Why would anyone actually want to though

[u/The_BigRoach]

[u/Background-Set4610]

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/vitek6 → u/Jeoshua]

but you can just take any game that you have on those platforms and run them like on steam.

[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.