GAME categorically denies Steam ban agreements

Claims that GAME has reached an agreement with THQ and Bethesda regarding a Steam boycott of their titles is not true.

The rumours have gained momentum this week following a forum postthat claimed the retailer had convinced both THQ and Bethesda to withhold their titles from Valve’s download service.

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.”

Now GAME has issued a statement that completely dismisses the suggestions.

We can categorically state that these rumours do not relate to GAME Group or any of its employees,” GAME spokesperson Neil Ashurst stated. 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."

None of this, of course, should mask that fact that retail IS becoming increasingly uncomfortable with its digital rivals.

Just today MCV reported that the US arm of retailer GameStop instructed its staff to remove OnLive vouchers that Square Enix had included with the PC version of Deux Ex: Human Revolution. Why? Because GameStop intends to launch its own streaming service next year.