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Amazon's previous VP of Prime Gaming said they "tried everything" to disrupt Steam (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 1 month ago by RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.

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[-] Broadfern@lemmy.world 113 points 1 month ago

Everything, including:

  • giving a shit about the customer and having them permanently own their own games, even DRM-free like GOG?

  • Not forcing online connectivity to access the library?

  • Not shoving ads and spyware into the rest of the Amazon platform?

  • Appealing ethically by paying all employees a living wage?

  • Prioritizing innovation in expanding native Linux compatibility?

🤔

[-] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago

Most of the games that Amazon give away are GOG codes lol

[-] stardust@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 month ago

GOG codes are the absolute best.

[-] Broadfern@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Well wipe my ass backwards and call me biscuit; I have been informed today.

[-] criss_cross@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Yeah I found that out too and have been cashing in

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Steam doesn't give customers permanent ownership of their games. Its extremely rare, but game licenses do occasionally get revoked on Steam.

[-] missingno@fedia.io 14 points 1 month ago

Which means that's an area where they could've tried to set themselves apart from Steam.

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Those are terms set by the games publishers, Steam and other platforms pass them on to the customer. The only platform big enough to strongarm publishers to not do that is Steam, but it would definitely make some publishers pull out of Steam completely.

[-] 0ndead@infosec.pub 6 points 1 month ago

Fuck off Amazon

[-] Broadfern@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Apologies, I should have added the sarcasm tag. /gen

Case in point is that Amazon will try everything for profit except not be cunts

[-] Harwood97@lemmy.world 69 points 1 month ago

I didn't even notice they tried to take on Steam.

[-] SnotFlickerman 64 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ethan Evans desperately trying to keep his job as VP of Prime Gaming:

[-] ShadowRam@fedia.io 51 points 1 month ago

No they didn't.

I never saw a simple program with a clean store front and no bullshit.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 month ago

I mean, they didn’t try making a good game store.

[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 month ago

Nobody is going to overtake steam without being better. Corporate suits are also too out of touch to even come close

[-] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

No publicly traded company can compete with a well run private company. Infinitely growing profits breaks everything. Never take a company public if you can help it. It may even be preferable to shutter it if that is the only other option. Having stupid amounts of money is cool and all, but it does nothing useful. Money is only a tool if you actually use it... a golden hammer sitting on a shelf does no one any good.

[-] stardust@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah even apple is talking about potentially introducing ads into maps when their whole positioning of premium price has meant premium product and experience.

But the pressure of continual stock increases means company has to keep chasing exponential growth as opposed to being content with sustainable growth.

[-] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

Also a company that isn't primarily a gaming company isn't going to overtake them.

[-] andrewth09@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

Steam? Set your sights lower. Maybe try to beat GOG or the EA launcher.

[-] generic_computers@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago

They'd have to do something really crazy to have me pick Amazon over GOG!

[-] qbus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

It's basically like G-Force now for a selection of GOG and epic games

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

They barely tried at all

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 20 points 1 month ago

Every single Amazon product is a half-arsed mess off things that barely function. They're basically just a delivery company that charges a percentage of the package value now.

[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Something like 70% of their net income comes from AWS that pretty much runs a huge portion of the internet.

[-] Hugin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

They also charge storage fees to keep your products on their shelf in the warehouse.

[-] ISolox@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

Cloud streaming is not a replacement for steam.

[-] BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Tried everything except building a nice service that doesn't get in the way and that works, without enshittification and monetisation everywhere.

[-] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.bascul.in 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Beat the competition, then enshittify yourself while your customer base sticks with you is the strategy used in all Amazon products. Amazon is the last storefront I would want to sell games in the scale of Steam.

[-] Float@startrek.website 12 points 1 month ago

I don't think they tried releasing a compelling product.

[-] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

I think their biggest hurdle was that they are owned by Jeff Bezos

[-] fox2263@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

They all tried. They all failed.

Same with video streaming platforms vs Netflix.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Netflix is utter crap. Way over the other side of the enshittification fence. They only subsist due to user capture. They were first thus everyone seems to have an account. More akin to Facebook to social networks than steam to online videogame stores.

[-] fox2263@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Yes but none of the others have usurped it. They all were on Netflix, left to make their own platforms and are finding out the hard way that running a video platform is not cheap nor easy. Some shuttered and returned to Netflix.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Again, not comparable. Prime video, Disney+ and Max are all similar in subscribers size to Netflix. Steam is ten times larger than GOG in number of active users and twice as large as Epic.

[-] fox2263@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Yes they are now but it took a very long time to get there. And prime gets subscribers by default so to, well, prime 🤣. Netflix still has over 300m.

I’m not even a sub, I cancelled a while back and only have Disney.

What I was trying to say is, like steam, there was originally one platform in Netflix. Everyone was on it and it was a good time. Then, like steam, a lot of publishers left steam/Netflix and took their content in favour of their own platforms. And then years later due to costs and lower numbers than needed, ended up making their content not exclusive.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Again, doesn't sound similar to me. There are plenty of exclusives both on the streaming and the videogames world. But the history on steam doesn't follow Netflix's history at all.

I think the problem is equating a public trade, stockholders driven service that is entirely in the gutter of service quality and shitty corporate behavior. With a private company that has a mostly solid ethic track record (with few exceptions) that offers unrivaled added value. Netflix already lost the streaming wars. Max exclusives will never go to Netflix, Disney would rather feed children to the pigs than share their IPs. While devs already negotiate time windows to end the exclusivity deals with Epic right out of the gate. Publishers will foam at the mouth about exclusivity just to release steam versions two years later. It's a massively different situation to Netflix.

[-] ShadowRam@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

Prime is better than Netflix imo.

As is Disney Plus.

[-] fox2263@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Prime was tragic for years with terrible interface and content. It’s only recently in the last year or so that it got to a decent level. Disneys content is very good these days, but their interface could still do with some work.

I’m only a subscriber of Disney as their content matches my interests. I despise Amazon so only get a free trial or pay for a month when something like Reacher is on. Netflix own content no longer interests me especially after cancelling half the things I like.

I feel like everyone is missing the point here.

this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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