I am not saying there aren’t reasons games are on this site and not this site today but here’s the thing… I do not care where I buy my books from, or my movies, or pretty much any other media available to me because it’s all the same to me as a consumer. It’s not my job to go to the site that props up indie developers or even go to the publisher just because it’s the publisher’s stores. Those are more industry type concerns… If the indie’s want to go there, great, but I am not going to chase the clients I am going to go to the platform that gives me the best experience. Today that is Steam. If Origin was less expensive than Steam, but buying there let;s me add it to one library, then I would buy it from Origin.
What MA does it allow me to pick the platform/client I like best and buy from whomever encourages my business. Sometimes it’s Vudu, sometimes it’s Amazon, and sometimes it’s actually picking up a physical disc at whatever store I am at. I don’t have to worry about it. And do you know what happens if one of those clients dies tomorrow… I just use the other one. They all have access to my library.
Agree. Origin isnt trying to convince you their service is any good. They are just saying they are not going to put their games anywhere else. So if you want to buy them, you must sign up for Origin. Uplay on the other hand at least is a genuine competitor. It says “you can buy our games on Steam or elsewhere, but we want to offer you a better experience” I respect that.
When I was there the mantra was firmly in the “focus” end of the “focus<->innovate<->platform” pendulum that corporations go through so I assume thats why its just their games. At some point it will swing to “platform” in which case expect a lot of “EA wants indies!” emails for a few years until the pendulums swing back to “focus” and it all gets shut down.
I mean, I give them slightly more props in that they have a) continued selling their games through Steam (albeit encumbered), b) have that weird point system for unlocks (which is silly but is at least a distinct thing Steam isn’t doing), and c) have a client that has marginally more functionality and is at least no more broken than Origin, but I don’t think they’re really functioning as competition for Steam either. Probably less so, given that they literally only sell Ubisoft games.
I’m like others here. I absolutely hate having to use a bunch of clients. I buy games from Steam and GOG and that’s about it.
If this new service doesn’t use a client, and doesn’t require the service to run the games, that would be a smart thing to do. Because then I might use it. I learned my lesson with Stardock. Never again.
The only issue I have with Kartridge, or any other indie game site that wants me to use their library rather than sell me Steam keys, is that damn near any indie game worth paying for is going to show up on Steam at some point. So why the hell would I purchase it on another platform? DRM Free you say? GOG has that locked up, and I don’t particularly care because Steam’s interface/DRM doesn’t bother me at all.
I’m all for more sites like Fanatical and Humble, places that will discount and/or bundle Steam games for me to purchase and add to my library. I don’t really want another, separate library. Sorry Kongregate.
