Steamworks is architected according to their business model.  Prior to Steamworks, if you wanted that kind of functionality (matchmaking, accounts, DRM, etc.) you had to pay $ per unit (whether it be to GameSpy or SecuROM or whomever).

Steamworks pays for itself by bundling the store.  

I don't object to Valve doing that. I object to Steam fans who assert that it technically had to be done that way. It didn't have to be that way.

As a greedy capitalist, I am continually impressed with Valve and their execution of Steam.   At the same time, I am a lot less impressed with major publishers who don't seem to care about  the logical ramifications of what they are doing.

When I make an iPhone game or a game for the Xbox 360, I understand I'm making a title for a closed platform. There are pros and cons to a closed ecosystem.  The PC, by contrast, is currently an open ecosystem and there are some tradeoffs to that (hardware compatibility, piracy, vastly different system capabilities, etc.).  

If anyone, Steam, Impulse, what have you, were to gain an insurmountable marketshare, then you would, as a practical matter, have to sell your title on that platform and be forced to adhere to whatever standards the platform owner decides to issue.

This isn't theory. It has already happened repeatedly. Next time you lament that games don't come with nice manuals I can tell you precisely why. The largest retailer decided, on their own, what the box size would be on games (and DVDs and music for that matter). Everyone had to follow suit.   There isn't some industry consortium on box sizes. One retailer decides what the form factor is based on what is best for them (shelf space).  And this leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. It doesn't make the retailer or Steam or what have you "bad". It's not "slagging" to point this out. It is the consequence of market share in a free market.  

Consumers are rarely aware of these consequences. But the producers are (or should be).

Major publishers still have the leverage and clout on the PC to make sure that they maintain control of their own experience on their own games.  But that won't necessarily always be the case.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but aren't console games a higher price at release ($60) than PC games ($50) since the consoles, as frogboy says, are a closed market and can take a piece of the profits while PC games are an open market?  Isn't Civ V a step in that direction, ie you HAVE to use steamworks while running the game?

when spore came out, it cost $60... or you could buy the uber edition for $80

I find all this fear of Steam becoming a big evil empire kind of funny.

It's already a big empire. Impulse is the Linux to Steam's Windows.

Being afraid that Valve will control all publishing is silly. You know what happens when they overstep boundaries? Consumers and developers can easily move to consoles. It's already happening for the most part. Valve is not stupid enough to destroy the PC gaming industry. Please give them some credit.

I feel like I'm in a Linux forum on a thread bashing Windows. There are plenty of valid points, but they are all ultimately meaningless. Steam, like Windows, doesn't play fair. They bundle their store with everything, and throw irresistible deals in your face every time you close a game or use their community features. That's just smart business. It's fine and dandy to take the high and mighty road like Linux does, but as a consumer, the bottom line is this: if it works, I'll keep using it. And that's where Steam is.

For example, check out user opinions on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/ab3c7/steam_has_officially_reached_the_level_of_a_drug/

On civfanatics, most of the people opposed to Steam are opposed to digital distribution in general.

Locking in Civ 5 with Steam is just a smart business decision by both companies. Steam gets a must play exclusive, and 2k gets the massive playerbase of Steam and a proven and tried platform, with reasonable DRM. Having Civ 5 blasted in the face of every Steam user after they close a game for months at a time couldn't hurt, either.

The only way I can see Impulse competing is if you guys get more aggressive with your tactics. I hardly buy anything from Impulse other than your exclusives, because I have no reason to visit Impulsedriven.com. Steam, I open every day so I can play TF2 and chat with my gaming buddies. Steam also has much better prices and sales on triple-A titles. I mean, I got Borderlands and Bioshock 2 for $33 a piece ON RELEASE.

Don't read my post as hating on Impulse. I actually like it as a consumer, but I just have so few reasons to use it as my main purchasing platform, and I think that's true with a lot of gamers in general.

Ubisoft games are all $60 now on all platforms. Steamworks is not a step in that direction, publishers like Ubisoft are.

+1 Karma for that one.

I don't care what he article says. I purchased Tropico via Impulse. Guess where I have to go to get updates... Impulse. Now I am not sure who made that decision, but it's that way now. Kudos II was the same way, different patches for different closed platforms Impulse and Steam.

As a consumer, you don't seem to understand the main concern here. Do you know what happens when there is a single victor in a market war, consumers get hosed. CIV 5 on Steam is not smart business for 2k, it's lazy. You act like its either or, that 2K could distribute Civ V on Steam or make it available on Impulse and retail. The truth is they could have done both. A lot of publishers do both.

Now seriously, does Tropic 3 come with Impulse Reactor?

The most aggressive decision Stardock could take is a takeover of Paradox, or at least Gamersgate.

Combine Impulse+GG marketshare, and you have around 16% I think.  That's enough to have muscle against Steam.

I don't know why you bothered to comment if you couldn't even bother to look that up because you are obviously not familiar with the game.

Like Windows is completely hosing the OS market, and how all PC games are on Windows? Is Windows suddenly going to start charging developers $20 per sale to develop games on Windows? No, Microsoft is not stupid.

Steam has already won the online distribution war, as much as Windows has won the OS war.

Like I said before, if Valve gets stupid, people will flock to the consoles completely. They're not stupid. They're still a PC only company, and they're not going to dig themselves into a hole on a platform that they have so much invested in. Developers and consumers can both migrate to consoles at the drop of a hat. Steam is not going to be stupid enough to make them do that.

Here let me educate some people with the history of IMPULSE which is what we are talking about.

Impulse

The argument in question was whether or not Steam or Impulse did the 75% off deals first.  Brad stated Impulse started it and nobody who said otherwise had any facts to back up what they said, then someone came back with facts backing up that Steam did it first.  Why you started commenting is beyond me.

P.S.  Don't use humongous words like elucidate when you have no knowledge of how to properly utilize them in a sentence.  Don't be ashamed about being at a 7th grade writing level.  There is no need to pretend further education.   

You think Windows as is is ideal? Seriously? Did you miss that last few decades where Microsoft took its position in the market and abused it's power to the tune of court cases? What they did was illegal buddy. They're still getting fined.

I mean seriously, how old are you? You realize that Microsoft didn't start in the lead right, or were you born in MSFT world and now you think you know everything there is to know? Steam hasn't won anything. Digital distribution is barely even mainstream in a industry where technology can change the lanscape tomorrow in almost instant.

Your argument is so weak on so many levels that you have to result to console wars now? You're all over the place with this.

Oooh, resorting to age questioning. That really strengthens your argument. If you're curious, I'm only 25 and have been working as a web developer on the .NET platform for 4 years, with a little bit of tech support and network administration on the side, so that is the angle I'm coming from. I love that my entire office uses one OS. I actually wish there was only one main browser I had to work around, but that's not the way it is. Maybe when you try getting CSS to work right on 3 different browsers, and then getting certain scripts to work for different configurations, you'll appreciate the idea of working on one platform, no matter how closed it is (Steamworks, AppStore). I love what Microsoft does for developers, and find them acceptable as a consumer. Dreamspark, MCAA, Bizspark are all AMAZING developer tools. Windows is far from ideal, but for all its dominance, it is a very open platform. Steamworks is more closed, but no more than something like the AppStore.

How does Microsoft not starting in the lead have to do with anything? Obviously, no one starts in the lead unless they're the first company to make something, and that barely lasts very long.

You keep going off on tangents and fail to address my main points. Can you dispute the fact that Steam is the leader in distributed sales, by a large margin? Can you dispute the fact that MAJOR, AAA titles such as MW2 and Civ 5 are Steam exclusives? What else does Steam have to do to convince you that they've already won. You can rally against Steam's evil empire, just as many rally against Microsoft's evil empire, but at the end of the day, everyone uses Windows, and everyone uses Steam. They work. If they stopped working, people would move somewhere else. I just mention consoles because while Windows has a vice grip on the OS market (with OS X with an actual significant chunk), Steam, even if it ate up ALL the rest of PC game sales, obviously wouldn't eat up any console sales. They have everything to lose if their platform doesn't please both developers and consumers.

Console wars were brought in by several people in this thread and were validly used to support their argument standpoint.  

He also never said Windows is ideal, merely that it is the dominant OS.

You're not as awesome at debate as you think you are.