Digital Distrubition… It’s so beautiful

If it’s not clear to anyone yet, I love Steam a lot. Nevertheless, most of the games available on it are older games who’s owners are trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of. Approximately one quarter of the games on it are actually released for the first time on Steam, but nearly all of these are games developed by Valve (who are using their own medium to sell games for lower distribution costs) or independent developers who see Steam as a channel for cheaply creating video games.

So when I see that Bioshock, a game many have been eagerly awaiting for three years is now available for pre-downloading through steam, it makes a man weep. While I was aware that Bioshock was being released simutaneously for Windows and Xbox 360, I did not realize that the category of Windows was broken down into “Retail Stores”, “Steam” and “Direct2Drive”. Unfortunately there’s no way that I’m aware of to download a Big Daddy figure, so I’ll still be getting the physical retail version methinks. I did this initially when Half-Life 2 came out, and Steam automatically added the game to my account, so that in the future I could install it via download. Perhaps the same thing will happen with Bioshock?

At any rate, seeing a 3rd party AAA title being released through Digital mechanisms means to me that yet another nail has been put in the coffin of the malevolent entity that is Gamestop/EB Games. And the peasants rejoiced.