I mean, we definitely do have a steam monopoly on desktop, they might not be abusing their position much, as of yet anyways, but it’s a monopoly all the same. They captured the desktop playerbase in their little ecosystem and now people are stuck because of their game catalog, achievements, friend list…
What we really need is a standardization of these systems and interoperability between platforms so that they’re forced to actually compete instead of being miles ahead just by virtue of being there first.
For managing a library of videogames on the desktop, including integration with all available stores and local installs, there is Playnite for Windows and Lutris for Linux.
Battle net only became a thing in like 2010, steam came very early in 2002, and started off straight away with exclusives that required you to install their client. They still do btw, there’s no portal, dota… on epic or whatever.
I mean, we definitely do have a steam monopoly on desktop, they might not be abusing their position much, as of yet anyways, but it’s a monopoly all the same. They captured the desktop playerbase in their little ecosystem and now people are stuck because of their game catalog, achievements, friend list…
What we really need is a standardization of these systems and interoperability between platforms so that they’re forced to actually compete instead of being miles ahead just by virtue of being there first.
For managing a library of videogames on the desktop, including integration with all available stores and local installs, there is Playnite for Windows and Lutris for Linux.
Were they first? I can remember the battle.net launcher way before I ever heard of Steam.
Battle net only became a thing in like 2010, steam came very early in 2002, and started off straight away with exclusives that required you to install their client. They still do btw, there’s no portal, dota… on epic or whatever.