Steam News & Updates Thread

[Mantis]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017- ... left-valve

That's both Chet and Erik Wolpaw gone now. I guess that there's only so long you can be a video game writer for a company that doesn't make games anymore.

[Edwin]

I wonder what they were doing all this time.

[eVoL]

Dota lore

[Mantis]

Writing witty descriptions for TF2 hats.

[DjchunKfunK]

I wonder what they were doing all this time.

They were probably working on the VR games Valve have in development.

[Achtung Englander]

Real shame where Valve are going with their business model

come on - just make HL3 - you can afford it and you will gets loads of love for it. I dunno I am lost here

[Jez]

Got to agree. It is a shame. They have mass respect and credibility in the industry but don't seem to use it.

[Achtung Englander]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... -resellers

Key resellers are facing an end to their business model. Gifting by email is being phased out by Steam. Direct gifting (user to user) looks like the only model to do this now.

Only bought one game from CD Keys and was surprised to find the key actually worked, so its a bit of a shame (for us) this grey market is going to go away.

[Rusty]

A handy way of seeing all the new releases on Steam.

http://www.whatsonsteam.com/index.htm

Not been in this thread for a while and this link looks really good

I'm adding that to my usual bookmarks

[Mantis]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-05-05-steam-gifting-changes-hits-code-resellers

Key resellers are facing an end to their business model. Gifting by email is being phased out by Steam. Direct gifting (user to user) looks like the only model to do this now.

Only bought one game from CD Keys and was surprised to find the key actually worked, so its a bit of a shame (for us) this grey market is going to go away.

That is the ultimate dick move if it turns out to be as severe as it seems. Valve can do one if this ends up shutting down all the retailers online who sell keys. The monopoly they have over the market is already so large that they can keep games at RRP for months on end on Steam. I go to competitors online because quite frankly no game is really worth £40-60 anymore, let alone weeks and weeks after release.

Fair enough if they're just trying to stop scammers on markets like G2A or people selling cross borders who take advantage of currency conversions. But if this starts killing off completely legitimate sites who offer Steam keys at better rates than Valve then that is going to push me away from Steam in a huge way.

[Achtung Englander]

yep - competition (for the most) is always good and Steam could really do with some. Dare I say it the EA Access for £20 is seriously great value for money and it this kind of competition we need.

GOG and GMG are doing a good job but they need to offer even greater discounts to break into Steam near monopoly.

[Sly Boots]

Guess I'll be going back to buying games 12 months later when they crop up in a Steam sale. Even the games I look forward to and buy on release I would hesitate to pay the Steam release price when I used to be able to get them for £30 or less on CDKeys.com and the like.

[DjchunKfunK]

The reason why these key sites can sell games cheaper is because they are mainly taking advantage of cross border currency conversions Mantis. I personally don't have any issue with companies doing this.

As I understand it this change is for stuff you buy on Steam and then gift to someone. So the key resellers will be fine as they are not doing it this way, they buy the codes outside of Steam.

[Mantis]

Aha, fair enough. I only gave the article a cursory read so that's fine. I understand now why most of the people kicking up a fuss are the ones who buy copies of games to keep in their inventory for giving as gifts. I'd be surprised if the third party websites were actually buying their codes directly from Steam when building up their stock.

It will effect things like the G2A marketplace though which does tend to use codes bought off Steam, but it's a very dodgy market so not something to shed a tear over losing.

[Sly Boots]

So sites like CDKeys will continue to be cheaper? As you were, then.