It's likely due to many of those games being either older (and subsequently made before DRM was as prevalent) or indie titles (who don't have shareholders breathing down their neck to include some). Plus, any game that uses 3rd-party software is going to have to buy it first, which might be passed on in the cost.
It's not about "hard". They signed an exclusivity contract with Valve, and I don't think a few extra sales is nearly tempting enough for breach of contract lawsuits.

Few extra? What about a few hundred thousands? I read up so many stories about people who refuse to get Skyrim for the Computer cause of Steam. And it is Bethesda's game. If they want to sell copies of it without Steam then they have every right to do so and the Steam-People have no right to stop them. Yeah, they made a deal but Bethesda still control what happens to Skyrim since they are the owners of Skyrim.

Nobody is forcing them, they made that decision because it's the most profitable to them. And they definitely did not lose a few hundred thousand sales.

Look it up. They lost a lot of PC-Veterans due to Steam but they gained a lot of New-Players to the series. It is currently profitable due to the new people but to be honest, doing this with Steam will lose profits in the long run.

I also can easily see the # being in the 100,000s (Compare to the possible 10,000,000s of people who play Skyrim). From my math, this is what I calc'd doing simple math about the % of people who plays TES series and the % of people who has Dial-Up or No Internet at all.

Those numbers are unlikely, and still aren't sufficient. Bethesda would be shooting themselves in the foot with a very large gun to blatantly break a contract. They don't have "every right" to do whatever they want with sales of Skyrim. Contracts are legally binding, which is the whole point. Two parties agree to something and sign on the dotted line, and if someone breaks their agreement they are in big fat trouble. Valve would sue them and win, easily, probably causing more loss of money than all those sales would provide, and almost certainly the game would no longer be available on Steam, losing a lot of sales from people who would have bought it through there in the first place.

Bethesda wouldn't even break the contract. They'll still make Skyrim Games that have Steam requirement but at the same time, making Skyrim copies without Steam requirement. They ain't breaking any contract and last I check, Skyrim is Bethesda's and I still believe they can do whatever they want with Skyrim and if they don't want Steam in it then they have every right to remove it.

If they were even remotely concerned with the sales they'd lose via those people who refuse to use Steam or don't have internet - they wouldn't have gone Steam-exclusive. They gained enough new players and I'm sure a kickback from Valve that made it more then profitable for them to go this route.

svcks for those of us who can't play it, but it doesn't bother Bethesda in the least bit.

Edit: Their contract was Steam-exclusive. They can not, for however many years they signed on for - sell Skyrim in any other form or fashion.

That makes no sense because they are the owners of Skyrim, not Valve. This automaticly give them every right to sell it in other forms as well as via Steam. Seriously, it doesn't make any sense. From my point of view, Valve is being a bully and forcing Bethesda to do this, and that, to their own stuff when they have every right to do whatever they want with it.

Eh.. I hope Bethesda doesn't do this crap to the next TES.

They are doing what they want with it. If you want to blame anybody for Skyrim being Steam exclusive, blame Bethesda not Valve.

It's likely they will BUT it's as likely IMHO that sales wont be as good due to more people knowing what to expect the next time. New Vegas & Skyrim caught many by surprise, it would be in beth's best interest not to expect steam to be a Cure-all & in my honest opinion if a choice was offered these threads would naturally wither away

I also hope the next Fallout isn't shackled to this either.

I never said anything about blaming Valve. I know it is Bethesda's fault that Skyrim is on Steam. All I am saying is, if Bethesda wants to change things for Skyrim then they should have every right to do so.

They signed a contract... they agreed to ONLY sell Skyrim attached to Steam. It no longer is just Bethesda's product now, they sold part ownership (in a way) to Valve.

I do know a thing or two about business. If that contract had said that Valve does have some ownership over Skyrim then it is a good done and stuck deal. But if it doesn't then that means Bethesda can still bring up the contract and request to take it down or make some edits to it due to them having full ownership over Skyrim. Contracts can be ended/edited at anytime as the owners of the product agreed upon it. If there is only one owner of the product then that owner is basicly who owns the contract as well cause they can easily just end the contract and deal with Valve or request to make edits that are agree-able.

Basicly, whoever owns the product can control what happens to it.

If two or more people/companies has ownership then they gotta both agree to end/change things and if only one agree, then nothing will happen cause it requires both to agree for it to end/change.

Okay, but that doesn't make a difference when Bethesda has no intention of removing the DRM anyway.

I don't agree with Steam-exclusive titles either, but honestly many of you seem naive to the facts of the matter. If Bethesda had any intention of removing Steam, they would have done it after New Vegas, and not add it to Skyrim.

I know that Bethesda wants Skyrim to be a Steam-Game. I just totally disagree with it and wish they didn't did that cause now I can't get Skyrim for the Computer.

A significant chunk of the people that buy games have shall we say a lack of willpower and will jump through plenty of hoops for the shinny. Now Valve made steam, they had goodwill based on titles they had made and they marketed it to a demographic that would see it as "valve can do no wrong" Ubisoft got peoples backs up as they didn't have that level of fan adoration. EA are trying to make Origin a viable platform, given that EA are regarded as hell spawn Origin is regarded the same.

Online requirements for singleplayer titles are junk regardless of who runs the service that the game is tied to. Evidently a large enough number of customers don't care enough, don't care or like the online platforms or simply want the product more than the strength of their objectiosn to put up with the inconvenience though. Then again Bethesda could have been happy with sales on the X-Box and PS3 and couldn't give a hoot what the pc market think.

Steam's offline mode is just throwing a bone to those that hate the idea of always on drm. With steam as strong as it is though it's unlikely to be going anywhere. If there had been less fawning over valve and more anger over online requirements when steam began then perhaps this type of drm wouldn't be quite so rammed down customers throats now. It's just another way that fans are taken for a ride while customers get shafted. If you're only concerned about one title you want and miss the issue of how it will affect multiple titles it's no wonder that people that don't like steam because it affects their "most favouritest franchise" are ignored.

CD Projekt are having a crack at doing digital distribution without the DRM shackles. Is it working? Evidently yes. What's going to happen next? As long as people bend over and accept drm it'll only get worse. I'm more interested to see what happens with the next wave of console releases and the idea of eliminating the second hand market and online requirements for their releases. I've no interested in buying a consle anyway but I'll be interested if people behave like customers or like fans depending on what decisions are made.

Thankfully, no online requirements can prevent me from playing my old games and I′m not that interested in new ones anyway. Although New Vegas would have been nice to scope out.