trippenbach
tanith6227
rustedangel
Pale HorseValve announced today that its Steam digital distribution system has exceeded 15 million users.
In addition, an official press release states that Valve has seen 158% sales growth over the last holiday season, putting the company in a very strong position for 2008 and beyond. Steam’s rapid growth is likely due in part to the critical success of Portal, as well as the ever-expanding offerings available through the download service.
Offering fans even more good news, Valve’s Doug Lombardi has told Eurogamer that while “There’ll be more Portal, for sure,” the developer isn’t looking to simply throw a handful of new puzzles at us. “The details of that, to be honest, we’re still working out,” he said.
Also being worked out at Valve headquarters are the continuing adventures of crowbar-wielding physicist, Gordon Freeman, who’s due to appear in Half-Life 2: Episode Three. “With Episode Three we want to live up to the promise of where we are taking things to; there’s a lot of work being done to make sure we deliver on that promise.”
This is big news for electronic distribution. Only a few years ago, people were foretelling a humiliating failure of the Steam system, but the public has proven the nay-sayers wrong.
This is also significant news for traditional retailers - the ones running brikc-and-mortar stores, who are often blamed for the price of games today. The success of Steam demonstrates that gamers are willing to pay for games the “new fangled” way, and ar elining themselves up for savings as the middle men are cut out.
Hmmm… at some point I’m going to need to admit that I have to get online to buy games.
The only problem is that for console gamers, things may not get any better. Microsoft has a total stranglehold on LIVE, and as far as I can tell, they have a say in setting the price of almost everything. It’s not that expensive… but there will there be any competition to drive prices down? Trip?
…oh yeah, and that’s afine choice of avatar, Tanith.
Rusty: you make an excellent point re: console games. The success of Steam may have far-reaching consequences for PC gamers, but I don’t know that change will come to consoles, as well.
On the other hand, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo might opt to start distributing their games through services like LIVE - though larger hard drives will be required to make that a serious option.
Now that I think about it, cheaper PC games might exert some pressure on the consoles to drop their prices, if only to keep their games competitively priced vis-avis PC titles.
Love the profile pic, Tanith.
Thank you, thank you both.
Oddly, my portrait on the left sidebar still shows another image I ended up rejecting in favour of Slick.