this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2025
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A Boring Dystopia
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And then I see people complaining about Steam having so much of the market cornered. They π don't π pull π shit π like π this
I'll still complain about them having the market cornered. Sure, right now they mostly only do things I agree with. If things change though we're fucked, and there's nothing we can do about it. If there's competition in the market then we can choose to support whoever is doing things right (like Valve currently) and the others will be forced to follow.
Steam is my favorite monopoly. They are not perfect, and probably not good either. but they are the best
The fact that they don't pull this shit is the reason they have the distribution market cornered.
We have to remember that gamers are not Valve's primary customers. Game devs are. The market you're referring to is the market of distributors available to game devs -- NOT the market of storefronts available to gamers. In the PC space, the market of distributors is cornered by Valve and it allows them to take a big chunk of each sale from the game devs.
Don't get me wrong, I love Steam and I think Valve has done some great things for gaming on PC and for gamers in general. That doesn't change the fact that they are another cost a game dev must pay in order for them to create their goods, in an economic sense. Valve's got the shelf space and devs don't have much choice but to rent it out.
I think you are forgetting the other reason Valve cornered the market;
βOne thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. Itβs a service issueβ¦ The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. Itβs by giving those people a service thatβs better than what theyβre receiving from the pirates.β
Gabe Newell, CEO Valve - Speaking at the Washington Technology Industry Association's (WTIA) Tech NW Conference.
Yeah, no I definitely agree they're good to gamers. I also love how they have a flat structure, and I think Gabe seems like a smart guy. He's given some interesting talks about economics. They've made a great platform for gamers, but it doesn't quite change that their business model is based on taking a cut of the profit of work done by others. In most other scenarios, it's easy for us to recognize when companies do this -- amazon, Walmart, etc, but in Valves case they have such a great reputation among gamers and a fanbase of their own, I think the escape a good amount of warranted scrutiny (game dev side, not gamer side)
"Is based on taking a cut of the product of work done by others."
That seems like a fair trade off for game developers in turn getting to use the platform who's work was done by.... Valve.
I understand why people make this argument but it's really undercutting the value that Valve provides developers who utilize steam for distribution.
Valveβs fee is more than earned however. Steam as a storefront is highly trusted by users, it has a rock solid reputation that is hard to come by. As a distributor they take a one time fee for each copy sold, then they manage all of the costs from users downloading and downloading again for as long as the platform exists from that one time fee. Meanwhile if a developer were to do that themselves then they pay each time a user wants to download that game.
Sure the developers lose a bit more money than if they sold on another platform. But the higher up front cost to access the larger platform is a very worthwhile trade as can be seen by developers continually coming back.
When steam came out with the orange box and set it up so that if you already had some of the games in the box, you could gift the other copies to people, I knew they were going to win the war.
I hope gaben lives forever, because I'm terrified of how instantly it will turn to shit when he's not in charge anymore.
π yet
What do you think will happen when Gaben our Lord dies?
You think their successor will be as merciful and follow Gabens vision? Or be blinded by the huge amount of money Steam makes?
I hope he and Linus torvalds both announce successors. Like a sort of "if my product fails you, this person follows my steps
Newell has supposedly said that if ever there were to be a sea change where steam would have to shut down people's access to games they've purchased, he would release code to turn off the 'check' for whether you've bought the game on steam, thus allowing you to play games without the 'DRM' of being online with steam. I wonder if he would do the same if he thought that would be the direction things were going in the event of his death.
Both. Steam is already the market leader in its industry. You just keep doing what you're doing and you win.
When ~~Miamoto~~ Iwata died, Nintendo just had to stay the course. They were never dominant, but they were ubiquitous and everyone enjoyed their products. Now the new guys donβt even play games, and the switch 2 price point is ridiculous, and they never fixed the issue with the joy con sticks, and prices never drop like they used to. You canβt count on new leadership being capable of continuing success, even when all they have to do is keep things on the exact same course.
Nintendo is gonna keep making the same 5 games with ever-improving graphics until they die. Doesn't hurt that people are fine paying $80 every few years for the same game.
The Switch 2 is selling faster than the Switch 1 during it's launch period. So Nintendo's new leadership is not negatively affecting the company. Also even under Yamauchi and Iwata Nintendo never fixed drifting analogue sticks, so that is new leadership continuing the course.
Microsoft were already the dominant operating system in computing. Now they're losing market share due to frequent bad decision making.
All they had to do was keep windows ticking over. But instead they looked to milk more revenue from their customer base in the form of advertising and telemetry data. That's because shareholders demand ever increasing profits. Enshittification is always the result of a company going public... Never a question of if, only when; as soon as the passion has died in ownership (usually due to sale or change of management), the only drive becomes profit; and the user experience is stripped to accommodate. The same will be true one day for steam, unfortunately.
but they have shareholders, that demand, with the backing of the law, that the company produces as much profit as possible, otherwise they can sue them
I keep seeing this notion that companies "must" maximize profit above all else "by law" repeated over and over again here and in other online spaces, and here's where I'm finally getting off of my arse to draw the line in the sand.
That's not actually true.
You can file a derivative suit against a company of which you are shareholder for a multitude of reasons, but just "they didn't make us enough money" is unlikely to be a successful one.
i don't remember where i got it from, but what i remembered was that they can be sued if the shareholders feel that they avoid money-making opportunities
This right here. So much space and energy being used to bitch about Steam that could be used for, oh, I dunno... Sony. Microsoft. Nintendo. Giant players that have held tacit monopolies for years and literally engage in anticompetitive behavior on a regular basis.
If I had room for one more conspiracy theory, I could point to a handful of companies that probably would not be above paying people to bitch about Steam...
(points up ^^^)
I bitch about steam because it has issues. I don't bitch about the others because they have issues severe enough I just don't use them whereas steam is running anytime my laptop is running
Steam doesn't really have a market cornered? They aren't stopping you from buying from elsewhere. They even let you add non-steam games to your library.
Playstation would as there are no other way of installing software without modding
What do you call the business strategy where you just aren't a huge assholes to your customers to milk maximum profit and your competition keeps shooting itself in the foot?
Pre 1980s capitalism beating its braindead son with a belt? Like that's the best terminology I can think of. Maybe general wait and see versus the landmine runners IDK.