You're saying that this organization doesn't lead to success, but because they accidentally have a successful money maker, now they can run like this?
I think there is disconnect here. There are successful companies that can operate like this, because this is a good way to get to success.
There's a timeline where startup Valve went through the standard publisher funding model instead and got pressured into releasing the "finished but not very fun" 1997 cut of Half Life, rather than taking an entire extra year (an eternity in game development cycles of that era) to overhaul the whole game at their leisure. Things could have gone very differently right from the start.
The platform it runs on (Windows) is open, unlike the App Store. Competitors exist on said platform, including a store & game pass run by the platform owner.
The fact that Steam still runs the show is a testament to their ability to just do things better than anyone else. Sure, there is a sort of network effect at play, but there is no other “moat” here - let alone a monopolistic one.
Steam is successful because it has good user experience compared to alternatives, and has a lot of major titles.
There is a strong sentiment with many gamers of just not wanting to use an alternative and it is basically a non starter for many other stores. Many complain about the very idea of not all of their games being in the same place.
This isn't necessarily anything monopolistic done on Valve's side. But it would be very hard for another store to make any meaningful impact regardless of how they are.
I’ve met countless gamers who will simply not buy or play a game if it isn’t available on Steam.
Myself included, and all of my gamer friends.
There isn't a cost to having multiple stores, you don't even need to keep them running at all time. I get the concerns over the Epic app, but Heroic exists.
Personally I have games on Steam, Xbox (cross buy between xbox and PC), Epic, and EA. Plus Game Pass.
The only annoying part is when I go to install or buy a game, finding where I have it or making sure I don't already own it somewhere. But there are launchers like Playnite to address that.
But it does feel like I am in the minority with this opinion.
That said, the PC gaming landscape has completely warped around Steam. Epic had to offer huge incentives to get EGS exclusivity deals. Smaller games struggle without a Steam release, and even big companies with their own storefronts have decided the sales boost from Steam overrides the 30% cut Valve takes. And Steam is so entrenched at this point that it's difficult to see how a competitor could make a meaningful dent in Steam's market share.
Despite this, if we're going to have one dominant PC gaming storefront, Steam is probably the best we could hope for. Despite my many misgivings with Valve and Steam, it's difficult to imaging the situation improving if the dominant platform was run by a company like Microsoft or Epic. And it's fair to say that PC gaming wouldn't be nearly as big as it is today without the success of Steam.
Cross play solves this somewhat but it’s not consistent.
PC is my main platform but I also have an Xbox (NHL games not available on PC), everything else is on Steam.
I wouldn’t buy a PS5 for an exclusive. TBH exclusivity is annoying and I don’t want to reward it.
I have not seen that referenced much so I am curious how many people that is the reason vs just some weird loyalty to Steam.
But, as someone who is mostly a couch gamer so my console of choice is Xbox. I can see that, I have a PS5 but all of my cross platform games is Xbox.
I have my PC for a lot of games that I would prefer that setup (for me its a game by game decision), but with game pass and cross buy it already didn't make sense for me to go all in on steam, but some games are only on steam.
So what was the harm in adding other stores when it made sense.
> I wouldn’t buy a PS5 for an exclusive. TBH exclusivity is annoying and I don’t want to reward it.
I don't want to reward it. But I also view myself as a gamer first before any platform loyalties. If I want to play something, that takes priority. So annoyingly I have both under my TV.
rant I am so annoyed at the people complaining about Xbox going Multiplatform as if it isn't a good thing for consumers to not have to buy nearly identical hardware. I don't care that it is how the industry has ran for so long, it's still anti-consumer. end rant
Xbox and Epic don't fall in that category. I don't believe EA does either, but not 100% sure.
To be clear here. I am referring to the being forced after buying a game. None of these, to my knowledge, you were forced to use after buying the game on Steam. Unlike Ubisoft.
But that's the issue. The competitors are fine. They aren't significantly better though. The only one with a compelling USP is GOG with their "no drm, download the installer, own the game even after we go under" pitch. Everyone else is just a steam clone with some exclusives and freebies. Without a compelling advantage network effect makes Steam the clear winner. It's where your other games are and it's where your friends are.
But that only holds true while Valve doesn't screw up. Their competitors can't be much better than Steam, but Steam could absolutely make horrible decisions that cause people to leave. But they don't. Their organizational inability to make decisive action without wider support has lead to an incredibly stable, predictable platform.
- Duplicate all the Steam shop features
- Integrate your social framework with Discord
- Add a proper overlay browser
- Make game ownership ephemeral until first play (meaning you can give away games in your library, or duplicate games in a bundle)
- Shim with Steam Input
- Better looking “Big Picture”-style mode
- Built-in game streaming, paid either with subscription or per-minute via wallet
There’s probably tonnes other that I’m forgetting. The above would take a ridiculous amount of dev hours though.
The big mistake Epic made (is making) is that their store is more beneficial for developers, mostly by taking a lower percentage. But those savings are barely passed on to the consumer, and even then, consumers don’t care about that. They’ll happily pay 10-20% more to have their game on the superior platform.
I really doubt that hurt their adoption. Yes, it pissed people off, but that doesn't mean it suppressed adoption. Being slow and clunky, sure, but you're probably not going to get anywhere without some high value exclusives.
I tolerate steam on my laptop because they were the first. I hate Epic and other launchers when I just want a game.
I will wait until it gets to steam. And have even skipped free games because I don’t want the mental load.
But it is interesting that we have 2 groups of gamers.
One that is so used to and accepting of a practice to not only sometimes buy 2 nearly identical boxes to play exclusive games but also complain when one of them does the right thing and is ending the practice (see drama about Xbox).
One that complains about installing another piece of software with no cost.
Why do these 2 groups of gamers have very different opinions on this.
Valve alone has made it possible to game full-time on Linux as a first class citizen and has greatly improved a lot of the Linux desktop experience which is more than enough for me to be willing to continue to only buy games from them.
Yeah, probably a healthy mix. The achievement and stats consolidation is via word of mouth and conversation I have had over the years. I don’t have data to back that up. I’m sure the /r/pcmasterrace folk would have something to say about it though.
I totally agree with your rant. It’s ridiculous that folk want to complain about this.
The failures of other companies trying to emulate or capture that market do not a monopoly make. There is no real moat for Steam beyond customer loyalty and the fact that nearly every competitor sought to gain market through anti-consumer moves (exclusivity) rather than value-adds, and almost universally with shittier software to boot. There are a few notable counterexamples (GoG is a good store, value add, respectful of customers; but just didn't have the juice to establish itself beyond indie/abandonware games; Itch.io is doing fine in its niche).
Just because customers prefer a product does not mean it's got an unimpeachable moat.
People talk about feature parity, but that’s irrelevant when slashing Valves cut by 1% is enough to get the vast majority of publishers and developers to stay on board.
They are such an unimpeachable monopoly that Microsoft, makers of the OS that Steam predominantly relies on for consumer spend, also bows to them. After all they’re large enough to get a new cut from the normal distribution terms.
And the result is that users overwhelmingly prefer to use Steam, with alternatives largely relegated to at best grudging acceptance for those games that require alternative launchers. Since companies are reluctant to post numbers, it's hard to tell what the exact situation other than "Steam is well over 50% of the market", but the next largest is probably GoG, especially if you exclude self-publishing from statistics (if you include it, the popularity of Fortnite might push Epic Game Store into second place). And note that GoG is pretty much the only store that offers users a specific value proposition to use them over Steam: GoG is DRM-free (better publisher/distributor split is a value proposition for developers, not users).
GOG's great but they're not big enough to move any needles.
Steam puts some of that 30% to work making wonderful things like the SteamDeck, and as a game dev I get a big audience and amazing things like free access to the Steam Datagram Network. So when I want to buy or sell a game, they're overwhelmingly my first choice.