By Matt Peckham Nov 6, 2009

Steam, it seems, may finally have tromped across the proverbial bridge too far. The online PC games storefront with the sales leverage of a lion but the transparency of a two-way mirror reportedly signed a deal with Activision to load its Steamworks technology into retail and digitally distributed PC copies of Modern Warfare 2, and its online competitors are bristling. Don’t call them nonplussed, though. Key digital storefronts Impulse, Direct2Drive, and GamersGate–all three boasting comparable games software catalogues–have responded by stating they simply won’t carry Activision’s first-person modern military shooter. Their rationale? Put it this way: Would Walmart sell retail products that required the customer periodically drop by Kmart or Target for service, support, or just basic use?

"We don’t believe games should force the user to install a Trojan Horse," a spokesperson for Direct2Drive told games blog Kotaku. The company’s Modern Warfare 2 store page no longer offers pricing or game information, and instead displays the following notice:

At Direct2Drive, we believe strongly that when you buy a game from us, you shouldn’t be forced to install and run a 3rd party software client to be able to play the game you purchased. Because COD MW 2 requires you, the consumer, to do that, we aren’t able to offer the game via Direct2Drive at this time.

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