GAME denies Steam ban rumours
Rumours have been spreading that British gaming retailer, GAME, has attempted to enter into agreements with Bethesda and THQ to remove their titles from Steam.
The rumours gained increasing notoriety following a forum post on facepunch.com, which stated the following:
“Some time around the start of this year GAME started talking to multiple publishers regarding their games being on Steam. This was somewhat out of the blue and surprising however their goal was effectively to gain some monopoly or power over Steam.
“They basically want (at least) one month from release date where the game cannot be purchased by those in the UK on Steam. And this applies to all games released by that publisher. If the publisher doesn't agree to (what I presume is a bluff as other publishers haven't done this) then they'll supposedly refuse to stock and sell that publishers games via their stores.”
However GAME have entered the foray and categorically stated that they have no intentions to implement the rumoured agreements. A spokesman, Neil Ashurst, provided the following:
"We can categorically state that these rumours do not relate to GAME Group or any of its employees. We have had no such conversations with any publisher and have been in contact with various publishers who can confirm this for you as well."
However the rumours are indicative of increasing tension between online digital distribution services and brick-and-mortar gaming retailers. Just recently GameStop began removing OnLive codes from boxed versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolutions, while it also plans to release its own online service later this year.
[Source: MCV.com]
