AfterDawn: News

'Get Games' is new digital gaming distribution service

Get Games, a new digital gaming distribution service, is set to launch today, but should face stiff competition from more established players like Direct2Drive and Steam.

The company will launch with hundreds of titles for download, with a launch promotion of Serious Sam HD for GBP 9.99.



Says co-founder Rupert Loman, of Eurogamer: "The market is read. A lot of the difficult ground work has already been done by others and everyone in the industry is now working on their digital plans - so it's been a relatively easy sell to content creators who are looking to maximise their revenues from as many different routes as possible.

"[The publishers] got it straight away. We've already signed most of the major publishers, alongside some independent developers too. And they are particularly excited that we have a network of websites in 10 European languages and will be taking Get Games across the continent very soon."

When asked about market leader Steam, Loman responded (via GI.biz):

"Clearly for the PC, the Get Games service makes a huge amount of sense and the model has already been proven to work with Steam,.The most exciting thing for me is to see console content starting to be purchased via the web - which is still a more intuitive place to buy content than places like PlayStation Network. We have the hundreds of thousands of gamers on our sites every day, and we know what they like, so this is a huge new opportunity for the console platforms."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 24 Nov 2009 12:54

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• 8 comments

• TBandit

  Well if they can get a decent client with a good downloading scheme I might switch, steam's is garbage and they don't update the client's bugs as often as they should.

  24.11.2009 20:30 #1

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by TBandit: Well if they can get a decent client with a good downloading scheme I might switch, steam's is garbage and they don't update the client's bugs as often as they should.
  Tell me about ti how hard is a fwucking seamless online/offline setup?
  No more issues with being online or not unless A. you are playing a MP game or B. trying to activate something.
  Its that thats keeping me from putting the BS that is steam on my system...I simply to refuse to have any bit of it on my PC and use non steam versions of the games I buy...

  24.11.2009 21:31 #2

• KSib

  I dunno why you guys hate Steam so much. I don't really have issues with it. Yeah, I'm sure there are bugs for you, as there are with everything else. I'm sure this new software will too, but that's fine. I'm all about having a digital backup of my console games that I can download whenever if I need to if they decide to take that route as well as letting you download that first copy. Also, I don't wanna hear about how often they update their client. I've had too many experiences with slow or dumb patches with game-related software (recently XFire and Borderlands... Borderlands especially - holy crap).
  
  I don't think they're really trying to compete as much with Steam and D2D rather than taking the console digital distribution market for themselves. I dunno, personally I don't buy games from D2D since I already bought a nice amount of games from Steam and I don't want my games all over a bunch of digital reservoirs. I don't really see myself using this service for PC games because of this, but if or when I get a new console (cuz I'm almost positive Nintendo won't be in on this) then I may be more than happy to use it.

  25.11.2009 05:23 #3

• KillerBug

  Not too impressed, I went to their website and found nothing but a bunch of flash games stolen from other sites...they didn't even bother to remove the logos from the sites they stole from. You can't search by name, and I was unable to find any PC games available, even for sale. They have about a thousand different game categories, yet most of them are empty.
  
  "don't think they're really trying to compete as much with Steam and D2D rather than taking the console digital distribution market for themselves"
  -The thing is that sony and microsoft are not going to let them distribute games to their systems through this method...this service would only be for PC...if it had any downloadable content at all.
  
  I still hold a grudge against steam...I bought Half Life 2 and some other game a while back, they both required steam to play, and steam made my system crawl unless I completely dissabled my firewalls. Thus, I was never able to play the games, and I was unable to return them because they were opened. I tried again about 6 months later to find that the problem was even worse. I then setup a standalone system out of leftover parts so I could run without a firewall without fear...and the servers were down for almost a week, when they came back up, they were slow and I had constant disconnects. Even if it works perfect today, I don't trust valve to keep it working, and the games are all useless when their servers crash or get turned off.
  
  Steam is the reason I don't have CODMW2...I would only want it with a keyboard and mouse, and I am not installing steam...so they don't make a version for me. I've got other games, so I don't feel like I am missing out on much of anything...I would say it is valve's loss, but they have so many customers that they don't have give a s**t about any of them.

  25.11.2009 05:39 #4

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by KSib: I dunno why you guys hate Steam so much. I don't really have issues with it. Yeah, I'm sure there are bugs for you, as there are with everything else. I'm sure this new software will too, but that's fine. I'm all about having a digital backup of my console games that I can download whenever if I need to if they decide to take that route as well as letting you download that first copy. Also, I don't wanna hear about how often they update their client. I've had too many experiences with slow or dumb patches with game-related software (recently XFire and Borderlands... Borderlands especially - holy crap).
  
  I don't think they're really trying to compete as much with Steam and D2D rather than taking the console digital distribution market for themselves. I dunno, personally I don't buy games from D2D since I already bought a nice amount of games from Steam and I don't want my games all over a bunch of digital reservoirs. I don't really see myself using this service for PC games because of this, but if or when I get a new console (cuz I'm almost positive Nintendo won't be in on this) then I may be more than happy to use it.Steam is double edged as I said before it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread if they simply made online/offline seamless, basically make MP and activation online only. Also the steam app should run in the game not all the time....

  25.11.2009 10:27 #5

• KSib

  Quote:Steam is double edged as I said before it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread if they simply made online/offline seamless, basically make MP and activation online only. Also the steam app should run in the game not all the time....The problem is they require that the client be fully updated before you go into offline mode. I think that's so you can't exploit anything that's been patched and also to verify that the game is legit that you've downloaded (you could have copied someone else's steam game and pasted it to your folder then load it up in offline mode and Steam wouldn't know the difference). That's the tradeoff. Either cut some of the DRM or allow some users to use offline mode in any situation. Personally, I think they should be more lax on the offline mode... I keep hearing legit complaints about it and people are going to find a way to hack and distribute these games anyway so in the end they're really only screwing over the legitimate customers. Of course, it's much easier to say than to implement, I just hope they do something about it because I really like Steam, but it's not perfect. However, it's the best kind of its program that I've used.
  
  As for running all of the time, yeah I can understand that frustration as well because a lot of people aren't interested in the other features of Steam, they just want to play the game and exit. I suppose an "exit and check for patches" feature would be nice or something. I use the other features though so that never crossed my mind, but I can understand that too.

  25.11.2009 17:52 #6

• ZippyDSM

  Quote:Quote:Steam is double edged as I said before it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread if they simply made online/offline seamless, basically make MP and activation online only. Also the steam app should run in the game not all the time....The problem is they require that the client be fully updated before you go into offline mode. I think that's so you can't exploit anything that's been patched and also to verify that the game is legit that you've downloaded (you could have copied someone else's steam game and pasted it to your folder then load it up in offline mode and Steam wouldn't know the difference). That's the tradeoff. Either cut some of the DRM or allow some users to use offline mode in any situation. Personally, I think they should be more lax on the offline mode... I keep hearing legit complaints about it and people are going to find a way to hack and distribute these games anyway so in the end they're really only screwing over the legitimate customers. Of course, it's much easier to say than to implement, I just hope they do something about it because I really like Steam, but it's not perfect. However, it's the best kind of its program that I've used.
  
  As for running all of the time, yeah I can understand that frustration as well because a lot of people aren't interested in the other features of Steam, they just want to play the game and exit. I suppose an "exit and check for patches" feature would be nice or something. I use the other features though so that never crossed my mind, but I can understand that too.Alot of the problems are easy to fix but hey wont fix it thus uits easier not using steam at all and still lay the game.

  25.11.2009 17:56 #7

• vontratt

  Steam is going to err on the side of safety before giving more room for their customers to breath. Profits before smiles.
  

  27.11.2009 13:26 #8