this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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They absolutely could. If only there was any serious competition and not just some quick cash grabbers like EA and others. As long as Steam is providing most value to users (=players) without even restricting competition like other tech companies do in other areas (cough Apple), they are able to take the 30% cut without a complaint.
The only reason EA and others aren't serious competition is because of their lack of effort.
Every time the topic comes up, PC gamers don't bother with their services because they're shoddily written and slow. The complaint of "They don't have millions of games on there to amass in one library" is a minority one.
Exactly. Why should they succeed if they don't even try to win the competition?
Streaming platforms for TV series and movies went into the direction of every large movie company running their own streaming platform and only limiting their own content to their own platform which lead into a bad customer experience when you just wanted to see the latest Disney or HBO or whatever thing. I think it's a good thing EA and others didn't succeed doing the same in gaming industry and only limiting their games to their own stores even though they did try really hard. That's not even competition, it's just being greedy.
A true competitor to Steam would try to sell and serve games of their own and also made by others. I guess Epic tries to do that in a sense but they also lack the actual effort of making a good product and instead tries to win some market share by just throwing lots of money at it. I know it's hard to build an actually good software product (because I work in the industry) but I also know it's not impossible. Somehow the companies that have the means to compete just aren't able to get their shit together and for some reason that's the reason why we shouldn't like Valve either?
I mean, if Epic actually did what shills like @[email protected] promote - that is, reflect lower cuts in a cheaper price to consumers, then we would all be flabbergasted how big their market percentage is.
But they're not doing that, that's the thing. Because Tim Sweeney does not want storefronts to take a smaller cut. Quite the opposite. His problem is that the cut is only 30%, and worse, does not go into his pockets!
But there is always an excuse. Epic tried that. Companies complained.
Their sales used to give you a reusable $10 off coupon. That didn't change the amount the companies got when someone bought their game. It only changed how much they paid. When one of the Witcher games had that coupon applied to it, the developer got pissed off and changed the price of the game so that it was a cent or two below the threshold to activate the coupon, and then fans of the dev were excusing it claiming that they couldn't let the price be lower because it would 'devalue' the game.
if a game was $30 on Steam and $25 on Epic (as a regular price), or some other service, you'd undoubtedly hear the same rhetoric.
Epic's cut is 12% not 30%. They also waive the 5% royalty fee over $1 million for sales on the Epic Store if you use Unreal. Epic doesn't control the prices. Devs set the prices. They leave the price the same on Epic so that they can actually get a little more for each sale.
What the should do on a $60 game though is to set the price at like $56 on Epic, it would encourage people to save a couple bucks there, while still getting them more than steam after the cuts.
"without a complaint"
Eh... You realize what this discussion is based on?
I do, and I feel like the real intent is something completely different here than what is said out loud.
E: So Epic Games Store is actually giving out games for free and they still can't gain traction because their platform sucks so bad otherwise. My guess is someone just wants to try and get a tough competitor driven out of one country so that they could bring their own, worse, service there instead and take the market share without actually competing.
Epic isn't involved in that lawsuit so I don't know why you're them into the conversation.
If a company charges X$ for a product and the CEO ends up being able to own six yacht I fucking hope someone will wake up and say "Hold on buddy, you're clearly ripping people off."
What's crazy is that if the lawsuit was against Apple or a grocery chain you guys would all be cheering, but you made yourselves believe that Steam was a good guy when all they do is make sure they get more money from more people, they don't do shit for free.
I brought Epic just as an example of an actual competitor actually trying to compete against Steam, sorry if I I was a bit unclear about that.
So lots of entrepreneurs get rich when they make a product that solves people's problems in one way or another and it sells with a profit - let it be a small profit or a large profit. The thing with capitalism is, if you make your profit too large, eventually a competitor will come and provide an equal or better product with slightly smaller profit or they figured out a way to make the product cheaper and still maintain the same profit margin with a lower price gaining a market share.
The problem with Apple, other large tech companies or some grocery chains in some parts of world (this is the case where I live actually) is that they are not allowing a healthy competition in the first place. If a competitor appears on the market, they will buy them before gaining too much traction, or if that's not possible, they will do everything they can in their power to drive them out of the market by lobbying politicians, or if they control some valuable aspect of the market, restrict access to said market.
Valve hasn't practiced any of those shady tactics as far as I know of and that's why people actually think of them as one of the "good guys" even if it is somewhat unhealthy. You shouldn't try to beat down the people playing with a friendly rule set of capitalism because they are the ones driving the competition forward.
Valve has enough of the market that they don't need to do that because they're the default option, just like Microsoft doesn't need to fear macOS or Linux or anyone that would try to jump in the game and create a new OS (hell, they even had up finance Apple in order to create competition). They don't practice these shady tactics (although that's disputable and they're getting sued for it) because they don't have to to win, they can just wait it out and let potential competitors ruin themselves. Even if someone came and offered everything Steam offers and more, people wouldn't switch because their games are already on Steam. Just like people who are used to Windows and have bought programs compatible with it won't abandon everything and start over with another OS.
So "too big to fail" or something?
I don't know if you lived through the Internet Explorer era, but that was exactly the same situation in browsers back in the day. Internet Explorer was preinstalled in every Windows computer, so in pretty much every computer, and it was deemed as "unbeatable" because people were too lazy to install anything else. In retrospective, it didn't take too long for Google Chrome to beat IE market share and nowadays pretty much the whole world uses Chrome and nothing else. Now, with IE, EU had to step in and force Microsoft to present their users a dialog to choose their browser in a fresh Windows installation which did have a role in that market share change. With Steam there isn't a need for that, because every user has to go and explicitly install Steam client to their computer before using it. Same goes with Chrome.
Although, vendor lock really is a real issue, and I do agree with you that if one has thousands of euros/dollars worth of games in their Steam account, it's purely convenient to keep on buying their next games on Steam as well. What I don't agree with is, that if there was a new competitor that was better in every way imaginable and they were able to sell the games on their platform for, let's say, -5% constantly, people wouldn't start using their service. You have to remember, that there is also a constant stream of new gamers (young people) that haven't even created a Steam account, and nothing is preventing them from choosing another service for their first game purchase. It's just that there isn't a real alternative to Steam currently.
You know this person didn't live through that era. They're waaaay too young for that.
An alternative that allows you to add friends, instant message them in-game whenever, that also hosts social hubs for each of its thousands of games; where people can post guides, fanart, videos, and discussions?