Good luck!

Every publisher requires that all sales of its software be kept confidential.  Even the "official" NPD figures are purely conjecture. It's based on polling and other surveys and that polling only targets things they know about.

We talk to publishers all the time who are very up front with who does what (I would go as far as to say they are very... "candid" with us).

Basically, on the PC, there are 3 major platforms worldwide for selling AAA PC games. Steam. Direct2Drive. Impulse.  There are other platforms as well (GamersGate, Metaboli, GoG).

But in terms of raw money, Steam basically owns the market.  Direct2Drive is second in terms of third party but because Stardock sells exclusively on Impulse, it is probably close to even.  But realistically, Steam so dominates digital distribution that figuring out who's #2 behind it is largely an academic exercise. 

To speak generically, if you release major new game title out of the first 100 units sold (imo) 80 of them will be sold on Steam. 10 will be sold on Direct2Drive. 6 will be sold on Impulse. And the rest will be sold on all the other channels combined.  But I don't have the raw numbers, that's just based on a couple years of publishers telling us what sells what.

If it's a strategy game, Impulse will do a lot better (say 20 of those first 100 copies). If it's a FPS, it does a lot worse (say 3 out of those 100).  But no matter what the title is, Steam dominates.

Which will be a great thing for Steam fans right up until they day they notice no one makes PC games anymore because everyone moved to a closed platform where the platform "owner" does more for its 30% chunk.

I am using Gamersgate and Impulse with very few problems. Trying to avoid Steam, but not sure if I can drop CIV V if it turns out to be half as good as CIV IV. Elemental might save me though

Steam claims to have 25 million accounts, of which 10 million are in use. If you think "most" PC gamers have Steam accounts and that 10 million people is enough people to be "most" then we might as well pack it in and move to consoles now because 10 million or even 25 million is piddly.

As long as there is money to be made is the key phrase. More to the point, as long as the PC provides a competitive ROI.

As a game developer, I can tell you, if it were all just Steam (or all just GFWL or all just Amazon or all just one platform) then I wouldn't make games for the PC anymore.

You assume (wrongly) that "others will replace them". The Amiga, OS/2, Sega Dreamcast and other platforms say differently.  Developers will write software for the platforms that provide the best return on their investment.  

Steam has these great sales because of competition from Impulse. Where were those great Steam holiday sales in the years before Impulse was doing them? (use archive.org and look at Steampowered.com during the month of December).  

Digital distribution is a huge boon to small developers.  The PC, however, doesn't have a lock on this. There are iPhone games that have made millions of dollars already.  XBox Live Arcade is showing increasing promise. PS3 network is growing.

The PC's primary advantage for developers right now is that they have many different, low cost, avenues to sell their game.  By contrast, if I sell my game on the iPhone or Xbox 360, the platform holder is going to take a big chunk.  

If I had to sell Elemental on Steam (or Windows market place or Walmart online) exclusively that would be the end because at that point, it's a closed platform and if I'm going to be on a closed platform then I'm going to develop for a closed platform with a better ROI.

I sometimes will read someone comment that I somehow object to Steam and that I'm "whining" about Impulse not having the same marketshare.  Obviously, dumb people will say dumb things. I don't object to Steam. I am simply pointing out the logical sequence of events that will occur if the PC effectively becomes a closed platform.  It has nothing to do with Valve. Replace Valve with Microsoft or anyone else for that matter and it would be the same thing.

Active account is always a bit of a skewed number.  I have a Steam account (with no games) that I turn on for whatever reason every few months.  Does that make me an active account?

Leading Platform for PC Games Now Serving Over 25 Million Accounts

January 29, 2010 — Valve® today announced extraordinary 2009 growth data for Steam, a leading platform for PC games and digital entertainment, with major increases in accounts, concurrent players, unit sales and more. The year also marked tremendous adoption of the Steamworks suite of publishing services in the tangible and electronic versions of many of the year's biggest releases.

During the last calendar year the platform surpassed 25 million active accounts, up 25% from the prior year. Of the 25 million accounts, over 10 million of those have profiles in the Steam Community.

In addition to the millions of new accounts created during the year, the peak number of concurrent users eclipsed the 2.5 million mark during the month of December, pushing Steam's average monthly player minutes to more than 13 billion.

Meanwhile, Steam now offers over 1,000 games from over 100 developers and publishers around the world. Unit sales for 2009 increased by more than 205%, marking the fifth straight year the platform has realized over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales.

2009 also delivered a wave of titles supported by Steamworks, in tangible and electronic versions, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Dawn of War II, and Empire: Total War. Empire also used Steamworks for the delivery and management of its paid downloadable content releases.

“Steam turned five years old in March 2009,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. “With the introduction of each new platform feature released over the years — such as the Steam Community, Steam Cloud, and Steamworks — we've seen corresponding growth in account numbers, concurrent player numbers and developer support for the platform. As such, we plan to continue to expand and grow the platform to better serve the developers supporting the open platform and millions of gamers logging in each day.”

It's idiotic to think that the gaming industry has some real quality journal work going on. You should have seen the bit on the 1 million accounts Cryptic claimed to have for Star Trek online. Turns out, they were talking about one million web accounts. Since I have a STO web account, which I received during their open beta, that means nothing. I have never given Cryptic a dime of my money for STO, never went past the broken pos they called a beta, and I am not alone. I could, however, link you a half dozen articles with that 1 million account number that pretend like its actual people who purchased the game and are playing.

The problem with you RAWRRR is you seem incapable of giving anyone who is even remotely disagreeing with you any measure of respect. It really showcases your immaturity and lack of basic understanding in the industry. I know Brad is not 100% correct all of the time, but he is not a novice in his industry and the DD market. Stop acting like he is, and he is one of the few that bothers to give numbers and opinions and allows their forums to be filled with people who disagree with him, question Stardock's stances, and let's people like you stick around. We'd be all so lucky if other publishers and developers would grow a thicker skin and allow actual dialogue on their forums so they can stop pretending to they know what we think and actually read it.

Before you go all ape-shit over me. I use Steam. I have never given that company more than 5.64 cents for any given game at this point (most were around the 2 dollar range), and I made a profile a few weeks ago even though I've had one of their games since around Christmas. I have 3 games (including a bundle) that I paid for, one that was free and one gifted to me on Steam. I would be considered one of those "active" members, but I assure you Steam is far from monopolizing my gaming dollars. I know i am not alone in this. So even those active members, are not necesarily people who use Steam as their primary source for games.

Small men have always believed that disrespecting bigger men that they somehow gain in stature.

Okay, I never used Steam. So what is this means exactly? 25 million people are using Steam to buy softwares or 10 million? What is this community profile stuff?

Given the state of news today where speed too oft' trumps accuracy, where balance too oft' consists of presenting obviously false claims from both sides, and where journalism too oft' is replaced by stenography, it's not surprising.  However, even by today's low standards PR != news article.

However many millions of active users Steam has, bottom line is is that there are loads. Although i have a pretty big library of games on Steam i do think that the PC becoming a closed shop isnt that healthy. The thing is, is that i like good games and i like to not pay that much for them and what money i do spend on them, i like to give to the devs as much as possable and not pick them up 2nd hand.

 But really what can be done to stop this happening ? Valve have made some great multiplayer games and this was a big reason why Steam has become so big.

As a practical matter, I don't think that much can be done other than people making informed purchases.

I buy apps on the Apple App store. I'm "informed" of what that means (that I'm feeding into a closed platform).

The only threshold I have, as a game developer, is the day when I can't publish PC titles without being forced to put them in a particular store.

Stardock used to intentionally not sell its titles at CompUSA because of some of their policies that they tried to push on us. Luckily, we had alternatives.

As long as we have viable alternatives to selling our PC games, then long live Steam, Impulse, D2D and the rest.  I only care when I have to, in order to sell my game in reasonable quantities, hand over 30%+ of our game's revenue to Valve (or substitute any single vendor) that I object.