Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

So You Want to Compete with Steam

fortressofdoors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 223 posts

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#31

Post by AlexDanger »

I wonder if CD Projekt heard the same arguments when they started GOG? Certainly they leveraged The Witcher and anger around DRM to gain traction. But they've found a sustainable niche that does not depend on going head to head with Steam's colossal network effect.

Steam is generally pretty great. But off the top of my head I can think of two areas where Steam arent delivering;

- Greenlight. Good idea, didnt work as planned. Room in the market for some kind of Greenlight/Kickstarter hybrid?

- Gaming for kids and educational software. A Kahn Academy approach but with games instead of lessons.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#32

Post by mrhektor »

phreack wrote: post #9

There are plenty of businesses where you can just roll up, make a better yet not more innovative version of the leading app, and just take all of the customers. Game distribution is NOT one of them, at all, by any stretch of the imagination, at this point in time. I've saved this article to share every time I hear that pitch.

Could you give us a few examples of such businesses? Do customers really switch for marginal improvements?

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#33

Post by kenhwang »

krapp wrote: post #16

Really, Steam seems to be the closest thing Windows has to an application/package manager[0]. It's almost kind of a shame that it's more or less entirely for games and game development software - something like it with sourceforge/github integration or an API for general purpose Windows installers would be nice. [0]notwithstanding whatever Windows 10 might have, because I still refuse to touch that, but it's probably…

Hell, I wish the Google Play Store/Apple App Store did things half as well as Steam does, like:

- Backing up application data in the cloud (game saves)

- Update priorities (ASAP, before next launch, before everything else)

- Throttling bandwidth use or background updates (because I know you're streaming Youtube and your battery got low and you just want to have enough juice to finish your video, but Google Play Music/TV/Movies/Bloatware must update now, what's a little buffering for the next 20 minutes anyway?)

- Update windows (like when the phone is idle in the middle of the night, not when I'm in the middle of using it)

It doesn't seem like any of these things would be hard to build. I guess "package manager UX" doesn't look good on a product manager resume.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#34

Post by grahamburger »

tambienben wrote: post #29
grahamburger wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wished that this would happen for movies / music. When I buy a streaming movie on Amazon I'd like to be able to transfer it to Google Play or vice versa.

You wouldn't transfer a car to Google Play, would you?

I'm not sure what that means. Every way that I can think of to compare movie ownership and car ownership suggests that I should be able to transfer a movie from one service to another.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#35

Post by larsiusprime »

AlexDanger wrote: post #31

I wonder if CD Projekt heard the same arguments when they started GOG? Certainly they leveraged The Witcher and anger around DRM to gain traction. But they've found a sustainable niche that does not depend on going head to head with Steam's colossal network effect. Steam is generally pretty great. But off the top of my head I can think of two areas where Steam arent delivering; - Greenlight. Good idea, didnt work as…

Article's author here.

GOG.com got started in 2008, which was critical to their success. Steam had much lower market share back then. If GOG started today I would give them much, much, lower odds of succeeding.

And consider also that Desura, Direct2Drive, Impulse, etc, which also were around in that rough time period, are all dead and gone.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#36

Post by lifeformed »

c3534l wrote: post #13

The convenience of having your game licenses all in one place over the long term is too great. The only way you could shut down Steam at this point is create an open industry standard that would allow a license to play a game to transfer seamlessly across platforms. No one wants to buy a game from a website that isn't going to exist in a year and will take your game with you. And no one wants to have 10 different pla…

I wonder if you could write a wrapper over Steam (and other services) that allows the same benefits of them, but lets you have your own store too. You'd have a launcher that could launch any game on your computer, whether it's on Steam or GOG or Itch or your own service, and a global storefront that merges them all (and prioritizes yours). Would that even be legal?

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#37

Post by euvitudo »

grahamburger wrote: post #19
PostOnce wrote: post #18

What if Steam had to, by law, share your game library with other services? i.e., just like you can take your phone number to any other phone company, or how banks in europe have to share info, you were able to take your game library with you to any other game distribution service? Perhaps the same could be done for iOS/Android portability

I've often wished that this would happen for movies / music. When I buy a streaming movie on Amazon I'd like to be able to transfer it to Google Play or vice versa.

Except the way the movie/music folks look at it is probably the same way they look at VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and BR 4K and so forth or vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, etc... Apple, Amazon and Google are yet another "format" as it were. More platforms means more money for them.

It's not about the customer--none of them cares, except at that moment in time the customer forks over the cash for it.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#38

Post by [deleted] »

phreack wrote: post #9

There are plenty of businesses where you can just roll up, make a better yet not more innovative version of the leading app, and just take all of the customers. Game distribution is NOT one of them, at all, by any stretch of the imagination, at this point in time. I've saved this article to share every time I hear that pitch.

[deleted]

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#39

Post by craftyguy »

grahamburger wrote: post #34
tambienben wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't transfer a car to Google Play, would you?

I'm not sure what that means. Every way that I can think of to compare movie ownership and car ownership suggests that I should be able to transfer a movie from one service to another.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/piracy-it-s-a-crime

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#40

Post by Kronopath »

AlexDanger wrote: post #31

I wonder if CD Projekt heard the same arguments when they started GOG? Certainly they leveraged The Witcher and anger around DRM to gain traction. But they've found a sustainable niche that does not depend on going head to head with Steam's colossal network effect. Steam is generally pretty great. But off the top of my head I can think of two areas where Steam arent delivering; - Greenlight. Good idea, didnt work as…

There’s a fundamental difference in how GOG got started though, and it’s buried in their acronym, which used to stand for “Good Old Games”. They were focused on providing access to classic/retro PC and DOS games, something that Steam didn’t do and much more in the “blue ocean” territory. It’s only later that they started to accept modern games on the service.
Post reply on HN