221–230 of 404 posts
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Wow, this is basically a description of the Apple App Store.
The App Store is not even close to the convenience and features of Steam. Awful search, awful review system, confusing interface and.. that's it? I don't see how the app store even compares.
As a matter of principle, I think digital delivery platforms benefit from competition, and we should not be locked down into a single monopolistic, stagnating platform. As a selfish consumer though, I hugely wish we just had Steam and Netflix: The Origins and Uplays and Battle.nets of the world exist solely to make my life difficult, refusing to play my game when I want it due to obscure update required or forgotten…
Games, tv shows, films, these are the content we want. Netflix, HBO go, Hulu, steam, battle.net, these are content access systems.
What consumers want is legal access to all content they desire with competing offerings for the way in which they access the content. Competition drives quality, innovation, consumer value.
The problem is that we have a system today where the content access systems have monopoly control over subsets of the content. So there's no competition around the access system- if you want that content, it comes bundled inside that content access system. You have no choice if you want the content, so why would anyone invest in making theirs the best?
Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…
For me, it's that my 20 year old account has games I bought 20 years ago. I can trust that anything I purchase from Steam will be around for a long time. No other company has demonstrated that kind of reliability, except maybe Apple. Plus, I think Steam is a superior product. That being said, I also try to buy on GoG as much as possible, since I really prefer to have DRM-free games and I want some competition in the…
Unless the publisher pulls it or pushes an update cutting music because of license deals expiring. Or gets a stealthy replacement with a worse remaster. Or your OS drops 32 bit / x86 support.
Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…
Valve uses its 30% cut extremely effectively by continuing to invest in the happiness and convenience of its customers and, just as importantly, its developers. For instance the profits of smaller developers dramatically increased after the new discovery/search features landed, enabling exactly the kind of people who would love your game to find it easily. Contrast that with every other store where it's basically impossible to find anything but the most mainstream top sellers.
Maybe Epic could afford to actually make the Epic Games Store a useful product if they took a higher cut of sales?
Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? People, myself certainly included, often criticize Apple for taking 30% of developer revenue for merely existing in it's walled garden. Right or wrong, they control the ecosystem, so their ability to monopolize and heavily tax the App Store is unsurprising, they're exercising their pricing power as much as they possibly can. But how is it that on P…
Kill all the launchers. Ubisoft, Rockstar, Bethesda (RIP), Epic. I really hate these mediocre "me too" wannabe social network / launchers. I'm actually surprised this hasn't been rolled into the Xbox launcher, which still exists right (on PC)?
So how are you going to buy games if you've killed all the launchers. No Steam, no Epic, no GOG Galaxy. Are you going to download everything over http from your browser?
Thank goodness. Bethesda's launcher was uniquely awful in a number of unpleasant ways. Slow, prone to crashes, bad user communication, not suitable for use on small monitors. The worst of the launcher apps I have used - and there are so many! I remember when it was in vogue for every game maker to build their own launcher or even full Steam clone - when EA pulled all its new games from Steam to get people to use Orig…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
More than likely Valve has offered better deals to these larger companies to get them back in-house. It's very probable EA, Bethesda, Microsoft, etc. all have gotten more favorable terms now, by proving they were willing to leave Steam and roll their own launcher.
30% from 0 to 10 million 25% from 10 to 50 million and 20% from 50 million on. They might have even better deals, but at some point 20% for handling everything and supporting payments with potential of fraud, chargebacks etc. in nearly every country should start look like not horrible deal. Remembering what the retail margins were back in the day when they needed to make and ship physical boxes...
Kill all the launchers. Ubisoft, Rockstar, Bethesda (RIP), Epic. I really hate these mediocre "me too" wannabe social network / launchers. I'm actually surprised this hasn't been rolled into the Xbox launcher, which still exists right (on PC)?
So how are you going to buy games if you've killed all the launchers. No Steam, no Epic, no GOG Galaxy. Are you going to download everything over http from your browser?
As a matter of principle, I think digital delivery platforms benefit from competition, and we should not be locked down into a single monopolistic, stagnating platform. As a selfish consumer though, I hugely wish we just had Steam and Netflix: The Origins and Uplays and Battle.nets of the world exist solely to make my life difficult, refusing to play my game when I want it due to obscure update required or forgotten…
> As a matter of principle… It’s not really a matter of principal though! > [the competing platforms] have zero repeat zero positively zero benefit to myself as a consumer. The reason Steam and Netflix are so good and continue to exist in such a good state is exactly because of the competition. However, because of exclusivity, licensing, ownership, et cetera, that also means you eventually may want to deal with said…
I don't believe in this case that is demonstrably true. What has improved for me as a consumer with either platform since competition came - other then less content?
In particular with Steam, I don't believe there has been a single improvement relevant to me. Uplay, ea origin, battle.net are purely net negatives to me, in their own right and in their impact on steam.