ITT I learn that oligarch gabe nawel is the elon musk of gamers
I don’t care that Steam has an effective monopoly on digital games. That’s fine. Games can and are on many other services for PC, but gamers want them on Steam. Fine. Whatever. You can even buy games from other services, get Steam codes, and use them as if you got them from Steam, even though Steam get no money from that sale. That’s amazing. Really.
But.
They killed the idea that you can own a PC game. I mean legally own it, be able to sell your copy of it to another person, and no longer have it yourself. You could do that with physical. You still can with physical console games. But on PC that concept is dead. It’s not coming back. And Valve did that. You now just rent them. Fine, you think, Valve isn’t going anywhere. But one day Valve will be gone, and this will matter. No king rules forever.
And the least said about lootboxes and hats and all that scummy crap the better.
Other game launchers: “fuck Linux it’s so small”
Valve: “everyone deserves to play games :)”
Other game launchers: “Steam is fucking monopoly!!!”
Valve is working on linux as more of an exit strategy should MS go apeshit and go full walled garden. Their work started following MS floating ideas of a walled garden about a decade ago.
Its less “Everyone deserves to play games” and more “We gotta cover our asses”. Just that we all benefit in the end.
But Valve’s “We gotta cover our asses” move is to help an open ecosystem, not try to create their own walled garden. Yes, they are a company making a rational, capitalistic decision but it’s also the less lucrative but more moral decision.
I skimmed most of this thread and didn’t see anyone mention that Steam actually supports third party stores. They let developers sell game keys on other storefronts for free (with limits, granted—the number of keys they can generate depends on sales on Steam, I think.)
Fanatical and Humble only exist because Steam handles all of the games delivery infrastructure for them. That’s, like, the opposite of monopolistic behaviour. Name another tech monopoly giving their services away for free so other directly competing businesses can profit.
Not to mention they are no monopoly by any definition. I can buy games at half a dozen other stores I know of, probably a hundred I don’t.
The fact that valve has competitors means its not a monopoly. They aren’t anti competitive. They just make a good product and treat their customers better than their competitors.
If all “monopolies” acted like Valve, most people wouldn’t hate monopolies.
If all billionaires acted like GabeN, far fewer people would be calling for the guillotines.
I still think billionaires shouldn’t exist. Just saying hes probably at the bottom of the list of shitty billionaire behavior.
So how’s much did Sweeney at Epic pay for this?
What is up with Valve and internet attacking them for their supposed monopoly?
Yeah, they are monopoly. The rare breed of one that is not predatory to it’s customers, and actively improves the experience. They are also the one that wont shoot their own leg to incapacitate themselves for no particular reason. Also “also”, they do not use predatory strategies to extort players off other platforms. Also3, they are the company that wont accumulate other companies just to destroy them in the end which also destroys competition.
They are not perfect. Lootboxes, gambling, and strong polices. But just try to compare them to second best online gaming store - they are fucking angels. Saints. Divine being. Compared TO THE NEXT BEST THING. That is saying something.
A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, ‘single, alone’ and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, ‘to sell’) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. - AND STEAM IS NOT IT! They have competition and that competition, while having resources and ability to improve or match Steam, does little to nothing in order to compete.
You can’t punch the oligarchs you feel are ruining your life so you lunch what is within reach and dress it up like that which you hate so you can justify it.
Plus the bulk of these articles are written about or for the AAA producers who are upset about their declining revenue and want an easy scapegoat for the investors.
Combine the 2 groups and you have grifting liars and the willing flock of idiots, and conversations like this.
This is why bro. Other game launchers feel predatory and rushed. There is no reason for anyone to install the EA App or Ubisoft Connect other than playing that two games from those studios. The only alternative is the Epic Games Store which has the fucking worst UI in existence and has only got a microfraction of the minimum functionality useful to build a community around a videogame. It also lacks native Linux support, forcing users to use alternatives like Heroic Games LauncherSteam wins because it does nothing to increase “shareholder value” and it just cares to be a good platform for the users, it is respectful of consumers and actively fights corporate greed and publisher dishonesty
I keep forgetting how useless Epic is.
Every once in a while, I want to scan my Epic library to see what’s there… and it doesn’t even seem to have a library feature? I need to use a separate app just to see all my games on their storefront.
Then, occasionally, I’ll want to check out what people are saying about their free game offers… and they don’t have reviews?
They don’t support Linux.
Their Android app keeps redirecting to their website for basic functionality.
Do they even have a method for devs to show patch notes or game updates? I haven’t seen any.
I mean, great that they’re giving developers a bigger cut, I guess, but 88% of nothing is worse than 70% of actual sales. Why would I, as a customer, ever try to shop there? It’s a terrible UX missing many features I have grown to expect.
So, yeah. The author of this article gets it.
Edit: and why bother listing your game there, either? Another storefront to manage is a decent amount of overhead work, I’d expect. You’d need pretty good sales for the effort to pay off.
Another fun fact about Epic. Epic does not support offline play. You have to be connected to the internet.
Great. Any time someone has a successful business that supports Linux somehow it is just terrible. I always wonder if these are these real people or just FUD from competitors trying to max Linux support undesirable. Sure I prefer FOSS, but I’m also happy there is some commercial game support. Maybe I’ll use it some day, maybe I won’t.
Really simple: because they are running it like tax funded infrastructure and not like an extortion racket.
interesting
I feel like this is something that could easily shift with one misstep by Valve. It’s good now because for the most part they have made consumer friendly choices.
I am really worried about what happens when Gabe kicks the bucket.
They’re a private company and thus have resisted many of the enshittification trends that run rampant through the industry.
And also their competitors are absolutely atrocious and are completely tone-deaf to what customers actually want.
This is exactly right. As soon as a company becomes public, it’s all over. Profits at X%, every quarter, no matter the cost. It’s the death of a company.
It doesn’t have to go public to do that. It can get sold to private equity. The original owner can pass the business to their kid who has grown up privileged and huffs their own farts. Going public is a guarantee of enshittification but it isn’t the only way.
Bad take. The competition is literally constantly shooting themselves in the foot by offering a worse service and doing nothing to make gaming better.
It’s not steams fault that companies like EA, Epic MS etc. are rotten to the core with their business practices and no one wants to use their storefronts.
GOG is the only one i might consider an alternative that isnt completely rotten.
offering a worse service
At least some of them moderate their forums, unlike Steam.
Tepid take: The only people calling Steam a monopoly are the loser competitors who can’t find a more extortive business model that will actually compete in their quest to syphon wealth out of the gaming ecosystem. Also ‘news’ outlets that are being paid to assert this narrative, and dumbshit reactionaries who believe those narratives. Sorry Epic CEO, you can’t cry and shit your pants into forcing a successful company to make room and give you a cut. The market will ony respond to a better product here, and Epic ain’t it. EA learned this lesson with their shit-ass Origin product years ago, brand loyalty takes a long time to build and is a powerful variable, and steam is good at not fucking with the gamers, or at least only within parameters of acceptability, it appears.
Tim Sweeney’s on record saying he doesn’t see any point in making EGS any better since it’s “good enough” lol.
Out of anyone, they had the best chance to make it, with the budget they had, and the fact that so many people have their launcher installed for Unreal Engine or Fortnite reasons. Yet they put so much money into exclusives, and none into having a compelling UX.
The fact that it launched and didn’t have a shopping cart for 3 years is all it takes to know that it was never intended to be a serious competitor. A simple shopping cart is trivial to implement with modern programming tools, and even if it wasn’t, it should be part of the minimum viable product for any digital store front.
Steam is not a fucking monopoly. Take my downvote
Because they are one of the few mega companies that hasn’t shrinkflated, enshittified, or otherwise crumbled the quality of their offering. Haven’t sold out the privacy of their customer base to advertising companies, and are generally good to deal with for customers and developers.
It’s not a secret formula that no other company can learn from. It’s as simple as not being dicks IMO.
For some reason, most companies seem to grow too a certain threshold at which they sell their souls to profit and will self destruct to get more of it. Steam thankfully isn’t one of them…… yet.
They’re not beholden to public investors. If they go public or sell to a public company it will change.
If Gaben leaves or dies, Valve is probably fucked.
That will be like a whale-fall event for all the skittering bottom feeders of the finance abyss.
He has a son who will supposedly take over, but we’ll have to see how that goes when it happens.
I thought his son has already taken the helm and had the same mentality as his dad?
Maybe they might actually moderating their forums and getting rid of the bigots and fascists though.
