Steam is a platform that happens to also have a storefront. Other companies are building storefronts and hoping that’s enough.
If you can’t provide fast downloads, cloud saves synced across devices, achievements, mod support, friends lists, and multiplayer support, it’s not a real option. Being cheaper or having some exclusives aren’t attractive. Gog already has the drm free angle to be a legitimate competitor.
This is something from before 2010, but I distinctly remember not being able to play Borderlands 1 with my friends because the site I bought it from didn’t have a patch yet that Steam did. This was one of the things that sold me on Steam. Prior to that I hated it. It’s nearly two decades ago so it’s hard to really remember why, but it wasn’t always viewed as favorably as now.
This isn’t some dig at Steam, like I said, this was over a decade ago.
There was definitely heavy skepticism at first. Buying online was new when it launched and physical was still king. I remember thinking it was dumb to buy from a website that could disappear instead of good old CDs.
Being consistently cheaper would actually be attractive to many people. The thing is, none of these competitors can even muster that. Steam consistently has better sales, more often. And it’s pretty funny seeing Amazon of all things not able to match or beat that. They are known for undercutting the competition, even at their own expense, just to get customers; It’s literally how they got to be as big as they are.
It would be so easy for another store front to just take a 20% cut instead of 30% and pass the savings on to the end consumer. That would be a pretty strong start. But nope. They just want to charge the same base price.
Epic kinda tried that by giving away tons of free games in the Epic Games Store. It didn’t work.
If I want Steam games cheaper, I go buy a Steam key for that game from a separate retailer and activate it on Steam. Save like 50-70% irrespective of Steam sales. It’s remarkable that Steam allows us to even do that in the first place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they require a game to be downloaded and played to count. I know on PS , if you have already downloaded, after purchase, a refund is less likely, so downloading likely triggers the sale to be complete, with payment to the seller. It could be similar for free games.
Maybe if they had done that with brand new games and not just a few good but old games and tons of games nobody has even heard of before. It’s not really even in the same league as just genuinely being cheaper than the competition. It’s a gimmick. Steam also sometimes gives games away for free, while still having tons of deep discounts all year long.
I’m the same. I’ll look on Steam first just because I would prefer to keep all my shit in one place, but if it’s not the cheapest price I’ll get it somewhere else. Although 90% of the time, the cheapest price is just a steam key being sold by a 3rd party (I like Eneba, personally).
The one time Epic was cheaper, was when they gave out Civ6 for free. I bought the two major DLC expansions through Epic instead of buying everything on Steam just because I didn’t have to buy the base game and the DLCs were $10 cheaper anyway.
Yep. I have a bunch of Epic’s free games. Never bought a single game from them and probably never will.
The experience on Steam is just better. And Epics lawsuits look less like they’re fighting for the little guy and more that they are envious of the market that other companies have.
Epic also generated a lot of bad blood by scooping up Kickstarter projects and ordering the devs to cancel the Steam releases, releases that had already been paid for by backers. A bunch of potential customers refused to buy from Epic on principle after that.
I’m one of them. For all their trash talk about Steam being a monopoly, Epic Games sure pulled some hypocritical, anticompetitive shit in their attempt to replace one monopoly with an objectively worse, consumer-hostile one.
Look at market shares, Steam is in a monopolistic position, they can turn around and fuck up the whole market whenever they want, and people like you are encouraging it.
You realize that they’re anti DEI over there? I don’t think drag would ever be hired by Valve!
They wouldn’t even release a statement about George Floyd because it was too divisive for them, they instead gave 10k to each employee to spend on whatever they wanted, which might just as well have been BLM or a white supremacist group, they didn’t check!
The exclusivity contract comes with guaranteed funds for the devs. That’s like choosing between a job where you work 100% for commission or one where you’re salaried + bonus, not everyone wants their income to be 100% dependent on sales, especially if those sales will probably be based on the luck of the draw rather than the quality of the product they’re selling.
You can make an awesome game, if no streamer picks it up it will all be for nothing. Last year 18935 games released on Steam, that’s 52 games a day, being successful in that space isn’t just about making a quality product.
Also, you can have the greatest idea for a game but not have the budget to just drop everything and start working on it for the years to come.
You can make an awesome game, if no streamer picks it up it will all be for nothing. Last year 18935 games released on Steam, that’s 52 games a day, being successful in that space isn’t just about making a quality product.
Yep. Best example I can think of is Among Us: 2018 release that got massively popular due to content creators during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
I do not blame developers for accepting funds to carry out their dreams instead of being thrown into the ocean of “let’s see if our years-long investment will pay itself back”. Epic grants guarantee that the game gets made.
If you want to play a game only on Steam, you’ll just have to wait. Can’t have it both ways.
The Epic bros think that businesses shouldn’t have to compete on the market to sell their product, they should just get a big grant from Epic Games for making their game exclusive.
That’s some pretty communist rhetoric coming from a group worshipping a corporation. Epic Games are not your communist revolutionaries.
No, I believe that devs should have the choice to take a chance and just hope their game sells OR sign and exclusivity contract in exchange for money that guarantees then they won’t have worked for nothing if the game is a flop.
Releasing a game these days is a gamble because there’s so many being released every day, you can make an awesome game and it just won’t sell while an average game gets picked up by a couple of Twitch streamers and the dev becomes a multi millionaire.
There are plenty of successfully competing stores. The only real thing Steam has going for it is network effect that every gamer has an account therefore it’s decent for socialising, but even that is being challenged by Discord and a multitude of others.
GamePass is probably the closest we’re seeing to a potential monopoly. The purchase of activation should never have been permitted.
If your software is profit motivated then it doesn’t need to exist
Not that it would make any difference for the end user because it should all be modular enough for the user to mix and match any of those services with any other services
Because they’re trying to compete on a product level, not a service level. They want your money, but don’t want to have to put forth the effort Valve has to get it.
It’s a launcher successful on the most popular OS in the world that they don’t even own that anyone can come in to compete at. And had decades to do so when “PC gaming was dead” so was wide open for anyone that wanted to try to reach potential customers over fixating on the console demographic. What more do want.
Yeah, but where do you have to go to redeem those keys and then subsequently have to open their program every time you wish to use your purchase (which you don’t own). Steam is very good at promoting itself and locking people into their platform, it’s a constant free advertisement program where they have total control and no competition.
I understand the “Steam is fine” position, but I also wish we weren’t always turning to this ONE supplier for a goods or service because it always hits the hardest when corruption takes over. Would love for these threads to be filled with multiple conversations of all these great different gaming services everyone personally loves for one reason or another, instead of comparing the crappiness between these few huge mega-corporations.
Because each independent section would try to make more money and end up breaking things and adding new shit users don’t want but marketing execs think are good.
He literally just said how it’d be worse. Although that’s probably not how it would get worse, splitting up the services of steam would make them inherently worse.
Name an example of a better workshop, I’ve used nexus mods and it’s a complicated mess that requires a subscription to get normal download speeds for content created for free by other people
Can I give the classic example of US healthcare where for very minor benefits, the absolute richest can afford to have great healthcare whilst everyone else seems to be crippled (financially) by even minor ailments.
But the industry is worth billions, the line goes ever up, and the shareholders are happy. Just fuck the customer.
I commented elsewhere that I’ve been trying out some classic PC games in their native Linux form lately.
It is so amazing to see my old saves just show up like nothing ever changed. Plus lots of other little things like time played and friend list and all that.
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Steam is a platform that happens to also have a storefront. Other companies are building storefronts and hoping that’s enough.
If you can’t provide fast downloads, cloud saves synced across devices, achievements, mod support, friends lists, and multiplayer support, it’s not a real option. Being cheaper or having some exclusives aren’t attractive. Gog already has the drm free angle to be a legitimate competitor.
This is something from before 2010, but I distinctly remember not being able to play Borderlands 1 with my friends because the site I bought it from didn’t have a patch yet that Steam did. This was one of the things that sold me on Steam. Prior to that I hated it. It’s nearly two decades ago so it’s hard to really remember why, but it wasn’t always viewed as favorably as now.
This isn’t some dig at Steam, like I said, this was over a decade ago.
There was definitely heavy skepticism at first. Buying online was new when it launched and physical was still king. I remember thinking it was dumb to buy from a website that could disappear instead of good old CDs.
I think the need to be online was what bothered me more, I remember a few times having trouble launching stuff.
Being consistently cheaper would actually be attractive to many people. The thing is, none of these competitors can even muster that. Steam consistently has better sales, more often. And it’s pretty funny seeing Amazon of all things not able to match or beat that. They are known for undercutting the competition, even at their own expense, just to get customers; It’s literally how they got to be as big as they are.
It would be so easy for another store front to just take a 20% cut instead of 30% and pass the savings on to the end consumer. That would be a pretty strong start. But nope. They just want to charge the same base price.
Epic kinda tried that by giving away tons of free games in the Epic Games Store. It didn’t work.
If I want Steam games cheaper, I go buy a Steam key for that game from a separate retailer and activate it on Steam. Save like 50-70% irrespective of Steam sales. It’s remarkable that Steam allows us to even do that in the first place.
I am an extremely cheap and patient gamer. This is how I look at both the stores.
If I want free games, I’ll go to Epic.
If I want good deals, I’ll go to Steam.
Why would I go to Epic for good deals when it’ll either have a good deal on Steam OR be free on Epic after a few months or a year?
I’m still gaining more and more games in my epic library I’ll never use but love wasting Tim Sweeneys money. Lmao
I wouldn’t be surprised if they require a game to be downloaded and played to count. I know on PS , if you have already downloaded, after purchase, a refund is less likely, so downloading likely triggers the sale to be complete, with payment to the seller. It could be similar for free games.
I’ve counted 38 games in Epic Games. I’ve played a couple. I’ve spend $0.
That reminds me, let me see what’s free today.
Edit: nothing good
I just don’t know how to claim those via web only. I think you have to install the store on Android.
Yeah I only used the web only. I’ll double check to make sure I didn’t miss this game.
I pirate so a free game isn’t worth it for me if it means I have to get their store app or whatever.
Me too. I’m not even a gamer, the only game I’ve played is Civilization. And maybe one day I’ll sell my account for sweet sweet money.
And their $5 off coupons during numerous sales
Maybe if they had done that with brand new games and not just a few good but old games and tons of games nobody has even heard of before. It’s not really even in the same league as just genuinely being cheaper than the competition. It’s a gimmick. Steam also sometimes gives games away for free, while still having tons of deep discounts all year long.
I’m the same. I’ll look on Steam first just because I would prefer to keep all my shit in one place, but if it’s not the cheapest price I’ll get it somewhere else. Although 90% of the time, the cheapest price is just a steam key being sold by a 3rd party (I like Eneba, personally).
The one time Epic was cheaper, was when they gave out Civ6 for free. I bought the two major DLC expansions through Epic instead of buying everything on Steam just because I didn’t have to buy the base game and the DLCs were $10 cheaper anyway.
Yep. I have a bunch of Epic’s free games. Never bought a single game from them and probably never will.
The experience on Steam is just better. And Epics lawsuits look less like they’re fighting for the little guy and more that they are envious of the market that other companies have.
of course they are, Epic is a shit company
Epic also generated a lot of bad blood by scooping up Kickstarter projects and ordering the devs to cancel the Steam releases, releases that had already been paid for by backers. A bunch of potential customers refused to buy from Epic on principle after that.
I’m one of them. For all their trash talk about Steam being a monopoly, Epic Games sure pulled some hypocritical, anticompetitive shit in their attempt to replace one monopoly with an objectively worse, consumer-hostile one.
Epic Games is creating a monopoly in PC gaming - they keep making bad decisions and leaving Steam as the only good option
Look at market shares, Steam is in a monopolistic position, they can turn around and fuck up the whole market whenever they want, and people like you are encouraging it.
You realize that they’re anti DEI over there? I don’t think drag would ever be hired by Valve!
Source?
Delete it now
https://youtu.be/s9aCwCKgkLo
They wouldn’t even release a statement about George Floyd because it was too divisive for them, they instead gave 10k to each employee to spend on whatever they wanted, which might just as well have been BLM or a white supremacist group, they didn’t check!
The timed exclusivity deals are what did it for me
Bringing that bullshit to the PC gaming market guaranteed I’ll never spend a penny on their storefront.
If the carrot they’re leading with is limiting choice, I’m not going to hang around waiting to find out what the stick might be if they get successful
Epic is doing me a favor, I get to keep my money while I play my backlog, then I buy the game on Steam / GOG for cheaper later on.
Yeah that one rubbed me particularly wrong. Valve can be a bit hit and miss sometimes, but they’ve not actively monopolized games from other devs.
Yup, that and pushing “exclusive” bs in general made sure I will never use Epic.
So you want all devs to just play the lottery and hope that some Twitch star picks up their game to make it popular?
He wants games to release on all platforms. Where is the ‘lottery’ rhetoric coming from?
The exclusivity contract comes with guaranteed funds for the devs. That’s like choosing between a job where you work 100% for commission or one where you’re salaried + bonus, not everyone wants their income to be 100% dependent on sales, especially if those sales will probably be based on the luck of the draw rather than the quality of the product they’re selling.
You can make an awesome game, if no streamer picks it up it will all be for nothing. Last year 18935 games released on Steam, that’s 52 games a day, being successful in that space isn’t just about making a quality product.
Also, you can have the greatest idea for a game but not have the budget to just drop everything and start working on it for the years to come.
Yep. Best example I can think of is Among Us: 2018 release that got massively popular due to content creators during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
I do not blame developers for accepting funds to carry out their dreams instead of being thrown into the ocean of “let’s see if our years-long investment will pay itself back”. Epic grants guarantee that the game gets made.
If you want to play a game only on Steam, you’ll just have to wait. Can’t have it both ways.
I don’t care about the devs profits. I’m not fucking myself over so you can stay in business.
The Epic bros think that businesses shouldn’t have to compete on the market to sell their product, they should just get a big grant from Epic Games for making their game exclusive.
That’s some pretty communist rhetoric coming from a group worshipping a corporation. Epic Games are not your communist revolutionaries.
No, I believe that devs should have the choice to take a chance and just hope their game sells OR sign and exclusivity contract in exchange for money that guarantees then they won’t have worked for nothing if the game is a flop.
Releasing a game these days is a gamble because there’s so many being released every day, you can make an awesome game and it just won’t sell while an average game gets picked up by a couple of Twitch streamers and the dev becomes a multi millionaire.
I would like to see government intervention to break up Steam to remedy this
Though arguably Epic is way bigger of a platform since it goes from developer to end user
Nobody else has a platform that comes close to competing and most of my games are already on there. From my pov this looks like an awful idea.
lol
Steam is hardly a monopoly.
There are plenty of successfully competing stores. The only real thing Steam has going for it is network effect that every gamer has an account therefore it’s decent for socialising, but even that is being challenged by Discord and a multitude of others.
GamePass is probably the closest we’re seeing to a potential monopoly. The purchase of activation should never have been permitted.
As I noted in the comment you’re replying to “Epic is arguably bigger”
So not sure why you felt like arguing about Steam being a monopoly
Then why do you want to see it broken up? Monopoly seemed a pretty reasonable assumption.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy
Steam seems to value Unix a lot more than Epic does
Steam’s best feature is Proton.
No don’t break up Steam. Standardize DRM and make digital games licenses ownable/transferable. I could see the EU eventually doing this.
I say this as someone who loves Steam but wants more ownership, in the games I “own”.
What exactly would you be breaking up? Steam isn’t a mishmash of companies…
forums, store, launcher, workshop
The forums company will be where all the money is at, think of the profit!
If your software is profit motivated then it doesn’t need to exist
Not that it would make any difference for the end user because it should all be modular enough for the user to mix and match any of those services with any other services
Does the dadaist approach to arguments usually work for you?
I thought you would have reference Stallman in trying to dismiss me
I’ll take that as a no, then.
… How in the hell could you possibly think this would be a good idea?
And they have plenty of competition. Just that none of the competition tires hard enough to be compelling.
Because they’re trying to compete on a product level, not a service level. They want your money, but don’t want to have to put forth the effort Valve has to get it.
It’s a launcher successful on the most popular OS in the world that they don’t even own that anyone can come in to compete at. And had decades to do so when “PC gaming was dead” so was wide open for anyone that wanted to try to reach potential customers over fixating on the console demographic. What more do want.
It doesn’t even come pre-installed with Windows.
They offer keys which allows for third party sellers to exist, and there are a handful of legitimate sites that sell keys for steam.
Yeah, but where do you have to go to redeem those keys and then subsequently have to open their program every time you wish to use your purchase (which you don’t own). Steam is very good at promoting itself and locking people into their platform, it’s a constant free advertisement program where they have total control and no competition.
I understand the “Steam is fine” position, but I also wish we weren’t always turning to this ONE supplier for a goods or service because it always hits the hardest when corruption takes over. Would love for these threads to be filled with multiple conversations of all these great different gaming services everyone personally loves for one reason or another, instead of comparing the crappiness between these few huge mega-corporations.
I’d rather see competitors actually try and be better than steam rather than make steam worse.
How did you get “make steam worse” from that?
Everything else still exists, just not controlled by Valve
…Breaking steam up would make it worse.
How? If any feature is necessary then it will be filled by someone else
You aren’t losing anything
Apart from all the non-profitable features divorced from meaning.
The forums would go in the blink of an eye.
And then each section would try to make itself complete in itself to hoard user time, and at least one would start selling advertising space.
How profitable is running a lemmy instance?
Negatively.
In money for servers as well as time. And that’s for something with far less users than Steam.
Because each independent section would try to make more money and end up breaking things and adding new shit users don’t want but marketing execs think are good.
Then find a different workshop/forum/launcher to pair with the Steam store
In no world is it worse than what we have now
He literally just said how it’d be worse. Although that’s probably not how it would get worse, splitting up the services of steam would make them inherently worse.
Name an example of a better workshop, I’ve used nexus mods and it’s a complicated mess that requires a subscription to get normal download speeds for content created for free by other people
If steam is a client not a store then whichever steam allows to be built into their client
So, no answer then?
Sounds like a free market proponent.
Can I give the classic example of US healthcare where for very minor benefits, the absolute richest can afford to have great healthcare whilst everyone else seems to be crippled (financially) by even minor ailments.
But the industry is worth billions, the line goes ever up, and the shareholders are happy. Just fuck the customer.
I commented elsewhere that I’ve been trying out some classic PC games in their native Linux form lately.
It is so amazing to see my old saves just show up like nothing ever changed. Plus lots of other little things like time played and friend list and all that.