At least two major retailers are set to demand games publishers remove Steam from their games - or they will not sell them in any form.
That's according to trade mag MCV, which reports that key retailers fear that the Valve download service - said to serve a huge 80 per cent of the PC download market - has a monopoly on the sector and will damage their own in-preporation rival platforms.
"If we have a digital service, then I don't want to start selling a rival in-store," the digital boss at "one of the biggest UK games retailers" told the mag.
"Publishers are creating a monster - we are telling suppliers to stop using Steam in their games."
The head of sales at "a big-name digital service provider" agreed: "At the moment the big digital distributors need to stock games with Steam. But the power resides with bricks and mortar retailers, they can refuse to stock these titles. Publishers are hesitant, but retail must put pressure on them."
Gaikai CEO David Perry speculates however that Steam could become the games-equivilent of iTunes, dictating the terms of the games market - not the other way around.
"Steam has made it so easy for everyone and they have lots of users. But how long do you wait before you take control of your own digital strategy? Like with iTunes, at some point it's going to be too late," he said.
Some of the biggest PC games - such as Call of Duty and Fallout - currently use Steam. Ultimately, do you reckon games retailers will stop stocking those games any time soon? We can't see it, somehow.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=275026
Yeah... mind that failboat there
