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72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

gamesindustry.biz

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Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#21

Post by DanielHB »

tyleo wrote: post #19
estimator7292 wrote: post #9

Dominant and successful, yes. Monopoly, no. It take more than simply being the best or most successful business in a sector to be a monopoly. Being a monopoly is an active choice you make as a business by intentionally engaging in anticompetitive behaviors. Valve isn't putting any pressure on anyone in this sector. There is still competition, but Valve has simply been more successful than everyone else. Mainly becaus…

Amazingly Windows even has a store built in. Yet the Windows store is so bad it’s losing despite its considerable advantage as a default. Reminds me of Edge & Chrome.

Edge market share has grown a lot in the past few years.

Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#22

Post by izacus »

happymellon wrote: post #13
Pooge wrote: post #4

I've never understood this point. Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons. There's clearly a network effect similar to Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and the likes. But apart from regulating for service interoperability, there's nothing you can do. It's like claiming that Skype had a monopoly between 2008 and 2014. Just.…

> Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so. This is really key, when you see Epic bribing devs to get exclusivity, giving away games for free, they do this and still not succeed because they are actively hostile to their users. Where is my Big Picture mode? Where is my support of Linux? They've been at it for years and yet still don't actually want to provide a service that is d…

I'd be happy if Epic Store wouldn't log me out on every attempt to play anything there.

Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#23

Post by teroshan »

svpk wrote: post #15

Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that: 1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed. 2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing). At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attem…

I'm still finishing my first read, but I really recommend Cory Doctorow's latest book [1] "Enshittification:Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It" which covers the subject of tech monopolies and much more.

Reading it I learned about the term "monopsony" which is "a market in which goods or services are offered by several sellers but there is only one buyer" which is usually conflated with monopoly.

[1] https://www.versobooks.com/products/3341-enshittification

Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#25

Post by yxhuvud »

svpk wrote: post #15

Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that: 1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed. 2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing). At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attem…

A third difference is that I've seen no signs of steam actually abusing their standing in the market. If anything they seem to be nicer than they have to be.

Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#26

Post by ChickeNES »

happymellon wrote: post #13
Pooge wrote: post #4

I've never understood this point. Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons. There's clearly a network effect similar to Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and the likes. But apart from regulating for service interoperability, there's nothing you can do. It's like claiming that Skype had a monopoly between 2008 and 2014. Just.…

> Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so. This is really key, when you see Epic bribing devs to get exclusivity, giving away games for free, they do this and still not succeed because they are actively hostile to their users. Where is my Big Picture mode? Where is my support of Linux? They've been at it for years and yet still don't actually want to provide a service that is d…

I'm literally waiting for Satisfactory to go on Steam sale so I can buy it again and not have to deal with the Epic launcher for one game I bought on sale when the store launched. :)

Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#28

Post by lawn »

svpk wrote: post #15

Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that: 1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed. 2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing). At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attem…

Valve even allows you to install whatever you want on the Steam Deck. Even Windows!

Re: 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study

#29

Post by mzhaase »

yxhuvud wrote: post #25
svpk wrote: post #15

Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that: 1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed. 2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing). At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attem…

A third difference is that I've seen no signs of steam actually abusing their standing in the market. If anything they seem to be nicer than they have to be.

They absolutely keep a larger cut than others. With Epic the first million you make is free. After much deliberation, steam changed it so that their 30% cut is reduced if you make more than 10M. For a lot of indie devs, its pretty much a death sentence.
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