Hacker News Reader

Comment by subway | Hacker News Reader

> Steam which I don't think has ever had an exclusive title

Aren't all of Valve's titles exclusive to Steam? I remember being annoyed that I had to install steam for some version of Counter Strike in the early 00s, and didn't think the situation had changed.

View on HN

There are definitely steam exclusive titles. Just like how people get upset now when they buy a physical copy of a game and it's just a license to download from the eshop, Steam did this first. I have a bunch of physical pc games that just include the steam installer.

yeah this was big drama with Half Life 2. You bought the game and then had to wait hours and hours to download it on steam.

I vividly remember game journalists writing angry columns on how Steam will be gone in a year because it's just too inconvenient. :)

while that may not have been true I certainly didn't buy another steam game until I was on college broadband 3 or 4 years later

I don’t think they are ‘steam exclusive’ titles so much as they are only released on Steam.

They’re allowed to release elsewhere, it’s just such a pain compared to steam that nobody does so.

This comment doesn't really seem to make sense in context. Maybe you didn't realize that Valve makes Steam?

I did. I’m not entirely sure how you think the comment doesn’t make sense?

To boil it down: Valve doesn't pay anybody to make their content available exclusively on Steam and doesn't advertise "exclusives". People did that for free.

IMHO, exclusives are obnoxious and I'm glad Steam doesn't do that. The physical retail market is full of crap like that, or pre-order bonuses that are tied to particular retailers. All of that garbage is a cancer on the gaming market.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com