Doom3world

Maybe, but we weren't discussing Steam vs Console or PC vs Console market share. We were discussing the viability and claimed redundancy of Steam as a gaming service. This number show that Steam serves a relatively large part of the PC gaming market.



Amazon have actually released their own app store for Android, so, yes, it would be possible to release Steam for Android. (The user would have to change their settings to enable it though.)

I don't see the fundamental difference between Steam and other app stores so I don't see why a smart phone version of Steam would be any less needed than other app stores?

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Peak: 4,737,207

The fundamental difference is that Steam client is compulsory, you rely on it 100% on everything related to the games, launching, updating, logging to a server, uninstalling, everything. On the appstores, all the apps sold there are 100% self-contained, self-installing entities that could be copied and pasted to any computer/smartphone and installed there. Steam isn´t needed at all there. Why would you want steam on an smartphone?

Yes, that´s only a peak, not the average. I´m not denying that steam is big, when compared with other digital stores on pc, but they still pale in comparison with consoles.

Thats just details which most users don't care about, and some of those aren't even true; at least not for Apples store. Is it really possible to buy stuff from Googles store and then copy it to any device?

Anyway, not important. The question is: Is there a market for Steam on mobile phones and I don't see why not? The fact that the Steam client would take care of installing and uinstalling etc is probably not more of an issue there than it is on PCs and Macs where Steam is doing quite well.

Yes it is. Apps work anywhere. With steam you're relying completely Valve to play, update, and do anything with the games you rent off them. Why submit to Newell's data harvesting tool? There´s several games on the mac appstore, like Mafia 2, which used to be a Steamworks infected game, but now on the mac appstore it had the steamworks component ripped out. Any DLC is purchaseable directly in the game itself. Steam is not needed there.

And the Apple store is better.... how?

For a start: The apps are backed up un my local device, on my iCloud drive and they are linked to my account for redownload. I can use them offline.

The steamcloud has my games, I also have them locally. They are linked to my account for redownload and I can use them offline. I have added protection in the form of each change being mailed to me, and I can lock my account to my IP address if I want.

That's all fine, means we're all equally happy - just the way it should be

I'm sorry, but that's not the way the internet works. Someone here gonna have to conform.

Ok let me put out some troll bait:
Apple Microsoft Valve Steam MW3 Quake HalfLife Unreal Doom CoD CS

I assume you can still have them on your iPad/iPhone and backed up to your local computer and backed up on iCloud, but is there anything special you have to do to achieve that? If you begin using iCloud for your apps or tunes, for example, does it also automatically still allow backup to a PC, for example?

The apps themselves are always sort of backed up in the app store in terms of re-download. The app content I can back up to the cloud as well as to my pc. In Germany we don't have the iTunes in the cloud subscription yet, so I can't comment.
You can set for each app what to back up to the cloud (and make it available to your other devices).
It's also a matter of practicability whether you really want to back up a full 64gb to the cloud...

And yet you need the steam store installed every time. The Appstore do away with anything, it´s the games/apps you bought, and the computer you use them on, nothing else needed. The new android appstores are similar to the mac appstore. And next year we'll see the Microsoft AppStore,which will be completely a component in windows 8, and that one will more show how much the one big storefront/data harvesting tool/ad splashing steam business model is outdated.

What are you talking about?

There are no ads in steam, steam is not a store, it is a platform. How can their business model be outdated, compared to what? Their current competition is almost non-existent. Live store and EA's origin are not faring well at all.
The install for Steam is a few KB, there's no privacy issues... so what's the fuss about again?
I have my games available anywhere, everywhere.

Steam is a store, you purchase games from it. It shoves a storefront with sales right in front of you when you launch it, you can disable it, but it´s enabled by design. It is outdated in that it relies 100% on the steam binary running all the time to do anything. The new appstores integrate completely to windows, and dissapear in the background. The apps you purchase work without anything else installed, you could copy them and install them in 100 other computers without needing to log to any account. Yes, you´re saying current, but im talking near future. The new windows appstore and the other appstores wont be anything like GfWL or Origin, both of which seem to copy Steam.

I think you are placing far too much faith in Microsoft..

And this 'The new appstores integrate completely to windows, and dissapear in the background.' now *that* is a scary thought.
Your information about the 'steam' store is wrong, by the way. It opens up in whatever page you left it at, in my case it always opens up in my library of games.

I dont have any faith in microsoft, but here theyre copying the mac apptore, they´re not doing anything by themselves. Have you tried the mac appstore? Get a mac and try it out. You login to it too, but it doesnt need additional applications running when downloading, running updating them.

No, no Mac's for me.
I just made certified Linux administrator, I'll keep it at that.

I have a lot of things against Apple, let's not go there.