A dedicated DLC marketplace on Steam?

[Hotcod]

It's an idea that's come up when i started wondering why devs are bothering to use GFWL when steamworks does almost everything GFWL does and does it better. Case in point is Dawn of War II and the only answer I can come up with is that GFWL has a "built in and ready to go" DLC market place.

So I made a suggestion on the forums (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=796623) and so far given the responses I'm wondering if the obviousness of all this is just lost on every one else or if I'm just crazy.

People either react by saying they don't want DLC because DLC is for consoles (which is just stupid and not the issue) or that steam can already do DLC so don't get what I'm asking for.

Yes steam could do DLC but it's not offered as a part of Steamworks and the way it would be done would be messy and strange and stupid. All I've been suggesting is either another store page for selling DLC or having the DLC listed for sale only on games page. You then have a window you get to from a games right click menu (in the games list, to be clear) where you can see what DLC you have for the game and which of it is installed and so on.

I honestly don't see why this is such a bad or awful or even pointless thing... and I don't get why people don't seem to grasp the idea that just because something could be done in one way already does not mean it's the way it should be done at all.

Am I just crazy? While I'm sure most of the DLC put on it would be rubbish i would like to be able to buy stuff like the fallout 3 DLC or the DLC for Dawn of War II on steam for my steam copy of the game and to keep it in the same useful way i get to keep copy of said game.

Hell frankly I just don't want to have to end up using GFWL to buy any of the good DLC for PC games... I don't have a credit card so getting Microsoft points is a pain and the GFWL marketplace is annoying, ugly and awful and I dislike having to use it or having content tied to it.

At worst it would give people who want to buy a DLC a way to buy it on steam and the people who don't want to deal with DLC? They don't have to!

[tacitus]

Codemasters originally wanted to sell the "raising hell" DLC for overlord on steam. Alledgedly then had significant technical issues and it never happened; they did it with metaboli I think.

I can say that one of the reasons I am not currently rushing out to buy the Fallout 3 DLC is I have no interest in GFWL.

[GigaFuzz]

I just finally got around to reading that whole thread. Pretty much everyone who replied was a complete dick or were too stupid to understand what you were saying.

You make a very good point, and most of the people on the Steam forum completely failed to grasp it. The best example I can think of right now is this: Say Valve released some content for Left 4 Dead, something like one or two complete new campaigns. Some serious work, that's too much to give away for free. How would this be sold on Steam as it is? Would it go up as an individual item on the store? If you bought it, how would that purchase be reflected in your Steam application? How would that purchase be secured (if at all) to prevent you from just sharing it with everyone without paying?

I don't think Steam as it stands is equipped to deal with content of this nature. From a UI perspective, it wouldn't take much. Have a drop-down menu which shows you 'Additional Content' for each game. I don't know how hard it would be to implement in the back-end though, and if Valve would be able to enforce any kind of DRM or copy-protection.

[Hotcod]

Thanks giga, I didn't think it was me being an idiot in this case but it's always nice to have some one i know isn't a dumb as steam forum member agreeing with me. I just think a steam DLC marketplace would make it a competitor for the GFWL marketplace as there at the moment isn't one. For any game that uses steamworks and as such requires steam to be installed to use the offer to a DLC service means they wouldn't have to use something like live for there DLC and that is only a good thing.

[boratika]

I'm with you on this one. Not because I love paid DLC, but because as you point out it is a barrier to publishers that mean certain content can't be released on the platform.

[Cit Phil Cit]

Using Steam for DLC is obvious, if it's not being done, I assume it's because there is a private policy currently in place. I don't recall them going on the record one way or the other, which sounds like policy to me.

[Wasson_]

I just opened Fallout to find GFWL vile taint all over it...<,< with save game files gone and everything...sigh*

[Jackel]

I have to agree with you Hotcod. DLC is clearly an important option for a lot of publishers. Whether it is free or not, Valve would be stupid not to at least setup the back-end to allow this to happen. At least provide PC publishers some options so that we all don't have GFWL stuffed down our throats.

[boratika]

Anyone else notice this in the Steam news:Steam offers gamers in-game downloadable content
March 16, 2009, 5:38 pm - Valve - Press Release

March 16, 2009 — Valve, creators of best-selling entertainment products and advanced technologies, today announced the arrival of in-game downloadable content to Steam, their massively popular PC gaming platform. In-game DLC allows developers and publishers to use their own games as a platform for selling additional content to gamers.

The first game to take advantage of this new in-game DLC capability is The Maw, by Twisted Pixel Games. Their first DLC releases are levels entitled The Maw: Brute Force and The Maw: River Redirect. Each DLC level expands The Maw storyline by fitting in-between the original levels as "deleted scenes."

Twisted Pixel CEO, Michael Wilford, says "We're happy that we can now offer Steam customers significant expansions to the Maw story, delivering more Maw directly to gamers while they're still playing the game."

DLC can now be added to any game on Steam, regardless of whether it was originally purchased via Steam, at retail, or via other digital outlets. It is also a feature of Steamworks, the suite of free tools and services available to game developers and publishers.

For more information about The Maw or Steam, please visit www.steamgames.com.

[OrangePulp]

Glad to hear it. Although, I think another reason that they went GFWL is that it does have built in matchmaking, which to my knowledge steam doesn't have. I'd like to think that at least GFWL was doing us a favor in offering some sort of competition to steam, as a way to make them implement stuff faster, but this may have been in the pipe a while ago, and been subject to valve time.

[mister slim]

As of Left 4 Dead Steamworks does include matchmaking, though I don't know how Valve handles costs for third parties. I assume GFWL provides it free to developers, though I'm not really sure how costs for Live are handled.

[Jackel]

As of Left 4 Dead Steamworks does include matchmaking, though I don't know how Valve handles costs for third parties. I assume GFWL provides it free to developers, though I'm not really sure how costs for Live are handled.

Valve's matchmaking doesn't provide any sort of sorting based on skill / experience in the game. It simply places you in a game with others looking for a game.

While GFWL offers matching based on skill / experience (I think the system is called True Skill)

[Libuke]

Valve's matchmaking doesn't provide any sort of sorting based on skill / experience in the game. It simply places you in a game with others looking for a game.

While GFWL offers matching based on skill / experience (I think the system is called True Skill)

I am not sure how good True skill works anyway, my brother with a rating of 1 (In Dawn of War) got matched up against some one in the top 50 rankings and from what I have read stuff like that is not uncommon.