Steam becomes more of a publisher
(Visited 5851 times) Game talk
Sep 142006
I should have just consolidated all of today’s posts into one — because they are all things that were in my talk. I mentioned at the end of the talk that it wasn’t prognostication, it was happening right now, and so far today I’ve blogged a major media conglomerate launching an MMO outside of media channels, PC-console convergence, and now, .a digital distribution system becoming an alternate publishing channel for AAA games that didn’t quite hit the way the retail publisher wanted them to.
8 Responses to “Steam becomes more of a publisher”
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The first time I looked at my feedlist, there was one, new unread post. The second time I looked (after doing comments and forgetting you had new posts), there were five. =P
I used to suspect he had a team. 🙂
I was quite surprised at the backlash from the talk, considering it was a very reasonable and objective induction of current trends in the industry.
Proclaiming a future of digital downloads seemed to generate quite a bit of criticism, even in the face of it’s inevitability. If millions of people buy books and CDs online, it seems ludicrous to think that purchasing digital media (that can be enjoyed immediately) won’t see a substantial increase in the near future. Especially in the face of emerging storefronts like Steam and others.
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Never be surprised at backlash. If everyone agrees with you, you were probably left in their dust last year. This advice applies to all areas of life, though the “last year” bit is… scalable.
Wow. Now mabye someone will play “Advent Rising” besides me.
Great story, horrible graphics, low sales.
The story of the industry.
I’ve purchased the obvious through Steam: Half-Life 2 (sort of – came in a box but need Steam to decrypt) and HL2: Episode One (and Lost Coast, but that’s a freebie.
But, I’ve also purchased X3 and The Ship. X3 … meh … I was a huge fan of the original X for the eye-candy at the time. This one, so far … what the hell am I supposed to do? Anyway … The Ship is an interesting romp in deathmatch land, though the maps are a bit small for trying to form any sort of strategy. It’s pretty much chop with the ax or run from the ax.
Game satisfaction aside, if other digital distributors can do it the way Steam does, then count me in.
When it comes to my entertainment, I’m a hype-avoidance type. I’d rather wait a year or two and experience something as free from public distortions as possible, whether it be games, movies, music, whatever. Consequently I was looking over the offerings on Steam a couple of weeks ago; I’ve not played HL2 and there are some things I’d like to see in the SDK. But while looking at Steam I was impressed by the offerings. I know that I see some of these titles on Blue’s, but they just don’t register. They actually fall on the other end of the hype scale.
When seen altogether the list is becoming impressive. It includes some titles that have received a ton of press and some that have received little or no press; and it has mods as well. And what I really like is that this plays to my hype-avoidance practices.
Case in point: when Psychonauts was first released I read and posted about that game on my blog. I’d read some reviews and the game started to fall into the “let’s play this later when the hype clears my mind” camp. So what happens? It’ll be available on Steam.
There’s been a lot of talk about the Long Tail. I’m beginning to see Steam as more than an online distributor; I’m seeing it as a Long Tail tool.
Hmmm well last count Tom had 107 million Friends. Tom’s got market segment reach, Tom has a media conglomerate backing him (actually they own Tom). Tom also has um….games…yikes: http://games.myspace.com/
MyMMO anyone? “Brought to you by Fox”…
I cant wait to get into that Instanced Simpsons Dungeon, I heard Homer drops some phat lewt….
Yuck 🙁