Valve wins by doing nothing… it’s a tale as old as time.
Steam’s market share is a huge factor in why their competition never succeeds, but it’s hardly the only reason. Steam is a whole platform, not just a launcher or storefront. And they’re also cognizant that the consumers are not just a revenue source to be milked, but actually long-term customers whose loyalty is important.
It really shouldn’t be a surprise that when you enter an established market, you’re not going to accomplish shit by providing a lesser service while simultaneously treating the consumer worse.
I was wary of another gaming platform, there were so many and they all seemed the same, I never liked one over the other - they were just means to an end.
A few years back I really wanted to play RDR2 with my friends. It was expensive and I never pre-order, but as soon as it came out on (a small) sale I bought it for all 4 of us.
It was a lot of money for me, but I really wanted the story to play with everyone.
All was well at first, until we had each completed the tutorial and met up in open world. That’s when we learned that the game was based on GTA and the devs do not care about hackers.
We had one fucking with us for over an hour, teleporting us into the air and dropping us, setting us randomly on fire, spawning space ships and so on.
I begged in voice for them to just leave us be, to no avail.
We are all older, we rarely have time to play together. I was crushed.
I was an hour over the return time on Steam, one of the other friends took a bit longer exploring and was even more than that.
I contacted steam anyway and tried to get a refund, and they granted it for all of us.
Later I learned this was a thing in RDR2 and there was now the ability to create private lobbies, but I just can’t make myself try it and give Rockstar any money.
Steam however, won a lifelong fan. They didn’t have to honour the refund, and they don’t have to provide personal support that offers more than just the canned responses, but they do.
I hope Gabe lives forever, or finds another like him to carry the torch after he’s gone.
Yeah my loyalty to them comes from the fact that they treat me like they value my business. Every company says they do, but they help when help is needed and get out of the way when it isn’t. The only other businesses I feel that way towards are small restaurants and bars. It’s not an unconditional loyalty but so long as they treat me right they’ll keep my business.
They are reinvesting money back into r&d, and linux. They keep updating everything. Wish they kept making steam controllers. I have seen steam change a lot over the last +10 years.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
No Let’s Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates.
(Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources.
If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
Valve wins by doing nothing… it’s a tale as old as time.
Steam’s market share is a huge factor in why their competition never succeeds, but it’s hardly the only reason. Steam is a whole platform, not just a launcher or storefront. And they’re also cognizant that the consumers are not just a revenue source to be milked, but actually long-term customers whose loyalty is important.
It really shouldn’t be a surprise that when you enter an established market, you’re not going to accomplish shit by providing a lesser service while simultaneously treating the consumer worse.
Us corporate MO is to treated the end user as stupid fucking bitch that you boss around with ToS.
I mean it works, look at EA and sports ball gamers…
But PC gamer has some shread of respect left. Granted a lot of it comes from knowing better from using steam
MBAs walk into this arena thinking they’ve got their quarterly agile reports synergized outside the box to the max.
Somehow none of them have learned the concept of long term customers
Gaben and Steam: does nothing, wins
It always baffles me when I see an established company fail to understand long-term customers and still expect any kind of meaningful growth.
It’s because the stock market doesn’t care about anything except the next quarter. Valve can think long term because they’re privately owned.
The loyalty thing is what kept me.
I was wary of another gaming platform, there were so many and they all seemed the same, I never liked one over the other - they were just means to an end.
A few years back I really wanted to play RDR2 with my friends. It was expensive and I never pre-order, but as soon as it came out on (a small) sale I bought it for all 4 of us.
It was a lot of money for me, but I really wanted the story to play with everyone.
All was well at first, until we had each completed the tutorial and met up in open world. That’s when we learned that the game was based on GTA and the devs do not care about hackers.
We had one fucking with us for over an hour, teleporting us into the air and dropping us, setting us randomly on fire, spawning space ships and so on.
I begged in voice for them to just leave us be, to no avail.
We are all older, we rarely have time to play together. I was crushed.
I was an hour over the return time on Steam, one of the other friends took a bit longer exploring and was even more than that.
I contacted steam anyway and tried to get a refund, and they granted it for all of us.
Later I learned this was a thing in RDR2 and there was now the ability to create private lobbies, but I just can’t make myself try it and give Rockstar any money.
Steam however, won a lifelong fan. They didn’t have to honour the refund, and they don’t have to provide personal support that offers more than just the canned responses, but they do.
I hope Gabe lives forever, or finds another like him to carry the torch after he’s gone.
Yeah my loyalty to them comes from the fact that they treat me like they value my business. Every company says they do, but they help when help is needed and get out of the way when it isn’t. The only other businesses I feel that way towards are small restaurants and bars. It’s not an unconditional loyalty but so long as they treat me right they’ll keep my business.
They are reinvesting money back into r&d, and linux. They keep updating everything. Wish they kept making steam controllers. I have seen steam change a lot over the last +10 years.
i think ive heard rumblings about a steam controller 2? not entirely sure though