Guest blog: Will the future of games be Steam driven?

Eoin Mason is the president of game, film, television and comic website MultiMediaMouth.com.

As I brought my umpteenth game on Steam recently (a discounted The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, if you're interested), I realised that if anything is ever going to cause my ultimate downfall, it will be Valve’s game purchasing and playing service.

It’s not that Steam is a bad service, quite the contrary: it’s been one of the last decade or so's most important developments in gaming. It’s just that it has become software’s answer to impulse buying – pure gaming crack.

Gamers find something they might like, but instead of being cautious buy it entirely because it’s cheap. Next time you see a Steam sale, click on the 'Top Selling' items for that day – the top game will always be the one most discounted, even if it's either mediocre or simply too big for many PCs (I highly doubt Oblivion is going to work on my old machine, even though it’s installed right now). It's like a girl/shoes thing – us gamers really struggle to resist it!

When Valve established Steam, no one really knew what to expect. My first experience was being annoyed about how long it was taking it to not only install itself, but also Football Manager onto my PC. And don’t get me started on the amount of times the internet crashed, cancelling the download so that I had to start again.

But the beauty is you can pretty much find anything you want to suit your tastes. Want to play a good RPG for next to nothing? Trine is a good one to try and it’s always getting discounted. How about an online multiplayer shooter? Team Fortress 2 is a gem, but Alien Swarm is available for free. Want something independent and different? Plants vs Zombies is critically acclaimed for a very good reason.

But all this returns us to the oft asked question; is digital distribution really the future for the industry? Can it hope to compete with big fish such as Amazon, Play et al?

There doesn't seem to be a clean cut answer, yet. For every Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, or PlayStation Network (PSN) service you check, there’s a good chance you'll find each game cheaper pre-owned (or even new) from another online retail source.

For example, one of the best PSP games released in the West this year, Half Minute Hero, is around £20 on PSN. It’s definitely worth that price, but you can pick up a nicely boxed copy from Amazon (last time I looked) at 50 per cent off – you pay less, but get more for your money, as long as you don't mind waiting a day or so for it to pop through the postbox.

Developers need to ensure they get their money back on their products, making the price fit the quality of the product. But currently the biggest problem with digital distribution is a lack of middle ground on cost to the consumer.

I’m not saying games have to be dramatically reduced on download services because there isn’t any boxing or packaging to send to stores, but why should people pay £40 for a download when you can not only pick up a physical copy cheaper, but get more bangs for your buck too.

It explain the rise in prominence of both collector’s editions and pre order bonuses on physical copies, and also Steam exclusives, as the battle for sales hots up.

Fallout: New Vegas on Steam will have special armour and weapons exclusive to the platform (until DLC comes out later, probably). There hasn’t been a special edition announced yet, but judging from how big and ridiculously they've become, I doubt you’re just going to get a small art book and a pack of postcards. But a new generation brought up with downloading as a way of life is increasingly likely to lean towards digital content over old skool paper and cardboard.

So are the majority of gamers ready for a change to digital distribution? For now, the answer seems to be no, as we still prefer something in our hands. But with Steam and OnLive looking to shape the future of how we play video games, that could all change by the end of the decade.

Now, if you excuse me, I have to check and make sure Steam’s not reducing anything else by a ridiculous margin. My wallet hates me so much...

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