Why aren other developers following Valves Steam model?
Because Valve’s Steam doesn’t mean that game developers can do away with…. Retail sales channels still represent a vast majority of game sales because that’s where the customers are. Not to mention that a majority of games developers aren’t targeting platforms that could support direct online distribution. Most games sold today are console games. PC game developers could conceivably move more towards online direct distribution if they were willing to sacrifice the huge chunk of their sales that retail represents, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of games sold wind up wrapped and put under a tree. You can’t do that with a download. Not to mention, last I heard, Steam still didn’t work. Have they fixed that yet?
I have Steam, it works. I think this is the wave of the future. But right now it would be impossible (or uneconomical) to do this with, say, Sims2. Sims2 is a single-player game for casual gamers and thus no broadband connection can be assumed. HalfLife2 caters to a geekier crowd who are more likely to have broadband.
There’s Live for Speed, a racing sim developed by a team of three people. It absolutely rocks, if you’re into simulation rather than arcade racing. They only sell through their internet site and are actually selling the unfinished release (S1) to finance the development of the new version (S2). NB: this first release is already fully functioning, yet lacks the flashy marketing makeover. I don’t care about that anyway, especially since the game is only 14 UK pounds. They have a stable and devoted following and a strong online (racing) community.
hell, ten years down the road you probably won’t be able to play it because your gear will no longer have legacy DirectX 9.0 or openGL support. I like steam just fine. I bought the retail release of CS way back when, and when steam came out I registered so I could get CS 1.6. I never reinstalled Steam on my new rig until recently (so I could preload HL2) and when I did, Steam ponied up all the HL based games for download right away, including the original HL, which I never even purchased. And I never had to look up my old CD key or even have my game CD handy.
Most developers are dependant upon publishers to fund pretty much the entire life cycle of a games development. Until it is in the interest of the publisher to distribute games online, or until the majority of games studios work out an alternative funding model, Steam will remain the exception rather than the rule. And thats not even taking into account the massive influence that distributers like EB have in the industry. Valve has a lot of clout, and as far as I know they fund a lot of the development costs themselves, but even they had a lot of trouble convincing Vivendi to allow people to download Halflife 2 (witness the recent court case, etc). Steam has also been effectively hamstrung: you can download all the content sure, but you are not going to be able to play the game until it hits the stores, no matter how you purchase it. And no, I’m not bitter about the industry at all.
