Many Major Game Studios Turning to Valve's Steam

2009 has been an incredible year so far for Valve's online game distribution system. Steam is grabbing the attention and business of more major publishers than ever, and it is happening at a rapid pace. Quite possibly the biggest surprise of this year is Electronic Arts.

EA has had its own digital marketplace for some time now, which after numerous renovations is now integrated into the EA Store. Despite that, the company saw fit to offer several major titles from its lineup on Steam, including its Spore and Crysis franchises, Mirror's Edge, and Dead Space.

A couple of other major studios jumping on the Steam bandwagon this year are Sony Online Entertainment and, most recently, NCsoft. These two publishers are well known for their wildly popular massively multiplayer games, such as SOE's EverQuest and NCsoft's Guild Wars. NCsoft has done very well on Steam: the Guild WarsTrilogy in particular quickly rose toward the top of the Steam "Top Sellers" list, with City of Heroes:Architect Edition also making an appearance in the top ten.

As with EA, both Sony's Station Store and The NCsoft Store have had game downloads available to purchase for some time now, but the growing popularity of the Steam platform must have finally become irresistible. SOE is now offering its EverQuest and Vanguard franchises on Steam, while NCsoft currently has Guild Wars, Lineage, and City of Heroes for sale.

Caution: Steam is Hot!

Steam has been a content delivery system for games since its release in September 2003. Since then, many startup game developers have chosen to release on the platform. Indie and casual games are able to amass much more visibility on Steam than otherwise might be possible.

But major studios have also been flocking to steam for awhile now; last year the mainstream floodgates were opened wider when Ubisoft, Epic Games, and Bethesda Softworks joined Steam. One of the big benefits of Steam for publishers is the built-in Digital Rights Management, or DRM, which has become an increasing concern for both game studios and gamers. Steam helps to prevent piracy of games without installing intrusive software onto computers, but it does require an internet connection.

Valve ensures its service comes packed with plenty of perks, like the Steam Community, Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC), and the Steam Cloud which automatically stores saved games and settings online. The Steam Community in particular is great news for every company with games in the Steam store, because it encourages gamers to congregate and communicate through Steam. And the more time gamers spend time on Steam, the more opportunities they have to purchase Steam games.