They make it easy to buy, and see new content, and market indie titles, and save me a trip, and link to reviews, and show top sellers, it’s so efficient it’s mind boggling.

In addition to spending more, I also now directly support indie games that I would never have purchased before.  They support the bejeezus out of indie games, PC INDIE games.  They have pumped new life into the PC game industry for the time being.

Lastly, PC games are dying, the PC is dying, and I’ve played the first PCs and nearly any relevant game and I miss the golden 80s of gaming..but it’s going.  Why sit at a desk for *anything* when you can walk around with an ipad and lay on the bed, or sit on the couch, etc.  People will not want to be chained to a desk, even a notebook pc.  Steam will add some lifespan, but in the end portable wins.  The consumer demand for it (based on real reasons) is overwhelming.

The reason games are cheaper on steam is the distrobution costs. Steam has to maintain industrial scale FTP servers, whereas conventional publishers require manufacturing to delievery networks, which cost more. Sure there is then import taxes etc. Steam is probably massively overcharging for its established system, however it is still undercutting classic retail sales, and will always do so.

Steam also has a fairly worldwide monopoly on games, in many countries for quite a while.

If steam hypothetically destroyed conventional retail it could charge what it wants.

Anywhos, going off… Onlive is the big thorn in steam’s butt at the moment. They are offering owners of decent broadband streamable content, aka “cloud computing” or “cloud gaming” which essentially is an excellent alternative. Steam could easily delay the inevitable by matching Onlives services (bar the cloud). Onlive currently “loans” you games for as long as they are on their servers. You can also rent games. If steam offered this for the AAA market then I reckon Onlive would be dust in no time. However, Onlive has some strong financial backing due to the counter-piracy effect of cloud computing.

As much as Onlive is a competitor, the internet requirements, quality of service, and soley loaning games is a big dent for it. Unfortunately I think its been released a few years too early, but we shall see ay?

But then again, technology changes. Steam will be in forefront of digital distrobution untill a genuine alternative starts to become more viable or undeniably better or more appropriate for the hardware. Apple will always be the biggest media distrobuter for as long as people dont understand the alternatives.

Monopolies are everywhere. And IMHO, as long as Mr. Gabe is in charge at Valve we have little to fear. Its when he passes his developed monopoly onto money hungry executives who care little for the products/morals, ala Gibson Guitars, for example…

People follow trends too much. Advertising works. Look at Google and Facebook. They practically control the day-to-day flow of the internet. which is far worse than Mr. Gabe selling me the odd game every now and then that I can play on any machine, anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

Free 2 Play games are their way to creep in the piracy cultures of the third world, all my friends and countrymen that used to only play pirated games now have a steam account and started buying games… I used to know only 3 or so ppl IRL that had a steam account now I know of dozens, I used to be a pirate because I couldn’t bring my self to pay over 100% taxes for a single game in a local store and now I own 70+ games in total, my pirating days are over, and the local game stores in Brazil are over as well.

Origin is not an alternative in those markets,  because they exist in those markets, they used to distribute physical copies of valve’s games in those markets and their billing is in the currency of those markets, so every time I wan’t a 59,99 USD title all I do is speculate on the future dollar a little bit and pay 100 BRL tops, if I wen’t to the game store I’d pay around 220 BRL or so.

I guess I’ve made my point clear just remember that in the same situation I am others are as well, all over the world and no we cannot afford to care if it becomes a monopoly.

Nobody carries the adapter. Well, other than Amazon or Ebay. So I went ahead and bought a controller and Left4Dead2. I don’t know why,(or when), but I registered with either Playstation or Steam some years ago and when I tried to create an account I got the error message saying I already had an account. I got the account name and a code by e-mail to reset my password but then it asks for an answer to a “secret” question. I didn’t remember having an account. How am I going to remember the answer to a question asked 7-8 years ago? Isn’t the case sensitive answer just a second password!?

Anyway,…I’ve got two questions in support,(since early this afternoon), and don’t expect them to be answered any time soon. I can’t login to my account so I can’t play the game. I was really looking forward to starting a new game with good graphics. I ended up searching for games that don’t rely on Steam. In my opinion Steam has already reached a level of “too big” where they don’t have to respond to questions posted by users. Right now,…I’m hating Steam.

Their forums are also down for maintenance. I’m also not fond of their suggestions for troubleshooting your connection. Bypass your router? Disable all anti-virus? Connect by wire directly to your modem? Steams fucked up.