So guess who loses this round? Thats right, IGN (Direct2Drive) and Stardock (Impulse) – both Steam competitors.

Monopolies are never a good thing, and any company that requires that I not only have their (buggy and slow) software installed on my machine, but have it running before I can play games I’ve paid for is not someone I want do business with. Fortunately I don’t have to, somehow other companies manage to sell me games without needing to shove bloatware down my throat.

That having been said, in light of the history of the software industry, this article is one of the more bizarre things I’ve read in a long time.

You mean there are companies that don’t want to distribute a product that requires the use of a competitor’s product?

…And this surprises you?

…And you think this is a bad thing?

As a consumer I say this boycott is not bad for the business, it is what this business desperately needs.

Steam is the de facto platform for digital distribution on the PC. Don’t hate it, embrace it. It is the future.

However, bear in mind that Valve has a very good relationship with EA, since their retail games are distributed through the EA Partners program. So that sort of relationship can make things like that possible.

But you have to remember that even if SteamWorks were made available to all, we’d end up with a flurry of games that Valve would have to support and provide resources for – games that they are otherwise not selling. And with that, you end up with the likes of XBLA, XBCG, iPhone App store etc. In other words, a right mess in which most games will get lost.

And yes, Real and Digital River are primarily SecuROM these days (I recently released four games on Real – and they all used SecuROM) and I think I mentioned it in the article.

The point I was making about the various DRM schemes is that you don’t always have access to SecuROM via Digital River either. Unless you sign with the DR network proper, instead of RegNow etc – you will not have access to SecuROM since those other DR owned sites do not use it. I currently have six games on RegNow (a DR company) that don’t use SecuROM because they don’t have support for it. If I were to use SecuROM there, I’d have to generate & supply the serial keys and own my own Sony DADC server to do the activation. Whereas on the primary DR network (which has a much lower royalty share than RegNow btw), SecuROM is supported since they can do activations. Which is why DR hosts EA’s store among others.

Real – thankfully – moved away from SafeDisc over the years after buying the troubled TryMedia network from Macrovision (which owned SafeDisc). Unlike SafeDisc (which is both a DRM and API wrapper), using SecuROM on these networks does not require a wrapper of any kind. It was due to SafeDisc – which I hated with a passion – that I had originally pulled my titles from TryMedia. So I went back once Real bought TryMedia and they started offering something other than SafeDisc. In this case, SecuROM.

ALL these various schemes are bound to hurt the industry and I’ve said this time and time again and in various blog posts. My most recent was written but a few months back. We’re now seeing the effects of this and thats why a single source – less hassle – solution like Steam is BADLY needed. If these folks refuse to sell Steam enabled titles, then we are still going to keep having to use all these various schemes.

Very good post, nice to see this picked apart from an inside source for a change instead of fanboy response. The fact of the matter is that the Steamworks SDK is a great toolset for matchmaking, acheivements, auto-updates and DRM. That’s its free on top of top is a no brainer for IW to use. Two items to update for your post from my experience:

1. Real & Digital River are primarily SecuRom these days.

2. From my experience (on several AAA titles) the actual market share looks something more like this (roughly estimated):

1. Steam 75%
2. Direct2Drive 10%
3. Metaboli 5%
4. Real 5%
5. Digital River 3%
6. Everyone else you listed combined 2%

Sure makes Steam look even more attractive dont it?