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UK retailers consider banning Steam games

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According to an MCV article, Steam is a hot topic in the UK at the moment. Two unnamed gaming retail franchises are threatening to stop selling all games that have obligatory Steam requirements. According to MCV, these stores are the biggest franchises throughout the United Kingdom.

This attack on the leading digital downloads provider comes as a result of one of the retailers planning to launch their own digital distribution platform. According to them, stocking games that require users to utilize Steam will only serve to push their future customers towards the competition.

Steam accounts for more than 80% of the digital distribution market. According to the head of the planned digital sales for one of the leading UK stores, by publishers utilizing Steam in their games they “are creating a monster – we are telling suppliers to stop using Steam in their games… If we have a digital service, then I don’t want to start selling a rival in-store”.

The threat of banning all Steam games from two major UK franchises is quite hefty. Of course, one has to wonder if this is an empty threat considering the colossal launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which uses Steam. It’s a little difficult to imagine retailers willingly passing up similar launches should games publishers refuse to stop mandatory Steam integration.

Idle threat or something that could have a negative effect on Steam?

Source: CVG

Last Updated: November 12, 2010

9 Comments

  1. Personally i hate steam. Its a resource hog. Does what it wants, when it wants and can seriously piss you off if your dsl goes down for whatever reason and now yo have to fight to play ur games. I welcome them to do it. In fact I hope they do :devil:

    Reply

  2. Twinduct

    November 13, 2010 at 05:37

    Look, of course the opinion would be biased in SA. Simply based on our adsl. But the reason steam is being seen as the essential alternative, and increasingly becoming the first choice, is on the features packed into the service.

    Unless retail can provide a realistic alternative to steam cloud, or even digital distribution, I can’t see them retaining a hold on the industry. :angel:

    Reply

  3. Waldo Brits

    November 13, 2010 at 08:42

    I find Steam games to SUCK…And wont buy any game using Steam as a platform…(and i have over 10 games of them and don’t play a single one of then now) The fact that you Must download patches, Must be connected…It is as if they want to be some ”Big-Brother”… You get to your pc …load the game and booomb! Downloading patch! Wtf… You have to sit and wait for it to Download…Cant they think! Why not let the patch download …while you are playing…Once the download is done you can just install it. And a norther thing..Why in the name of Loki cant you download and install the patches by yourself !! There is a LOT of pll you there with slow connections…Most have friends or even at work with better connections…and would like to download it there and just install it at home…! But NO Big-Brother wont let you!!! I understand that you need the newest patches if you want to play online …But wtf > What about the single players out there ~~ THEY DONT NEED IT !!
    My opinion: Hit DEL on !! Steam!!

    Reply

  4. GoldenSilver

    November 13, 2010 at 20:00

    True the whole dam thing of a single player game that has to be updated right now is pissing me off as well, my dawn of war is just sitting there with a bloody 6 gig download for an SDK the I will prob never use just because the dev’s released it for free to the public. Yeah they did well I sure as hell dont need it to play the god damm game and sure as hell dont need it right now. :angry:

    Reply

  5. Kin

    November 15, 2010 at 12:03

    Well, I think you guys are angry at the SA broadband market than Steam. I live in the UK and Steam is awesome. I don’t mind constant updates etc and it’s all delivered in a nice neat package. Retailers here have been undercutting and undermining PC games for ages BUT I very much doubt they are going to do this.
    The must realise its going to hand Steam even more advantage, this is just pointless posturing.

    Reply

  6. Gordon Peachman

    November 26, 2010 at 02:15

    Steam takes up anywhere from 0 to 1 percent of my CPU at any given time. You must have a really slow computer if it lags your game enough to consider it a resource hog.

    Reply

  7. Gordon Peachman

    November 26, 2010 at 02:23

    I really don’t see why people think steam is bad:

    It doesn’t use any significant amount of my CPU or RAM
    It requires you to connect to have steam to play it because of the steam DRM system (which is top notch imo. Tied to accounts, not computers)
    It has constant sales every mid week, weekend, and Holiday season (and a summer sale, too)

    And BTW, you don’t HAVE to update your game if you don’t want to. Just right click the game, click properties, click the “updates” tab, and select “Do not automatically update this game”.

    And in addition to what Kin said, at least SOMEONE is giving proper support to PC Gamers. Complaining about needing steam open, well, the only people that complain about that are people who have such slow computer they have to close other programs in order to run it. The same people that would complain if Valve decided to make a new engine. :unsure:

    Reply

  8. Gordon Peachman

    November 26, 2010 at 02:26

    I’m sorry if you absolutely HAVE to play that game right now, but don’t blame steam. They give you the option to NOT update automatically, but people just don’t care enough to look for it, then complain when they get into a situation like you’re in.

    Reply

  9. Gordon Peachman

    November 26, 2010 at 02:29

    YOU CAN install the patches yourself. Look at my other comments.

    People are complaining about things, claiming it’s steams fault. Also, don’t complain about connections. Go into your setting until you find a fast one. Ill admit steams servers can be a bit screwy (I get faster download times connecting too new zealand then I do New york) but still, it’s easy to fix, and certainly not a reason to ban games that use it.

    Reply

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