Analysts weigh in on Steam dominance, Origin growth
Steam is easily the biggest PC games portal on the web. However, can it maintain its success, especially with the growing number of competitors?
Steam is easily the biggest PC games portal on the web. With 35 million active users and over 1400 games to download, Valve's early foray into digital distribution has earned it a loyal, passionate following. However, can it maintain its success, especially with the growing number of competitors?
A few analysts were queried about Steam's future, and while no one refutes Steam's continued dominance in the space, a few believe cracks may be showing.
Industry Gamers polled various analysts before Valve admitted that Steam had been compromised. It's unclear if consumer faith in Steam has dropped. However, this summer's PlayStation Network intrusion should indicate one thing: gamers are a rather forgiving bunch.
Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research doesn't see any real competition to Valve's stronghold, noting that "to truly compete with Steam, a digital retail service must have market scale and provide significantly more real and perceived value to customers. I don't see any open online marketplaces doing this yet." On-demand gaming services, such as ones provided by Gaikai and OnLive, may prove an interesting alternative to Steam.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter agreed, bluntly stating that "I don't think that most people care about Origin. And I don't think many people will switch from Steam to Origin unless a) Origin is cheaper or b) Steam screws up."
Now that Steam has "screwed up," who presents the most serious competition to Valve? DFC Intelligence's David Cole believes that Origin is just "one of many," and points to GameStop, with their acquisition of Impulse as a potential competitor. One of the strengths that EA has with Origin is that it is "following the Valve model" by selling directly to a large installed base of loyal customers. Just like Half-Life fans were forced into Steam, many of EA's properties are now forcing Origin.
Scott Steinberg of TeechSavvy Digital doesn't see it as a strictly Steam versus Origin story, though. He believes that "Origin should help extend interest in downloadable direct to consumer sales," and will help expand the market. Ultimately, that's a good thing for Valve, EA, and consumers.
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Analysts weigh in on Steam dominance, Origin growth.
Steam is easily the biggest PC games portal on the web. However, can it maintain its success, especially with the growing number of competitors?-
getting people to switch from steam will be impossible, right now i have 190+ games on steam, and a huge friend list, for me to switch to origin id somewhat have to throw them all away just to play a game.for the sake of 2-3 euro.
they only way origin will get a bigger base of people is from people that dont have many or no games on steam. -
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if it was Valve molesting children at penn state people would forgive and forget
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that's a little bit over the top, i'm gonna be raging at them till they add a "don't store my cc details" option
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You have to tick a box to make it store your info. The more posts I see like this the more I think they've never purchased anything from Steam or are completely stupid. I'm going with both.
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Just my HSO, but I don't think Steam "screwed up" as this article tried to make it out.
Also, the big difference between Sony and Steam is that Sony tried to hide the breach, or at least didn't even know or acknowledge it for a while. Steam has been about supporting its community. And that's the biggest difference between Steam and any competitor. EA, with Origin, certainly won't care about it's community. We have decades of history to show us that.
No, the analysts have it somewhat wrong. Any competitor will have to not just be cheaper but go beyond what Steam does for its community. That also begs the question would a worth competitor have to develop a Steamworks killer as well. Tall order.-
Amen brother! I love how people are trying to make Steam look like the bad guy.
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Steam hasn't "screwed up" yet.
Everyone gets hacked. EVERYONE. It's all about what these companies do to prepare for that inevitable scenario. SteamGuard, encrypted usernames, passwords, credit card information (which was only stored with the users CONSENT). Security can always be better, but at least they aren't making too many (if any) ridiculous mistakes like Sony did recently. -
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I think its more likely we'll see two or three big players (Most likely Steam and Origin in the near future) and a few smaller ones on the side. I'm hoping for as few "Exclusives" as possible but I doubt it'll work out that way.
All in all I'm not too bothered. I'll probably stick to what I'm doing now. Steam is my main launcher and where my friends list is. I launch Origin games through Steam so I still get the overlay and only open up Origin when I intend to play one of its games. I generaly have Steam open 24/7.
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"Ultimately, that's a good thing for Valve, EA, and consumers."
I'm not sure that last bit is true. EA and other publishers are more than happy to set their prices much higher than retail on DD services. Only valves own games seem to sell at a reasonable price on steam, and even then they tend to be slightly undercut by retail.
EA and THQ charge £10 more than retail for their games via DD. When you can buy the game retail and just plug the cd-key in to have the convenience of the digital purchase that isnt really a compelling thing. -
http://www.shacknews.com/article/71038/the-witcher-2-digital-sales-breakdown-81-on-steam
Is any competitor even remotely in a position to take a run at Steam? -
DNRTFA- I don't care if my game is on Steam/Origin or other so long as the UI is reasonable. Very few complaints for Origin from me although I have major complaints for battlelog. Personally I don't get why people are so devoted to Steam. It's just a store to me.
What I don't want to see is a client for EA games, Activision games, Ubisoft games, etc.-
Origin is not just a store it's also another app.
Steam fixed a complexity problem of being a PC gamer. And now we're slowly adding complexity back with exclusive games spread across services. Screw that shit man. Flat out, if your games isn't on Steam I ain't buying it.-
This is probably one of the worst growing problems for PC gaming: the factions created by online authentication network requirements. We already have Steam, Games for Windows Live, Origin, Uplay, and so on.
1. Each of these costs a developer money to implement, so implementing multiple ones would be more expensive... but could this be incentivized by the service providers offering a discount?
2. Having one game's activation DRM / online authentication requirements is a pain in the ass (example: Games for Windows Live titles on Steam require logging into BOTH)...but see #1
3. Having a game split among multiple online authentication networks "fragments the community"... but A. the community is already fragmented among consoles, and B. it's possible to have cross-network multiplayer with a centralized authentication server (one that verify that Steam user A and Origin user B are legit, and tie them into the server accordingly). This would take extra development work, probably too unappealing to pursue, in comparison to just going with one service.
Until this gets sorted out, we're going to continue having the "Game X is using service Y?! WTF!!" threads (I'm personally fearing that Bioshock Infinite will get stuck on GFWL or be saddled with SolidShield activation DRM). I don't think developers enjoy pissing off a good section of their PC gamer fans three weeks before release (or at least I hope they don't). -
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I don't understand. What complexity did steam fix?
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Auto-patching and backing up your special settings and favorite servers to Steam Cloud :)
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My fav :D
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Interesting you consider most of that "complex". Also interesting you think Steam fixed it. I'll give you auto patching though. I didn't find it that difficult to manually download patches and install them, but it definitely is easier.
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As long as EA keeps acting like... EA, Origin will never be a competitor to Steam.
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"now that steam screwed up" .. wtf?. no they didnt. steam forums? thats not even steam... and so few effected?. ... biased much?
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It's like a Steam apologists convention.
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