Intresting little nugget of new here. Apparently some retailers just realized that Steam is killing them and are not stocking Steam integrated game. Its an interesting little issue, not really because of the retailers reactions (they don’t seem to have noticed retail pc gaming is long dead), but the question of a Steam monopoly, not unlike iTunes. I’m fine with this, at least as of now, as Valve has a sterling record of caring about the fans, but should one company have so much power?
It’s a bit daft threatening to lose the money they WERE making when it’ll have ZIP effect on Steam.
Actually, that would have a positive effect on Steam. “We can’t buy it from your store because they sell it on Steam. So I guess we will just go to Steam and order it there instead.”
-1 from store = +1 for Steam.
Good going morons 
I see reasoning behind this. Even if I don’t give a fuck about GameStop, making Steam into a monopoly that becomes THE company you have to go to to make or sell a PC game is kind of a bad idea; even if they’re awesome guys now, you never know what will change. Plus, competition is supposed to be good.
Some sort of abstraction layer for DRM or achievements could benefit everyone, so that you can code the game once, then fit it for GFWL, Steam, Direct2Drive, Impulse, or even a console.
This is like Best Buy and Target stopping the sale of DVDs and CDs because Amazon has them too.
That would be the case if one would have to register at Amazon in order to watch the DVDs bought at Best Buy.
… and here I thought some of the corporate half-wits were level-headed… this proves me wrong.
Doesn’t surprise me, the last time I got a retail copy of a PC game was 2008, and that was The Orange Box so it ended up on Steam anyway.
This makes no sense whatsoever. You would think they would be trying to get the last bit of money, instead of throw it all out the door?
When the retailer’s selection of PC games is limited to half a shelf and the PC games themselves are a bad selection of games from two decades ago, Steam isn’t killing them; they’re committing suicide on the platform themselves with no help necessary.
I guess the idea is to scare the game companies into not using Steam, as they’d be losing profits from retail. Not sure if it’ll work, though.
This, sadly, is so true.
My friend got counter strike. When he installed steam, his PC got freakin SLOW. He uninstalled it and stuck with other games…
How long ago was that, and how long ago did he purchase his pc are the next two questions.
As for blocking the sale of steam games it could be that they view the average shopper to be unaware of steam and by purchasing games in there store they don’t want to open there consumer base to new cheaper avenues of purchasing games.
True enough. If this ban had somehow come around 2003 or so, I would never have picked up a copy of Half-Life 2, never would have gotten a Steam account, never would have played the original, definitely wouldn’t have learned Faceposer and joined the Black Mesa team, etc…
Stopped reading this post here.
Facts and figures for game company sales.
This is true.
Retailers control what they sell. But to be honest, if I want to get a game (not that I buy many in stores anymore) I usually don’t think of Target/Walmart first. Nor do I necessarily think of Gamestop first. I think of where I can save the most money. So, knowing that Walmart is only stocking half a shelf with 2-decade-old games, I’m obviously NOT going to shop here for a PC game I want. Meanwhile, retailers thrive on the $60US console new-releases that come out every two weeks, are played for a month and promptly dropped in the pile of other console games. Can’t blame the retailers for sucking down cash, but can’t throw in the towel on PC games that aren’t being offered (especially when digital distribution [generally] reduces costs).
You guys are also overlooking the fact that, while banning steam games will significantly reduce the amount of PC games stores sell, they don’t really give a shit because so much of their stock is console games nowadays anyway.
That said, this would mean I’d have to use a credit card to buy pretty much any game that interests me, because I play 90% of my games on PC, and most modern PC games that are more than ports of their console counterparts are on steam.
Ah, bullshit. The internet wasn’t even going slowly tonight, how did I double post?
Same. 
Lets hope steam’s CEO doesn’t die and get replaced by Steve Jobs.
I bought TF2 from Best Buy for $10 and I was considering CS:S which came with DoD:S so, some of Valves games at least are a better deal in the store.