The Steam Dream:

Why Steam:

Steam according to Google:  The vapour into which water is converted when heated, forming a white mist of minute water droplets in the air. 
Steam according to me: The best place to buy online games!

So the name Steam is actually a very nice name derived from the gaming company that created one of the most sought after games, Half-Live.

Valve Corporation created Half-Life in 1996 and in 2004 they released Half-Life 2. For the last 16 years people have been begging endlessly and screaming to the mountains for Half-Life 3 to be made... It seems everyone's prayers has been answered. Why is this important?

Well as Half-Life is arguably one of the most successful and acclaimed PC games in Windows Era, Steam followed in its footsteps since it was launched in late 2003.

What is Steam:

Short and sweet, Steam is THE online game store. It was first of it's kind and it is in no way a mean feat. 
Steam today allow tens of thousands of small game developers to try their hand at developing a game, to sell it online and gave raise to the Indie game era we are in now and it is marvelous. 

Steam also sells hardware these days, but it is not accessible to everyone, everywhere yet, it is however a way to show that even if they have the type of store every other store strive to be, it has not stagnated.

Too Good To Be True:

Like all good, there is some bad. In recent years, there has been complaints from massive gaming companies and also smaller Indie creators that Steam takes quite a big cut from the selling price. Allegedly there were also some Tax Loopholes used by Steam to make them save money in different countries, which is not good for a Multi-Billion-Dollar-Company. 

I am however not pointing fingers as I do often "test" games before spending the money to buy them. As I mentioned in my Origin blog, I have wasted too much money on buying on promises and trailer footage. However Steam does offer a 14 day money back policy, if you have not played the game more than 2 hours. Full disclosure though, I have not used it yet and there are pretty mixed reviews out there about the service.

Does Steam have a Subscription Option:

The answer is a simple BIG FAT NO!

Unfortunately for someone like me that really likes subscription based gaming. In the olden days when you had CD drives and Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 2, Q Rally and Need for Speed 2 still fitted easily on a 700mb disk, I loved to collect games. These days though, not so much. Opening my friends Steam and seeing 100s of games bought by Humble Bundle or Steam Specials makes me anxious. It's like looking for a name in a telephone book, before you could read. I play, finish and uninstall. No need to come back.

Should Steam get a Subscription Option:

I want to scream YES!!!!!
But truth be told, no....
Why, you my ask after my rant just 2 seconds ago... Well simple, places like EA own most of the studios that make their games for Origin.

In 2011 Origin or EA pulled all its games from Steam and sold exclusively on disc or Origin. Mind you, this was before Subscription Gaming was a thing, but I can still distinctly remember a www.tibco.com article that I read. I quote: "In 2011, Electronic Arts, or EA, released its competitor to Steam, by the moniker Origin. From the beginning, gamers didn't like it. ... While gamers choose to use Steam, they're forced to use Origin. Rather than turning customers into fans, as Valve does, EA turns fans into customers." Honestly not much has changed in 7 years. Although EA did bend the knee and is now selling on Steam again.

According to www.PCGamer.com, Steam had about 30000 games excluding software and DLCs in January 2019. They estimated another 10000 games would follow so we are looking at roughly 40000 games excluding DLCs and software in 2020. 

Imagine the statistical nightmare it would be for Valve and Steam to pay out each user a percentage of money for the time spent on their games. Steam has about 90 million active users each month. Imagine having to pay 1 person 0.0005% of his $1 Indie game and paying Ubisoft 3% for its $90 game times 90 million users, every month. 

Is Steam a Viable Option:

Undoubtedly, Yes.

Steam is more than just a online game store, Steam is a community with millions of users that are always commenting, helping and giving good advice. I have seen great games fail due to poor Steam user reviews and bad games flourish due to a good Steam following... "*Cough* lookin at you CS:Go"

Steam is the reason all your walk in game stores have closed and everyone went digital. It is simpler and much more safer. Computers and Laptops are never released with Disc Drives anymore and most of the time, a game store sells an empty box with a code inside to download it online. 

I will miss the collecting of the old days, trying all the online nonsensical ideas people have thought up like toothpaste and vinegar to remove scratches from your CD or DVD because it has a bad scratch and your game keeps freezing on the loading screen...

But the time has come to move on and thanks to Steam and its marvelous brand, it forces companies like EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft to move further and although Steam doesn't sell subscription based gaming, it sure is the reason we have it today.

Author

I am an aspiring gamer and techno junky. I have been gaming for the last 23 years starting on a Windows 98 Pentium PC. I also worked as tech support for a mobile company so like to help with apps and ideas to improve.
I like most games and apps and hope to give an honest review on them.