should steam rule the gaming world?

[Lord_Gremlin]

You mean rule PC gaming? Well, that's just fine.

 

[WanderingFool]

I got it for BLack Ops. Thats it. Now that I have it, I may use it more, but for now, thats the only reason...

 

[Merkavar]

steam is geat but it should never be forced on people. competition is good for keeping steam prices down, customer service up etc.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't there laws AGAINST any particular company having a complete monopoly over any specific industry? Doesn't that go against one of the amendments on some important piece of paper from point in history? (So sue me, I'm no history buff... and I'm British, but I'm pretty sure it's on some American law thingy. Bill of Rights or something).

There's nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution on the matter. The most famous anti-monopoly law was the Sherman Anti-trust act of 1890, but it's just a law, not a part of the Constitution. From what I understand, Europe has much stronger anti-trust laws than the U.S. does, and that's why Microsoft got in trouble in Europe but not the U.S. back in the 90's.

OT: Monopolies are bad. In a capitalist system, the whole thing hinges on competition; once that competition is gone, the demand side has very little say in the equation, they will pay what the people providing the supply dictate, or they won't get the product. I would like to see Steam become smart enough to link the non-steam games I add to it to the page that would show up if you bought them through steam, and keep track of the time played, but would not like it to be the only way to get those games.

 

[GWarface]

They have a crappy 2mb/s connection

Dude I'd kill for that connection, more then double my current connection download speed, and it's effected by weather as it's a wifi tower on top of my house. A bird fly in the way? Lost packet. Snowing? Hah! and you wanted to access google today... so cute.


:|

Sorry you have a more-than-double-crappy-connection...
Where do you live since you have to use a wifi tower?

 

[MrhalfAwake]

Sluggish POS in my opinion.

But this is coming from someone who barely plays games on my computer. I guess when I get a better one I won't have much choice but to use it.

sounds like you just have a shite system to me

Oh yes, I really do.

But why should Steam slow down my computer more than a game?

because running programs like steam along side gems eats up more memory than you can obviously handle. A better rig would solve those issues

 

[CaptainKoala]

No one should rule the gaming world. But if I had a gun to my head and HAD to pick one. I think Valve would do a pretty good job.
We would have to wait 3 years for a game to come out, but it would be a fantastic game.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

As good as Steam is, having a monopoly on any industry would be bad news for consumers. I'm going to have to say no to this idea; Steam is a very good service though!

 

[dududf]

They have a crappy 2mb/s connection

Dude I'd kill for that connection, more then double my current connection download speed, and it's effected by weather as it's a wifi tower on top of my house. A bird fly in the way? Lost packet. Snowing? Hah! and you wanted to access google today... so cute.


:|

Sorry you have a more-than-double-crappy-connection...
Where do you live since you have to use a wifi tower?

Outside of Ottawa in Canada.

 

[manaman]

We're headed out of the era of physical media. Everything is eventually going to be like Steam in one way or another.

We don't even have 90% brodband (greater then 5Mb/s) penetration, let alone adoption (which usually hovers below half), in most places in the world.

We are seeing the first glimpses of a movement away from physical media, but it's still a while off. Besides a movement away from physical media also carries with it an easy move towards cloud computing where all you have is a terminal. I for one would hate for that to be the future.

 

[Jester00]

i think most of the gamers today have a steam account. me too, and i really love steam. but there's one thing that i hate: i have 2 or 3 games which are not on steam. and i thought, why are there games which aren't on steam? it would be awesome if you can see really every game from your friends in their steam lists. in my opinion, steam should be standard, it installs itself when you install your OS or whatever. what do you think about that?

Everything you mentioned could be created without having to make Steam a monopoly, which is obviously a bad thing even if it ran by one of the best companies out there.

What we could have instead is:
1. A small, independent group of developers should form solely for the purpose of creating a universal social network for all PC games (consoles would be near impossible because of competition/rivalry). This third party program could perform the same roles that steam does, except sales of games, but allowing all games to be integrated with it.

2. Developers could pay a small fee in order to allow their games to run in with this software, paying for development and maintenance costs while making ensuring a social network for their games (something that is becoming more and more important).

3. ???

4. Profit.

something like that would be great.

 

[mrF00bar]

Over time I have come realize that Steam really is a piece of crap. I hate being locked into something like Steam or Games for Windows Live so the answer from me is NEVER EVER EVER.

 

[TaboriHK]

We're headed out of the era of physical media. Everything is eventually going to be like Steam in one way or another.

We don't even have 90% brodband (greater then 5Mb/s) penetration, let alone adoption (which usually hovers below half), in most places in the world.

We are seeing the first glimpses of a movement away from physical media, but it's still a while off. Besides a movement away from physical media also carries with it an easy move towards cloud computing where all you have is a terminal. I for one would hate for that to be the future.

The way tech momentum works, it doesn't matter how many people have broadband right now.

 

[Moromillas]

Is that a rhetorical question? Or maybe a troll thread?

No, no it shouldn't. It would create a monopoly and because there's no competitors, the price of video games would be ridiculous.

the price wouldn't be ridiculous. steam is just the thing between the dev and the gamer, they don't make the prices. and no, no troll thread.

Neg. If there were 5 stores where you could buy food from, that would mean those 5 stores would compete with each other price-wise, to get the consumer to buy their food. If there was only 1 store, then they wouldn't have to compete with anyone, and they could make their prices as exorbitant as they want.

 

[Cuppa Tetleys]

I'm not a PC gamer so...no.

 

[Folio]

Well, maybe not the gaming world. It's not close to the other forms of profiles on the consoles. But it actually already is taking the PC by storm. Beating Windows Live over time.

 

[La Barata]

What do you mean, "should"? Steam DOES rule the gaming world