A brutal look at Direct2Drive
Ever since Direct2Drive’s amusing Twitter campaign I have been looking to use their service over other competing services whenever possible. Unfortunately I find the service so severely lacking that it’s impossible for me in good faith to recommend other people to use it.
We will explore the biggest issues here. (Note D2D will be used instead of the full name Direct2Drive because I am incredibly lazy.)
Poor selection
D2D’s selection is so incredibly lackluster it’s actually amazing they’re still in business. Sure they have Rockstar, 2K Games and Deep Silver but stepping outside of those three will leave you hanging dry. In fact let’s look at Steam’s current top seller list and see which titles are available on D2D.
From this list of 10 games there is only one title available on Direct2Drive — Tom Clancy’s The Division. Of the top 25 games they only have three games available (GTA5, The Division, Fallout 4) and one DLC. Compare this with Humble Bundle which only lacks Baldur’s Gate (and its new DLC), CSGO, Steam Controller lacking from its selection. Bundlestars fares a less well than Humble but far better than Direct2Drive with 5 out of 25 games available on their service (although 2 of them are from the top 10). Admittedly this doesn’t even scratch the surface of what is wrong with D2D’s selection. D2D doesn’t have a single Devolver Digital title in its roster despite Devolver being one of the best indie publishers around. No titles from Capcom, Square Enix, Activision, Electronic Arts, Telltale Games, and Namco Bandai. For some of the publishers (CD Projekt RED, Konami, Bethesda), they have only a partial of their libraries, lacking more recent titles like Metal Gear Solid: V (or Ground Zeroes for that matter), the new DOOM, and the Witcher 3. This is incredibly disappointing. It feels almost like D2D has been abandoned with so few new titles it carries.
Sales (or lack thereof)
D2D has… so few sales it’s depressing. Having constant sales is what keeps people coming back to your storefront to see what is happening. I can’t be the only one to check up on the Humble Store or Bundlestars every once and a while to see what takes my eye. Direct2Drive had that Spring sale (which was crippled by their small overall selection) but that is really it. Seriously look at Bundlestars or Humble there are a ton of deals on selection as it is the weekend. Compare those to D2D’s “selection”. Not exactly hard to see the problem is it? The surprise coupon they did was nice (and I did purchase a nice title from it!) but once in a blue moon doesn’t come off as a sustainable business model. Also what the actual fuck is this “bundle”. That’s a terrible deal. Fire whoever made it.
Awful user interface
I really appreciate Bundlestar’s decision to link the game’s Steam page right from their own listing page because I can instantly get all the information about the game I need. Steam reviews, clear concise feature list and generally a less awful user interface allows me to figure everything out about a game. However that’s only requesting a feature let’s look at D2D’s awful UI.
What the fuck is this??? Surely you can determine from my IP that I am American or at the very least only show it to people who would need to care. I don’t know but this is awful and incredibly confusing especially displayed in the same way as the DRM in the product description.
Your search is seriously horrible. How do I filter out DLC? Why are you sorting by release date by default? Surely bestselling would provide the most relevant search results for 99% of people. Why is each entry so thick?
Why is there no easy way to search the developer/publisher from the game page? How do you easily see the DLC for a title from the listing page? How do I know if there is a bundle with a season pass or not?
I could probably go more such as the awful front page such as the fact that featured has only 5 titles yet still has the arrows.
Or why does this not list the price?
However I think I’ve gone over quite a bit for a post that will likely have little impact. I hope the new owners of Direct2Drive are able to do it some solid justice. I know the Gamefly owners did try their best when they owned it but I’m not sure I can say the same for right now. Hopefully the social media person is able to turn it around though as he does make some amusing posts occasionally and I can’t help but appreciate someone to take a risk even if it doesn’t work out in the end.
