41–50 of 98 posts
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you wish their headcount was for the customer safety team! their lobbying team is probably larger than this one.
False, according to OpenSecrets, lobbying is under $2M a year. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...
At this point Valve should open source all of their games if they’re not planning to develop new ones.
That still leaves DOTA, Artifact and Half Life: Alyx without any proper source code, but the stuff people actually care about has mostly been freed.
Ride share and delivery app companies could take some notes on how to stay lean and profitable while operating an online marketplace. I know ride share apps are more complicated, but I don't think we're talking two orders of magnitudes more complicated (300 employees vs. 30,000 at Uber). The bloat at Uber/Lyft/Doordash is insane.
When every city or even district is forcing you to honor arbitrary rules there… your sw becomes complicated
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>Is it a monopoly when no one else is able to compete even on the technical side? Steam is 20 years in the making, so it is very hard to catch up with them. If you want to compete, you need to offer something different.
Is there a reason why game developers can't just sell a key on their website using Shopify/WooCommerce/etc. and distribute the game files publicly via a CDN? Assuming they can get their game discovered via some sort of non-store channel (e.g. Reddit, social media, YouTube, Twitch, ads, etc.), the user can simply search the web for the game, find the website, click "buy" and proceed. Probably a bit more work than publ…
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GOG is a compelling option for a lot of content. DRM free and a huge library available
I never even considered buying games again until gog. pay. download. run in dosbox or something. done. steam is just a crap I refuse to put up with. and that's the store. imagine the drm.
Steam might have a very disproportionate market share, but no one complains a lot because the competition is downright laughable. Internet companies are very low maintenance It has a very low barrier to entry for devs and a permissive DRM compared to other stores. A powerful review system and a return policy better than anyone else I've seen so far. Very community friendly and has an entire feature dedicated to hosti…
Microsoft could certainly compete, if they invested more into improving the experience on Windows, and released their own handheld device.
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>Is it a monopoly when no one else is able to compete even on the technical side? Steam is 20 years in the making, so it is very hard to catch up with them. If you want to compete, you need to offer something different.
Is there a reason why game developers can't just sell a key on their website using Shopify/WooCommerce/etc. and distribute the game files publicly via a CDN? Assuming they can get their game discovered via some sort of non-store channel (e.g. Reddit, social media, YouTube, Twitch, ads, etc.), the user can simply search the web for the game, find the website, click "buy" and proceed. Probably a bit more work than publ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Is it a monopoly when no one else is able to compete even on the technical side? Steam is 20 years in the making, so it is very hard to catch up with them. If you want to compete, you need to offer something different.
Is there a reason why game developers can't just sell a key on their website using Shopify/WooCommerce/etc. and distribute the game files publicly via a CDN? Assuming they can get their game discovered via some sort of non-store channel (e.g. Reddit, social media, YouTube, Twitch, ads, etc.), the user can simply search the web for the game, find the website, click "buy" and proceed. Probably a bit more work than publ…
It's not that easy; Steam brings down dramatically complexity of self distributing and it offers a plenty of Web 2.0 features e.g. reviews, discussions forum, connecting with friends, playing with friends, chatting with friends etc.
It's like asking why Amazon exists when sellers can have their own store page and distribution channel....
Some games that I know that are popular and not on Steam are for example Starsector and Escape from Tarkov. Game devs choose not to publish their game on Steam either because their game is not finished and they do not want to get negative reviewed to the ground and/or they think their game's brand is so strong that they do not want to pay 30% tax to Steam. For example Minecraft most likely wasn't on Steam because of aforementioned reasons.
Where does all the money go if it isn't being reinvested into the business? Are the massive profits immediately syphoned out by the execs and owners? It's interesting there isn't a well-known real competitor to Steam (the Blizzard and Ubisoft stores, etc, don't count, because so few external parties publish there). My gut says the lack of reinvestment could be someone else's opportunity, especially considering many o…
There are plenty of competing stores, all of which pales in comparison. I don't know what their secret sauce is, but for me personally what makes a difference and why I keep preferring them is their dedication to Linux as a platform and a general feeling that they are not just driving me towards rent seeking. I know that last bit is slightly absurd, and I can't quite explain, but I think the fact that they are privat…
To play a game, select it on the store, pay (with all sorts of payment options), download (from damn fast servers), and press play, that's all. The game sucks or crash, click a button and you are refunded, no need to be always online just for DRM check (eventually you'll need internet, but you have enough leeway so that it is rarely a problem), ads are very unobtrusive and maybe even desirable (suggesting games you may actually like or announcing sales), they don't usually force an update just before you want to play a game (a much too common occurrence), dark patterns kept to a minimum (or at least subtle enough), generally good software quality (in terms of bugs, broken UI/UX, etc...). You bought a game, it stays in your account, Steam has 20 years of history of not screwing you, and to play it, just install Steam on any PC (it it doesn't already have it), log in to your account, download and play, it is that easy. You can even share games (with some reasonable limitations).
Others just have some annoyance here and there. Some always-on DRM, bugs, dubious UI choices, annoying ads, etc... Only Valve seems to understand the importance of not getting in the way between gamers and their games and do the appropriate amount of effort (which is a lot). Not even in the name of profit, because they understand that it is not worth it, if gamers are satisfied, profits will come. Remember, they have piracy as a competitor, and it is hard to compromise against such a powerful competitor.