UK Games Retailers Threaten Boycott of Steam Games

RogueyWon writes "Games industry trade site MCV is reporting that two major UK video games retailers are threatening to ban Steam-enabled PC games from their stores. The as-yet-unnamed retailers are apparently concerned that by selling Steam games, they are pointing their customers towards a competitor and will by trying to bring pressure upon publishers to strip Steam functionality from their games. This could prove an interesting test of where the real power lies at the retail end of PC gaming."

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[Nursie]

The only thing that worries me about this whole thing is resale.

I like to buy second hand games, I occasionally like to be able to sell them, or loan them to friends, or whatever. Much like with books. Steam doesn't really do that AFAICT.

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[RogueyWon]

I feel so conflicted over this one, to be honest.

On the one hand, high street game retailers have nobody but themselves to blame for their woes, particularly where PC games are concerned. Going out on a limb, I'd guess that the two UK retailers the story refers to are Game and Gamestation. Of course, both of those have the same owning company, so maybe there's actually another retailer out there who's thinking the same way, but I wouldn't bet on it. I think HMV (our major music/dvds high street retailer that also does games) is too diversified to be really worried about the PC gaming market.

The main difference between Game and Gamestation is that the latter is almost entirely used games sales, while the former generously gives over a good 25% or so of its shelf-space in the average store to new games. Occasionally, they'll even let you buy one without a pre-order.

Gamestation is, in my opinion, pretty much unspeakable. They have a business model that revolves around buying copies of Fifa Soccer off teenagers for £3 (or £5 if they accept payment in store credit) and selling them on at £30. I've nothing against used games sales, but really, people could be getting a far better deal either as vendor or buyer from ebay. And that's basically the entirety of Gamestation.

Game used to be somewhat better. Sure, they have the same used-games model, but they did at least used to be a reasonable place to buy new titles. These days, however, if you want anything other than the last couple of big releases for each platform; well, I hope you pre-ordered. They have a small number of flagship stores that are slightly better, but shopping in the average branch pretty much comes down to "Do you want Fifa new or used (oh, and the right answer is "used")?". I remember when Valkyria Chronicles 2 came out... I was told by the staff at the Game branch in London's Victoria Station that I had no chance of getting one without pre-order. So I walked a few yards to the (tiny, cupboard-like) branch of HMV and got one there.

And as for PC gaming, both chains have completely neglected it since the start of the current console cycle. If the store had a PC section (and not every store did) it was usually a single rack with a new release or two and a collection of 5-10 year old casual titles. No refunds on PC games (though they might reluctantly exchange a damaged disc) and, with no used market, the retailers weren't interested. And yet now, with the current gen consoles looking a little bit tired (with no successors in sight) and Valve having revived the PC market quite effectively, high-street retailers decide that they want a slice of it. And apparently they want it handed to them on a platter.

And at the same time, Steam is, in many ways, an extremely good service. As DRM goes, it's not offensive. It's tied to an account, not a PC, and you can redownload data as many times as you want. There's no need to put any kind of game disc in your drive. And Steam does generally seem to offer at least an alternative to the kinds of hideous DRM we've seen elsewhere. Plus it's a well-rounded platform that includes achievements, friends lists and most of the other features we expect from the (subscription based) Xbox Live service.

However... there are aspects of Valve's business practices that are starting to worry me. I have no sympathy for high-street retailers, but I do think that some of Valve's online competitors are being very hard done by. It must suck for direct2drive (who I have used and who are fine, if not as good as Steam) that every copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops they sell has to be installed within Steam, sending customers direct to their main competitor. Steam has, thus far, been a net positive for PC gamers. But should Steam become the only platform in town, then I don't think that's going to work so well for the customer. Ideally, we need some of their competition to get their act in gear and improve their own services to the point where they become a valid alternative.

Re:Okay...

[Monkeedude1212]

I can't remember if it was on here or some other site but I read a bit where a guy went to go buy Oblivion from GameStop and he just so happened to enter when someone was trying to sell their copy of Oblivion to the store. The used copy from the store was going for 30 or 40 bucks while they were only willing to pay like 10 dollars for buying it back.

The guy interrupted and offered $20 for the exchange and the two of them left the store happy.

I think I may do this with some of my older games - I'll go stand right out front of Gamestop and huck my goods.

Re:The real power is the individual

[wjousts]

I won't buy Steam delivered games or games that use Steam for DRM (looking at you Civilization V, FO:NV and the lastest Total War games - all series I previously supported). It worries me deeply that the industry seems to have dumped all their eggs in the Steam basket without any concern for the hulking monopoly they are creating.

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[Rogerborg]

often only 15-20 % of the sales go to the creator if it's not less!

Is it less? You tell me. Steamworks doesn't publish how big a slice of the cake they take - you have to present them with an actual game. Have you? How much did they take?

Or are you just another random intartubes commentard bullshitting numbers because it makes you feel like you're a part of something?

Re:A store? What's that?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I have never seen a PC game (outside of Collector's / Special Editions) which costs anywhere near £60. £35 is the current top-end PC game price. You'll pay £45 for a AAA console title at launch, but even CoD:Black Ops is retailing at £34.99 in Game stores on the PC.

Re:Following in the **AA's footsteps?

[Ogive17]

I don't like Steam for the simple fact that I can never sell my copy of Civ V unless I want to get rid of my entire account. Right now it's not a big issue since Civ V is the only game I own that uses steam. I also don't appreciate the ads that pop up every time I start up a game. I paid $50-$60 for Civ V (way more than it's worth, IMO, not terribly impressed), stop trying to sell me other games on Steam.

Personally, I would like Steam for games that released over a year ago.. get them at a cheaper price and no physical media. Brand new games at full price requiring Steam, hate it. I'm paying for 3rd party to be involved that I want nothing to do with.

Selling Fax Machines in 2010?

[zpeidar]

This is entirely the wrong approach, and an act that demonstrates unwillingness to change, much like what we've seen in certain other parts of the entertainment industry. But seriously, if you owned and operated a shop selling music, would you be scared of iTunes and the likes, your only real choices would be to evolve and give better service than them, or just close up shop, the choice of abolishing internet music isnt really up there on the list of sane choices, atleast it didnt use to be. What if you sold horses when cars first became available, would you try to abolish cars altogether, or perhaps change your business into something that fits the market thats coming? Or what if you suddenly found that you'd been selling fax machines well beyond their obsoletion? Would you rage out and try to abolish the internet, or perhaps just realize that you should try to save the scraps, and turn your shop into selling something that people actually buy? Trying to force the market to do something can be tricky...

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[DavidTC]

The thing is, using monopolistic practices usually requires some sort of lock-in effect, where it's hard to change.

It's hard to see how this could happen with Steam. You just need a small program installed to use Steam and each competitor. That's it.

As long as you have a Steam game installed, you have to keep Steam installed, but Steam is hardly going to stop you buying games other ways, and you don't even need to 'use' Steam...you can launch the game, and Steam starts up silently in the background.

Likewise, the Steam overlay seems to require no work to integrate into the game, so there's no lock-in from the developer end. Yeah, if they start doing DLC, they'd have to package them multiple times, but, seriously.

Unless Steam starts making exclusive deals with games to lock competitors out of the market, or somehow makes it hard for both them and a competitor to work, I don't see how their monopoly isn't just a 'they're better than everyone else' monopoly. (And if they start those things, or they have exclusive deals currently, they should be slammed down.)

There's absolutely no barrier to entry. You build a system, contact the 20 or so different game publishers, or just a few to start it, and fire it up.

Missing the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree at all with the complaint, but a lot of people seem to be missing WHY the guy is complaining - it's not that people are using steam, but rather that some games force a steam install to be played, which is effectively installing a competitors digital distribution platform.

I love steam to death (I'll happily pay a bit more for the convenience of having something on steam), but I can see the argument too.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

[westlake]

They won't be able to buy back used games for $5 and resell them for $40. Good riddance.

At least with the retail box, you have a used-game market.

That no longer true when back list titles go to Steam or Gog.com for sale at $5 to $15.

The sensible thing for the retailer may be to demand added value.

The boxed set on DVD or BLu-Ray that would be a ridiculously expensive and time consuming download.

The Fallout game packaged in an steel ammo box and sold as an Amazon branded limited edition collectible at $129.95.

Re:All the wrong reason

[Bvardi]

Actually I see the chances of being able to replay a game years down the line as INCREASED with things like Steam. No more lost CD's/cd key since its part of your account. Better chance of support for games on new operating systems/Hardware, since if they make even a few bucks now and then from sales a publisher has incentive to keep those old titles compatible. And worrying simultaneously about Steam becoming the de facto monopoly AND then going dark? So it's too successful and yet will die leaving you without access to your games? Doesn't seem likely. Not in any reasonable span of time anyways. Basically I think if Steam dies at this point, it'll be far enough down the line that it'll be like complaining about nobody making stereos with 8-track tape support anymore - so you can't play all those nifty disco beats you picked up back in the 1970's. And thats something you risk just by using almost anything based on technology.

Also, try gamersgate com instead of steam

[unity100]

they dont force onto you a restricting client, you never have any issues with modding the games or patches, and most of the games are drm free even.

This will only hurt retailers in the end

[DeadTOm]

I don't think these retailers have really thought through just why people use steam. I don't use it because I can buy games through it, for me that's just one of the perks. I use it for everything else I can do with it.

- All of my games are in one place

- It keeps track of my stats

- In-game chat and voice that actually works and works well.

- Friends list, ability to see what friends are playing and join them, invite them, whatever.

- Keeps track of my stats and lets me look at others' stats.

- VAC. Anti cheat software that actually works.

All of these things seriously enhance the online play of any game, making it much more appealing to gamers. I think publishers recognize this and will also recognize that if players can't get it from a retail store, they'll just get it from steam. No skin off the publishers back. I prefer to have a hard copy of my games. I like having the case and the little booklet that comes with it and whatever else some like to include but if I walk into a store and they aren't selling steam games, I'll walk right back out and get it online. I think most other steam loving gamers will do the same.

Is it DRM? Sure it is but they aren't using it out of hand. The mod community is alive and well and valve software supports them. Until that stops, I'm not going to complain about their use of DRM. The games that don't allow modding are not actually published by valve and that has nothing to do with steam.

The only con that I can think of is what happens if valve goes belly up and takes steam with it? Suddenly I can't play any of my games that I paid for. I don't think it's likely to happen but it's a concern.

The only thing that might be considered a competitor to steam in these areas is xfire, but the simple fact that I can't click on a players name in the game and see that he's using xfire, add him, look at his stats etc. really hinders it's usability. I know very few people that actually use xfire.

Re:Okay...

[DeadTOm]

But on the other hand things like Steam (or worse AC2 style online "activation") are killing the used PC game market for ALL of us not just Gamestop.

I agree on this point, I really think steam needs a feature that allows you to de-license a game and gift that license to a friend. Would be a nice feature. I'd love to be able to give some of my older games to my kids but I'm not going to let them get on my steam account.

Re:Okay... but you miss the point

[TheRealGrogan]

They may indeed have a "special connection" to your ISP, in the form of a mirror within your ISP's (or their upstream provider in the case of smaller ones) own network.

Other distribution services do that too... akamai for example. (Steam may even contract such download services... I never checked who I have actually been downloading from.)

Re:Okay...

[Lokeh]

No offense taken, and the battle of used-store vs. streetcorner/ebay/craigslist vs. new is a difficult and complicated situation. In the end, all anyone wants to do is "get on by" without upsetting people, but all these things seem to be in contention with one another for one thing: your dollar.

I could say how we don't normally set our prices at "just below retail": most of our prices are determined by what we research online (for media this is usually a quick check on Amazon) and we price them as such, unless we're POSITIVE it will sell for more. We've also ran into some competition with Walmart, actually, where they price their brand new blu-rays and some consumer electronics items at or below USED value (which tends to be ~60% retail on average).

As for what we pay, it reflects the risk we're taking on what we buy. A vendor has the ability to get replacements or refunds if there is a significant amount of a defective product; for us, it just goes in the trash. We have to do our research, hold it for a number of weeks to be processed by the police, clean it, maintain it, and then guarantee it - all after buying this thing from someone that decided to use their DVD cases as coasters. Fantastic. $10-$15 for something we're going to turn around and sell for $30 sounds more than fair to me, but I suppose I'm biased.

The issue isn't that people are buying and selling between each other instead of us. It's using our facilities, our store, as a way to find that connection. Go use craigslist or ebay - we refer people there all the time when they don't like what we're willing to pay - but it's akin to us coming and selling our crap in the middle of your store and saying that it's OBVIOUS and INEVITABLE because you're selling everything SO FAR ABOVE market value.

Re:Okay...

[scot4875]

You know, game developers could just as easily point at you and say the exact same thing. At least the game developers are *producing* something of value; all you're doing is shuffling stuff around and providing a (increasingly irrelevant) retail space.

In fact, this is the one thing I have in favor of DLC: I'd rather see money go directly to the publishers than to some place like Gamestop that gouges their customers for 200-500% markups on used games. In fact, it won't really bother me all that much if all specialty game stores that rely heavily on game sales go out of business and leave only big box stores to buy hardware from, and publishers to buy games from directly online.

--Jeremy

Re:Okay...

[Darinbob]

I used to visit a store that would sell used games for about $10-20. And give you about $5-$15 for them. I got quite a lot of great games that way, many of which I played many times. Then I moved silicon valley and nothing like this existed. People pointed me to Game Stop and I thought $40 for a used game was the height of stupidity, even if the game is over a year old. I could go to a normal retailer and wait a month or two and the new game will drop to that price.

Still, it's better than Steam.

Except ....

[King_TJ]

How much of a "used game market" has there EVER really been?

If it was there, I managed to miss it completely for years .... On many occasions, I've tried to resell my used game software I no longer wanted, only to find I couldn't get more than a buck or two per title out of it. When you're only fetching that on a site like eBay, then you're usually better off just keeping the thing than spending the gas money to take the thing to the post office plus the cost of the packing tape and time/effort to box it all up!

I've even tried the strategy of "holding onto a few classics until they're old enough, they might have some special collector value". (I have a copy of Wing Commander III that's all like-new in the original box, to this day.) Nope.... still no takers.

That happened to me

[lullabud]

Last winter I was trying to buy the Super Mario Wii game for my nieces, but after waiting in line for like 15 minutes I found out it was sold out even though they had like 50 boxes on the shelf.

Just as I was expressing my frustration at having waited in line expecting them to sell me a game for the box I was holding in my hand a woman came in trying to sell her disc. It didn't have a cover because the dog had eaten it. Not only did Gamestop allow us to do the sale inside their store instead of outside in the icy cold, they also gave me one of their empty boxes off the shelf since they were unable to sell me the game even though I'd waited in line.

It was surely not the kind of thing that corporate would recommend them to do, I'm sure, but it was a great gesture on their part and definitely placated all of my complaint that they would advertise the availability of a game on their shelf when they actually had no copies in stock.

Steam did what others wouldn't

[Ace170780]

and that is take a risk and inovate they created this wonderfull distribution platform. It's DRM but very mild compared to the BS we have endured over the course of the last 10 years. Here are some facts. Other then the whole price argument which I tend to agree even though i'm not affected by it. One way to look at it is steam is providing a service of convenience so if it's the same price as retail I would say who gives a shit cause i'm a lazy ass and I dont want to drive to the store so what I would save in gas goes to the developer/publisher which I dont care. If the game isn't made by Valve and isn't locked down by the developer you can mod it. There is no way that steam stops you from using mods unless it's their own game which as far as I can recall has full mod support. All this don't support mod BS is from the developers who want to milk us via DLC releases. Why have the community create the mod when they can do it and charge. Steam works offline. You just need to ensure that you dont log out of steam when you exit so that when you log in the next time what happens is it times out and then prompts you to try again or go in offline mode which at that point you have full access to your library. Just need to ensure you have the game you want to play installed first. Re-sell. The fact is they no longer want games to be a product they want it to be a service and this is why it's harder and harder to sell off your copies as it's usualy attached to some account. If you blame steam for not owning your copy and not complaining about every other platform/developer/publisher then your nothign but a hypoctrit. Retail Copies of PC Games - We have all noticed the decline in availability of PC games in store way before steam or other distribution platforms have come out. The retailers are hypocrits. They are crying because all of a sudden there is a surge of quality games coming to the PC and they see $$$$ but they wont get shit cause they can't resell like they do for console but even with console you can see this is going away with consoles being connected to the internet and catching up to the PC in the distribution departed. The way I see it Consoles are 5 years behind in inovation at all times behind the PC. And for those complaining about the DRM and steam disapearing well good news on that front because like all DRM come and gone they have all been hacked/cracked and you can easly find those executables out in the wild. I mean if this is stopping you from accepting change then so be it but personaly no loss to me or the 20 million other steam users out there. Funny considering that blizzard is one of the bigges pc companies out there with steam and they dont complaing yet everyone else does.

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[SatanicPuppy]

Pssh. One of the last games I bought as physical media was Fallout 3, and the fucking hoops I had to jump through for that were a goddamn joke, from the annoying ass clerk at best buy (Card ME? ME? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm fucking OLD!), to microsofts DLC hoops, which were vastly more annoying than dealing with steam.

Why the hell wouldn't I just use Steam? The one time my internet went down for any length of time, the playing experience was as good or better.

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[Malenx]

I call shenanigans...

Best Buy stopped carding credit customers nationwide about 4 years ago.

Re:Okay...

[JustSomeProgrammer]

I remember the days when you weren't able to sell PC games back to stores. Once you opened it, it was yours for good. Only cartridges could be resold.

Re:Structural Unemployment for Middle Men

[SatanicPuppy]

Well they should let these fuckers know. That was the last time I bought a game there (no loss, since their selection sucks). I don't remember the exact time, but it was when F3 was new, so about 2 years ago?

My take on it was that they had no right to fucking ask in the first place, as there is no law that says that they're allowed to demand ID for those in the first place.

And also, according to their investor relations page [corporate-ir.net], they absolutely still card, as of this year.

With that premise, Best Buy recognizes the concerns regarding the content of certain video and PC games. It's why the company currently has a "mature" product sales policy in place that prohibits the sale of video and computer games rated M (as defined by the Entertainment Software Rating Board) to customers under the age of 17 years old. The policy requires employees to check the age of any customer purchasing M-rated video or computer games who appears to be under the age of 21. All store employees are required to read the policy and sign an acknowledgement of the policy on their first day of employment. Failure to follow the policy results in discipline, which may include termination.