Pc Gaming is Dead

[Porn Shop Clerk]

http://store.steampowered.com/news/4502/

October 18, 2010 - Valve® today announced the latest growth data for Steam, a leading platform for PC & Mac games and digital entertainment, revealing new account growth of 178%, sales growth of over 200%, over 200 Steamworks games shipped to date, and more.

During the past 12 months the platform had year-over-year new user growth of 178%, pushing the total number of active accounts to over 30 million, with over 1,200 games now offered. Peak simultaneous player numbers were also up to over three million, with over six million unique gamers accessing Steam each day.

In addition to new user growth, Steam sales during the trailing 12 months increased by more than 200%, putting it on track for a sixth straight year of realizing over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales. To meet this demand, the Steam infrastructure has been increased and now has ability to run at 400Gps, enough bandwidth to ship a digitized version of the Oxford English Dictionary 92.6 times per second.

The ultimate in backwards compatibility.

[natty]

It's amazing how far Steam has come. I knew it was a great idea when they started it, they just needed to work some kinks out. It was commonly referred to as Steaming pile of poo when it came out but it's pretty damn awesome now.

[Porn Shop Clerk]

I can't wait for Christmas sales. I'm gonna load up on some games.

[blackcatgrowl]

Steam is probably the least troublesome of the "rights management" Direct-Download companies, and I use them a decent amount.

But I'll still buy a DVD copy if I can. Call it a silly hang up... but one day, it's possible the internet might not be available to me (would be unlikely, but its possible).

[bredy087]

Steam is great except sometimes you can't play games in offline mode. Seems just about everybody is jumping on board with steam.

[stankowalski]

I'm a part of that "growth" data. Only because I bought Civilization V and was required to get a Steam account...which I'll probably never use again.

[Razzy]

Now Steam just needs to start "renting" copies of games coded to expire after a week. They'd make a fortune.

[Porn Shop Clerk]

I thought about them renting games a couple years ago. I think it would be revolutionary for pc gaming.

[RedMage138]

eh renting pc games would make piracy way too easy but I guess there's the whole if you're gonna pirate it you wouldn't bother renting it anyway argument

[Guild]

eh renting pc games would make piracy way too easy but I guess there's the whole if you're gonna pirate it you wouldn't bother renting it anyway argument

Piracy is already easy. I think rentals through an online distribution system like Impulse or Steam is a good idea even though I'd never rent something myself.

[natty]

Now that Steam is so reliable I actually find myself pirating games less. Normally I'd download a game out of convenience but now I can get the game legitimately with just a few clicks in Steam.