Valve was WAY out in front.

And what did Valve get initially for their trouble? Hate, rivers and floods of hate. And steam itself sucked hard initially, and for A LONG time. It took them years to get it right.

So Valve didn't just show up and become a digital rock star over night, they paid their dues, they learned their lessons, they started early.

And like or not like is irrelevant the marketplace declares the winners here. It hasn't hurt that their competitors are a veritable clown show, but then that's not Valve's fault either now is it? Who would be surprised that EA, voted the most hated company in America last year, and well on the way to winning that title again, came up with a competitor distribution product that blows? Answer: No one. Why? Because they didn't do their homework, didn't pay their dues, didn't iterate away from their mistakes over time, Origin now is just as stupid as it was day one launch (anyone out there with origin and steam care to jump in and offer up how often they've seen steam updates vs origin?). And MS with their GFWL fiasco, same tune, badly designed, and effectively unloved by a company that really doesn't get it. Or the comically ill conceived impulse that stardock came up with with that retarded coin payment non-sense that gamestop unwisely bought.

Bottom line: if I was a game dev, this discussion would be a non-starter, I'd either handle distribution myself, or I'd use steam, and the reason is obvious: No one can steal or resell my games through it. And disti that doesn't include this is dead to me as a game dev, I don't make this stuff for free or so it can be easily stolen.

[edyzmedieval]

I'll slightly disagree here over the "risky" aspect of PC gaming - I never owned a console (I did extensively play on them though) but having played a lot of PC games, the rate of them not working is approximately... 0.5%.

To put it more clearly, PC games not working or not working properly, I can count them on one hand. At least in my experience.