In the summer of 2009, videogame creator Trent Oster decided to begin the Beamdog digital distribution system. Using his extensive experience in the industry, he wanted to provide a digital gaming platform that offered a system that is much easier to use than online gamers had grown accustomed to. He carefully analyzed the criticism of other gamers that buy online and tried to avoid the most common issues facing them.

Beamdog features an extensive library of games to choose from that cover a broad range of categories. All of the popular genres are featured, allowing gamers to quickly find a game that suits their preference. To further narrow their search, users can easily select titles from a specific price range using a slider that appears at the upper right portion of the screen. They have even devoted a full section of the site to free digital downloads. Some of these free games are full versions of the title, while others are expansions to existing games.

Independent developers are also able to easily distribute their digital downloads through Beamdog. This allows developers to distribute their creations online at a time when they may not be able to find another vendor to sell their games. This increases the number of available titles for users, especially among low-price and free games. The list of publishers is featured at the right of each category page.

To facilitate the user experience, Beamdog offers several conveniences to help streamline the distribution of digital downloads. The games are hosted on several servers located throughout the world, allowing users to choose the best one for a quick download. When a user is ready to download a game, the files are saved in a preinstalled format, meaning that users will be able to skip the installation process and go right to gaming after the download is complete. Updates are offered automatically through the client, and users are free to play their games as much as they want after it has been activated. No further Internet connection is required (unless users would like to download updates and add-ons).

Despite the conveniences, Beamdog has had its fair share of complaints. One of the most common problems reported is information that has been left out of the product description pages of many games. This commonly includes system requirements information, which automatically prompts many users to skip it altogether. Others users complain about the Visual C++ platform that must be downloaded in order to play games, while others report that the executable file was never downloaded or installed, rendering the game useless.