Edit: It is worth nothing that if a user's game was activated with a retail key, Steam takes no cut. This means that you are effectively getting service for that user for free.

You also get Steam Cloud, which allows you to store your users' configuration and saved game files to be accessed anywhere, their peer-to-peer networking API which provides NAT punching. Then there's matchmaking, stats/achievements, Steam Community (their social network), and several other "Steamworks" features. [2]

Edit: Microtransactions is another big one, also known as in-app purchases. The online brochure for Steamworks is worth a read if you're interested in any of this: http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/index.php

I haven't read a lot about Windows 8's app store, especially concerning Xbox Live, but Steam still has a lot to offer to developers.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-...

[2] https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/api

And that's without even getting into updates that provide extra content. Steam's flagship game, Team Fortress 2, updates at least once a month with extra (free) content. That generates mayor amounts of good will towards the devs, and it would be completely unsustainable if the developers had to pay $40k to update, and another $40k to fix any bugs or imbalances in the update.

We're talking about the XBox. There's only one hardware device to test against.

Also, the first update is free.

They also have branches, so that you can release betas for your users to opt-in and test.

Is there any reference for that?

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0228/technology-gabe-newel...

Edit: Oh, and PC Gamer has a good bit about the update process.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/12/how-steam-is-about-to-chan...

On the other hand, Microsoft's new 20-30% cut doesn't sound like very low-margin distribution infrastructure either...

Does "low-margin" for software really make sense? These aren't physical goods that have a inherent value. The "cost" of any given piece of software is the price you are willing to pay the people building it.

MARGINS.

If Microsoft takes that away, they'll bail in the biggest possible way. Good luck getting Adobe to retail through your app store. They'll probably make a Linux port as a big fuck you to Ballmer.

He's clearly not just talking about the app store cutting into margins. Why else would OEMs exit the market if not because of usability issues/market collapse?

At least, in the case of Android, they can add value, or extra revenue streams. In the case of linux, the open nature, would provide a competitive edge.

Why would any OEM be interested in selling win8 devices? If microsoft is going the way of the console ( like apple and amazon are doing ), shouldnt microsoft be paying them instead of the other way around?

But he is allowed to be a bit upset: Steam is effectively not allowed on Metro.

And there was loyalty between Valve and Microsoft. In general, he dislikes the verticalisation in the market; how consumer devices will all be (media,game,app) consoles. But to see Microsoft make this move, just hurst more, when your company has invested so much in the windows ecosystem. And lets not forget that without Steam, pc gaming would have died completely 5 years ago.

Personally, i dont like it either. I think its anticompeteive in nature, and bad for innovation. Appearantly operating system vendors are becoming the new cable companies, charging for access to consumers.

But unless one of them (apple, google, microsoft, amazon) has a monopoly, its not illegal to operate in this manner.

Your sentence is like saying that without Internet Explorer, we would still be paying for internet browsers. It's praising Microsoft for what it did and mysteriously assuming that in absence of it, no one else would bring the cost of browsers down.

This is my nitpick with "what if X didn't exist" scenarios: people imply that nothing would fill the vacuum.

Another example I just made up: "If Linux didn't exist, we wouldn't have a free, open source OS". I'm pretty sure FreeBSD or something like that would grow like Linux instead. Not saying it would be better or worse, because, frankly, I don't know.

Another counterexample would be the internet itself. It could very easily have gone wrong and we would have been stuck with the likes of Compuserve and AOL.

I don't think i'm wrong, but it's hard to argue about alternative history, right? It's all pure speculation. You are right about that.

If anything he risks footing a lot of the effort to get developers onto Linux (see: Valve openly talking about working with GPU manufacturers to improve the quality of Linux drivers) only to have it benefit people that choose to distribute outside of Steam.

No, because it's DRM-less.

That said, Valve appears to be going for a play based on being a cross-platform app store (Windows, OS X, Linux). It's not obvious to me that they can add much value that way (after you've gone to the work to implement support for three platforms, submitting to three app stores is not a lot of overhead) but we'll see.

I know that Steam lets you take your games from one machine to another, but I don't expect that to be the norm for most app stores.

I see no reason to infer that Newell's comments are limited specifically to app platforms. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's more to this than just a Steam-for-Linux download; they could be working on something like the old Phantom project to really bridge the gap between console and PC, and take advantage of Windows 8's almost inevitable initial poor reception to gain marketshare.

Buying is just a one time deal. Achievements and other social features of Xbox Live are constant and, if shared with the large Xbox network, will be very desirable for consumers.

Steam cant be on Metro, and the x86/classic-desktop will likely end up, only in the high end of the market.

Just like Apple, the common win8 consumer device will be in the 200-600 dollar range .. running on ARM, and completely block any competition from selling content. The privileges of backwards compatibility and "side-loading" will be available only on 800+ dollar devices.

So, Steam on windows has no future.

If there are no alternative, people may still hate it, but it will still be the killer feature.

You bring up a good point about the WinRT ARM devices. These devises are very closed off similar to the IPad, the only option for WinRT tablet users will be to go to the Windows Store but I don't think Valve even cares about this market too much ( I don't think you can download games directly to your iPhone from the steam app, can you?). Steam in my opinion is geared towards the PC desktop gamer not the (ARM) tablet* user, so Valve has nothing to worry about.

*x86 tablets will most likely be able to download steam.

The problem is that the PC desktop-gamer market is shrinking, and may shrink further if a large population adopts WinRT tablets. I'm sure there are many edge-case customers out there that would rather pay <$500 for a PC in exchange for not having access to the few indie games they or their children purchased on Steam.

While most avid PC gamers will keep with the desktop model, this sort of fork in the road for PC buyers is in essence also a narrowing of accessibility for future generations of would-be PC gamers.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/windows-8-store-intro...

Store fees are calculated on a per-transaction basis as well. These fees are based at 30% of the app price, until your app reaches $25,000 or equivalent of lifetime sales (aggregated across app sales and in-app purchases) when they change to 20% of the app price.