Steam does have a monopoly though. They don’t do anything anti-competitive with it, so there is not much Epic can do about it (other than make their platform better for the people using it).
Comment on Steam announces game recording beta.
Zozano@lemy.lol 4 days ago
It’s hilarious to me that Epic will never introduce features like this, and also complain Steam has a monopoly, as if they’re at all comparable
DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Steam does not have a monopoly by any actual definition of monopoly, though. A) Mobile gaming makes up the most of all video gaming revenue. B) On PC the most revenue is made by games that aren’t even on Steam in the first place (Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox). Steam’s 2023 revenue has been estimated to be around 8.6bn USD out of 45bn USD of PC gaming revenue. That’s barely a 5th of the market power. By no account this can be actually considered to be a monopoly.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
What is “handheld” here? It doesn’t seem like the Switch counts, and I doubt Steam Deck does, so is this this the old handheld-exclusive consoles like 3DS?
woelkchen@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Pretty sure from Game Boy up to 3DS.
Jestzer@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I love this graphic because it’s a reminder to self-proclaimed “gamers” that mobile gaming has been doing laps around “real” gaming for over half a decade now, with no indication of the trend changing. Yes, mobile games are typically lower quality and more predatory, but it’s undeniable that the average person who plays video games now is just a regular person with a phone.
Scrollone@feddit.it 3 days ago
Yes, but… it’s like comparing people that go to the cinema and people who watch reels on Instagram.
Okay, both things involve watching a video, but they are two very different experiences.
daddy32@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is by revenue, so whales succumbing to mobile bullshit may distort it - a lot.
Zozano@lemy.lol 3 days ago
Just for the sake of being fair, Steam does do one thing which is anticompetitive; they require publishers don’t sell their games for less than they do on Steam.
If you think about this for a moment you’ll realise it’s in the publisher’s best interest to agree to this.
Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Not quite true - they require that you not sell Steam keys for less than you do on Steam. They still don’t even stop you from doing giveaways or participating in bundles. It’s just that your typical prices on independent Steam key sales, for which they don’t even take a cut, can’t be lower than Steam prices. Also the seller sets all of these prices.
Given they’re footing the bill for indefinitely hosting the games supplied via those keys, that’s an entirely reasonable restriction.
This is coming from someone who is against capitalism and all IP law. The big problem with Steam imho is that Gabe Newell won’t live forever and when he’s gone the company could go public or go to some fail son who will tank it. I’m not even saying Gabe Newell is a great guy or an ethical billionaire, but he’s been remarkably consistent in keeping Steam’s business model running well.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 days ago
The fact that Epic Game Store exists at all is proof that Steam isn’t a monopoly. A monopoly means they’re the only option. Steam is not the only option. It is simply the best option.
tb_@lemmy.world 4 days ago
But how does the EGS exist?
Because they are able to subsidize it with investor as well as Fortnite money. I doubt it’s turned a profit for them.
Wouldn’t exactly call that “viable competition”
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
That’s the thing that gets me. Undercutting is the quintessential anticompetitive practice, and it’s Epic’s entire business model. They give away games for free because they are trying to siphon some of Steam’s customers. They make exclusive release deals with publishers because they want to force people to use their platform. They are trying to compete with Steam using their resources from the success of Fortnite and Unreal rather than compete with the storefront by actually having a better storefront.
Zozano@lemy.lol 3 days ago
One of the problems Epic has is that it is only a store front. Steam is a fully featured platform.
Epic, in their lawsuit, wants to break Steam’s store and platform into separate applications, so they can compete.
Sort of like how people want to have different app stores on their iphones.
Difference is: Steam has no restrictions in the first place. You can add non-Steam games to the client if you want. You can use Proton if you want.
Steam offers all of these features for free. What is the point in breaking them apart.
lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
Are they succeeding? I have no idea of the actual figures and the Internet tends to form echo chambers, so I don’t know if the sentiments I read that they’re still not much of a threat is actually representative.
calcopiritus@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s easy to explain. EGS managed to make everyone hate them just as it started. How do they expect to be profitable if they piss off the entire market?
There are other stores such as GoG that have actual users.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
EGS is the Fortnite launcher. Fortnite’s player base is insanely huge. Those people have EGS installed, they just choose not to buy anything else on that platform, except maybe V Bucks.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
No it doesn’t
A company can be a monopoly when they include so many features that new competition can’t compete
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 days ago
Monopoly: 1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
That’s a pure monopoly
A monopolistic market can occur when…wiat I previously said
bitfucker@programming.dev 2 days ago
Why can’t anyone develop said features? Should the competitor worsen themselves just because no one is able to develop the same features? As far as I remember, valve doesn’t patent something ridiculous like regional pricing or family sharing, so anyone is welcome to develop it themselves. They even make proton open source but apparently Epic doesn’t like the idea of them on the linux market.