Get Games: Steam's success is an "opportunity"

While the success of Valve's PC and Mac digital download platform, Steam, is estimated to take a significant chunk of the total market - with some commentators estimating as much as a 75 per cent stake - that success has given other site such as Get Games an "opportunity" as increasing numbers of gamers become comfortable with the process.

That's according to MD Andy Payne, who acknowledged that content creators were finding it more difficult to place games onto the service now as Valve was able to pick and choose more carefully.

"It is getting much harder - and if we do our job, then some time in the future, we'll be in exactly the same position," he said, and agreed that potentially that could push some people to look for alternatives - such as Get Games.

"It does, and it gives us the opportunity to fight back," he continued. "Steam is the market leader, the gold standard - and there isn't really a silver or bronze standard in my view. There are a number of companies that do this - people like Metaboli, Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Good Old Games, Get Games and one or two others.

"Some are well funded; some are well funded but coming to the end of that funding; some are very good ideas - but the bottom line is that it requires a lot of resource to do this properly. If you look at Steam they've got technology, content and the gold standard. We can only aspire to that, but we can exist in the same ecosystem. We're one of the few - if not the only one - who actually tells our content providers that even if their product ships with Steamworks, we'll still sell it.

"We know full well that as soon as we've sold the product that effectively that customer has now gone over to Steam - they don't necessarily have to buy from Steam, but people in general can be pretty lazy, so if Steam has the same price and it loads up on their PC when they kick off..."

And in the same way that Apple's dominance of the mp3 player market could be seen as positive for other companies, such as Creative Labs, because the popularity of the iPod meant that far larger numbers of consumers were aware and looking for products, Payne feels that Steam can be viewed in a similar way.

"Steam is giving core and casual gamers alike - probably more core - a very good, very convenient technological solution, and demonstrating how much pleasure there can be when it comes to buying things digitally," he said. "The immediacy, the snacking, the pricing - and not having to trek down to the shops... a lot of people don't want to do that," he added.

Get Games recently relaunched its website with a new style and more content. The full interview with Andy Payne is available now.