Last year, they all came crawlin' back to Steam, and this year was another strong one for Valve.

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.

    • Joelk111@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      This is a weird mentality. Competition in the space is good, even if the current “default” thing is really good.

        • derpgon@programming.devEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          Monopoly isn’t bad (or illegal) if it doesn’t exploit and/or abuse it’s market position, which Steam doesn’t.

          • Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
            01·
            11 months ago

            But it does abuse its market position. By setting very high developer/publisher fees and forcing everyone to pay them. Don’t forget that from Steam perspective, developers and publisher are their consumers, not you. Their business is similar to supermarkets. Supermarkets don’t sell stuff to you, they provide selling and logistics services to produce manufacturers.

            • derpgon@programming.devEnglish
              0·
              11 months ago

              But those fees are counteracted by large user base, which is large due to the fact the platform is great and provides it’s users good features that aren’t elsewhere. A s large user base means large buying power, which directly translates to higher sales and thus higher profits.

              If a supermarket gives the customers a nice place to stay, and provides extra features others don’t, the extra cost for having your store in there (in Steam terms higher commissions, although I personally think it’s adequate, but I digress) is offset by having bigger profit overall.

              • Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
                01·
                11 months ago

                That doesn’t mean Steam doesn’t abuse its power. Because they sure do.

                • derpgon@programming.devEnglish
                  0·
                  11 months ago

                  How? By being a good company? Look at the Google Play Store lawsuit, and why were they sued, any why they lost. Steam is not abusing it’s position. And if you think they do, gimme an example or two please.

      • chitak166@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        Competition for the sake of competition isn’t intrinsically a good thing.

        Seems to me, most of the people complaining about Steam are greedy devs who want to make more money off of their products.

        For me, as a user, that’s not my concern. For me, as a user, it’s more important that I can play games without having to download different launchers just to make someone else richer.

        GOG is probably the only legitimate competitor with Steam. They provide value to customers instead of just themselves or greedy devs.

        • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          For me, as a user, that’s not my concern. For me, as a user, it’s more important that I can have my convenience

          FTFY

          Also, the only truly bad competition is subsidized competition. As long as it’s not surviving on some kind of grant or funding, instead of its actual market value, then it’s always a good thing as it keeps competitors on their toes.

          • Thirdborne@lemmy.worldEnglish
            01·
            11 months ago

            Listen. Some of us have our life savings in our Steam library. If competition ever drives Steam bankrupt, we go down with the ship! We take Steam’s health personally and very seriously. Your mumbo jumbo about competition doesn’t factor into it.

            • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              11 months ago

              No one wants Steam bankrupt, they just want more than one videogame vendor on PC to be viable.

              “Mumbo jumbo about competition” I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or are just legitimately a braindead moron.

              • Thirdborne@lemmy.worldEnglish
                01·
                11 months ago

                There are exceptions to the notion that competition is good. If we attempt to map out all the exceptions, we will be left with mumbo jumbo. Economic libertarianism is the true death of the brain. Some monopolies are good and any threat to the monopoly is a threat to the consumer.

  • echo64@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 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.

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Steams biggest competition isn’t another launcher, it’s piracy. Gabe is wise enough to know that, if the next guy to take over is a chode they’ll learn the hard way.