For me the difference is there is nothing stopping competitors, Valve is not locking them out of the market in anyway. If they don't want to spend the time to build a good competing product, that's on them. And additionally, PC gaming is just one platform for gaming
If Steam is a monopoly, then explain how alternatives or competitors still exist. This entire "Steam is a monopoly" is bullshit because competition did and still does exist.
Because “gaming” is bigger than PCs. Steam has their own hardware and it sell like 1/100th of a PS5 or a Switch.
So Valve has a lot of room to compete with.
Used to prefer GOG over Steam. GOG did nothing for Linux gamers though, they didn't even release their Galaxy client for Linux. Will prefer GOG over Steam again when this changes (they said recently they want to change this, but only after Valve has already invested a lot into making Linux gaming a real thing with almost zero friction). That's also basically the best thing that Valve has done - they really did help to make Linux gaming a reality, and Linux gaming is an important step towards toppling Windows' dominance. They deserve a lot of credit for that. But there are also plenty of other things that you can criticize about Steam.
If you're on Windows though, you should definitely always prefer GOG over Steam because it's DRM-free (you buy it, you own it). Of course, there are many more games only available on Steam, so it might not be possible all the time, but at least you should prioritize your choices.
We also have plenty of other monopoly problems, one of the biggest is YouTube.
If you’re on Windows though, you should definitely always prefer GOG over Steam because it’s DRM-free (you buy it, you own it)
I'm not really disagreeing with you, as with GOG you are guaranteed to get a DRM free game (and an installer which is better than Steam's backup, as it's guaranteed to work offline), but they still sell you just a revocable license.
I use Linux and I prefer GOG to Steam
what difference not having shareholders has
Monopoly is when you purchase other actors of the industry to extinction, and annihilatr competition this way. It has never been about having big market share due to superior service.
Thank you. Some people don't realize part of being a monopoly is regulation capture and in some instances market collusion. That being big makes you a monopoly when that's not all of it. Could Steam become one, possibly. Is it one currently, no.
Pretty much because the others are worse, and will continue to be until Gabe dies and they start to really squeeze all the value out of it they could.
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.
Retailers demanded a piece to put games in their stores as well. There has always been a price paid for going to market using someone else for it.
They allow devs to sell on other platforms and provide them steam keys for free, bypassing that commission.
I see this point come up all the time when it comes to Steam, but I have yet to see anyone really propose an alternative. How much should it cost to host your game on Steam? It obviously can't be free because of hosting costs, and you're also paying for marketing and discoverability, so what's a good price for it?
Until recently, 30% was the industry standard for large software stores. Google is apparently lowering its cut after losing their recent battle with Epic, so it's possible that the industry standard changes. I'd hope that Valve adjusts with it.
You lost 60% when selling physical media in stores, 30% was an amazing deal when steal launched
when steal launched
what a funny and in this context ironic typo
even the article itself touches on the fact that devs are mad, multiple times. the 30% cut is outrageous and discoverability is awful and easily sabotaged by review trolls. one of steam's biggest draws are it's sales, which have led to an extreme devaluation of indie games- anyone charging more than 20 bucks is considered to be overcharging while AAA games climb higher and higher in price. those same AAA games are often only available on steam
to their credit, the work they put into proton and them making that publically available was excellent of them. it's also good that they never tried to latch themselves onto the NFT and AI bandwagons. other than that, though? even if there was such a thing as a good monopoly, valve certainly ain't it
I dislike that a lot of the games are tied to needing to have the steam client open, also the steam client is a non-controllable aspect on my computer that I own. I can modify (with extensions and browsers) any experience I have online...except steam. I also don't like "leasing" games as that's all they do.
Last note is just I dislike putting any faith into a company to "do good" or to remain with their status quo. Companies are not "good", they are a service provider and shouldn't be anthropomorphized as such for being "good guys" or a company that "Cares"^tm^. The very fact that people are defending it by being sticklers of true definitions of a "monopoly" but hand-wave away the affects it has on the industry makes me concerned it will only become a bigger problem later on.
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.
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.
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 not beholden to public investors. If they go public or sell to a public company it will change.
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 was my second digital store, I resisted Steam for so long, but over the years, Steam has become my #1 source for games. It's just so easy, plus they are relatively consumer friendly. With the revamp of Steam Families, it's just so so much easier to have everyone playing on Steam. Plus I have a Steam Deck.
I try and buy games on GoG, set them up with Heroic, and it works great, better than EA, Epic and other storefronts, but just not quite as slick as Steam.
One day St. Gabe will be martyred, and Steam will undergo the unavoidable descent into enshittification, as to will GoG. I do not pledge undying loyalty to any platform, but Steam and GoG have been awesome for so long.
Besides, other than Itch and Humble Bundle, who even comes close in being good to use?
Gog is good, itch.io is good. They have different niches, and each do beautifully.
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.
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.
I mean what, am I supposed to be 'preemptively mad' because they might become worse one day?
Like I don't understand why I'm supposed to be mad, it's a service that's useful and good, maybe it won't be one day but what am I going to do about that?
The first step of enshittification is being very pro-user. All of the good will from your users will build you a dominant market position so you can squeeze them later. We should resist any company dominating any market. Just because valve hasn't screwed you over personally doesn't mean we should just lovingly accept market dominance. The more competitive the market, the better.
Because it's one of the only functional monopolies that got there by attracting users rather than M&As to quash competitors and regulatory capture. Monopolies shouldn't just intrinsically make you angry, they just are usually bad because they will have done anticompetitive things in order to become a monopoly.
As the article concludes:
Valve Corporation didn’t win by locking people in. It won by making sure they never really wanted to leave.
Valve doesn't abuse the monopoly.
30%
How many of you don't understand that 30 procent is/was the standart like google play or the app store they usually charged 30 procent and guess what steam runs on pcs or something pc like which means that other gaming stores can be run on them, but people usually don't because well they are enshitified. Steam also provides services to game developers like matchmaking, cloud saves, p2p connections and everything else that's in steamworks.
Only on games sold through Steam itself. Unlike any other store out there they don't charge for keys sold somewhere else, so in practice that 30% is significantly lower if you put in any effort to sell your games elsewhere too. This is why publishers like Paradox have their own store and heavily promote it, they just sell Steam keys there without having to pay the 30%.
Because of all the other companies in that picture (except GOG, they're cool).
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