ITT I learn that oligarch gabe nawel is the elon musk of gamers
I do not know if I would say monopoly but if they do, it is because they have the best service, examples: steam features, steam machines, including steam deck, the os is under GNU GPL v2.0 and a linux distro, and they are actively trying to provide the most freedom possible to their customers.
Tepid take: The only people calling Steam a monopoly are the loser competitors who can’t find a more extortive business model that will actually compete in their quest to syphon wealth out of the gaming ecosystem. Also ‘news’ outlets that are being paid to assert this narrative, and dumbshit reactionaries who believe those narratives. Sorry Epic CEO, you can’t cry and shit your pants into forcing a successful company to make room and give you a cut. The market will ony respond to a better product here, and Epic ain’t it. EA learned this lesson with their shit-ass Origin product years ago, brand loyalty takes a long time to build and is a powerful variable, and steam is good at not fucking with the gamers, or at least only within parameters of acceptability, it appears.
I’m not mad because they go above and beyond to support Linux, which I prefer to use.
None of the other stores do even the bare minimum for Linux users, while Valve has helped make it easier to play almost every game.
All these concern trolling articles about Valve’s “monopoly”. We never get this shit about Youtube, Windows, local ISPs and other utilities, etc. Super subtle, guys.
The greedy/entitled morons are mad and try every day to convince us to lower our standards so they can make more money.
Anyone who bitches about Steam being a “monopoly” instead of it being DRM should not be taken seriously.
Because they are one of the few mega companies that hasn’t shrinkflated, enshittified, or otherwise crumbled the quality of their offering. Haven’t sold out the privacy of their customer base to advertising companies, and are generally good to deal with for customers and developers.
It’s not a secret formula that no other company can learn from. It’s as simple as not being dicks IMO.
For some reason, most companies seem to grow too a certain threshold at which they sell their souls to profit and will self destruct to get more of it. Steam thankfully isn’t one of them…… yet.
They’re a private company and thus have resisted many of the enshittification trends that run rampant through the industry.
And also their competitors are absolutely atrocious and are completely tone-deaf to what customers actually want.
This is exactly right. As soon as a company becomes public, it’s all over. Profits at X%, every quarter, no matter the cost. It’s the death of a company.
It doesn’t have to go public to do that. It can get sold to private equity. The original owner can pass the business to their kid who has grown up privileged and huffs their own farts. Going public is a guarantee of enshittification but it isn’t the only way.
Are they a monopoly? They’re definitely huge, but a lot of the games on Steam are non-exclusive, and they don’t actually control the rights to the games. Like, they don’t own the IP, they don’t restrict content to their platform, and they have some pretty functional if smaller competitors like GOG and Epic. They also make their platform compatible with game keys that weren’t actually sold on their platform.
They’re definitely something with substantial market dominance as a platform, not I’m not sure monopoly is really the word.
Monopoly is definitely the word, but they also don’t appear to be overly abusive about their market position.
They take 30% of all PC game sales. If that isn’t abusing their position, idk what is.
You lost 60% when selling physical media in stores, 30% was an amazing deal when steam launched
Valve literally released hardware and said “hey, competitors, feel free to add your own stores and even OS”. None of their competitors even bothered to try.
Valve doesn’t need to resort to underhanded tactics to secure their monopoly like other monopolies. They just know that they provide a good service.
Funny because they absolutely use those tactics even to this day. Among other things, they go around and tell developers not to set lower prices or discounts elsewhere if they want to be on Steam (see page 160 here).
Not if they want to sell on steam, if they want steam to issue steam keys for purchases made outside of steam. Yes they literally let you use all the steam infrastructure for sales that they don’t get to take a cut out of, with the requirement being you cannot undercut them for those sales.
If you want to sell for cheaper outside of steam you can, you just no longer can ask steam to issue extra keys beyond those sold on steam store.
Did you look at the page I pointed to? It’s done irrespective of Steam key use. Look at the “Type of Product” column.
I’m “mad”. Their business model should be illegal. If you buy a game you shouldn’t be chained to their platform.
That’s not an issue with Steam that is an issue with consumer protection and copy right laws.
It’s definitely as issue with Steam. Once you purchase a game you can’t just launch it…you need to launch it through their platform. I don’t want to have my internet connected and Steam updated just to play a game.
That’s only true if the publisher chooses to use DRM.
A meaningless distinction when none of the games you bought can’t be launched without Steam.
It’s important to know who the bad guys are and what are the tools they use. We (gamers) should be focusing on the DMCA and publishers that use DRM. DRM providers are a simptom of laws that allow people to be screwed, not the problem it’s self.
Every other company could challenge Steam, but instead is enshittified within an inch of its life from the get-go. It’s as much that Steam is doing so much right as it is that competitors are doing so much wrong.
Not you, GOG.
GOG’s market share being around 1% compared to Steam’s 80% only proves the point that no amount of great features or love by gamers is enough to challenge the monopoly.
The fact that valve has competitors means its not a monopoly. They aren’t anti competitive. They just make a good product and treat their customers better than their competitors.
If all “monopolies” acted like Valve, most people wouldn’t hate monopolies.
If all billionaires acted like GabeN, far fewer people would be calling for the guillotines.
I still think billionaires shouldn’t exist. Just saying hes probably at the bottom of the list of shitty billionaire behavior.
