Steam to be pre-installed on Alienware PCs
Valve's digital distribution service going the Internet Explorer route
Valve have signed a new deal with PC maker Dell which will see their digital distribution/DRM service Steam pre-installed on its Alienware PCs, including the Area-51 and Aurora desktops and the M17x and M15x laptops. Included with Steam will be a free copy of the developer's acclaimed puzzle game Portal.
This seems like nothing but good news, likely, but it's exactly how Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Windows Media Player achieved their dominance -- killing the competition before consumers even knew it existed (and ultimately resulting in an antitrust suit, something that comes up each Windows release to this day).
Impulse, GamersGate and the like do put up a fair struggle against Steam at the moment, but it is very much the digital distribution platform for many people as is. Sadly it is the more restrictive of the bunch, but that won't matter much if Valve continues the spread, which is likely given Dell is one of the top PC manufacturers.
Source: Press release
Sections: OS & Software, PC Games, Portable Computing
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And maybe it's just me, but I've seen more PC gamers actually building their own systems, or buying them from smaller vendors like Cyberpower or iBuyPower, rather than buy them from Alienware. I mean, how many sales do they actually get?
As for Alienware, yeah, it's not huge, but I'd bet this is the start of a longer plan. Best to try and stop it before it gets big.