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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fell Open Ian
Very interesting. I understand the industry not wanting Steam going unchallenged but as long as they are doing this pricing stuff with Steam keys then the players still remain in the Steam ecosystem which is the biggest boon to Valve.
Any time that I make a digital purchase on PSN or XBLA or various other non-Steam/non-Desura services I am quickly reminded how much of a time-saver it is to have the most current version of a game download all patched and ready to go as an 'image' rather than the absolute cluster  of something like PSN. (download 3GB game only to have it need to be installed and then patched with a conveniently sized 3GB patch)
That's why I seek out Steam and Desura keys because I'm lazy and spoiled and not in the mood to hunt down patches or re-download entire games due to an update. (which can still happen on Steam and Desura depending on how the game is structured)
I'm not loyal; I'm lazy.  |
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I am surprised Steam allows competitors to undercut its pricing, frankly. A different company would have never let its competitors be able to issue codes piggybacking on its service.
My best guess of the reason why is (a) Valve as a privately held company actually believes in providing the gaming community the best possible experience even though they sacrifice some short-term profit and/or (b) Valve is dedicated to playing the long game of eventually becoming a near-console with its Linux and Big Picture projects, thus owning the PC gaming industry. This would allow Valve to not only dictate PC DD standards as it does now (ex: Origin & Uplay) but also PC hardware standards, for the benefit of us all as our benevolent master.