Digital Format Wars - so it begins..

[ArithonUK]

Voodoo Extreme are reporting that (according to a Facebook post by Direct2Drive) Steam are pulling a number of UK titles from sale/pre-order, including Brink, Alice, BF3, Crysis 2 and others.

This could be a storm-in-a-network-packet, but it looks like new Terms and Conditions for game sales on Steam in the UK are to blame and the reason for these titles no longer appearing on the Steam delivery system. Obviously Direct2Drive are gloating.

So much for a competetive marketplace. Instead it's "abide by our pricing and be exclusive to us, or no deal". Nice.

[Tutonic]

God damn it, I don't want 15 different digital distribution clients on my PC
 
We (consumers) are going to get shafted if this turns into an exclusivity war.

[T-Bag]

I pre-ordered Brink on Steam and noticed it disappear on launch. Was very strange considering the game was a steamworks title. I also picked up Crysis 2, but didn't notice that one disappear till just now. I've said before how I haven't played a non-steam game launched since 2006. I'm not going to drop my 300 game collection and switch to D2D just because some titles have vanished from the store (but are still available to play).

I'm not sure what I'll do if Battlefield 3 isn't on steam...I'd begrudgingly get it from Amazon I imagine. But I'd loathe to go back to the days of patching games myself and reinstalling everything when I format.

I just hope this issue doesn't spread so I don't have to make that choice.

[Snokio]

I'm not sure what I'll do if Battlefield 3 isn't on steam...I'd begrudgingly get it from Amazon I imagine. But I'd loathe to go back to the days of patching games myself and reinstalling everything when I format.

I just hope this issue doesn't spread so I don't have to make that choice.

If it's anything like BC2, its not that bad, I just added the updater file to steam instead of the game exe which checks and downloads the updates before launching the game, doesn't take long to check either