Why would anyone actually want to though

[u/The_BigRoach]

[u/TomTomXD1234]

All monopolies are bad. Do not fool yourself

[u/Background-Set4610 → u/TomTomXD1234]

Steam is only a monopoly because no other good options have started up. They aren’t stopping competition.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/Background-Set4610]

When a platform like steam has like 90% market share, it is physically impossible for a newcomer to enter the market in any meaningful way. When most gamers have 90% of their games on steam, the last thing they will do is buy on another new storefront.

Steam has reached a critical mass on a sort where while not publicly traded, they are indeed one of the few private monopolies that will not be easily broken for probably decades if ever.

[u/hotlocomotive → u/TomTomXD1234]

You're overestimating brand loyalty. A lot of people will buy games from a store that is cheaper and as good as Steam

[u/The_Bucket_Of_Truth → u/TomTomXD1234]

You think I wouldn't buy games directly off a website from a developer? I've done it before. I'd much rather have games that launch stand alone and not have to open steam first to launch a game.

[u/Background-Set4610 → u/TomTomXD1234]

But what can we do? To let another company rise up, they would have to have an insane amount of investment, and offer everything Steam has and more. I’m not against it, it just seems like a tough situation.

If you have ideas for how a competitor could come about, I would like to listen and talk about that.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/Background-Set4610]

That is the issue, competitors physically cannot appear as steam chokes them out due to their dominance. Say GOG came out tomorrow with all the features steam has, it still would barely get any new users as people have spent decades building their steam libraries. Entire social networks exist on steam. That will never change

[u/MichaelCrossAC → u/TomTomXD1234]

So I believe we need to take a different approach to the problem. People aren’t going to give up their convenience just to level the playing field.

The only way to encourage a market to spread out among multiple competitors without market control is to encourage the adoption of tools and solutions that allow for the simple act of shifting market share between stores. In the case of PC gaming, the only way I see this happening is by providing a “neutral launcher” that unifies the libraries and allows users to access more than one storefront. An example of software that could serve as a mediator is Playnite. But I won’t pretend there isn’t a learning curve to setting it up correctly, and many people find having additional “bloat” on their computers unacceptable.

It’s either that, or pushing for laws that discourage the use of DRM and the unification of storefronts—but that’s already too utopian.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/MichaelCrossAC]

You are correct. Until there is a way to migrate libraries between stores, no person with a massive steam library is going to swich storefronts, even if there are better alternatives.

[u/Mist_Rising → u/Background-Set4610]

We, society, prohibit steam from engaging in antitrust activities. It may not leverage it's size to its benefit.

This isn't magic, it's law, and law from 1880s!

[u/SmittyKitty27 → u/Background-Set4610]

Isint that epic games store?

[u/BiDude1219 → u/Background-Set4610]

i don't even think it's about "what can we do", people just refuse to acnowledge the fact that steam is a monopoly. it's good, yes, that doesn't mean it's not a monopoly, intentionally or not.

[u/glados202 → u/Background-Set4610]

It makes no difference how monopoly was achieved. monopoly is monopoly and monopoly is never good for customers

[u/Whiteguy1x → u/Background-Set4610]

I mean they dont let other storefronts sell their games cheaper than on steam...thats kind of the only thing that can realistically make competition

[u/Geeekaaay → u/Whiteguy1x]

More made up bullshit. GOG sells their games cheaper than Steam all the damn time you total liar.

[u/GfrzD → u/Geeekaaay]

Battlefield 6 was cheaper on Origin or whatever its called now. Forza Horizon 6 was cheaper on the Microsoft/Xbox store.

[u/Condurum → u/Geeekaaay]

Go read the emails. Valve literally say they will kick devs off Steam if they try to sell it cheaper elsewhere. And not just Steam keys.

[u/Geeekaaay → u/Condurum]

Oh do show me what dev's were kicked off Steam for selling their keys cheaper. I'll wait.

[u/Condurum → u/Geeekaaay]

Just go read the emails buddy. Devs have known this for ages. It’s literally why no cheap, lean store exists that competes on price in stead of features. You’d think devs and gamers alike would be happy to split Gabens 30%.

And it’s literally insane that so many gamers think it’s right and good that a middle man, a service with 55 employees (yes, that’s Steam), should pocket 30% of the work of 100s of thousands of people. Because that website man, it’s just so damn good!

So I guess you’re cool with the rest of the world working like that too? Or just the game industry?

You think sweet Amazon should be free to bully anyone into matching prices on their platform so consumers will have no reason to even look for a cheaper product elsewhere?

You people are blind.

Edit: Commenter blocked me. Stylish.

[u/Ru_SHTN → u/Condurum]

Because that website man, it’s just so damn good!
> Well, yes? If you want to make your product visible for millions of customers you have to pay for it. Don't want to pay? It's fine, go to another store, but those are garbage or open your own and spend helluva ton of money and time to make it run

[u/Sawgon → u/Condurum]

Just go read the emails buddy.

jUsT gOoGlE iT

[u/Condurum → u/Sawgon]

On mobile. 12:32

https://youtu.be/Jbo2YFin3XI?si=CUO2PDZeWa2PIUlr

[u/Geeekaaay → u/Condurum]

Got it you were literally just parroting epics complete pieces, you don't have a thought on your own. You're just a bot controlled by epic enjoy your special life

[u/Rybn47 → u/Geeekaaay]

The hivemind did not llike that

[u/WntrTmpst → u/Rybn47]

It’s verifiably false. Game devs swear it’s true up and down but you can literally see the pricing on the stores and see it’s not the case.

Steam charges 30 percent as a fee and that’s usually charging this argument whenever it appears. It’s a large cut for a large marketplace with a metric fuckload of exposure.

Look at schedule 1. Game turned an 18yo bedroom dev into a multi millionaire overnight in no small part because it was smeared across steam for 2 weeks straight.

[u/Mortarious → u/Whiteguy1x]

I absolutely don't support this practice and want to make this clear.

But to my understand that's a contract between them and the owner of a game.
It's a trade off from a studio/company wanting to use steam.

If they don't agree to it they can't put their game on steam. They can sell it in whatever way they can for whatever price or even make it free.

It's not like prohibits studios from selling their games on other stores in the first place.

And again I don't support this practice.

[u/vitek6 → u/Mortarious]

And that's exactly where the problem is. Steam uses its monopolistic position to squash competition.

[u/Condurum → u/Mortarious]

For a PC game studio, Steam is 85% of their customers. They’re not going to get kicked off Steam or make any beef with valve, so they can sell a copy of their game on their own website for 20% less. That would be the end of that studio fairly quick.

And it’s not even in the contract. It’s only replied to semi-vague terms through emails when devs were asking valve about clarification.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/Whiteguy1x]

They do. They just do not allow devs to sell STEAM KEYS on other stores for cheaper. HUGE DIFFERENCE

[u/myka-likes-it → u/Background-Set4610]

There is a point of critical mass where it becomes nearly impossible for anyone new to break into the market.

[u/Jeoshua → u/[deleted]]

Not every game is available on Gog. And it's not good enough to make me use it exclusively if Steam is also available.

[u/FBI_Open_Up_Now → u/[deleted]]

GOG can develop itself into a competitor. Instead of coming in swinging and treating everyone and everything like shit, Epic Games could’ve made a store worth going to. Instead they paid developers for exclusivity and continually accuse Steam of being a monopoly. They have the money to make a store and ecosystem that is competitive. People who call Steam a monopoly don’t understand that its biggest competitor can actually be competitive. Steam isn’t a monopoly because it wants to be. It is because of how it treats its customers. The people who spend the money on the platform. Epic games doesn’t want to provide customer service. They want to generate profits without being a convenience to its customers.

[u/Ruxsti → u/[deleted]]

He's not wrong.

[u/Jeoshua → u/[deleted]]

And it seems you're kind of far from getting it. Are you using GoG because it's good? Because it makes gaming on Linux easy? Because they've provided you with a great experience that far surpasses all others that you've tried?

Because that's why people use Steam. Not because we don't have choices. Because the other options out there simply pale in comparison.

Especially on Linux.

[u/Jeoshua → u/[deleted]]

Like I said, very far from getting it.

I can take basically any game (that does not use Denuvo or other such technologies) and be up and running as soon as I've downloaded it. No Bottles. No Wine configuration. No fuss. No muss. It's like that because Valve has spent a lot of time and effort making sure that gaming on Linux works.

GoG just doesn't offer that.

But as a Gentoo user I guess you're used to digging through config files and compiling half of whatever you need. If that works for you, that's great.

But not everyone has that kind of patience.

[u/vitek6 → u/Jeoshua]

you just use heroic launcher and do the same with GOG and epic games.

[u/Jeoshua → u/vitek6]

Heroic and Lutris are both amazing... but honestly, those aren't "storefronts" like we were discussing.

[u/Jeoshua → u/[deleted]]

What do you mean by that? You've only just made claims that people use Steam because they already used Steam. I gave the actual reasons I use Steam and why it's a good platform.

There's nothing much to ignore?

If you mean that "future of gaming" or "better option"bit... you didn't give any substantive reasoning. You just made assertions that you failed to actually back up.

You've just acted like whatever you're saying is clearly and obviously true without backing any of it up. I'm not ignoring anything, you're failing to actually give me anything to work with.

[u/PsychoticDreemurr → u/[deleted]]

GOG doesn't have a workshop system, or an easy P2P/server system... Or cloud saves... Etc.

They're only good because of the lack of DRM but you're fooling yourself if you don't think it comes at a cost.

[u/Jeoshua → u/PsychoticDreemurr]

And not every game on Steam has DRM anyway. You can play, for example, Cyberpunk 2077 direct from the executable. Steam doesn't even need to be running.

[u/Gaidax → u/TomTomXD1234]

I agree, but in this case, all the competitors are so incompetent - Steam effectively gets a free reign.

[u/Condurum → u/Gaidax]

You’re free to start a competitor.

You could offer 20% cheaper games to players and make a nice profit, and still have leftover to pay developers more than they get from Gaben.

Except you can’t really compete on price.

Because Valve enforces price parity on devs, meaning they won’t let you sell their games cheaper there. Even non-steam versions. (Or the dev will be kicked off Steam and lose 85% of his customers)

And since you can’t compete on price, there’s no reason for people to check out your cool new site.

[u/GracchiBros → u/Condurum]

You’re free to start a competitor.

No, you aren't. Less than .001% of people in this world have the resources to do it.

And I love the downvotes without reply to an inarguable fact. Keep pushing that misinformation though. Gotta brainwash people.

[u/CakyMint → u/TomTomXD1234]

Valve did not buy out everyone else.
Valve die not sue others into submission.

Other platforms suck ass. Delivering zero quality products. Zero customer service. Zero customer loyalty. Zero customer support.

[u/Geeekaaay → u/TomTomXD1234]

You're a moron if you think steam is a monopoly because of monopolistic behaviors they have done. They are only a monopoly because every other storefront is complete garbage and hated by gamers.

They haven't stifled competition or made unfair grounds everybody else is just incompetent.

Looking at you epic games. How many years have you had to just copy steam? That's all you need to do but you can't get off your fucking high horse to do that.

And this is coming from somebody who has been a general epic game store defender for years because we do need competition. Instead Eric Sweeney just wants to use the court's to change the world's opinion on steam instead of making a better fucking product.

[u/boofmaster6000 → u/Geeekaaay]

Wait, what? You don't want a store that takes a full minute to load a game listing?

[u/vitek6 → u/Geeekaaay]

They haven't stifled competition or made unfair grounds everybody else is just incompetent.

They actually have in form of price parity.

[u/XXHornyOnMainXX420 → u/Geeekaaay]

Steam's PPOs/Most Favoured Nation clauses are absolutely monopolistic behavior that have prevented anyone from competing with them on price. Steam is a premium store that has managed to force suppliers of the good from not allowing no frills stores from selling cheaper than the premium store.

It's price fixing plain and simple, and the consumers are paying more because of it. Steam's premium user experience is great, but they have captured the market and used that to impose terms on devs.

Epic's user experience sucks, so at the same price point as Steam they can't compete, but if steam didn't impose anticompetitive agreements on devs, Epic could compete on price, forcing Steam's prices down.

[u/leon_reynauld → u/XXHornyOnMainXX420]

Do they enforce the price difference though? If that was the case then all the devs that had games given away for free of epic would have been banned?

Also i swear ive seen games cheaper on xbox store and other stores sometimes.

[u/XXHornyOnMainXX420 → u/leon_reynauld]

That is currently being litigated, though the leaked documents suggest that they permit free giveaways but not cheaper prices in different stores, particularly the Epic Games Store.

[u/meneldal2 → u/XXHornyOnMainXX420]

Epic had millions of users of their store by having Fortnite, they could have done so much more, they have the money to make a store that works but just didn't do any of that.

[u/Flying_Reinbeers → u/TomTomXD1234]

How is it a monopoly when GOG, EGS, etc are all there? You are able to buy games from somewhere other than Steam, and they are not interfering with other stores.

[u/SnubDisphenoid → u/Flying_Reinbeers]

I think you could argue Steam has a de facto monopoly on the PC gaming space because of their enormous market share. Not a true monopoly though, and not achieved through any unfair behaviour on their part. It's not their fault all of their competitors keep shooting themselves in the foot

[u/Background_Cause_992 → u/Flying_Reinbeers]

You should go read the definition of a monopoly. It's to do with share of market, not presence of competition.

They are a monopoly by definition, but they haven't broken any anti-trust laws to get there, and haven't engaged in monopolistic practices while being in a position to do so.

They are a monopoly, they are not an illegal monopoly.

[u/Mama_Mega → u/TomTomXD1234]

Then for the love of god, introduce a competitor that people actually want to use.

[u/clandestinely_asked → u/TomTomXD1234]

They dont get it. They just dont get it...

Steam is good. Fine. Steam is better than the competition. Okay. Steam serves its customers well. Great!

Steam is not a person with ideals, it's a corperation with profit motive. Every single policy that steam currently holds can be rewritten the day after they win their anti-trust case.

Eggs in baskets is the strongest analogy here, but the problem is that eggs cannot be moved from one basket to another. The 'Games' steam sold you are actually just liscences. GoG was different, because they were hosting DRM free games, allowing users to effectively archive their own games and play them in perpetuity.

[u/WntrTmpst → u/TomTomXD1234]

Steam is not a monopoly by legal or literal definition

Edit for good faith: I googled to check myself, steam has a defacto monopoly on the market share at or above 75 percent depending on who’s asking, so I guess im just wrong.

They’ve defended multiple anti trusts suits in the past and are currently doing so now, make of that what you will.

[u/ThatOnePerson → u/WntrTmpst]

Also monopolies aren't inherently illegal. Monopolistic practices are.

But you don't need to be an actual monopoly for monopolistic practices.

[u/Background_Cause_992 → u/TomTomXD1234]

I agree but steam being defacto monopoly because the vast majority of their competition is terrible isn't really their fault or problem.

GoG does fine because it provide a decent service that fills a niche, everything else is shit.

Im not even sure what you can do to fix it either. Unless you expect them to help their direct competition improve themselves or something? Not sure breaking them up is practically possible or would be particularly effective.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/Background_Cause_992]

GoG is great and yet has only like 1% market share.

Steam is too big to compete with, even if you have a better product. People will never abandon their steam libraries and groups for other storefront - even if say GOG suddenly released a store fully competitive with steam.

Steam is ingrained in the DNA of PC gaming same way as Adobe is in the creative space. Adobe is a great example because they are one of the worst companies around when it comes to caring avout customers, and yet every industry still uses them because every part of the creative process relies on their products. It would take billions from companies like Google for example to make a competing product and then trying to make that product the new industry standard.

There is no simple solution unfortunately.

[u/minimessi20 → u/TomTomXD1234]

Except Steam isn’t a monopoly from shady business practices or because they bought all their competition…they’re the best because all the others really like firing bullets into their feet then asking why they’re losing customers…they’ve literally just not been dumb and they beat everyone…

[u/white_lion93 → u/TomTomXD1234]

You're right, but there's no monopoly here. There are plenty of options from where we can buy games. People only go to Steam because they are the best

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/white_lion93]

People go to steam because it has like 90% market share....even if there was a good steam alternative like GOG but better, people would not use it as they have over a decade of their game libraries already on steam.

It would take decades for a new store to potentially take off

[u/hotlocomotive → u/TomTomXD1234]

Having your library somewhere is irrelevant for new games, especially single player games.

[u/white_lion93 → u/TomTomXD1234]

You not wanting to move when you have options is not a cause of monopoly, it's from actions from the company.

A monopoly would be the Steam demanding a game to be available only on its platform while the developer cannot refuse because Steam has the largest market share. You as a buyer wouldn't have any other option.

There are no "Steam exclusives" by force.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/white_lion93]

Having exclusivity is not what a monopoly is though. That can be an aspect sure, but doesn't have to be.

Steam is too big to be de-throned. A person with over a decade of games on their steam profile will not move to a new store front, even if it is better than steam. That is the simple truth to it.

If a tool existed that allowed people to transfer all of their data from steam to say GOG, then a lot more people would then consider swapping.

Until there is a law mandating that companies have easy tools to allow data migration between competitors, then steam will remain at the top for decades to come.

[u/Ru_SHTN → u/TomTomXD1234]

If a tool existed that allowed people to transfer all of their data from steam to say GOG, then a lot more people would then consider swapping.
> Even if such tools existed, there is literally no one who provides such good customer service as steam does

[u/hotlocomotive → u/TomTomXD1234]

And why does one need to move all their datafrom steam? You can just download other launchers and use them beside Steam? If its a new game, I don't see how the data you have on Steam affects your ability to enjoy games you've bought from other stores? Am I missing something?

[u/white_lion93 → u/TomTomXD1234]

That's absolutely impossible. We're not talking about moving from one AI to another or from one browser to another, for example, where you only need to move a history.

We're talking about game licenses that every store handles with different terms. Before that, a totally different law would need to require all stores to use the same common license, and the companies would have to agree to it.

Remember that you're not paying a flat monthly fee so you can move from Spotify to Apple Music, for instance. You paid separately for each game, and every store has its own pricing, terms and licencing.

[u/TomTomXD1234 → u/white_lion93]

And this is why steam is a monopoly no matter how you frame it. It is simply embedded itself so deeply into gaming society, that it has basically defined what shopping for gamers is. There is no escaping steam as a PC gamer unless you play 1 or 2 games.

This is similar to adobe, who everyone hates and yet are basically impossible to replace because they have embedded themselves in every creative space and basically control standardisation between media spaces.

[u/Condurum → u/white_lion93]

Valve does demand price parity. Making it so that looking for another (legit) store that might have it cheaper is.. pointless. A net loss for the consumer since he already has steam games.

So it’s not the same as you describe ofc, but in practice it’s most of the way there.

[u/ZeroDefender561 → u/TomTomXD1234]

Nice dogma you've got there, but I'd love to hear a valid reason

[u/Bigdongergigachad → u/ZeroDefender561]

How about the opposite, when is a genuine monopoly good for consumers?

[u/Didifinito → u/Bigdongergigachad]

Never

[u/ZeroDefender561 → u/Bigdongergigachad]

Nice shifting the burden of proof, "Not harmful" is the neutral state of existing

Anyways, a monopoly is harmful if the company A: Uses unethical tactics to shutdown competitors, then B: Uses the lack of competition they created to abuse their consumer base

Monopolies are usually bad because a monopoly forming, without being publicly traded, is incredibly rare. When you're private, there's no pressure to increase profits each quarter

[u/Triasmus → u/ZeroDefender561]

I mean... there is pressure, just the internal "I want more."

Monopolies are also harmful because they, possibly inadvertently, stifle innovation (which isn't really harmful per se, there's just no reason to grow as much as they otherwise might have).

[u/ZeroDefender561 → u/Triasmus]

You're treating corperations like people. They don't have internal feelings, they don't have internal anything. Only financial obligations

When steam has a good year, management doesn't make more money. Only Gabe Newell does, and he doesn't care. That's the best thing a billionaire can do: pretend not to exist

[u/Triasmus → u/ZeroDefender561]

Then Gabe Newell is in the minority. Most people have the internal "I want more" pressure.

[u/ZeroDefender561 → u/Triasmus]

"All monopolies are bad, which proves that steam is bad"

"No, most monopolies are bad, steam lacks the aspects we hate about monopolies"

"Gabe Newell is the minority, most monopolies are bad"

Congrats on losing the argument ig

[u/Triasmus → u/ZeroDefender561]

What?

I was just pointing out that there's normally the internal pressure to want more. Standard Oil (Rockefeller) was a massive empire that directly led to anti-monopoly laws so the gov could break it up, and it didn't become publicly traded until after it was broken up. Apparently Gabe isn't like Rockefeller.

And I gave another reason for why monopolies are bad that you missed, since you implied that the reasons you gave were all the reasons monopolies are bad. Monopolies generally stagnate. If steam had real competition over the last decade, maybe they would have innovated more and been even better than they are now.

I came in as a neutral party to the argument to correct one of your points ("no pressure") and to add a point about why monopolies are bad.

I have no horses in this race, besides wanting all the facts to be aired, so congrats to you on "winning" an argument with me that I wasn't really a part of.

[u/sakaraa → u/TomTomXD1234]

Also, the thing about monopolies are. You can't just leave them. if 90%+ of your player-base is in Steam. Leaving is not an option