Retail threatens Steam ban

Quote from Jetsetlemming

Steam is estimated to be around 80% of total digital sales, not total game sales of physical and digital combined. Ask any publisher, they will tell you that physical retail is a lot more important to them than digital. Simply because it still represents the bigger revenue stream.

Last year NPD estimations crossed 50% for how much of total PC gaming in the US is represented by digital sales.

For "PC" gaming, yeah maybe, but sales only? Or generated revenues in total (that includes subscriptions, microtransactions etc.)? Anyway, not the topic at hand, just wanted to point out that bricks-and-mortar retail is still very important, especially as far as consoles go and everybody knows the big publishers love them consoles.

I don't see this threat going anywhere tbh.

Quote from Taylor

threat

Quote from FrieChamp

That's not even a word.

I mean the OP, it just seems like scare tactics. They only stand to lose money if any publishers call it a bluff.

So they're trying to use their muscle to force a competitor out of the way?

Quote from wikipedia

In competition law, a group boycott is a type of secondary boycott in which two or more competitors in a relevant market refuse to conduct business with a firm unless the firm agrees to cease doing business with an actual or potential competitor of the firms conducting the boycott.[1] It is a form of refusal to deal, and can be a method of shutting a competitor out of a market, or preventing entry of a new firm into a market.In the United States, such conduct can be held to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. Depending upon the nature of the boycott, the courts may either apply the rule of reason, or hold that the boycott is illegal per se. It may also be considered a form of civil conspiracy.

Quote from wikipedia

Sources of monopoly power...

Deliberate Actions: A firm wanting to monopolise a market may engage in various types of deliberate action to exclude competitors or eliminate competition. Such actions include collusion, lobbying governmental authorities, and force.

Lols @ irony.

Quote from twiz

So, after 7 years of Valve working out all the issues with digital distribution while everyone else sat around with their thumb up their ass, they have the nerve to go cry monopoly on them? Yeah, cry me a river.

What has that to do with anything? The industry and the economy don't stand still and that's a good thing. I wouldn't mind another digital distributer with a 40% market share because then Valve couldn't just translate Dollar prices 1:1 to Euro.

Quote from Steppenwolf

What has that to do with anything? The industry and the economy don't stand still and that's a good thing. I wouldn't mind another digital distributer with a 40% market share because then Valve couldn't just translate Dollar prices 1:1 to Euro.

It has everything to do with everything.

Why does Steam have such large market share? Because it's the most popular digital distributer today.

Why is it the most popular? Because it's been in development for at least eight years, constantly being built upon, expanded, and marketed to users. It didn't get to where it is today because some retail games use it for DRM, that's not what gives Steam it's huge market share, user base does.

Steam has over 30 million users... do the retailers in the OP really expect me to believe this is all because of brick and mortar copies bundled with Steam?

So we should allow monopolies because a company innovates first?

Steam's not a monopoly. Valve have not used monopolistic strategies in building Steam. Its market share does not create a lesser experience for consumers.

The monopoly is when Steam is integral part of a retail game. Steam itself is not a monopoly. Did you guys have no economy classes in school?

Same reason why the EU fined Microsoft for making IE integral part of its operating system.

Quote from Steppenwolf

The monopoly is when Steam is integral part of a retail game.

That's not what monopoly means, though. Monopoly would be when Steam has all of a given market (the retailers are specifying PC gaming) cornered to the exclusion of competition. This isn't the case. Including the steam client in certain select titles sold outside Steam is no more of a monopoly than gamestop exclusive preorder bonuses. Yes, they favor a specific store. No, they do not suddenly remove all competition.

Quote from Jetsetlemming

That's not what monopoly means, though. Monopoly would be when Steam has all of a given market

Umm but that's exactly what happens with the games that include Steam... If that's no monopoly then what is? There is no option in retail Civ 5 to detach the game from Steam and connect to a another digital distributor for my DLC.

Your semantics seem wrong. The word monopoly doesn't equal market dominance. What it means is that there is only one seller to choose from for a given product or service.

You can't have a monopoly on Civ 5. That's like saying Walmart has a monopoly on Sam's Choice, except less so because Civ 5 is sold outside Steam. It just connects to Steam when you install it. I'm sticking with my analogy of a gamestop preorder bonus. It favors one source of the product but does not exclude other sources. You can buy Civ 5 at Gamestop, or Best Buy, or Amazon, or Direct2Drive. It'll just install Steam when you install the game.

Quote from Jetsetlemming

Steam's not a monopoly. Valve have not used monopolistic strategies in building Steam. Its market share does not create a lesser experience for consumers.

Including the steam software on retail games and requiring it's use are very similar tactics to those that got Microsoft in a lot of legal trouble.

Quote from Zeta

Including the steam software on retail games and requiring it's use are very similar tactics to those that got Microsoft in a lot of legal trouble.

On a vastly smaller scale. I've never been comfortable with the Internet Explorer anti-trust rulings in the EU anyway. How are you supposed to get an alternate browser in the first place without IE to go on the internet and get it?

scale doesn't matter when we're talking about principle. the civ 5 direct connection to steam was a bad thing, and i'm hoping someone is looking out for this for the future.

Right now it's purely on principle but things change. There is no guarantee Valve remains a "nice" company and even today i don't consider Steam the best thing since powdered bread. It's actualy pretty shitty for us Euro guys. Competition would be a good thing in my eyes.

Valve doesn't force anyone to use a direct USD > Euro conversion. You can get a seperate Euro and USD price if you ask for it.

That said I agree that more competition would be nice. A monopoly is in no ones interest.

I love when subpar companies try to lobby against a superior product because they can't be bothered to make their own as good or better.

This would be the equivalent of trying to start a WoW boycott because the MMO you work on is utter crap instead of making your game better than WoW.

Quote from Steppenwolf

What it means is that there is only one seller to choose from for a given product or service.

How is this any different from XBox360 or PS3's online marketplaces?

I agree that monopoly's are bad, mmkay. But the way to break up a monopoly is with legitimate, innovative competitors offering a product with advantages over Steam - not government intervention to lessen the quality or value of a product until the competitor's product starts looking like a good value too. And certainly not with intentional, blatant collusion to try to bully some market share from Valve.

I do see an issue with requiring Steam to be installed just to handle DRM shit. If there were a Steamworks standalone that could handle the DRM and nothing else, that would be ideal.