Hacker News discussion begins; varied takes on competition
2 Nov 2 4:00 PM · 5d ago · 1 post · 15 comments · 2 sources · development 2 of 2
The article lands on Hacker News, generating debate over whether Steam's dominance reflects monopolistic control, superior product design, or both; commenters split on whether alternatives can realistically emerge and whether regulation is needed.
“They are currently a very benevolent monopolist: they don't seriously compete with publishers that use their platform.”
a15971, Hacker News commenter · hn ↗Valve Steam operatorEpic Games Competitor
The whole story articlespostscomments the bright band is this development · numbered dots are the others · click one to jump
What people said 18 voices · verbatim
-
They are currently a very benevolent monopolist: they don't seriously compete with publishers that use their platform. They only occassionally produce a great Half-Life or DOTA game as a some sort of "halo effect" demo to encourage the industry to move forward (e.g. to show how VR is done right with Half-Life Alyx). Avoiding releasing Half-Life 3…
-
This comes across like a really bitter whinge.Valve have the market share because they were good enough, early enough. Half Life 2's launch onboarded hundreds of thousands of users, with many getting the game for free with component and PC bundle-deals. The number of games doubled for the next few years while the traditional development model…
-
> Valve could easily lower the distribution fee while maintaining healthy margins.I'm sure that's true, but Steam did reduce their take for games making over certain thresholds: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/03/valve-changes-revenue-shar...Presumably, that was a response to other storefronts/launchers appearing, which means the competition did…
-
Well, they may never even may be able to "become a Netflix" because the practical-slash-IP situation is so different.Apparently, the world is "used to" the way intellectual property works (or doesn't work, depending on your view) for TV shows and Movies, in a way that probably wouldn't fly for video games; which is to say -- in both you're going…
-
Okay, if steam is holding gaming back, why hasn’t an alternative emerged? Apparently Valve maintains healthy margins after taking a 30% cut. What’s stopping other companies from taking a smaller cut and passing the benefits to consumers. Gamers are notoriously complaining about high costs of games, I’m sure that’s a viable strategy?Valve also…
-
On the other hand every single time everyone is glazing over the unregulated gambling market created by Valve which is available to everyone regardless of their age and location. The whole empire is running on the Steamweb API and Valve could shut it down any single day if they want but they don't because... we know the answer.
-
Steam can absolutely be replaced. There's lots that could be improved in the process of sifting through tens of thousands of games to find the ones I want to play. I have Epic's store installed on my gaming PC as I still play Fortnite. It has none of the things I want improved over the Steam experience. Literally none.Put up or shut up Epic. I'm…
-
> "Even if an alternative were objectively better, by whatever metric you care about, it would still be of no interest to Steam users,"I don't think that's necessarily true. If there was a launcher that was at least as good as steam in every aspect, and also had access to more games it would stand a chance of competing. Especially if its store…
-
They have been successful for I think around two decades, because it's a private company. If I get the timeline correctly, they were already big when Amazon was only selling books.They have pushed gaming to new levels, see proton. It's quite realistic they stay successful for the time being.Makes you think about a works were more huge private…
-
Sweeney has himself said that Epic is catering to Publishers and not consumers/gamers. Why the fuck would anyone want to participate in that when the competition is just infinitely better? They don't even have proper reviews for fuck's sake, because letting users review games obviously makes publishers sad when they can't get away with scams.
-
Steam got its userbase by sheer vendor lock-in implemented on copies of Half-Life sold in brick and mortar locations.No free market invisible hand here.I don't want a Steam replacement. I just want it to go away.Gamespy was better.
-
> I'm sure that when Valve forgets what keeps them successful and start becoming a NetflixBy your own reasoning, Netflix did not 'become a Netflix' by doing anything wrong.
-
One basic economic law is that the market tends to concentrate into monopolies and regulation has to work against it. So it's kind of what Capitalism does best and it's in its genes.
-
If game publishers discovered fully downloadable games so the users could store them and not worry about being rugpulled, I think they would be able to compete with Steam without that 30% cut.
-
Steam is not a monopoly.Other competitors have made attempts, but they were so poor quality and terribly made, it was no wonder they bowed out.Want to complete? Compete.
-
They arent publicly traded so they can choose to not be assholes. Gabe intentionally chose this route, he only answers to customers.
-
Well as a linux gamer, I'm ok with this. Nobody has been more successful at getting linux to be a first class gaming platform.
-
Steam can be replaced. Doesn't mean it will be anytime soon. And probably not by Epic.
All 2 developments of Former Epic dev says Steam's dominance is… →
Hacker NewsMastodonNewswiresGoogle News