Retailers Unhappy With Steam Monopoly

[wood250]

My only nag with steam is I cant sell/swap any of my games that I no longer play.
If steam would allow me to openly sell/swap games then it would totally cut out the need for retail.

[Text_Fish]

I'm a bricks'n'mortar bookseller by trade. When Amazon started monopolising our industry we put comfy chairs and coffee shops in and employed people with in depth knowledge of what they sell and we've survived as a result, albeit in a somewhat reduced state.

Highstreet games shops have never been a nice place to browse, especially for PC Gamers in the last ten years who inevitably find themselves relegated to one or two measly bays of shelves in the corner browsing poorly merchandised, often outdated products. Seriously, apart from a top ten has anybody ever experienced some sort of logical order to the stock in one of these places? They could at the very least alphabetise it or split it up by genre. The staff reflect the poor effort they put in as well, usually consisting of a bunch of grunting PlayStation fanboys with absolutely no interest in anything but the latest PS blockbuster. Any business that resumes those sort of practices in the face of online competition deserves to fail.

[ErikKiller]

Heh FARTS.

[Aigik]

Honestly, they got what they deserved. The PC selection of most brick and mortar retailers just kept on shrinking and shrinking, sometimes even dissapearing. They underestimated the PC market, and now that a company came out with a great system and fantastic customer service, they're throwing a fit. I'm still trying to figure out how refusing to sell games is going to help them- if anything, they're just going to force more people to use Steam. Morons.

[Aigik]

sorry but... if the games that are on steam won't be available retail.. won't that mean they will loose even more money and everyone will start buying it on steam

Not excellently, this means that the distributors are forced to choose between releasing their products on either steam or in retail stores. And by having retail store "exclusive" games, they force you to purchase them there instead of on steam.

Well the problem with this genius plan of their is, if Steam supposedly owns 80% of the market, and publishers are given a choice between:

-Retail sales, which accounst for 20% of the market
-Steam sales, which accounts for 80% of the market

Which is the logical choice? Is there something I'm not getting?

[source-maps]

sorry but... if the games that are on steam won't be available retail.. won't that mean they will loose even more money and everyone will start buying it on steam

Not excellently, this means that the distributors are forced to choose between releasing their products on either steam or in retail stores. And by having retail store "exclusive" games, they force you to purchase them there instead of on steam.

Well the problem with this genius plan of their is, if Steam supposedly owns 80% of the market, and publishers are given a choice between:

-Retail sales, which accounst for 20% of the market
-Steam sales, which accounts for 80% of the market

Which is the logical choice? Is there something I'm not getting?

yeah that's what I meant, publisher aren't going to break over this XD

[Wazanator]

Wait you mean retailers are upset that steam can offer me great deals with a bigger percentage of the money going to the developers then a retail store could?

Not to mention that developers don't have to worry about steam users selling/trading in their games for store currency that consumers then use to buy other used games, money which the developers never see. At least the rumors about Steams new trade in system seems to hint that developer will still get money.

[ad_hominem]

sorry but... if the games that are on steam won't be available retail.. won't that mean they will loose even more money and everyone will start buying it on steam

Not excellently, this means that the distributors are forced to choose between releasing their products on either steam or in retail stores. And by having retail store "exclusive" games, they force you to purchase them there instead of on steam.

Well the problem with this genius plan of their is, if Steam supposedly owns 80% of the market, and publishers are given a choice between:

-Retail sales, which accounst for 20% of the market
-Steam sales, which accounts for 80% of the market

Which is the logical choice? Is there something I'm not getting?

Steam sales supposedly account for 80% of the PC download sector. That doesn't mean that the extra 20% is Retail, it means that download services other than Steam make up the other 20%.

[marks]

It seems like retailers are a little pissy because titles are shipping to retail which are tied into Steam? I would contend that the real motive behind this is that it denies them pre-owned sales from those games once the keys are registered to Steam accounts, and we all know that without the pre-owned sales business Gamestop would not be able to compete in the retail sector at all.