Retailers Demanding the Removal of Steam

I recently read an article that states retailers are demanding the removal of Steam from games or they will threaten to stop selling these games on their shelves. MCV reports that “High Street giants and Digital distributors” who are reacting to their steady loss against Valve’s digital distribution software, threatened to stop selling of Steam games.

They even said:

If we have a digital service, then I don’t want to start selling a rival in-store,” said the digital boss at one of the biggest UK games retailers.

Publishers are creating a monster – we are telling suppliers to stop using Steam in their games.

Steam rivals even posted their two cents on the topic:

At the moment the big digital distributors need to stock games with Steam. But the power resides with bricks and mortar retailers, they can refuse to stock these titles. Publishers are hesitant, but retail must put pressure on them.

Rival company Gaikai CEO David Perry even shared to MCV:

Steam has made it so easy for everyone and they have lots of users. But how long do you wait before you take control of your own digital strategy? Like with iTunes, at some point it’s going to be too late.

I mean, seriously!? Just because you can’t beat your competition you start flinging mud at them?  I mean isn’t this better suited for the political arena? Personally, these are all just sourgraping from people who got pwned by Valve. It was steam who resuscitated PC gaming, it was steam who made a niche for themselves for providing better digital distribution service compared to their competitors.

Now you’re telling us that Steam’s a threat? All im seeing here is the gaming world’s equivalent of the Friendster-Facebook battle. The better, faster and more adaptive Facebook won over the stagnating friendster who was eating the huge dust cloud FB left. Steam gave gamers the reason to buy games– you guys don’t, and now your threatening publishers to drop their biggest revenue earner? good luck with that.

Personally, I was a retail only person, however when I was introduced to Steam I never looked back. While admittedly there are moments that make me want to get a retail copy of game (bec. of limited edition items that I really want) butt that’s a rare occasion these days. Most of my legit pc games come from Steam which are cheaper compared to the shelf price here (I mean I got bioshock for 600 php over at steam when it’s priced at around 1k+ on DB).