Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

[Shawn Zipay]

A sharp jab was made recently by way of a statement released by IGN as to why their digital distribution service, Direct2Drive, would not be carrying Modern Warfare 2. They feel as though their customers should not "force the user to install a Trojan Horse," and yes, they were referring to Steam.

The company says its beef is not with publisher Activision -- in fact, Direct2Drive will offer a $5 coupon off of some of the Activision titles it sells as a compensation to its users.

Direct2Drive instead opposes MW2's Steamworks integration -- as an online storefront for digital download games, it competes directly with Valve's Steam service in some areas. In the highest-profile endorsement of Valve's digital tools to date, Infinity Ward will use the Steam client to update, support and authenticate the game.

The company says it told publisher partners earlier in the year that it would not sell titles that use Steam as a workaround for DRM, as it opposes the bundling of a storefront with a functionally free technology.

Other digital distributors are joining in on the "boycott" including Stardock's Impulse and GamersGate. Though, if you think about it, this just means that more sales will flow into Valve through Steam if other competitors are refusing to sell the product. Is this really an effective form of boycott here?

[Munra]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

Yup there are stupid and if they really wanted to compete they made make a competitive system instead of an http download off a webpage.

[Unregistered]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

they are jelous. steam is a far better product than direct2drive and IGN is talking trashing

[K-16]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

I think we were supposed to look at this from the other side. If developers want their game published with Steamworks, they're stuck with Steam. If they avoid using Steamworks, they have far more channels to reach a greater audience. I imagine future developers would be put off with a restricted customer base through Steamworks due to the "boycotting".

[Unregistered]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

The problem is that steam program advertises itself and also opens to its store page. Where secrum and the other DRMs do not. IMO, Valve should release a light version of steam. No friends, no update news, no storefront, etc. It should only update games and open them.

[amisnaru]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

Yep, sounds like jealousy to me.
I've never had a problem with Steam and/or Steamworks games all these years.
Well, Modern Warfare 2 might be a different story but my solution is just to stay far, far away from it :-D

[Unregistered]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

LOL As a PC/PS3 gamer, I long for the day that Gears of War will come out on the PS3.

Time and time again, EPIC GAMES has made stupid excuses on why their PC ports suck (Even though the UNREAL engine for GOW's is PC native... sigh..) , why it won't show up on PS3, how they originally thought and said the PS3 was the way to go when releasing Unreal Tourny, etc.

But whatever, $$ Talks and microsoft slipt CliffyB some cash.


Back to this, I call BS. Valve is an indep company and can barely get one title out on time - let alone Episode 3 for HL2. I think GearBox is just pissed after Valve shut them down after Opp force..and didnt they drop them from developing CS:CZ?

[Bad Coupon]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

You have also think of this situation on the jealously side as this. Direct2Drive has not made any attempt to start in-game integration with any game. Valve has with Steam. With Steamworks there are a plethora of in-game integration systems, one of them being a save game and profile system that follows you. In my opinion, the only reason Valve is being criticized so much is that the other digital distributors have finally figured out that Valve has left their ranks and reached where an actual developer stands. It was going to happen eventually. Why not happen with a triple A title such as MW2.

[Sintra]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

Not jealously, but a business decision on their part, trying to bring down the competition.

To be honest, I have had problems with steam, such as not being able to play a game offline. If I buy/install the game without steam, this never happens. Say I take a week off and decide to bring my laptop to play a couple of hours when there's nothing to do, and steam decides not to launch the game in offline mode. Hey! No internet? LOL you're fucked, GG!
But that is the only (and very rare) problem I've had with steam.
I suppose though that it's annoying for those people who buy their singleplayer games through steam. On the other hand, who doesn't have a decent internet connection nowadays?

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Re: Steam Called a "Trojan Horse" by IGN, Owners of Direct2Drive

I've purchased through Steam and Direct2Drive and been very satisfied with both. Honestly I've come to prefer Steam if something is the same price on both, simply because the ease with which I can manage all my games, knowing that loading the game back up will be a painless process. The offline mode issue that Sintra mentioned does happen, but it's become rare enough that it hasn't really adversely affected me.

Ultimately, though, for a while Steam was a member of the same list of services as Direct2Drive, GreenHouse, Impulse and the like. At this point, however, digital distribution is not the sole purpose of Steam, but rather one of many bullet points in their features list, along with profiles, DRM, buddy list, achievements, stats tracking, voice communication, etc.

When you really look at the service, Steam isn't in the same league as these other services. Direct2Drive is making the business decision to not sell a game which requires Steam, as doing so would have the potential of introducing their customers to an alternative (and quite frankly, much larger) distribution platform and seeing future sales drop as a result of that competition. The base that Steam reaches is already far bigger than any other digital distribution platform out there, however, and the services offered through Steamworks have got to be pretty compelling.

Personally, I'm curious if Valve will eventually try to take Steam even further, forging it into a media giant to compete with iTunes and Netflix. I certainly hope not, but time will tell.

For now, though, while most of us hated Steam in its early days, it's come a long ways and I don't mind having it always running now--I suspect many others are in the same boat. So IGN can call it a Trojan or whatever they'd like to dub it, but 20 million of us are already happily using it, and that number is just going to increase.