News has broken today, via MCV, that major high street retailers are threatening to refuse to sell any PC games that are intergrated with Valve Software’s Steam service. Steam incorporates, among features such as auto-patching and community tools, its own online store where people can purchase games and download them directly to their PC. While MCV hasn’t named them, at least two so called “high street giants” are prepared to demand that publishers remove Steam from their games, as they feel it only weakens their own PC sales business by helping Valve expand Steam’s user base.

The response from the wider gaming press, so far, has been one of derision. Jon Hicks, editor of the UK’s Official Xbox 360 Magazine, skewered the retail attitude perfectly when he tweeted: “Games retailers boycotting Steam is like the Post Office refusing to carry post containing email addresses.” Brick and mortar retailers, which have been battling declining sales and market share for years are very suddenly interested in PC games again despite neglecting the platform for years. Walk into any modern Gamestop, HMV or Game store and try and find the PC section and you’ll see what I mean. Traditional retail has done nothing to develop the PC market for over half a decade. Now they’ve woken up to that fact that and thrown a tantrum that a company like Valve has gone and done it in their absence.

Steam is a wildly popular service with PC gamers, and with good reason. With it, Valve pioneered the age of digital distribution on the platform, working constantly to improve a service that offers gamers access to their games from any PC in the world, excellent community features and solid, non-horrible copy protection that actually works. Tremendous effort has been put into the Steam service and as a result it’s now the gold standard by which all other attempts at a similar enterprise are measured. It’s not perfect, but it’s a valuable service for gamers, developers and publishers alike.

Harder, Better, Faster, Steamier

The threat of a ban, or a boycott, or whatever you want to call it is ridiculous for several reasons. Retailers would lose rather a lot of money, for a start. There’s massive demand for games (like the latest Call of Duty title, Black Ops, for example) that use Steam. If the high street doesn’t carry it gamers will simply get it from some where else. Like, say, directly from Steam. How does forcing potential customers to shop at a competitor help their business?

Steam has also been shown to have the power to increase sales of PC games at retail too. Back in 2009 Gabe Newell went public with a selection of sales figures from the service showing how discounts and game updates via Steam affect global sales. In the case of Valve’s own Team Fortress 2, after a particular update, sales increased by a massive percentage on Steam but also by nearly thirty percent at retail. A sale on Left4Dead on Steam didn’t even put a dent in retail sales of that game. Steam can make retailers more money.

Retail has still got some advantages over Steam too, particularly when it comes to pricing. Boxed copies of Fallout: New Vegas (another game that uses Steam) are available for around €35 to €40 in stores. On Steam the price of the game is fixed at €50. Retail has the same product cheaper and it still gets all the benefits of the direct Steam copy. In my mind, retail has got the better deal there, but you don’t see them leveraging that in any way.

But, judging by today’s news, the high street isn’t interested in being (or hasn’t got a clue how to be) truly competitive in today’s PC market. They have, historically, not been friends of the PC gamer. More than anything else, it is that lack of innovation and effort that’s responsible for their current status in the marketplace. The competition has got on with offering better, more comprehensive services to potential customers while they’ve focused on reducing PC shelf space to make room for another rack of tedious Wii shovelware and pre-owned console stock. They neglected their customers and they went elsewhere. Refusing to stock things people want to buy won’t bring that business back.

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