It's quite possible that big cable will kill DD anyways with broadband caps.  Then retail will take over again, as the usage fees for DD will be too high.

 

I'd say Time Warner and Comcast are bigger threats to Stardock right now then Valve.

 

I mean, in North carolina right now, Time Warner is trying to ban municipalities from building their own broadband networks like one town did in order to get rid of monopoly Cable.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, the argument was directed towards the "Steam being a monopoly and price gouging" argument from earlier in the thread.  If you want a newer game - Left For Dead 2 was on sale earlier this week for $20 (if I remember right). 

 

NO ONE takes a brand new game and sells it for $10 on release day.  Good luck finding that deal!

 

Also, you're right - D2D has Civ4 Complete on sale as well.  BUT I noticed they don't have Civilization 3 at all (I searched "Civilization" and "Civilization 3") - which steam has on sale for $1.25 (Complete Edition).  Also, what free weekend games does D2D have going on?  

 

 

 

D2D had Civ IV on sale first I believe, not "as well". D2D is competing with Steam; they are not the same. Since Steam seems to be the only service that I am aware of that requires the client to be used to play a game, free to play weekends is better suited for the format. It doesn't change the fact that Steam has disadvantages the others don't. They all have advantages and disadvantages that differ from each other.

You're completely missing the point with this though. No one said Steam doesn't have advantages, or doesn't compete, or doesn't have sales. We don't want to see a bunch of titles go exclusive to them. I want a choice, and I say that as someone who uses Steam. I doubt you'd be so happy if 2K came out and said hey, we're only selling this game via D2D and no one else. I am pretty sure you'd be very unhappy with that considering this great love affair you have going on with steam.

 

Actually I believe they did, and that's what I was replying to. 

 

I'm sorry, but how is impulse/Stardock any different than Steam by your argument?  The AFFECT is the same - ie, titles are only available on one service, not allowing gamers to "have a choice" where they purchase from. 

Personally, I don't care where a game is released.  There are more important things in life, I'm past the point of caring if I have "to click an extra button to set up offline play" or to have one more minor process running in the background of my computer.  I rarely play games anymore, but when a good one comes out (such as Sins Trinity) - I'm not letting petty detail stop me from enjoying it.  I'm sorry, but I think one must live a pretty boring life if something such as as where a game is being sold is a major event...unless it's your career, such as Brad.     

Well I didn't say it. Steam is... in the okay department for me, certainly not great. For me, there is no real difference but I will give a slight nudge towards Impulse at this time. I do not like that there are titles exclusive on any of these platforms however, and I would have the same reaction if Civ V announced they were Impulse only. I can't speak for the others.

The rest of your comment isn't worth addressing. You don't know shit about what other people do with their lives on this forum, and what is important to them. You're not sorry so don't say you are.

Games are my primary source of entertainment.  I play games like non-gamers watch TV.  If you need to insult my, and others, choice of entertainment to sustain an argument, I have to question the validity of the argument to begin with.  The issue isn't where the game is being sold, the issue is why the game isn't being sold else where.

The issue here isn't Steam VS Impulse.  It's not Retail VS Digital Distribution.  It's not DRM.  The issue is that Impulse customers, Direct2Drive customers, Walmart customers, Target customers and K-Mart customsers who purchase a game have to go to Valve to play it.  They're establishing a market dominance via a Trojan horse method and are literally stealing everyone elses customers.  No company who became a monopoly got there by bad tactics.  Shit, some of the deals on Steam are insanely good and any Steam customer should pick them up.  The reason that those deals are so good is because they have to compete with retail stores, they have to compete with Impulse and other Digital Distribution stores.  If Steamworks DRM become industry standard, those deals will slowly fade away because they won't need them - retail customers, Impulse customers, etc., will all be Valve customers anyway.  If all titles sold were equipped with Steamworks DRM, it doesn't matter where the game is sold - you're a Valve customer and as such Valve doesn't need to entice you with deals - you're a Valve customer or your a Console gamer.  That's it.  If you honestly don't have an issue with this, that Valve is forcing other people's customers to use their service so that they go shopping on Steam to establish a complete market dominance, then you don't understand the principles of a fair and open market, the repercussions of not having one and have no place in discussing the matter.

Isn't it ironic that the "fair and open market" you talk of led to a situation where Valve's superior product and catalog (in the eyes of consumers) have market dominance.  That's just business, and how markets operate.  If consumers belief a product is superior, they will use it.  Seems that's what's happened with Steam.

Does that mean you don't use Windows because of it's complete market dominance?  

Software is far from a fair and open market. It's a system abuses setup by copyright holders to try and strip away consumer rights meanwhile systematically suing each other over the most trivial things and trying to claim rights to things that wasn't even original to begin with. Valve excels because DRM is a royal pain in the ass, and they are perceived as having a more palatable system of DRM than some other schemes. It doesn't change the fact that DRM shouldn't exist in the first place.

Just thought of something you guys could do.

You could design/shape the modding of the game, such that it wouldn't be very hard to make a Civ mod for Elemental, and try to make the Civ mod be better than Civ 5.

 

I know that's a goal of yours, but with this news, you could make it a higher priority.

Or encourage even more rampant piracy.

Stardock should accept retail  or digital CD keys without any region restriction. If they can make new contracks with the publishers they can survive,if not Stardock's Impulse will dissapear within 3 years.

I agree in that Steam has market dominance and has gotten there through an excellent service.  As I've listed before, I myself am a Steam customer and consider the service valuable.  I'm not saying "ZOMG VALVE IS TEH EVIL CORPARATION!!" or some such zealotry, nor am I rushing to defend Impulse as a fanboy of some kind.  I'm simply saying, which you seem to ignore, that the Steamworks DRM makes everyone a Valve customer, regardless if they wanted to be or not.  Choice and diversity are the cornerstone principle of a free and open market.  Do you honestly believe Valve would offer sales or deals if there was no competition?  Simply look at Modern Warfare 2's inflated price currently on Steam, as the game is a Steam exclusive title, regardless of your place of purchase.  Now, extend that to the entire PC market.  No other Digital Distribution service can sell games because Steam has them all.  Goodbye competition, goodbye free and open market and hello to further inflated content and a complete lack of drive for change, innovation and value.


I'm sorry Dale_, I don't quite understand this question, could you please explain it further?  Thank you.

I didn't know Valve could magically eliminate the brick and mortar PC game market, as well as the console gaming market, too.

Digital distribution for PC gaming is not the only channel for games. Even if Impulse, D2D and gamersgate ALL went out of business, Valve would still have to compete. And unlike Ps3, X360, etc., if you are an indie developer who wants to self publish on the PC, you can always do so. No one will stop you, Steam dominance or not.

MW2 price is Ubisoft's decision, no more, no less. ALL Ubisoft games are $60 on the PC now, Steamworks or not. Don't know why people keep pinning that on Steam.

Invalid statement: I won't support Steamworks because it will make Steam a monopoly!

Valid statement: I won't support Steamworks because it might put Impulse out of business, and I love Stardock too much to let that happen.

From reading this thread, there's a lot of people talking past each other.  If I might summarize the objections and issues:

You basically have 3 groups from as far as I can tell.

Group 1: Doesn't like Steam.

• Some had problems with it
• Some object to being hassled when playing the game (i.e. it really wants the player to be connected to the net when the game is started).
• Some object to having an extra client running in order to play a game.

Myself, I don't belong to this group. I like Steam. I have never had any problems with it except when it first came out. Steam got a big head start because of Valve's own games but I can tell you that it is the market leader because it has earned it. 

Group 2: Doesn't like Steamworks.

• They fear (based on other games that have used Steamworks) that it will cripple modding.
• They don't like that it requires the Steam client to access its features.

I have concerns over this but I tend to see this as a developer issue than a problem of Steamworks.  SecuROM has an undeserved bad reputation because some publishers made use of draconian features they make available. Steam and Steamworks can certainly lock down a title so that all players have to have the same CRC but it doesn't have to be that way. This is an issue that people, I think, should wait and see on.

So I don't belong to group 2 either.

Group 3: Doesn't want PC gaming to become a closed platform.

• Object to major publishers locking the purchasing options of a title to a platform that already has 70% of the digital market share. 
• Object to "special editions" of third party titles being made available exclusively on the platform with 70% of the digital market share (i.e. Civilization Deluxe).
• Know how other closed platforms work already - what is released and how it's released is determined by the platform owner (no Google Voice on the iPhone, tons of Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 titles never see the light of day). 
• Can easily envision a day where all titles require Steamworks (using achievements and such) to be sold on Steam, updates cost the publisher money to go through certification and thus DLC becomes non-free for certain (this was the GFWL original concept btw).

I belong to group 3. 

As a game developer, I want to be able to sell my PC title however I want with the knowledge that I have multiple options to make money on it. It's the biggest single reason why we're able to make the kinds of games we make and publish.  If we had to hand a third of our revenue to a third party to sell it digitally that would be a quick end to us making the kinds of games we do. It's one of the reasons it's rare to see new IP in the PC market now. It's all Game IV or remake of Game Z now as a first person shooter.

Group 3 doesn't have an issue with Steam, Steamworks (other than it forcing anyone who uses it to bundle a third party store) or Valve.  

It's the concern or consolidation on the PC platform and the consequences of that.  I'll say it again, use archive.org, don't rely on "some guy"'s forum post and look at digital distribution sites. It wasn't until Impulse showed up that these aggressive Weekend sales (i.e. for those who insist on being obtuse, no one is claiming that there was never a sale in digital distribution history before Impulse) became a consistent, weekly thing. That's competition in action. You don't see it on closed platforms.

 

 

Thank you for not doing your home work or reading the majority of posts in thread, including mine.  As already stated, any game shipped with Steamworks DRM requires the Steam client installed before the game will operate.  Games, like Civilisation V, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Supreme Commander 2 all ship with Steamworks DRM.  If you buy those games in a store, such as Walmart, you still have to install Steam on your computer to run the game.  Thus, Walmart customers become Valve customers, etc.  This applies to Digital Distribution platforms as well; the reason Impulse doesn't carry Steamworks DRM enabled games is because if they sold you, for example, Modern Warfare 2 when you doubled clicked the game in Impulse - the platform where you bought it - your computer would launch Steam first, making Stardock's customers Valve's customer by force.  This is anti-competition behaviour.  We're not discussing console gaming platforms such as the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.  Those platforms are closed by definition - the reason most PC gamers are still PC gamers as opposed to console gamers is because the platform is open and offers choice; be it multiple digital distribution platforms, mods for games, etc.


You clearly haven't read any previous posts in this thread or understand the issue at hand; we're discussing Steamworks DRM and it's implications in terms of the industry as a whole - one of the implications is that Valve wouldn't have to compete.  Valve doesn't have to compete on price for Steamworks DRM titles, because any PC version of the game requires Steam.  Doesn't matter where, or how, it's sold, you're a customer of Valve and thus require Steam installed on your computer if you buy on of those titles.  You'll notice that Modern Warfare 2 on Steam carried an inflated price compared to it's retail counter-parts.  Valve doesn't have to compete because no other Digitial Distribution platform carries Modern Warfare 2 because it's loaded with Steamworks DRM.  Hence, we - as gamers and as an industry - have a major problem if Steamworks becomes industry standard.