If Steam not hosting your game causes your studio to shut down, it’s not because Steam is being some unreasonable gatekeeper. It’s because you’re making something that there isn’t any market for, or so little of a market that your only hope is to get it visible to as many people as possible so the tiny fraction of them that are interested can keep you afloat.
You know being on Steam means crucial access to more customers. To most customers, in fact.
The games that do well, despite being invisible to the supermajority of customers, are the exceptions. Nobody gets dropped from EGS or Itch and goes “oh no, we’re ruined, we’re only on Steam now.” But the opposite happens repeatedly. The reason is not complicated.
So what do you propose? Is there some action Steam is doing that they should be legally stopped from? As far as I am aware Steam has the most customers simply because those customers prefer it.
Here’s the funny part: it’s probably fine. AND YET, people will twist themselves inside-out to deny the premise.
Your root post fully admitted the accusation:
If you’re not in this one store, you lose access to most customers.
That’s a fucking monopoly.
As I’ve explained to people, over and over and over and over, anti-competitive practice is a separate thing. Monopoly just means market share. It’s enough power to become a problem. It is the ability to fuck people over. We need to recognize these situations, before they ruin everything.
For comparison, Netflix was a monopoly, and I think the entire world would be happier if that was still the case. But saying so doesn’t mean they weren’t a monopoly. For a good while there, your choices for legal streaming video were Netflix, or lying to yourself about legality. The desirable solution would be multiple services offering all the same shows for competitive… not the exclusivity hellscape we got. And gaming would be better-off if every game was in every storefront, like boxes on shelves, instead of one store being a huge fucking deal and the rest being nearly irrelevant.
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Struggling is the rule, not the exception. Most games do much worse when they’re not on Steam. Most means more. Do you understand that?
One example does not mean most.
You know being on Steam means crucial access to more customers. To most customers, in fact.
The games that do well, despite being invisible to the supermajority of customers, are the exceptions. Nobody gets dropped from EGS or Itch and goes “oh no, we’re ruined, we’re only on Steam now.” But the opposite happens repeatedly. The reason is not complicated.
Right: there’s not a market for AAA torture porn / sexual abuse games.
Apparently there is. But you can’t access enough of it unless you’re on the one store that really counts.
If only there were words for one company arbitrarily restricting who gets to reach customers.
Freedom of association? Valve is not obligated or required to host everyone’s game if they don’t want to.
One company restricting access to most customers is a different thing.
And it becomes a problem for everyone.
So what do you propose? Is there some action Steam is doing that they should be legally stopped from? As far as I am aware Steam has the most customers simply because those customers prefer it.
Here’s the funny part: it’s probably fine. AND YET, people will twist themselves inside-out to deny the premise.
Your root post fully admitted the accusation:
If you’re not in this one store, you lose access to most customers.
That’s a fucking monopoly.
As I’ve explained to people, over and over and over and over, anti-competitive practice is a separate thing. Monopoly just means market share. It’s enough power to become a problem. It is the ability to fuck people over. We need to recognize these situations, before they ruin everything.
For comparison, Netflix was a monopoly, and I think the entire world would be happier if that was still the case. But saying so doesn’t mean they weren’t a monopoly. For a good while there, your choices for legal streaming video were Netflix, or lying to yourself about legality. The desirable solution would be multiple services offering all the same shows for competitive… not the exclusivity hellscape we got. And gaming would be better-off if every game was in every storefront, like boxes on shelves, instead of one store being a huge fucking deal and the rest being nearly irrelevant.