14 DAY TRIAL // Times change and so does the whole industry, which is very obvious with the game segment, as players are more and more drawn to online distribution networks, like Steam or GameTap, and prefer them to the traditional “brick-and-mortar” retail chains, like GameStop. But despite the claims of game store owners, who say that they aren't worried about online distribution, more and more publishers choose to make their games available for download.
Such is the case with Sony Online Entertainment, which has just announced that it has partnered with Valve's very popular Steam platform in order to make some of its most popular online games available for download to Steam clients. Titles such as the extremely popular MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Everquest, and its sequel plus all expansions, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, or Pirates of the Burning Sea can now be purchased from the online Steam store.
“We are always looking for additional ways to introduce our great catalog of games to new audiences,” says John Smedley, the president of SOE. “It's hard to think of a larger group of PC gamers interested in multiplayer games than those connecting to Steam. Valve's digital distribution service currently boasts 15 million users. We've long been a leader in MMOs and this agreement will help bring our exciting content to millions of additional online gamers around the world.”
Sony Online Entertainment is now joining a lot of very high-ranked publishers that have already brought their games to Steam, the latest one being Electronic Arts, which announced that a hefty part of its big game portfolio would be arriving on the content distribution platform.
This looks like a pretty good decision on Sony’s part, and it will certainly bring a lot of profit from the PC market in the long term. But let's not forget that Smedley stated that it hoped the PlayStation 3 would become a bigger platform for the company, as gamers would prefer it to the PC in terms of online games. All that's left for us to do is wait and see which of the platforms will generate a bigger profit.