Submitted 10 months ago by Carighan@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-keeps-on-winning/
From the opinion piece:
Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.
Epic bought rocket league and promptly tanked it in favor of their stupid fortniteverse. Maybe steam keeps winning because they’re not actively screwing over their customers.
Or Pheonix Point, where Epic bought an kickstarter game that was funded under the promise of releasing on Steam, GOG and potentially other stores and promptly made it exclusive - and this was in the early days when their launcher/store was in a much worse state too.
Maybe steam keeps winning because they’re not actively screwing over their customers
Idk, they are kinda screwing over the publishers. But that doesn’t impact the users buying the game, so they don’t care. Which I guess the percentage they take is worth the value they bring, given so many keep selling on steam.
Genuinely curious but how are they screwing over the publishers?
I’m especially curious how that can be true along with the seemingly contradictory conclusion you came to in your last sentence.
Rocket League is such an easy slam dunk of a game. The mechanics are so good there should be a family of game modes (like Turbo Golf) that surround the core game mode that have spawned entirely new genres of car games by now. Almost no other vjdeo game has a core gamefeel as locked in as Rocket League and honestly Epic should be ashamed Rocket League isnt a household name like minecraft by now.
There must be more to success than that, because Valve likewise bought Campo Santo, the developer of Firewatch, and now their next game is all but canceled. These companies can’t help but focus on their big money makers at the expense of all else.
Al I can find about their next game is called “In the Valley of Gods” which looks like it is still being developed. What game was cancelled? Also how is that the same as buying an IP then running it into the ground so their main IP can get a mildly popular game mode that will likely be forgotten about in a couple months? I’m already bored of rocket racing and I only installed it because a friend kept begging me to play fortnite zero build which I also don’t enjoy.
Epic bought rocket league and promptly tanked it in favor of their stupid fortniteverse.
Sadly Valve is guilty of a similar thing. Valve bought Campo Santo and (at least that’s the public statement) the developers were free to work on whatever projects and chose HL Alyx instead of that new game after Firewatch. Game development gets cancelled all the time and perhaps the new game just wasn’t that good.
I’m glad steam and gog exist. Both provide an amazing service.
Especially GOG being DRM free but they really need a Linux client.
Hard ask for a Linux client when the Windows client is barely functional.
Heroic is currently the best option imo, it at least has cloud saves and updates.
My friend said he installed gog galaxy onhis steam deck just fine
Try Lutris
I’m fine with them existing, but if there are clauses preventing publishers from proposing their games both on steam and elsewhere while they can’t make it cheaper elsewhere, I would like these clauses to stop. I read somewhere there are such clauses and these kind of clauses seem very uncompetitive to me and I wonder why they are legal (if they are).
This isn’t really that hot of a take. Steam does keep winning and it’s because of convenience for consumers. Valve also is probably the best of those companies when it comes to not violating rights
Steam does keep winning and it’s because of convenience for consumers.
As a Linux user, nothing else comes even close. I can read on ProtonDB if I can expect a Windows game to just work, and more often than not, it does.
GOG is also a great concept, and somewhat Linux friendly, but it doesn’t have the Steam “click and play” convenience.
Epic Game Store however, has been decidedly Linux hostile for some reason??? As I see it, Steam and GOG are for gamers, Epic Game Store is for business. It would be a dark day for gamers, if Epic ever became dominant.
Valve is also a privately held company, unlike most (all?) of the other big players. Therefore they don’t have the ever present drive and threat of “the line must always go up” to contend with. Valve can do whatever the fuck they feel like, however the fuck they feel like, and as long as they’re bringing in enough revenue to keep the lights on and keep Gabe Newell in Acapulco shirts and Cheetos, or whatever his jam is, there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
They can gamble and release a VR headset or two, and if it’s not a huge success, who cares? There are no shareholders breathing down their necks. They can support the Linux community and if it pisses of Microsoft, or whoever, so what? They want to wait 16+ years before getting around to releasing the sequel to their flagship franchise? There is no boardroom pushing them to slap it together and shove it out the door before Christmas, so they can just do that. Etc.
I’ve said this before but as soon as Valve becomes a public company, immediately start protesting and sailing.
This is pretty much what I said would happen in some other threads. EGS came and portrayed itself as a savior or developers, but the cost of solution comes from consumers. They didn’t try to compete in quality of service or features, but spent hundreds of millions on exclusive deals. Who in their right mind would switch from something like Steam where sole focus is the consumer.
Yes, Steam takes a huge percentage but it’s not like anyone is forcing developers to go there. Developers go there because that’s where the people are. And people are there because they get many more benefits for the same or lower price. Steam offers so many conveniences and features it’s hard to list them all. From cloud saves to Proton, chat, family sharing and so on.
It’s funny that back in 2009 Gabe Newell was talking about the focus on the customer, and making the DRM be above all useful and do things that benefit customers instead of just benefitting the developer/publisher…and here we are today where people really don’t give a shit about the revenue split, but the fact that Steam is an extremely convenient and useful platform that does a lot of legwork for the end users that people don’t even think about anymore.
Epic is trying to wave a banner of revolution, where we the end users just want our shit to work and run nicely. Obligatory mention of Linux here as well, where it seems Valve is truly trying to foster an ecosystem that benefits customers as opposed to fucking them over. That’s in lieu of the Polygon hit-piece polygon.com/…/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-dest… where they point out the scummy things Valve has done…but if you take Valve away you’re left with a barren landscape of shitty publishers that actively treat customers awful with none of the good things Valve does.
This article didn’t research the VR bits…Gabe has said multiple times, even recently, that they are working steadily on VR and it’s hardware. Their next headset even has a codename, Deckard.
Also, I don’t think most people realize Valve doesn’t have much of an internal structure. It more resembles a community of people working together because they want to.
It’s rare that I wholeheartedly back a billion dollar company, but I do with Valve. Until Gabe is no longer CEO and their business model changes to something more nefarious, I will stick with them for years to come. No battle.net, No epic, just Steam.
Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.
Why is it so hard for companies to build a game launcher that doesn’t suck? Is it just a lowest bidder situation?
Maybe there’s a disproportionately high amount of linux users on lemmy, cause I keep seeing it come up in the comments. But I would use Epic if they had linux support. Heck some games like satisfactory I have access to on both cause I paid for it twice lol
We did it boiz.
Pat yourselves on the back if you never used an alternative.
They win me over permanently when they instituted a refund policy.
Makes sense Santa would holiday somewhere sunny.
Count this comment as irrelevant if you will, but I think one of the biggest missed opportunities of EGS is mod support. They have this world-class game engine, and they do so little with it. Maybe it is because of Unreal Tournament 4 failing to take off. Maybe they think just hamfisting a bunch of this modding stuff into Fortnite is all they need, but still I feel like the EGS version of the steam workshop is an open goal. Hell, with the money they’re saving from pawning off Bandcamp you can even buy off mod.io to get support for virtually no work at all. Like why hasn’t this happened yet?
Let’s start a pool to predict how many years/months until Steam enshitifies. It WILL happen. It’s just a matter of when.
What I’m wondering: is this going to happen to the many streaming services as well? They’re many and expensive. Are they going to consolidate in a few or are they going to lower their prices so that they don’t continue to lose users?
The power of a monopoly
GOG > itch.io > Steam > whale poo > everything else
Now Epic games are next, hopefully.
Blizzard had a legit decent platform for a while there. Real fall from grace.
I’d also be winning if I could force all my competitors to match my prices despite my fees being higher than theirs.
HAHA
echo64@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I know everyone loves Valve, but it feels super weird to be celebrating a monopoly so much and so ferociously. (I know Steam isn’t a technical monopoly. We don’t need to have that discussion)
Gaben is old, and he’s gonna retire. It’ll likely be a lot sooner than anyone here is comfortable with. When Valve gets sold, or even when gaben isn’t in total control anymore, things are going to start changing, and there isn’t going to be a healthy, diverse marketplace to soften that.
There is a very good chance that the PC platform will be a really horrible place because of the lack of consumer choice in which they can purchase and play games.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
This genuinely doesn’t get talked about enough. Steam is a private company and Gabe Newell seems to be the de facto “head” of the company, despite its famously “flat” management structure. There is no guarantee a new leader will have the same values or lead the same way. There is ripe opportunity for Steam to become a steaming pile of shit. I don’t know about the exact ownership structure beyond Newell, but unless the employees are far more empowered through things like ownership stake in the company, new leadership could effectively destroy how things currently work at Valve to be replaced by any number of terrible business decisions.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Dude, he’s 61! You guys are making it sound like he’s as old as a presidential candidate!
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Hopefully they have some sort of transition plan for who will take over when Gabe retires. As long as they hand the reigns over to someone with similar ideas and not some business type they could be fine given they are privately owned.
Magrath@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Gabe is only 61. But based on his size he will probably go from health issues from that sooner than old age will get a skinnier Gabs.
GreenEnigma@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That’s because at a certain point things like this should just become services.
But that’s wildly against capitalists mindset so…
dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Agreed, further the behavior of valve has to be understood like that of bandcamp before it was sold, an anomaly in a capitalist system that is vastly underperforming and dysfunctional from the perspective of those with money and power. It isn’t, valve is doing great (so was bandcamp) but and I really want to stress this point for the naive gamers here who dont have a very well developed sense of the political realities of capitalism as an ideology (as opposed to some “natural order” of commerce or trade), it doesnt matter if valve is in its most profitable state right now. When it falls under the control of different rich business people it will immediately begin having its heart ripped out, rationality actually comes a lot less into the picture than you think if you believe in economics as a pure science rather than a belief system that uses more math and acronyms than most.
If there arent robust alternatives to valve then, it will be a big step back.
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 10 months ago
It’s not Steam’s fault if their competitors can’t make a good product. Steam is still the only one with Linux support.
TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
There is nothing exclusive to steam with respect to Linux support. All of the things required for games to run on Linux which valve support are fully open source and even existed before valve got involved. They just threw money at the efforts and turbo charged it (which is great).
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
“This product is worthless because it doesn’t cater to… Let me check my notes… Under 2% of the market and even less if we don’t count the Steam Deck!”
Ok buddy
rambaroo@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Lol it is literally steam’s fault and they intended to be this way from the very beginning. They intentionally cornered the market with HL2. It’s incredible how people act like this shit just accidentally happened because valve made a supposedly good product.
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Next CEO will literally just kill the program and pocket the money. Saying they need to focus on their core windows users, times are hard, “the economy”
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
In an ideal world, if Gaben was a real saint, he would turn Steam into a foundation or steward-owned purpose organization before he retires, that can’t be sold.
toroknos_07@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Thank for the interesting read
ikidd@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Didn’t the Patagonia owner do something like that?
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 10 months ago
I’m just glad GOG is surviving. It’s even closer to an ideal of DRM-free games you own. I try to buy from there whenever I can.
echo64@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Gog is on life support last I checked, it wasn’t profitable and they had to cut headcount dramatically
rambaroo@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Even closer? Implying that steam ever cared about digital ownership?
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s absolutely weird and unhealthy to celebrate it.
This is it. Look at history and every major company in the past 200 years. Once the shift happens, it all goes to hell. And yet people are still shouting about some “Steam Victory” like wtf?
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
Nothing lasts forever, but occasionally things can hang on for awhile. Nintendo isn’t quite the beloved company they were a few decades ago, but they’ve been doing ok for the past ~130 years.
Vespair@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Meh, I think there are some private companies that manage to remain vigilant in their purpose even as leaders change.
In my opinion, most problems happen the second a company goes public. So I’m just hoping that Valve never chooses to go public and is thus never legally beholden to shareholder interests.
fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Steams biggest competition isn’t another launcher, it’s piracy. If they enshittify that’s really going to be the other option.
sep@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Absolutely. I have not pirated a single game since I got steam. Before that it was almost exclusively pirated games. no shops close by, and buying on mail order took FOREVER! and was very much hit or miss… And impossible to return.
I did buy most of the games that i enjoyed, and played a lot. Since i wanted the box on the shelf. but i still played the pirated version. since that was much easier then puling out the book and look at the 5th word on the 3rd paragraph on page 121 for the copy protection. :)
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 months ago
Yet you still refer to it as such. 🤦♂️
dlpkl@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s just fanboyism. Everyone shits on PS and Xbox users, but PC gamers weren’t privy to the fact that the PC master race trope was meant mockingly and kinda just ran with it. Now they stan a corporation.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
It is technically a monopoly, you don’t need 100% market share to be considered one otherwise Google wouldn’t be considered a monopoly but it is.
Rose@lemmy.world 10 months ago
In the Epic trial, Google made some of the same arguments as those used to defend Steam, like the presence of competing stores or the claim that it wins people over by the quality of the product.
Epic’s expert made these relevant points:
And we know who won in this antitrust case.
flumph@programming.dev 10 months ago
I agree with the sentiment that Steam will eventually have a shitification, but I remain optimistic because the PC platform is more open than mobile platforms.
GOG and Humble are existing, smaller stores. Microsoft had three stores they use to sell and install games. Half of the FAANG companies would love to get in on this space if an opportunity showed itself. If we get past high interest rates, I can see VCs getting in on this space.
It won’t be pretty and we can support smaller options now. But I don’t think it’ll be horrible.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That’s one way to swat away all criticism about the premise of your comment…
Considering the fact that Steam is not a monopoly and alternate storefronts continue to exist (Microsoft will not stop selling games individually on their own store even if it’s just an afterthought to GamePass but it’s the same platform as GamePass), there will be alternatives to Steam if Valve turns anti-consumer. There is little actual loyalty among gamers. Just look at Blizzard: At one point their customer base was almost as die hard as Nintendo’s and it took only a couple of years to throw that away. (I noticed it when the audience actually booed at the Diablo Immortal reveal.)
beefsack@lemmy.world 10 months ago
One day, Valve will be under different ownership, and we will regret the time we fought for their monopoly.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That will be a shame for already purchased Steam libraries, but because the PC is an open platform and their “monopoly” is drastically overstated, it might just be the opportunity for GOG to rise up. Or maybe even Epic, if it actually bothers doing better. Valve can’t, and won’t ever be able to completely control where people buy PC games.
You know, as opposed to consoles like Playstation, which, if you don’t like how they are doing business, you just gotta deal with it.
GoodEye8@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I wouldn’t call it fighting for a monopoly. It’s just that for the last decade people have been doing exactly what everyone keeps saying to do, voting with their wallet. Steam isn’t a clear market leader because people wanted it to be, it’s one because every competitor has not put in the effort to compete but rather chosen to be shitty towards the customer rather than be beneficial to the customer.
thesorehead@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I agree with all your points… but… IMHO some things keeping Steam honest are services like GoG and if course the High Seas, but more than that there’s the plethora of other entertainment options.
This isn’t housing, air, or water. A person can just not play if it’s too much hassle or too costly. If Steam or any given entertainment option isn’t worth using, people just won’t. There’s no shortage of things to do other than play games, much less use Steam for gaming.
I agree that we shouldn’t imagine Steam will never change, nor should we blindly worship or glorify Valve/GabeN. I just think that games and entertainment generally is an arena where market forces actually work to benefit the consumer.
Of course employment practices and company culture is a whole 'nother thing…
DingoBilly@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yep.
People fanboy over Steam endlessly without realizing that with time, it will turn to shit as well.
More competition is good, and maybe Epic is shit today but if their leadership changes then maybe it could actually significantly improve and surpass Steam.
But if it doesn’t exist, then if Steam turns to shit then you’re much more likely to just be stuck with shit.
mammut@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Crow@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’m not celebrating a monopoly, I’m celebrating a good platform for consumers. Steam likely knows that if it angers people its monopoly is ripe for a ton of regulation, at least in the European market where PC gaming is huge.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
They’ve been hit with an anti trust lawsuit in Europe, lost and didn’t cooperate and instead paid some more.
They offer refunds because they got sued for it.
They’ve introduced more and more ways to monetize whales and to trigger people’s dopamine secretion to get them to buy more games.
Valve is still a company that aims to make profits, it’s not your friend.
BoastfulDaedra@lemmynsfw.com 10 months ago
Newell is only 61, and an avid gamer with a lot of demonstrable business intelligence. I wouldn’t worry too much.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Only? I mean people die in their 50s and 60s all the time. You never know. I just hope the one that takes over has the same morals as Gabe.
chitak166@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’ve been weaning myself off of Steam for years now.
I only use it at this point for games I’ve already bought and games that are exclusive to Steam, like TF2.
Anything else I just download for free elsewhere.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 10 months ago
So many viruses.
Adalast@lemmy.world 10 months ago
The only reason I support them as a monopoly is because they are the closest thing to an ethical/moral capitalist company around. They are proof positive that treating employees, customers, and vendors fairly can lead to an obscenely strong company with profit margins that the amoral assholes out there looking for every way to shaft everyone to make an extra penny can are envious of.
From what I understand discussing the issue with friends who run game studios and deal with Valve/Steam, the employees pretty much have his mindset from the bottom to the top of the org chart. He has been smart in who he hires and who is promoted so leadership is not a bunch of sniveling money grubbers who will sell out immediately when he retires. 🤞
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 10 months ago
Btw, some sort of “optional Peer to Peer”, where volunteers host the platform P2P and everyone else can log in normally, does something like that exist?
To have a decentral platform for mods, against the near duopoly of Steam Workshop/Nexus.
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 10 months ago
They try hard to monopolize mods for that. An issue especially with GoG & Steam multireleases; they hog all the mods (community work) on their Workshop.
There’s no good company, only less shitty ones.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Nothing lasts forever.
Plus, we have enough games. Shut it down, play old games lol