Steam Exclusives: A Good Thing?

With Steam’s ever growing popularity, it is only natural for Valve to pursue exclusive third party developed titles to promote their service.  Publishers appear to be on board with the idea of becoming Steam exclusive, as they are able to take advantage of the built in digital rights management (DRM), as well as Steamworks, a free set of utilities that provide multiplayer and achievement capabilities.

Previous high profile games that adopted Steamworks are Dawn of War 2 and Empire: Total War, as well as a handful of small independent titles.  The adoption of Steamworks requires the games to install the Steam client and tie the game to an account.  However, the release of immensely popular Modern Warfare 2 as a Steamworks title has brought to light a much larger question.  Are Steam exclusive games good for the consumer and the industry?

The Consumer
The primary concern with games becoming Steam exclusive is what this means for the consumer.  Few will argue against the success of Steam and the convenience it offers.  The service provides a variety of community features, achievements, unlimited downloads, and removes the hassle of managing discs.  Generally speaking, consumers are happy to use Steam, and those who do not wish to use the service are the minority.

Despite the success of Steam, I feel there is more to this decision than meets the eye.  PC gaming has always been about freedom, as gamers are not tied to any specific service or required to pay fees to access games.  Gamers have the ability to choose when and how they play games, and where they would like to purchase from.  As games become exclusive to Steam, part of this freedom is removed.  Instead of a consumer purchasing a game via retail and installing it on his or her system, this consumer must now tie it to a third party service which must authorize the consumer every time it is launched.  If the Steam network is overloaded or network issues are present, games typically cannot be accessed.

As more games become Steam exclusive, consumers will also lose the ability to trade or resell a purchased game.  In the United States, consumers are protected by the first-sale doctrine which allows the resell of legally purchased media without permission.  Games that are Steam exclusive lose this right.  Whether it is purchased through the service or through a retail store, the game is tied to a single user account and cannot be removed by any means.  The consumer effectively gives up his or her rights to manage the game as they wish.

For some, these issues may not be important.  However, for others, including myself, I find it worrisome to lose control over games I purchase.  When I purchase games through a digital distribution service, I understand exactly what I am buying.  When I purchase a game through retail, I expect to have more control over it and avoid being tied to a service.

The Controversy
The news of Modern Warfare 2 requiring the Steam client also came with a wave of controversy.  Direct2Drive made a statement they would no longer be selling titles that forced the Steam client upon their customers.  Impulse and Gamersgate followed Direct2Drive’s lead, and have also refused to carry Steam based titles.  The creators of Impulse state it is not practical to distribute such games through their service.

I wish I could offer more insight behind the motives of these statements.  I have seen a variety of blogs, news articles, and forum posts that all speculate what these companies are thinking or trying to accomplish.  Are the companies genuine in their stance against distributing third party clients? Are they simply trying to garner attention, especially from consumers who are already set on not buying Modern Warfare 2? There is no way to know, and the amount of speculation and comments made on this subject is bothersome.

Instead, the important issue is what this means to the consumer.  The primary concern is this removes multiple digital distribution services from the picture, and consumers become more limited in where to purchase these titles.  The only remaining online digital distributors that carry Steamwork titles are Metaboli, Real Networks, and their white label partners.

Essentially, this becomes a no win situation for digital distributors.  They can continue to distribute games that require the Steam client and gain some extra cash, but at the expense of sending them to a competitor’s store.  This is the equivalent of buying food at Burger King, and distributing this food in a McDonald’s wrapper with a menu attached.  It is understandable why companies do not wish to do this.  However, by taking a stance to not distribute these games, the companies lose the opportunity to make additional revenue, as well as flak from various news outlets that tend to favor Steam to start with.

Conclusion
This is not to say there are no benefits to this.   Having games tied to a single service eliminates many headaches for developers and publishers.  It prevents companies from having to create multiple copies of the game to match each digital distribution service and their protection scheme.  It also makes the PC a slightly more attractive platform with a standardized distribution, community, and achievement system.  Gamers tend to enjoy the immediate satisfaction that comes with purchasing games through Steam, as well as the additional features it provides.

My only real concern is what this means for the consumer.  Steam is a good service with a lot of attractive features.  However, despite the success of Valve’s digital distribution service, we cannot turn our backs to what this means for us.  Are we ready to give up complete control over games we purchase at retail stores and tie them to a third party service?  Is it worth having a dominant service with exclusive games to attract publishers back to the PC?  Do the benefits outweigh the negative?

This is of course a personal decision and one we must decide for ourselves, but I ask people to look beyond the immediate convenience and at the overall picture before deciding how they feel about Steam exclusive games.