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So You Want to Compete with Steam

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Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#51

Post by jimminy »

methodover wrote: post #41

Discord could do it. Discord SHOULD do it. There needs to be a serious competitor to Steam, something with significant enough market share that Steam gets scared. Steam could be so much better than it is -- I'm not saying that it's a bad product, just that it could be better. Discord seems perfectly positioned to take on Steam. They already have incredible adoption in the gaming community. And they have quite a bit o…

Twitch is trying to do it.

They turned the Curse application into a game/mod store that also integrated custom servers that essentially mirrored Discord's application.

They also are using Twitch Prime and other service integrations to promote it. And they are well backed, which isn't something that could be said about Discord.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#53

Post by kuschku »

methodover wrote: post #41

Discord could do it. Discord SHOULD do it. There needs to be a serious competitor to Steam, something with significant enough market share that Steam gets scared. Steam could be so much better than it is -- I'm not saying that it's a bad product, just that it could be better. Discord seems perfectly positioned to take on Steam. They already have incredible adoption in the gaming community. And they have quite a bit o…

Isn't GOG already starting to compete with Steam? (Of course, from the DRM-free angle).

They're an ever growing market, backed by a publisher with a strong lineup, just like Steam was in its early days.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#54

Post by krapp »

davvid wrote: post #27
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…

If you're looking for a package manager on Windows, you might be interested in Chocolatey: https://chocolatey.org/

It looks nice, but the whole paradigm of installing software by copying and pasting commands into a root shell is terrible.

And I say that realizing it's only a step removed from downloading an installer and running it, but still.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#55

Post by kuschku »

c3534l wrote: post #15
cptskippy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOG links to your Steam Account and will add games to your library that exist in your Steam Library. It only does this for participating publishers but it's still an effective way to copy your library.

Well, I guess that explains why people like GOG and hate Origin.

GOG also has no DRM'd games, at all. It's truly amazing, and if possible, I always buy from them.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#56

Post by Chathamization »

larsiusprime wrote: post #35
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.

GOG only started selling newer games in 2012, and even then it started only selling a few. Before that, it was a place to buy old games (hence the original name, Good Old Games). I think GOG's success was because for its first few years, it was selling games that simply weren't available on Steam or anywhere else at the time. When it did finally go up against Steam, it already had a decently large customer base, and was able to set itself up well a a DRM-free Steam alternative.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#57

Post by dvt »

earenndil wrote: post #49
dvt wrote: post #46

I'm actually pretty cynical when it comes to this kind of thing (for example, I don't think anyone can really compete with Google Search anymore), but I need to disagree with this article. It fundamentally misunderstands a few crucial elements of how game publishing (and consumption) works. Keep in mind that I am a long-time user of Steam (my account is 14 years old, having signed up literally the day it came out). 1…

If an indie game that gets crazily popular is on both your own store and steam, everyone will buy it on steam because they have no incentive to buy it from your store.

Have you read (3)? Contracts would stipulate to only distribute through your platform.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#58

Post by j_s »

davvid wrote: post #27
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…

If you're looking for a package manager on Windows, you might be interested in Chocolatey: https://chocolatey.org/

Chocolatey has some slightly-awkward-feeling freemium thing going on; there was a good discussion of Windows installer stuff recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15791781

https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Chocolatey-Compari... (scoop) is an option focused on dev tools, http://boxstarter.org for repaving dev/vm machines.

Proprietary https://ninite.com for normally-installed stuff, not sure if the free edition updates things.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#59

Post by larsiusprime »

Chathamization wrote: post #56
larsiusprime wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GOG only started selling newer games in 2012, and even then it started only selling a few. Before that, it was a place to buy old games (hence the original name, Good Old Games). I think GOG's success was because for its first few years, it was selling games that simply weren't available on Steam or anywhere else at the time. When it did finally go up against Steam, it already had a decently large customer base, and…

I agree with all of this!

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#60

Post by kirillseva »

mrhektor wrote: post #32
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?

The usual example of switching Uber for Lyft when the rates on one app are lower than in another
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