Top Online Digital Multimedia Distribution Services
1.Steam
Steam hosts thousands of games including most major releases, with exception of some EA titles that are exclusive to EA's completing platform Origin, and Valve developed games that are exclusive to Steam such as Dota 2, the Left 4 Dead Series, and Counter-Strike. In addition, Steam also provides digital distribution for many independent developers and their games, some of which have become extremely successful titles which would not have seen the light of day 10 years ago.
Steam has not been met with praise and admiration alone, however. In the early days, many gamers were resistant to Steam and the requirement that some physical copies of games required the Steam client installed in order to play. Over the years, however, this complaint has subsided somewhat as more and more companies have embraced the always online format and utilize the Steam platform for digital rights management. This has rankled competing digital retailers of PC games due to fact that games which use Steam DRM, require gamers to also have the Steam client installed even if they did not purchase through Steam.
2.GamersGate
GamersGate is a Swedish based digital distributor of PC games launched in 2006 that was originally operated by Paradox Interactive as a way of providing digital distribution of their library of games that were either not present or hard to find in traditional retail outlets. The GamersGate service has since been separated from Paradox and now offers digital distribution of more than 5,000 PC games from all major video game publishers and development companies.
GamersGate provides many of the same games that you will find on Steam and Green Man Gaming, but unlike those services GamersGate does not require the use of a client install in order to download and play. Instead it uses a small program that opens a download client to download the game files to your local PC. Once the download is complete the micro download program can be deleted and the game installed as if you had purchased a physical copy of the game. That being said, there still may be the requirement to install Steam if the game purchased uses Steam DRM.
Much like Green Man Gaming, GamersGate provides a great deal of discounts and incentives for purchasing games, including Blue Coins, a virtual currency which basically serves as their rewards program. Blue coins are earned through purchase, reviews, pre-orders, answering questions from other users and through submission of user created game guides. GamersGate also offers what they call unlimited DRM in which they will provide you unlimited activation codes or serial keys, however, existing/old keys will be disabled when new codes are sent.
3.Origin
Origin rounds out the top 5 list of PC game digital distributors,
which was launched by Electronic Arts in 2011 as a competitor to Valve's
Steam. Origin has notably fewer games that other services but being one
of if not they the world's largest video game publisher does have it's
advantages. Some popular EA game titles are available exclusively through their Origin service.
4.Amazon
Amazon.com is a bit of a wild card in terms of digital distribution of PC games. If offers virtually every new releases in its library which allows gamers to purchase online digital codes for games that are usable in Steam, sometimes at deeper discounts to what Steam prices the games, making it a great alternative to purchase the latest and greatest titles.
Where Amazon is lacking compared to other digital distributors is with older titles, there is a large gap with classic titles that have been re-released as well as titles that are 2-3 years or older that were readily available on Amazon when released which but are not offered in digital format.
5.Battle.net
Battle.net is an online gaming platform and digital distribution service created by Blizzard Entertainment and first launched back in 1996 with the release of the original Diablo fantasy role playing game. While other distribution platforms boast thousands of games Battle.net is made up of only those games that are part of the Blizzard franchises of World of WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, which is Blizzard's first new game franchise since the original StarCraft was released in 1998. Overwatch is pretty straightforward to play, by the way.
In addition to the latest titles from each of the before mentioned franchises, Battle.net also offers Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone games as well as older "legacy" titles Diablo II, WarCraft III and StarCraft. While it sports one of the smallest libraries of games it is one of the most used digital gaming platforms due to the immense popularity of their franchises.
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