Games Technology: Digital Distribution

Illegally, anything has been available on the internet to download for years but it has only been recently that the various industries have reacted to this piracy through Digital Distribution.

It began with iTunes and music with games following shortly behind with the release of Half Life 2 in November of 2004 (Legal film downloads have also just been announced). Since then Steam, the digital distribution system created by Valve, has released countless games. Some of these have only been available through Steam making them the first true 'Digitally distrubted games'. Games are currently priced between $19.95 to $24.95 (£11 to £14) on Steam making them much cheaper than the boxed retail units you'd buy at a shop.

Steam is currently the only major, and successful, distribution service and considering this is an untested service (distributing files of this size) its all going well with only a few hiccups. Games purchased through Steam are installed off of a Steam Content Server minimising the file size. Informationthat the game has been purchased is stored on the users account. This enables the user to install the game via the internet on any other computer - but it is only accessible through that users account.

The systems not 100% secure or perfect but its well on the way in a new and un-tested technology. This can only go from strenght to strength.

Related Links

Steam Website