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Do you know why steam is dominating? There are no better alternatives. They actively work on projects that benefit everyone, including their competition.
For the time being, there’s nothing to be said other than other companies need to stop being so shitty.
Valve forever more have my support just because of proton. Letting me get off windows to game has been revolutionary for me.
I don’t understand this mentality. It has no loyalty to you, why be loyal to it?
Be loyal to people, not to organizations.
Yea, steam actually earned their market share through being a solid storefront and game distribution center and not because of exclusive releases from third parties or shady practices beyond promoting games.
Sure, they are the only place for valve games, but that is because those are their games. Yes, some of their games have loot boxes and that is all terrible, but that is the games and not inherent to steam.
It’s as if the recipe for success is not fucking over your customers and provide good product. Huh, weird
Did they tho? Steam was absolutely terrible in the beginning, the only reason people used it back in the early days is because you needed it for super popular valve games. It had nothing to do with them being a solid storefront or anything of sorts.
my problem is people conflate pro develper and pro consumer actions as the same thing, when they arent. what epic does is very pro developer(better cut, money in advance if exclusive), but the platform is far from being pro consumer(removes consumer choice in platform to buy it on, lower competiuon, inconplete community, store, workshop, and os functionality). I’m in open arms for competition, but it actively is a worse consumer experience, then its very hard to support.
I said this in another place, but the single only reason that Epic is pro developer is because they have miniscule market share.
If they gain significant market share, they will 100% absolutely guaranteed, no doubt, double their cut from developers.
It is the exact scum tactic that has been done dozens of times before like amazon.
Here’s the difference. When we talk about companies dominating an industry, we’re usually talking about practices that keep competition from even forming. Monopolies are formed as a result of big companies buying out or making it impossible for their competition.
Steam doesn’t do that, which is a big reason they won their monopoly suit. They just provide a better model than anyone else is willing to, and they rake in the cash because of it.
Compare this situation to books-a-million in the states. Books-a-million doesn’t have a monopoly on books, they just have created a better environment for selling them. They aren’t stopping other book stores from opening or buying chains to shut them down, they just sell you a cup of coffee and give you a place to sit while you browse their massive selection.
That’s not a monopoly, that’s just better business.
While you may have a point that we can’t know what any company will do in the future, the fact remains that Valve has earned their place by 2 factors alone:
1.- Constant innovation to make their platform a place where everyone wants to be, without crippling the competition, despite having the means to do it. 2.- years of building trust with their users and providers alike by being transparent and clear on what they offer, while adding value which costs money that they absorb.
Yes, 30% of so much money is a shitload of money, but I have yet to see one good reason why that’s a bad thing other than the usual “it’s too much” bullshit argument.
Unity, Reddit, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, these companies have 1 common denominator: they have gone out of their way to destroy anything that would present a risk to 10 cents of their revenue, including, but not limited to, absorbing any potential competition, regardless of if they represent a risk to their dominance or not.
Do not compare valve to these assholes. Valve is making tons of money? Unless you can show me, with evidence, how this is detrimental to anyone else, other than the fact that you are not making as much, all you have is bullshit and a fucking tantrum.
Valve isn’t dominating an essential industry. They could control 100% of the game market and it would make no difference to anything important.
It matters if people are captive consumers of the product. It does not matter if they can simply stop using the product with no ill consequences.
The same goes for movies, TV, music. You can simply stop buying these commercially with no ill effect.
The US congress is freaking out about TikTok because of national security concerns about china potentially harvesting data on americans and influencing politics, not because TikTok is a monopoly.
This is not at all the same thing.
We worry about companies that aren’t anywhere near as dominant as valve. Just because their interests align with ours today doesn’t mean they will tomorrow.
Valve is dominant because they treat users well. Is your argument here seriously “Yes, Valve is a better platform that treats you well, but you shouldn’t use it because other people already do! You should use a platform that’s not as good because competition!”
A competitor in any industry needs to do more than “exist” to be worth using. If Valve starts acting shitty I will stop using it, much like how I have stopped purchasing or playing Blizzard games.