The Future?
But, very much like the other marketplaces, exclusives could prove to be a death knell for this system. Stardock games won’t appear on Steam, and conversely Valve games wont be on Impulse. But then what? Will Valve pay publishers for exclusivity deals on their products so that you can only find them on Steam? Will they be sending over fruit baskets to Popcap to secure rights to Peggle 2: The Peggling? Of course this doesn’t stop anyone from buying these products, as Steam, Impulse and all of these distribution networks are free to use, but it does mean that I may end up having to have sixteen different logins for the various publisher exclusive services just to play the games. I don’t want sixteen different friends lists. Nor do I want my games spread out over a variety of platforms. I want them all accumulated in one overarching hub that allows me to access all of my purchased content simply and effortlessly.
This is why Stardock is building into its service a host of unique features which aim to push Impulse as the definitive platform for this online marketplace. Universal matchmaking, profile and stat tracking services, and integrated friends lists are all reasonably similar to what Steam already has in the form of the Steam Community (which itself was a free and more feature complete version of Games for Windows Live from Microsoft), but the addition of streaming content, inbuilt subscription services for constant delivery of additional content, and the resource-efficient and easily customizable executable all go a long way to selling the system to the PC gaming community.
These are difficult transitional times for PC gaming. It already supposedly died, and then was resurrected, and is now wandering the desert looking for a home. With the nature of PC gamers, and the propensity for their playing habits to feature prominent internet usage, it makes logical sense to make their ability to buy games just a little bit easier. After all, for a lot of consumers, it is currently a lot quicker to pirate a game, logistically, than to buy it. The only thing keeping them honest is their morals, and if there is one constant truth, it is that you shouldn’t rely on morality as a business model.
Providing a service that makes the purchasing and downloading of games easier, quicker and less intrusive than pirating them is a monumental first step to combat piracy. Watch this space to see how Stardock and the rest of the community can adapt to the changing face of digital distribution.
Go Further
Additional links related to this article:
http://www.steampowered.com – On-line hub for Valve Software’s Steam platform.
http://totalgaming.stardock.com/ - Stardock site for on-line distribution.
