Digital Distributers Refuse to Sell Modern Warfare 2

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by crazyD

By not publishing the game? Failing to compete and pushing more people to Steam? How is this taking the fight to the next level? Competing would be working on something that competes with Steam, not failing to publish games that use it.

You're assuming that they want to have a product that competes with Steam's features. D2D and Gamersgate most definitely do not want to be in the business of providing the same feature set. Impulse kind of competes with matchmaking, and the plan for integrated chat, but Brad has clearly outlined his strategy for Impulse and it's not to go down the all-encompassing gaming platform road that Steam is shaping up to be. (He wants to offer similar features for his own games, not others.) These three services want to be digital storefronts nothing more.

In that respect, they are successes. D2D, Impulse, and Gamersgate offer something that Steam does not. You can buy a game from them and once you athenticate the registration through their protection, you never have to fire up their software again. That may not be worth much to you, but for some of us that's a huge plus.

[crazyD]

If they don't want to compete with Steam, then they shouldn't bitch when Steam passes them.

[Superman's Dead]

Originally Posted by crazyD

If they don't want to compete with Steam, then they shouldn't bitch when Steam passes them.

You don't see their move as an active stance? Maybe Steam does just have a better business plan. If it isn't one that these companies agree with, it's totally up to them if they want to take their ball and go home. We haven't seen enough of DD to determine what's "right". If there's a market backlash against it, maybe they'll come out on top.

I'm super capitalist myself, but it's hard for me not to agree that when you do a job you want people to come back to you and not your competition.

How else do you think they could fight this? I'm not being a douche, I'm actually asking. I can't think of anything, and you seem to have thought this through further than me.

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by crazyD

If they don't want to compete with Steam, then they shouldn't bitch when Steam passes them.

I just outlined why they aren't trying to directly compete with Steam. They're "bitching" for the same reason that everyone bitched about Microsoft's practices in the early browser wars. Bundling the storefront and making it a mandatory part of the software's other features is the sticking point.

If you can't see the basic anti-competitive nature of that, then there's really not much more to debate.

[crazyD]

Originally Posted by Superman's Dead

You don't see their move as an active stance? Maybe Steam does just have a better business plan. If it isn't one that these companies agree with, it's totally up to them if they want to take their ball and go home. We haven't seen enough of DD to determine what's "right". If there's a market backlash against it, maybe they'll come out on top.

I'm super capitalist myself, but it's hard for me not to agree that when you do a job you want people to come back to you and not your competition.

How else do you think they could fight this? I'm not being a douche, I'm actually asking. I can't think of anything, and you seem to have thought this through further than me.

Match Steamworks functionality. If they don't want to link to their own storefront, they can figure out some other way to fund it. I can agree that they wouldn't want people to go back to Steam, and that is why they should be matching Steam, or innovating.

Originally Posted by Telefrog

I just outlined why they aren't trying to directly compete with Steam. They're "bitching" for the same reason that everyone bitched about Microsoft's practices in the early browser wars. Bundling the storefront and making it a mandatory part of the software's other features is the sticking point.

If you can't see the basic anti-competitive nature of that, then there's really not much more to debate.

I really don't see it as being anti-competitive. If they required all games on Steam to use the Steamworks functionality, I could maybe see that, but they can still compete if they wanted to.

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by crazyD

I really don't see it as being anti-competitive. If they required all games on Steam to use the Steamworks functionality, I could maybe see that, but they can still compete if they wanted to.

Really?

All games using the Steamworks functionality require Steam. It's optional to use on Defense Grid and UT3, but once you tie it to Steam, it's a done deal.

[crazyD]

Originally Posted by Telefrog

Really?

All games using the Steamworks functionality require Steam. It's optional to use on Defense Grid and UT3, but once you tie it to Steam, it's a done deal.

Yes, but not all games on Steam require the use of Steamworks. That's up to the publisher. I could see it as kind of anti-competitive if Steam was like, "If you want access to all of our massive customer base, you must use Steamworks." They aren't. Even so, Steamworks just means it's easier on the other DD retailers. They just have to give a key, and Steam handles the rest. They don't even have to pay for bandwidth for the downloads!

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by crazyD

Yes, but not all games on Steam require the use of Steamworks. That's up to the publisher. I could see it as kind of anti-competitive if Steam was like, "If you want access to all of our massive customer base, you must use Steamworks." They aren't. Even so, Steamworks just means it's easier on the other DD retailers. They just have to give a key, and Steam handles the rest. They don't even have to pay for bandwidth for the downloads!

It's only easier in the short term. If a customer buys a Steam game over another DD service, it's true that they could just open Steam and register it to get the game off Valve's servers. However, this assumes that the buyer knows this. I'd wager that just like Saints Row 2, most buyers had no idea Steam was required, so they downloaded it off the initial site anyway.

Long term, it's a net loss for these businesses. Customers that buy a Steam mandatory game off their site will likely use Steam to buy future purchases from then on. (They've already demonstrated having a comfort level with digital shopping and DRM.) Every time somone fires up MW2, they're going to see the Steam storefront pop up regardless of where they bought it.

Do you honestly think most potential customers will open a separate browser to buy a game from D2D, when Steam is right there? (Keep in mind that this is the very reason that Microsoft came under fire in the past. Browser "customers" do not typically look for another browser when they have one right there as the default.) Steam's storefront integration is the very definition of an anticompetitive practice.

Valve gets a lot of leeway among gamers for being cool and awesome, but we tend to forget that it's a business first and foremost.

[CappinCanuck]

Originally Posted by Telefrog

Snip.

Hehe, wasting your breathe man. CrazyD is on some sort of super logic pill nobody else can get.

[H.Bogard]

Breathe is a verb.

[CappinCanuck]

Originally Posted by H.Bogard

Breathe is a verb.

Yeah... I was talking in like... slang, or something. Save your breathe, whereby breathe means massive barrage of logic.

[crazyD]

Well, I disagree with just about everyone here, and thought I was explaining myself pretty well, but if I'm just going to run around in circles until I become a joke, I'll let it drop.

[H.Bogard]

Originally Posted by crazyD

Well, I disagree with just about everyone here

It really is a verb, goddammit!

[Arphahat]

Originally Posted by crazyD

Well, I disagree with just about everyone here, and thought I was explaining myself pretty well, but if I'm just going to run around in circles until I become a joke, I'll let it drop.

I'll chime in that it doesn't really seem that anti-competitive to me.

The one element I am not sure of that would determine whether it is truly anti-competitive is who is mandating the exclusivity of Steam? Is Steam demanding it, or is it a choice on the part of the developers?

If Steam demands it, yes it is anti-competitive. If the developers chose Steam as their method of DRM and as an easy way to distribute updates, it is clearly not anti-competitive.

Skimming the arguments made above, it seems that there are different assumptions being made about why Steam is being included. Does anyone know the details about this?