In November 2009, many digital distributors spoke out against the Steam service and upcoming games that were infused with Steamworks. These services claimed they did not want to continue distributing games that forced a third party client upon their consumers, as well as deliver a competitor’s store front. Essentially, digital distributors were put in a very difficult position with no means to come out on top.
There is nothing I can really report that I have not already. It appears publishers are not concerning themselves with the details, and continuing to support the Steam platform over others. In the first month of the new year, three games have already been announced to be Steamworks driven and will be tied to the Steam client. These titles are Supreme Commander 2, Aliens vs. Predator, and Napoleon: Total War. The latter is of little surprise considering the previous installment of the Total War series was also a Steamworks infused title.
I feel this can only spell disaster for other digital distribution services if this trend continues, as well as for consumers. While we all appreciate Steam in its own way, do we really want to put all our eggs in one basket? If we truly care about our games and the industry, we need to encourage competition between services, as well as encourage publishers to support all major digital distributors. What incentive will there be for service improvement and weekend sales once competitors are knocked out?
2 Comments
There is one very important negative to the use of Steamworks which gets very little press attention. Probably because it only effects a market that all the big players couldn’t care less about. At least, that’s how it seems.
So what is that problem? It’s the fact that games using Steamworks have a very nasty trend now of being blocked from installation and activation based on your IP address. Apparently, this IP blocking has been common fair for SEGA for some time — preventing people in Japan from being able to play some of the Total War games. We then also saw this same IP blocking used for Modern Warfare 2.
The only way around this blocking is to use some form of VPN to trick Steam into thinking you’re in the US/UK or any other country where the publishers deem you’re allowed to play their games.
Sadly, as SEGA are publishing AVP and, like pretty much all Japanese publishers, hate both PC gaming in Japan and the very thought of digital distribution, this means that PC gamers in Japan are once again being told that they aren’t allowed to play AVP unless they import the game and can use a VPN to activate it.
I really can’t wait until Steamworks dies a horrible death. Then perhaps, gamers in unsupported regions will finally be able to play their legally purchased games without pointless hoop jumping. At least with GFWL, if you are in an unsupported region, you can simply create an account with the location set to a region that is supported.
I honestly was not aware of the troubles Japanese users had, and I am glad you brought it to my attention. I have often been concerned about the limitations Steamworks imposes when it comes to importing products, but I have been unable to find any clear examples of it until now. I will definitely be investigating this further and reporting on it as well.
Thanks for the heads up and the response!