Category: Games

During class, while we were talking about distribution channels, bringing products from producers to consumers, I can’t help but think about how this is being drastically changed in the video game world with digital distributors.  Previously we had the software designers producing the game, selling the game to various wholesalers, probably through various agents depending on the size of the company and hitting shelves throughout thousands of retailers, from specialized shops to just another shelf at Superstore.  I’m sure I’m simplifying things here, but the idea is that there are at least several steps from publisher to retail to consumer.

Steam is a digital download service for games as well as a client for launching games.  In September, digital downloads for PC games outsold retail in-store sales for the first time ever with Steam being the main driving force.  At any time there are millions and millions of users connected and the service is slowly becoming mandatory for the latest computer games.

Steam is by far the largest digital download service for PC games right now, with Direct2Drive.com trailing as a distant 2nd.

I can’t count how many times I’ve turned on Steam only to have a pop up show up claiming they have a giant sale.  In fact it was only yesterday that I’ve spent another $3 on a game that I will probably never play.  They have sales for almost every holiday, this summer they had a chain of sales with new themes every week, and these are genuinely good sales with prices going down as much as 95% for very recent titles.  There are weekend sales every now and then, and some that come out of nowhere.  Generally they are almost always one day sales or two day sales.