What’s with all the shade on GOG and itch? They’re great, and arguably serve other segments of the gaming market better already. The only difference is that Steam has a dominant position in online and AAA PC gaming, which is all corpos actually care about.
They are ignored in conversations like this because their existence undermines the monopoly accusations aimed at Steam. Talk like this isn’t about the reality, but trying to tear Steam down so Epic can compete without having to actually provide a good product.
Wish people would start asking Epic why they aren’t letting Alan Wake 2 be released on GOG and itch, since they act like Steam is the only platform and attack it to avoid being asked why they are holding the game hostage from coming out on other platforms.
It‘s a quasi monopoly. Their service cannot be ignored if you want your product to succeed on the market. You cannot choose a valid alternative. This is not about malevolence on Valve’s side, but a market reality.
There is definitely a strong network effect. If Valve started enshittifying, it is impossible for customers to completely switch to a competitor without losing their community, their game library, their game controller, their gaming portable, and access to steam-exclusive games.
It is very much an early Facebook situation, but Valve has never enshittified.
It is for publishers as customers, not for users of course. You can’t realistically navigate around their service if you want to make money with your game.
You can’t realistically navigate around their service if you want to make money with your game.
Where are you getting this from? Yes you can absolutely do this. Mojang did this for decades a la Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress did this for decades. Roblox is massive. World of Warcraft, I mean, yes you can absolutely make a hit title, sell well, and have nothing to do with Steam.
Destiny too, like it wasn’t like they were doing bad before bringing titles over to Steam. It’s clear they wanted more money which is why they did that lol. They were already making plenty and decided they wanted to make more
That’s a lot of Unicorns that don’t fit your narrative lol. I could list more, but I think I already proved my point. Yes it’s possible to publish a game and be successful without Steam, and yes it’s been done multiple times across the existence of Steam.
To maximize sales, you do need to put your product on Steam. That doesn’t mean it is a monopoly.
Steam likely could leverage their market position to become a monopoly, but they aren’t one now. Just because they are a vital part to any large scale game launch doesn’t make them a monopoly, quasi or otherwise.
I don’t think it is a particularly healthy market, and I wish there were even more options. That doesn’t change the fact all the monopoly talk has been driven by bad faith actors trying to attack steam without any real cause.
So people put their games on Epic, GOG, itch, Xbox, PS5 and whatever else for funsies? Definitely not because people buy their game from those places. They can even put their game up on those other marketplaces without any penalty from steam. Almost like there are alternatives available. Having the largest market share and having large influence in a market does not equal a monopoly.
Saying it again doesn’t make it less wrong. They are in a position where they could possibly use anticompetitive practices to become a monopoly or close to it. Currently they are not, and are not a quasi monopoly either. They simply have created a well rounded service that is preferred by a majority in the PC space.
If you want the store front to take a smaller cut then you can sell on itch. If you want to buy games without DRM then check out GOG. If you like shitty service, venture capitalists, enshittification, and AI slop then Epic has you covered.
It’s not a quasi monopoly for me, the user, but for publisher who want to sell games. They have to go through Steam if they want to sell on PC. This would be an absolute no-brainer if it wasn’t tangled up in some bullshit culture war.
What’s with all the shade on GOG and itch? They’re great, and arguably serve other segments of the gaming market better already. The only difference is that Steam has a dominant position in online and AAA PC gaming, which is all corpos actually care about.
They are ignored in conversations like this because their existence undermines the monopoly accusations aimed at Steam. Talk like this isn’t about the reality, but trying to tear Steam down so Epic can compete without having to actually provide a good product.
Epic doesnt want to compete. It wants a to have a nice fat profit to he carved out for it so it can keep its investors happy with forever growth.
I guess I could have been more accurate by saying that Epic wants a larger market share without having to provide a quality product.
Tim Sweeney would rather die than see another company get a single cent of income from fortnite.
epic should fucking die and its c suite should be used to reproduce the Tuskegee experiment.
Wish people would start asking Epic why they aren’t letting Alan Wake 2 be released on GOG and itch, since they act like Steam is the only platform and attack it to avoid being asked why they are holding the game hostage from coming out on other platforms.
100% on point
It‘s a quasi monopoly. Their service cannot be ignored if you want your product to succeed on the market. You cannot choose a valid alternative. This is not about malevolence on Valve’s side, but a market reality.
It’s not. The only reason people see it as such is because valve has consumers trust they act in the consumers best interest.
Other companies hate this, because it doesn’t allow them to do some anti consumer practices
There is definitely a strong network effect. If Valve started enshittifying, it is impossible for customers to completely switch to a competitor without losing their community, their game library, their game controller, their gaming portable, and access to steam-exclusive games.
It is very much an early Facebook situation, but Valve has never enshittified.
It is for publishers as customers, not for users of course. You can’t realistically navigate around their service if you want to make money with your game.
Where are you getting this from? Yes you can absolutely do this. Mojang did this for decades a la Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress did this for decades. Roblox is massive. World of Warcraft, I mean, yes you can absolutely make a hit title, sell well, and have nothing to do with Steam.
Edit: The most recent example right now is Hytale, which is purposely not on Steam and reached 1M+ active players in the first week.
blizzard was really doing well with diablo and overwatch before they decided to be stupid af. now those games are on steam LOL
dear blizzard: too late LOL
Destiny too, like it wasn’t like they were doing bad before bringing titles over to Steam. It’s clear they wanted more money which is why they did that lol. They were already making plenty and decided they wanted to make more
Destiny went to Steam because Bungies contract with Activision ended and wasn’t extended.
You’re listing absolute unicorns. Ask any dev/publisher that want to release a game and they will 100% not skip Steam.
That’s a lot of Unicorns that don’t fit your narrative lol. I could list more, but I think I already proved my point. Yes it’s possible to publish a game and be successful without Steam, and yes it’s been done multiple times across the existence of Steam.
yes, please list more. it’s not “my” narrative, it’s economic realism. ask some devs.
To maximize sales, you do need to put your product on Steam. That doesn’t mean it is a monopoly.
Steam likely could leverage their market position to become a monopoly, but they aren’t one now. Just because they are a vital part to any large scale game launch doesn’t make them a monopoly, quasi or otherwise.
I don’t think it is a particularly healthy market, and I wish there were even more options. That doesn’t change the fact all the monopoly talk has been driven by bad faith actors trying to attack steam without any real cause.
Not maximizing sales, having any sales to speak of at all.
So people put their games on Epic, GOG, itch, Xbox, PS5 and whatever else for funsies? Definitely not because people buy their game from those places. They can even put their game up on those other marketplaces without any penalty from steam. Almost like there are alternatives available. Having the largest market share and having large influence in a market does not equal a monopoly.
quasi monopoly
Saying it again doesn’t make it less wrong. They are in a position where they could possibly use anticompetitive practices to become a monopoly or close to it. Currently they are not, and are not a quasi monopoly either. They simply have created a well rounded service that is preferred by a majority in the PC space.
If you want the store front to take a smaller cut then you can sell on itch. If you want to buy games without DRM then check out GOG. If you like shitty service, venture capitalists, enshittification, and AI slop then Epic has you covered.
It’s not a quasi monopoly for me, the user, but for publisher who want to sell games. They have to go through Steam if they want to sell on PC. This would be an absolute no-brainer if it wasn’t tangled up in some bullshit culture war.
Sorry home slice, but those facts you’re dropping are a little too accurate for ol’ Timbo’s liking.
Haven’t had someone hit me with ‘home slice’ in a minute. Flameo, hotman.
Now I can’t help but wonder what the Venn diagram of c/pcgaming and people who get “Flameo, hotman” looks like.
It felt like a safe assumption. I bet even the highly niche agenda-driven weirdos on Lemmy have good taste in cartoons.
At the very least, you sized the recipient up well. Otherwise, it would have been rough, buddy.