Are PC gamers being discriminated against?
Q It struck me recently that shops stock console games galore, but not one PC game anywhere. To buy PC games online you have to agree to be controlled by game platform Steam. What about us oldies who like playing PC games, but don’t want consoles? Do you feel this is discrimination? This old codger would like to see something about this in your lovely magazine. Arthur Cork
A It’s an accurate observation. But discrimination? We don’t think so. For reasons we’ll explain, it’s simply been easier for software companies to abandon physical media as a distribution method for PC games.
Consoles, obviously, are created for gaming. Typically, they sit under a TV. As such, they’re primarily homeentertainment devices. People buy them to play games, sure, but also because they’ve traditionally had built-in DVD or Blu-ray drives for movie playback. That’s changing, with modern consoles now also available in ‘digital-only’ editions. However, the point is that many millions of Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox consoles still contain drives.
But on PCS, which are general-purpose devices, the value of a DVD or Blu-ray drive has been rapidly diminishing. Modern laptops almost never have optical drives, and nor do many desktop PCS. Users tend now to stream movies, and are happy downloading software. So, any developer wanting to sell lots of games to PC users isn’t going to put their product on disc – they’re going to make it available to download.
Yes, Steam is the dominant platform for digital distribution of PC games, and yes it’s restrictive, but there are alternatives. For instance, Good Old Games, or GOG (www.gog.com, pictured), hosts hundreds of modern titles that are not bound by the same digital-rights-management (DRM) chains imposed by the likes of Steam. So, you might consider shopping there instead.