I feel like steam entered the market for online distribution pretty early. It initially started as a way for valve to update their own games and morphed into a digital distribution platform. They have had way more time to generate good will. My experiences have been very positive with steam, why would I leave a platform that works for me, to go to other companies that have already fucked me as a consumer prior to releasing digital storefronts? If the wagon ain’t broke don’t fix it.

In one sense yes they are a monopoly. But there are alternative game stores. However Valve has earned their cut of money by actually trying to make a platform that works for game developers, game players and themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, they have a high risk of turning bad and extorting the market they have captured. But the truth is that every equally or greater sized competitor (Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Epic) has already skipped to the extortion part of the cycle and Valve simply hasn’t, and hasn’t really expressed any intention to do that. Being a privately owned company, Valve is allowed to sit back, enjoy the money they do make and not have to constantly ask for more, and develop what the staff feel like making without strict deadlines.

The smaller competitors are still great even if not as feature filled (GOG, itch) and you should support them too. So while I reject that Valve is the big bad, I also reject that Valve could never enshittify. My position is that Valve has earned a trust no one else has (even itch had to cave to Credit Card companies), and that trust is Valve’s to break.

Game distribution platform Rokky has just released the results of a study it conducted with 306 senior managers of PC game developers (all from the US or UK), and it makes for some interesting reading.

This study has a chance of being reasonable, but this article is junk. No word on methodology. I’m sure(/s) that the 306 managers aren’t skewed because they’re known by a non-steam platform.

I avoided signing up for years because I thought it would lead to us only owning a revokable digital license to every new game. Oh how the turn tables.

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from the overall pool, 75% of respondents were senior managers

So… not developers, but businessmen.

Haven’t even bothered making an account on epic for the free games or what ever they are offering. I just don’t care, steam is so much better. Got a few games in GoG too but I wish they did a little better in the Linux support side of things.

absolutely spot on write up, thank you

it’s just not worth the trouble even free

for me, it all boils down to this. The best DRM is making garbage. I won’t even sail the seas to find it, I just will never use it.

I will also say is that major reason why Steam has an monopoly is that they have invested their resources to streamline the PC gaming experience and also make gaming on Linux better as well as Steam controller which also allows us to remap control layout.

None the alternative does that and are just another DRM-Storefront. That’s my major pet peeve with Steam alternative like Epic Games Launcher. Closest we have is GOG for to be able to download offline installer and most the games are DRM-free. Otherwise, I just would rather buy games on Steam as it just works for me…

*Oh, how the turn tables turn.

Game distribution platform Rokky has just released the results of a study it conducted with 306 senior managers of PC game developers (all from the US or UK)

Unsurprising that they find this, since that’s what their business is about.

MAXIMIZE GLOBAL GAME SALES WITH ROKKY

Expand sales of your PC game beyond Steam. Sell game keys to 200+ global storefronts simultaneously with Rokky. Enjoy revenue increases of up to 100%.

Epic has offered quite a few decent games for free but their forced client/launcher is such shit that its not even worth installing. I absolutely wouldn’t be surprised if people pirate games even after they’ve gotten them free on epic just to not have to deal with that bullshit.

Heroic Games Launcher

An Open Source Epic, GOG and Amazon Prime Games Launcher

(heroicgameslauncher.com)

Works on windows, Mac and Linux. Connects to GOG, Epic and Amazon.

It’s a free market, right? Customers choosing what they prefer and all that? And then eventually the one that provides the best price-for-service ratio comes out on top? Something like that, right?

If you want to stop Steam from being so ubiquitous with PC gaming, then create some proper competition. The only one that comes close in my eyes is GOG.

They’re a functional monopoly in my case since I’m on Linux. GOG is the main competitor for my money.

You do not understand the issues around monopolies and it shows.

You do not understand what a monopoly is.

Unlike yourself apparently, I learned that in school: Monopoly is made up of two greek words “monos”, meaning single, kinda like mono and “polein”, meaning sell. It’s a market where there is a single seller. But unlike what you think, it is not possible to simply “create better competition”. A monopoly is controlled by a single entity. You can not enter a market controlled by a singular entity without ludicrous amounts of luck or wealth. There is a reason why even the US, the country with the most, largest monopolies in the world, has antitrust laws.

I had a reason to call you out, you didn’t even get any insight to my thought.

Valve is “de facto” monopoly, bit the actual monopoly potential is in Microsoft hands. Microsoft is for PC gaming industry what Google is for the web browser one. Sure, there may be other cool web browsers, but it’s Google that (through Android base) decide whic web browser will be delivered with the next billions of Android mobile device: some elderly people on smartphone don’t even know what is a web browser (“oh, you mean when I Google? I don’t know: I just Google”).

All future new PC will be sold with Microsoft Store and Xbox junk ware: Microsoft has been exceptionally shitty for not being the actual monopoly in the PC gaming industry. But that’s a very feeble protection: break Valve business is just a mandatory “security update” away to happen. They can break Steam little by little (such as suggested by Tim Sweeney) or just a big blow by sheer monopolized manipulation (such as Google not allowing adblockers to chrome to feed their advertising business)