The End of Steam: Imagining the Future of How We Buy Games

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Not that Valve’s distribution system is going anywhere, but here is a thought piece on what PC gaming could look like if Steam became history. While there are some potential scenarios discussed here, such as a non-profit, decentralized service or something powered by cryptocurrency, I don’t think anything would really change, aside from you moving on to a competing service. I mean, there’s nothing functionally wrong with what is currently out there, and more importantly, creating a successful distribution system in itself is extremely difficult. How'd Valve do it?

I can’t predict the details of exactly how Steam or any other PC gaming service will change, but I can safely say that they will change. With that in mind, the question becomes: What do we want that change to be? What general possibilities can we imagine, and will they make our experience better or worse? I’ve indulged in this hypothesizing with input from a few games industry folks, borrowing their experience to imagine some possible futures: a mega-service run by a board of publishers, a consumer-friendly service run by a nonprofit, a totally decentralized service, and big moves by giants Amazon and Tencent. Here’s a glimpse at a few PC gaming galaxies far away from our own...
 
The future is none of the above. The future is a completely locked down consumption oriented OS made by either Microsoft or Apple and users will be forced to use those services.

How'd Valve do it? They did it because they were the first to do it, and they had a killer-app (HL2) that forced the choice of consumers.
 
They need to make a centralized service that combines everything into one package. It won't happened because publishers want their own service they have complete control of. Steam could of been it but greed will always win.
 
The future, either run by Valve or not, is going to be streamed games and subscription services. With more and more games becoming online and requiring online access for SP portions it is inevitable. EA, Sony and Nvidia are trying right now to implement various technologies. It is still in its infancy and it will take longer to do so than movies, but that is what the big companies want.
 
Flogger23m said:
The future, either run by Valve or not, is going to be streamed games and subscription services. With more and more games becoming online and requiring online access for SP portions it is inevitable. EA, Sony and Nvidia are trying right now to implement various technologies. It is still in its infancy and it will take longer to do so than movies, but that is what the big companies want.
Click to expand...

I hope not. Even the Steam in-home streaming adds way too much input lag for me, let alone streaming games over the internet. If the future is more input lag, lower image quality, and lower framerates then consider me a luddite.

EODetroit said:
How its always worked: You download an executable, which runs and installs the game software on your computer. Then you double-click the shortcut to that game whenever you want to play it.
Click to expand...

It's so crazy it just might work. :D
 
Mchart said:
The future is none of the above. The future is a completely locked down consumption oriented OS made by either Microsoft or Apple and users will be forced to use those services.

How'd Valve do it? They did it because they were the first to do it, and they had a killer-app (HL2) that forced the choice of consumers.
Click to expand...

Yep, see the latest Surface. As big of a fan as I have been of those devices, hope this new one fails hard.
 
As a long term gamer I don't like how there's a delivery app for every big dev company out there. Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda, etc. It's making me less interested in their games because I have to install yet another application that was already being served better by steam.

From a user experience it's worse off because I have to have so many apps open just to see what my friends are playing.

Steam provably increases sales and profits, even after their margins. They provide absurdly fast download speeds. And I stay readily connected with my gaming friends with it. I can't say that about the alternatives.

Also, I game on Linux, so I'm not giving money to companies that make it even harder for me to game.
 
When I bought HL2, the little leaflet inside is what prompted me to install Steam, so I did. And when I got it all set up and typed my game code in, it downloaded and installed the game. Never had to even put the media in my drive...and I thought that was pretty spiffy at the time.
 
vegeta535 said:
They need to make a centralized service that combines everything into one package. It won't happened because publishers want their own service they have complete control of. Steam could of been it but greed will always win.
Click to expand...

As much as I love Steam and wish it was the ONLY digital platform for PC. In this case, it's Valves greed that led to Origin, which started the bandwagon of EA,Activision,Ubisoft,Bethesda, Blizzard, SEGA, etc all doing their own launchers for their own respective games. EA wanted to sell additional content through their games (Mass Effect 3 at the time) by-passing Steam. Valve wanted a slice of the DLC profits and tried to aggressively force EA to give over money for the product they made, marketed, maintained and made new content for. EA refused and now most EA games are sold on Origin or other fair services. In the end, Valve lost hundreds of millions of dollars on sales from EA products since then, and gamers lost by having to install 30 different programs to play their games. PC gaming is now more fragmented than the Android market, and it's all in thanks to Valve/Gabe's greed.
 
Chunder said:
PC gaming is now more fragmented than the Android market, and it's all in thanks to Valve/Gabe's greed.
Click to expand...

I guess I don't get this. So people get all ill over the Windows Store being the only source of Windows software but it's ok with Steam? Honestly if choice is good then lots of different avenues to obtain software is good is it not? I use the Windows Store, Steam, Origin, Uplay and GoG store clients. They are all lightweight and don't hog computational resources beyond their storage space with is nothing compared to game sizes anyway.
 
For a second I thought Steam Sales begun. My heart skipped a beat. My wallet cried. Fun for everyone.
 
Meh. Maybe it's just me but I'm not concerned about multiple clients. I remember when I had nothing on steam and simply installed a game individually one at a time.

Also I think what drives consumers to adopt new clients is the content. Is BF1 worth it to join Origin? I think the clear answer is, yes, the vast majority of consumers don't give a fuck about multiple clients, if BF1 is on Origin, they'll install Origin. Same for UPlay, Battle.net, etc. The content determines if people will use the clients.
 
Chunder said:
As much as I love Steam and wish it was the ONLY digital platform for PC. In this case, it's Valves greed that led to Origin, which started the bandwagon of EA,Activision,Ubisoft,Bethesda, Blizzard, SEGA, etc all doing their own launchers for their own respective games. EA wanted to sell additional content through their games (Mass Effect 3 at the time) by-passing Steam. Valve wanted a slice of the DLC profits and tried to aggressively force EA to give over money for the product they made, marketed, maintained and made new content for. EA refused and now most EA games are sold on Origin or other fair services. In the end, Valve lost hundreds of millions of dollars on sales from EA products since then, and gamers lost by having to install 30 different programs to play their games. PC gaming is now more fragmented than the Android market, and it's all in thanks to Valve/Gabe's greed.
Click to expand...

To be fair, every transaction costs them a (tiny) price. So it makes sense to take a cut from each DLC sale. The issue is Valve wanted all DLC to be bought from the Steam client itself, not in game or externally which would bypass their ability to make extra money. Part of the reason is they wanted all available DLC to be readily viewable so people didn't end up buying a Platinum Edition of a game only to find out all the included DLC listed on the store page was not all of the DLC the game offered. I can see people getting upset if they thought they had purchased all content as that is all the store page displayed, downloaded the game and then saw a "buy this DLC now!" in the main menu. I can see both sides of the issue.
 
i posted a comment there about my predictions but it was dismissed quickly :( , although i think it's probably a very likely scenario.
to me the whole gaming industry will eventualy shift to game streaming once we get 5G, which is supposed to be equivalent to 100MB connection with low latency, where streaming platforms like sony's Playstation Now would take over, from consoles ( and even PCs ), i mean i do not see why it wouldn't if you have sub 30ms, and even 4k needs about 15MB.
the pros outwheight the cons, for the publishers and even developers, represents the end of piracy, and contineous stream of revenue for devs, plus alot of cuts of hardware and logistics.
and this is ultimately where Steam need to be heading to keep up with sony and M$.
 
heatlesssun said:
I guess I don't get this. So people get all ill over the Windows Store being the only source of Windows software but it's ok with Steam? Honestly if choice is good then lots of different avenues to obtain software is good is it not? I use the Windows Store, Steam, Origin, Uplay and GoG store clients. They are all lightweight and don't hog computational resources beyond their storage space with is nothing compared to game sizes anyway.
Click to expand...
The thing about the windows store is that is it Microsoft. Deserving or not it is the cool thing to hate on atm here.
 
If steam went away, I'm not sure what'd happen. Would you be willing to rebuy all the games you lost when they disappeared? Would you trust the next company? I'd mostly be OK, because virtually everything I have a steam cost under 20 bucks and most of it was under 5, but if you bought a game near full price, you're getting boned hard.

alamox said:
i posted a comment there about my predictions but it was dismissed quickly :( , although i think it's probably a very likely scenario.
to me the whole gaming industry will eventualy shift to game streaming once we get 5G, which is supposed to be equivalent to 100MB connection with low latency, where streaming platforms like sony's Playstation Now would take over, from consoles ( and even PCs ), i mean i do not see why it wouldn't if you have sub 30ms, and even 4k needs about 15MB.
the pros outwheight the cons, for the publishers and even developers, represents the end of piracy, and contineous stream of revenue for devs, plus alot of cuts of hardware and logistics.
and this is ultimately where Steam need to be heading to keep up with sony and M$.
Click to expand...
That only works if we have unlimited bandwidth. Without that, I don't see it happening.
 
latest


the games are free.
 
vegeta535 said:
The thing about the windows store is that is it Microsoft. Deserving or not it is the cool thing to hate on atm here.
Click to expand...
How'd it get that way? Everyone spontaneously decided one day? Or does MS bear some responsibility after 17 years of ignoring or outright abusing the trust of PC gamers? Remember GFWL? How about MS ignoring Windows gaming for 17 years, mandating firstparty studios develop only for Xbox? How about the UWP wrapper obfuscating game files to prevent mods and third party helper utilities? And they still haven't figured out delta updating.

If Steam didn't exist and Microsoft had its way with the windows store, and factoring their past precedent of anti-competitive behavior the moment they get the chance:

- Every game would cost $60
- No discounts, just like on Xbox
- No free DLC, just like on Xbox
- No more cheap keys and competing 3rd party keystores
- Gold subscription required for online gaming
- All games would be UWP DRM'd: no modding, no free community content, no tools like DsFix or SweetFX
- Only Xbox branded peripherals supported
- Higher publishing costs, and Indies shut out

The windows store is gaming cancer, and gaining any traction would be feeding that cancer. There'd be zero upside for gamers.
 
Last edited:
The problem is every platform wants the analytic data gathered from their customers to themselves. That's why ea created origin, they wanted control of that data not valve. Taking a larger chunk of the pie is gravy on top. Think about it, if steam is your sole gaming platform, they know essentially everything about your preferences and tendencies, your system hardware, how often you upgrade your pc, what components you buy as well who your friends are. It's a marketers wet dream and worth literally billions.
 
Steam isn't the best platform only because it's large library, or that it was first.
- It almost always works
- Control over notifications is easy to manage and you can limit it to ONLY specific people
- In-game UI only causes issues in some games
- Steam Friends is easily the best friends platform because it's ability to be implemented into non-Valve games.
- Their community platforms are an easy way to get a discussion / look for fixes / find gameplay help


Origin - is annoying, their friends platform is half-broken and you have to disable it in-game in 50% of their titles.

UPlay - It doesn't even feel like they actually care about it, but it works okay WITH Steam... which is probably one of it's strongest positives. Friends features are half-implemented, it depends on the game.

B.Net / Blizzard Launcher - It's solid, but it's only their titles. Friends is handled well in all games. Sometimes it punishes lower end computers though, but they implemented a feature that auto-closes the launcher when a game is launched if you need.

If someone actually desired to topple Steam as the main platform you'd have to figure out a way to make something as Universally useful as Steam friends ability to be implemented into your game. At this point, they could coast near perpetually off the store alone.
 
DPI said:
How'd it get that way? Everyone spontaneously decided one day? Or does MS bear some responsibility after years of abusing user trust, and creating much of the ill will that exists today by their less than gamer-friendly policies and actions? Remember GFWL? How about MS ignoring Windows gaming for 17 years, mandating firstparty studios develop only for Xbox? How about the UWP wrapper obfuscating game files to prevent mods and third party helper utilities? And they still haven't figured out delta updating.

If Steam didn't exist and Microsoft had its way with the windows store, and factoring their past precedent of anti-competitive behavior the moment they get the chance:

- Every game would cost $60
- No discounts, just like on Xbox
- No free DLC, just like on Xbox
- No more cheap keys and competing 3rd party keystores
- Gold subscription required for online gaming
- All games would be UWP DRM'd: no modding, no free community content, no tools like DsFix or SweetFX
- Only Xbox branded peripherals supported
- Higher publishing costs, and Indies shut out

The windows store is gaming cancer, and gaining any traction would be feeding that cancer. There'd be zero upside for gamers.
Click to expand...
I'm cynical enough I think Microsoft would have planted their heels and tried to ram Xbox down everyone's throats before moving back to the PC. I think the only reason they have lately has been due to market pressure.

reFre5h said:
Steam isn't the best platform only because it's large library, or that it was first.
- It almost always works
- Control over notifications is easy to manage and you can limit it to ONLY specific people
- In-game UI only causes issues in some games
- Steam Friends is easily the best friends platform because it's ability to be implemented into non-Valve games.
- Their community platforms are an easy way to get a discussion / look for fixes / find gameplay help


Origin - is annoying, their friends platform is half-broken and you have to disable it in-game in 50% of their titles.

UPlay - It doesn't even feel like they actually care about it, but it works okay WITH Steam... which is probably one of it's strongest positives. Friends features are half-implemented, it depends on the game.

B.Net / Blizzard Launcher - It's solid, but it's only their titles. Friends is handled well in all games. Sometimes it punishes lower end computers though, but they implemented a feature that auto-closes the launcher when a game is launched if you need.

If someone actually desired to topple Steam as the main platform you'd have to figure out a way to make something as Universally useful as Steam friends ability to be implemented into your game. At this point, they could coast near perpetually off the store alone.
Click to expand...
Granted, I don't do all the social crap, but I'll take the GOG release over Steam every time. They were offering refunds before Steam did. On top of that, if you can't get a game to run on your system after going through their tech support, they'll refund it. Most of all, any game you buy, that's it, you own it. You can back it up, run it 20 years from now, whatever.

Chunder said:
As much as I love Steam and wish it was the ONLY digital platform for PC. In this case, it's Valves greed that led to Origin, which started the bandwagon of EA,Activision,Ubisoft,Bethesda, Blizzard, SEGA, etc all doing their own launchers for their own respective games. EA wanted to sell additional content through their games (Mass Effect 3 at the time) by-passing Steam. Valve wanted a slice of the DLC profits and tried to aggressively force EA to give over money for the product they made, marketed, maintained and made new content for. EA refused and now most EA games are sold on Origin or other fair services. In the end, Valve lost hundreds of millions of dollars on sales from EA products since then, and gamers lost by having to install 30 different programs to play their games. PC gaming is now more fragmented than the Android market, and it's all in thanks to Valve/Gabe's greed.
Click to expand...
I hope you appreciate the irony of claiming how greedy Valve is while you portray EA as the victim. My guess is they did that to avoid situations where the "game" is sold for 5 cents, but the "core DLC" is $50.
 
nilepez said:
If steam went away, I'm not sure what'd happen. Would you be willing to rebuy all the games you lost when they disappeared? Would you trust the next company? I'd mostly be OK, because virtually everything I have a steam cost under 20 bucks and most of it was under 5, but if you bought a game near full price, you're getting boned hard.


That only works if we have unlimited bandwidth. Without that, I don't see it happening.
Click to expand...

well i don't know about the US, but here in france we have unlimited DSL/Fiber/4G.
so if it's doable here it's most likely doable everywhere, as long as ISP's are ok with it, beside they have no reason not to, since 5G is supposed to last much longer than 3/4G so they wont have to reinvest on infrastructure over and over again.
also 5G will be able to redirect the strenght of the signal to specific areas depanding on how busy it is on the fly.
5G seem to have alot going for it at least on paper, and as i said if it comes as they say it would, game streaming will be inevitable, and with it the end of PC matser race :D , we will all be rocking a Nuc powered by low end APU, to play Battlefield 7 at 4k@120fps .
 
Last edited:
I guess I am even more of a dinosaur than I thought. I still prefer media. Even shuffling through a stack of disks beats the 12+ hour download for Skyrim and the 24 hour download for Fallout 4. And hope it loads right the first time, (F4 didn't) so
you don't have to deal with support and a second 24 hour D/L.

AAMEDEN
 
How about Facegames or should I say Occulus Ripoff store, seems like Facebook will slowly but steadily increase their presence in gaming. Once they figure out how to incorporate Facebook into gaming, they will have a field day.
 
noko said:
How about Facegames or should I say Occulus Ripoff store, seems like Facebook will slowly but steadily increase their presence in gaming. Once they figure out how to incorporate Facebook into gaming, they will have a field day.
Click to expand...

How? This is the Facebook audience we're talking about. Unless they're making a VR Jerry Springer MMO I don't really see how they're going to make money off that crowd.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
How? This is the Facebook audience we're talking about. Unless they're making a VR Jerry Springer MMO I don't really see how they're going to make money off that crowd.
Click to expand...
Why? Gamers don't use Facebook?
 
Flogger23m said:
The future, either run by Valve or not, is going to be streamed games and subscription services. With more and more games becoming online and requiring online access for SP portions it is inevitable. EA, Sony and Nvidia are trying right now to implement various technologies. It is still in its infancy and it will take longer to do so than movies, but that is what the big companies want.
Click to expand...
What big companies want is irrelevant. What the consumer wants and accepts is what matters. Look at the fight they're having with movie piracy. And it's not about wanting / not wanting to pay. It's about studios refuse to offer them in a way that would be acceptable to the consumer, hence piracy exists.

I can tell you one thing. If they try to turn gaming into some sort of on-line streaming service I'm out.
 
DPI said:
How'd it get that way? Everyone spontaneously decided one day? Or does MS bear some responsibility after 17 years of ignoring or outright abusing the trust of PC gamers? Remember GFWL? How about MS ignoring Windows gaming for 17 years, mandating firstparty studios develop only for Xbox? How about the UWP wrapper obfuscating game files to prevent mods and third party helper utilities? And they still haven't figured out delta updating.

If Steam didn't exist and Microsoft had its way with the windows store, and factoring their past precedent of anti-competitive behavior the moment they get the chance:

- Every game would cost $60
- No discounts, just like on Xbox
- No free DLC, just like on Xbox
- No more cheap keys and competing 3rd party keystores
- Gold subscription required for online gaming
- All games would be UWP DRM'd: no modding, no free community content, no tools like DsFix or SweetFX
- Only Xbox branded peripherals supported
- Higher publishing costs, and Indies shut out

The windows store is gaming cancer, and gaining any traction would be feeding that cancer. There'd be zero upside for gamers.
Click to expand...

This and more. I am fine with Origin because it works well and forced Steam to make much needed changes. The Windows Store isn't the same as either of those clients though...

M76 said:
What big companies want is irrelevant. What the consumer wants and accepts is what matters. Look at the fight they're having with movie piracy. And it's not about wanting / not wanting to pay. It's about studios refuse to offer them in a way that would be acceptable to the consumer, hence piracy exists.

I can tell you one thing. If they try to turn gaming into some sort of on-line streaming service I'm out.
Click to expand...

I'm sure they'll miss your dollars, but will gladly except the majority of people who will through support behind it. A generation of people are growing up using nothing bug streamed content - music, movies, software. They're making as many strides as possible to make games have some kind of online requirement, even in SP campaigns. It won't happen over night, but that is what the big companies want.

And unless everyone stops buying games for a few years (which won't) it is inevitable. Not in 5 years, but in 10 I would expect streamed games to be a common thing.
 
My main problem with streaming isn't the bandwidth, even with mobile or wireless networks, but rather its latency. Mobile networks have plenty of latency.

This is especially horrible if the server isn't in your locality. With streaming latency is going to be an even bigger problem because the lantency is effectively DOUBLED (there is latency streaming the image to you, you reacting and inputting an command, uploading the said command, the server reacts, draws the next frame and then sends it to you). This is primarily reason why rather than choosing playstation now streaming service, I prefer buying a PS4 outright, especially considering the local server isn't on the island.
 
AAMEDEN said:
I guess I am even more of a dinosaur than I thought. I still prefer media. Even shuffling through a stack of disks beats the 12+ hour download for Skyrim and the 24 hour download for Fallout 4. And hope it loads right the first time, (F4 didn't) so
you don't have to deal with support and a second 24 hour D/L.

AAMEDEN
Click to expand...
I don't know about you, but your internet access sure seems like a dinosaur. I can get anything downloaded at least twice as fast as it would take to install from disc. It took half a day to install GTAV from 6 damn double layer DVDs. Later when download was an option, it took 2 hours.
I like owning the retail box and goodies that come with it, but installing from physical media, that needs to be in the drive each time I play the game? HEELLLL NOOOO.
 
EODetroit said:
How its always worked: You download an executable, which runs and installs the game software on your computer. Then you double-click the shortcut to that game whenever you want to play it.
Click to expand...

What!? That's unpossibul!
 
tetris42 said:
I'm cynical enough I think Microsoft would have planted their heels and tried to ram Xbox down everyone's throats before moving back to the PC. I think the only reason they have lately has been due to market pressure.

Granted, I don't do all the social crap, but I'll take the GOG release over Steam every time. They were offering refunds before Steam did. On top of that, if you can't get a game to run on your system after going through their tech support, they'll refund it. Most of all, any game you buy, that's it, you own it. You can back it up, run it 20 years from now, whatever.

I hope you appreciate the irony of claiming how greedy Valve is while you portray EA as the victim. My guess is they did that to avoid situations where the "game" is sold for 5 cents, but the "core DLC" is $50.
Click to expand...

You might make that choice, but I think most people will choose the convenience of having all of their titles in one place, and let's be honest, as much as I like GOG, you can't beat the convenience of the Steam app.

Additionally one "complain" about Steam, that I have literally been hearing since it was first released was "When Valve closes everyone will be screwed" and while it's become a joke, which platform is more likely to fold, be purchased or just close it's doors the soonest, GOG or Steam?

As for the game being sold for $.05 and having $60 a in game DLC, it sounds crazy but consider that Valve likely is seeing trends long before the consumers are, and it likely knew that "Free to play" was coming and, without knowing exactly what to expect I am sure they wanted to protect themselves from, as you describe, selling free ot very low cost games which then have a ton of in game DLC, especially when those games will call for the DLC from Steam servers, which would mean they would be the distribution hub for the content, but would make nothing off it.

Also I think whoever said the multiple platforms is about the data is 100% correct, consider that Facebook and even Google both make money selling adds one might say that their main business is collecting and selling user data.



M76 said:
What big companies want is irrelevant. What the consumer wants and accepts is what matters. Look at the fight they're having with movie piracy. And it's not about wanting / not wanting to pay. It's about studios refuse to offer them in a way that would be acceptable to the consumer, hence piracy exists.

I can tell you one thing. If they try to turn gaming into some sort of on-line streaming service I'm out.
Click to expand...

I am so tired of this excuse, especially when it's been shown time and again to be total BS that people use to justify their greed and selfishness.

A perfect example of this was, since the topic first came up we've heard this excuse about HBO, "if they only would offer me their service without the need for cable I would gladly buy it, but they refuse to provide it in a way acceptable to me." so finally HBO says okay, we will offer HBO now, so you can get our service without the expense of needing to buy an expensive cable bundle.

What was the response of pirates? Was it "Thank you for finally offering your content in a way acceptable to me?" Nope, it was "$15 that's insane!" and other such whining. This is but one example that shows that pirates just want free stuff, while pretending they don't and that they only do it because they are the victim or some such. Basically the only way to make it "acceptable to the consumer" according to the most vocal of the pirates, is to not only offer it on the platform of their choosing, but also to offer it for free since ultimately they don't want to have to pay for it.
 
Night_Hawk-19 said:
There is always GOG :) not only Steam
Click to expand...

For me there is is ONLY GOG. :)

They have enough games for me, and treat me the best (convenience and DRM free).

Unless you have unlimited time/money, you can't guarantee you can play the hottest game of the moment, because It could be exclusive on any one of PS4/XB1/Switch/Steam/Origin/Uplay/Battle.net...

Are you going to buy every platform and subscribe to every service?

Even on GOG, you will end up with a big backlog of games in nearly every genre. I think I have played about 10 of my 52 GOG games. It looks like on average, I buy about 10 games/year, and play about 4 games/year. My backlog gets bigger every year. I bet most people on any service like this soon ends up in the same situation.

So learn to be content with what your service offers, or endlessly chase the fad of the moment?

For me it's easy to say, I don't need X on platform Y, I still have 40+ games I haven't touched...
 
heatlesssun said:
I guess I don't get this. So people get all ill over the Windows Store being the only source of Windows software but it's ok with Steam? Honestly if choice is good then lots of different avenues to obtain software is good is it not? I use the Windows Store, Steam, Origin, Uplay and GoG store clients. They are all lightweight and don't hog computational resources beyond their storage space with is nothing compared to game sizes anyway.
Click to expand...

Can I use windows store on a MAC? No.
Can I use Windows store on a Linux Machine? No.

Can I use it on Windows: yes.

Given the fact that my time in Windows is about 2% and linux 95% currently I don't see the reason to move to a platform specific product.
 
M76 said:
What big companies want is irrelevant. What the consumer wants and accepts is what matters. Look at the fight they're having with movie piracy. And it's not about wanting / not wanting to pay. It's about studios refuse to offer them in a way that would be acceptable to the consumer, hence piracy exists.

I can tell you one thing. If they try to turn gaming into some sort of on-line streaming service I'm out.
Click to expand...

I agree, about the pirating, less so about streaming.

As a probably more "casual" consumer of games, I enjoyed using Nvidia Games streaming. Bandwidth and caps is an issue, I think the first month I hit Comcast's 1TB limit fairly easily since streaming took up a lot of bandwidth. I am casual enough where input lag isn't a huge deal for the games I play, though certainly understand issues with online competitive games. Access and selection was the issue.

Streaming games will have the same problem as video and that is fragmented sources.

At lease with PC gaming, clients are mainly used to installation/updates. Once you install you generally can use it like a media/seperate install with shortcuts etc. Streaming could be like this but most likely will fragment like video, netflix, hulu, amazon blah blah blah.

I actually think a monthly service fee for gaming sorta makes sense like video. The same reason why buying Bluray/DVD isn't for everyone either, if you consider most probable only consume said content 1-2 times.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top