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Valve "played capitalism so well they broke it" and now Steam can never be replaced, former Epic dev says: "I don't think this is fixable" (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 143 points 2 days ago (34 children)

They are ignored in conversations like this because their existence undermines the monopoly accusations aimed at Steam. Talk like this isn't about the reality, but trying to tear Steam down so Epic can compete without having to actually provide a good product.

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  • [–] 54 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Epic doesnt want to compete. It wants a to have a nice fat profit to he carved out for it so it can keep its investors happy with forever growth.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 days ago

    Wish people would start asking Epic why they aren't letting Alan Wake 2 be released on GOG and itch, since they act like Steam is the only platform and attack it to avoid being asked why they are holding the game hostage from coming out on other platforms.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (24 children)

    It‘s a quasi monopoly. Their service cannot be ignored if you want your product to succeed on the market. You cannot choose a valid alternative. This is not about malevolence on Valve’s side, but a market reality.

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  • [–] 29 points 2 days ago (14 children)

    It’s not. The only reason people see it as such is because valve has consumers trust they act in the consumers best interest.

    Other companies hate this, because it doesn’t allow them to do some anti consumer practices

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago*

    There is definitely a strong network effect. If Valve started enshittifying, it is impossible for customers to completely switch to a competitor without losing their community, their game library, their game controller, their gaming portable, and access to steam-exclusive games.

    It is very much an early Facebook situation, but Valve has never enshittified.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago (12 children)

    It is for publishers as customers, not for users of course. You can't realistically navigate around their service if you want to make money with your game.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 days ago (11 children)

    You can't realistically navigate around their service if you want to make money with your game.

    Where are you getting this from? Yes you can absolutely do this. Mojang did this for decades a la Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress did this for decades. Roblox is massive. World of Warcraft, I mean, yes you can absolutely make a hit title, sell well, and have nothing to do with Steam.

    Edit: The most recent example right now is Hytale, which is purposely not on Steam and reached 1M+ active players in the first week.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    blizzard was really doing well with diablo and overwatch before they decided to be stupid af. now those games are on steam LOL

    dear blizzard: too late LOL

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Destiny too, like it wasn't like they were doing bad before bringing titles over to Steam. It's clear they wanted more money which is why they did that lol. They were already making plenty and decided they wanted to make more

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  • [–] -3 points 2 days ago* (7 children)

    You're listing absolute unicorns. Ask any dev/publisher that want to release a game and they will 100% not skip Steam.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    That's a lot of Unicorns that don't fit your narrative lol. I could list more, but I think I already proved my point. Yes it's possible to publish a game and be successful without Steam, and yes it's been done multiple times across the existence of Steam.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

    yes, please list more. it's not "my" narrative, it's economic realism. ask some devs.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    League of Legends, Genshin Impact, fucking Star Citizen isn't even a proper game (yet?) and it's the highest grossing game-related kickstarter in the history of kickstarters. The 5th highest kickstarter ever. StarCraft series, Diablo (up to 4), Lineage series, FIFA Online, really anything Tencent touches that has online capabilities. And of course the OG Ultima Online which still runs today.

    None of these even really scratch the surface of the massive Korean/Asian PC gaming markets or the Browser-only games that were wildly successful in the days of Facebook lmao

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago* (3 children)

    Existing customer bases are a requirement. Asian markets are different, true.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    That just reinforces my argument, and it sounds like we finally agree: You don't need Steam or Valve to make a financially successful game. You need an audience. Steam provides a big one, but you can absolutely garner that audience outside of Steam and the examples I provided are proof of that.

    Plenty of studios and developers build that audience outside of Steam using the massive swathe of social media outlets to this day. Hypixel was/is a massive Minecraft server with a huge number of daily players and their growth in popularity was mostly through forums, and later Discord. Minecraft itself started with forum posts and grew purely through word of mouth. Dwarf Fortress was free for a very long time and lived purely off donations before it eventually came to Steam after it already had a massive audience. None of them had any base to speak of from the start. They built those audiences and none of that build up happened through Steam.

    The reason I'm even bothering is because people newer to game dev read threads like this. Tell them "Steam is required" and they don't try anything else. Then the lack of success stories gets used as proof that Steam is required even when it's not. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's wrong.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    You don't need Steam, but it is really not advisable to skip them, to a point where you do need to publish there. That makes it a quasi monopoly, whether Valve intended to do that doesn't matter. These exception are still extremely rare (and Hytale could only build an audience because Minecraft was already there without Steam). On r/gamedev, the question is almost never asked (a telling sign already), but here's an instance where it has been asked and fellow indie game devs and professionals are pretty clear on the necessity of Steam: https://archive.ph/b7202

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  • [–] 16 points 2 days ago (8 children)

    To maximize sales, you do need to put your product on Steam. That doesn't mean it is a monopoly.

    Steam likely could leverage their market position to become a monopoly, but they aren't one now. Just because they are a vital part to any large scale game launch doesn't make them a monopoly, quasi or otherwise.

    I don't think it is a particularly healthy market, and I wish there were even more options. That doesn't change the fact all the monopoly talk has been driven by bad faith actors trying to attack steam without any real cause.

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  • [+] -13 points 2 days ago (7 children)

    Not maximizing sales, having any sales to speak of at all.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    So people put their games on Epic, GOG, itch, Xbox, PS5 and whatever else for funsies? Definitely not because people buy their game from those places. They can even put their game up on those other marketplaces without any penalty from steam. Almost like there are alternatives available. Having the largest market share and having large influence in a market does not equal a monopoly.

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  • [+] -10 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    quasi monopoly

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  • [–] 13 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Saying it again doesn't make it less wrong. They are in a position where they could possibly use anticompetitive practices to become a monopoly or close to it. Currently they are not, and are not a quasi monopoly either. They simply have created a well rounded service that is preferred by a majority in the PC space.

    If you want the store front to take a smaller cut then you can sell on itch. If you want to buy games without DRM then check out GOG. If you like shitty service, venture capitalists, enshittification, and AI slop then Epic has you covered.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 days ago* (3 children)

    It's not a quasi monopoly for me, the user, but for publisher who want to sell games. They have to go through Steam if they want to sell on PC. This would be an absolute no-brainer if it wasn't tangled up in some bullshit culture war.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    So World of Warcraft isn't a game that exists? How about Fortnite? League of Legends? Genshin Impact? Minecraft? Those games never sold well and didn't make any money.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago

    This isn’t about it being impossible to circumvent steam as a dev. This is about Steam being so powerful, that they can do whatever they like. That’s why they’re a quasi monopoly, not an outright monopoly.

    Not putting your game on Steam is only viable for very few developers these days. Besides, WoW, LoL and Minecraft released and gained traction in a time, when Steam was not nearly as bis as they are today.
    Back then a most games still shipped on DVD with either disc based copy protection or a number of other launchers (Ubisoft Game Launcher, EA Origin, Games for Windows Live, Rockstar Games Launcher), which do mostly still exist in one form or another but drifted into irrelevance as Steam grew to the near insurmountable power house they are today.

    Or do you think EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar would put their games on Steam, paying a 20-30% cut of each game sold to the store, if they wouldn’t lose more money telling people to get their games on their own, existing distribution systems? (something AA and indie devs do not have)

    And I’m not saying Steam didn’t earn its crown. They are feature complete, mostly pro consumer and have a less shit interface than its competitors.
    But if they decided tomorrow, that devs had to pay 10% more per game sold, most devs would have to budge or sell significantly less games.

    And they might, when the day comes that Gaben isn’t in charge anymore. And we’ll all have to take it because their competition is either too small (GOG) or too stupid (Epic) to properly compete. And I don’t like that. I’d much prefer Epic didn’t suck.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Huh? Steam is absolutely a monopoly in PC game sales.

    Monopoly doesn't mean there are no alternatives. It means controlling an overwhelming share of the market.

    Even Google has a monopoly w.r.t. search engines despite controlling less of its market than Steam does. If your site is deindexed by Google alone you might as well not exist for most of the population.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (1 child)

    People keep saying that and it still isn't true. It was argued the dictionary definition wasn't good enough, so how about US legal criteria to be considered a monopoly.

    Federal criteria looks at three things: market power, exclusionary conduct, and business justification.

    1. Market power: "...significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors." You could argue this as I believe Steam has something like 75% of PC game sales. However I don't think it would be difficult to argue that console gaming is also a market competitor which would bring their market share down some, but I'm not sure by how much. There is no hard limit for what market share is required for the firm to match this criteria. "if competitive forces or the entry of new firms could discipline the conduct of the leading firm, courts are unlikely to find that the firm has lasting market power." It is likely that if steam began being anti consumer, the existing competitors could take advantage, or other markets could be developed. So this criteria is in the maybe column.
    2. Exclusionary Conduct: "Obtaining a monopoly by superior products, innovation, or business acumen is legal." This alone means that even if they have the market share to be investigated as a monopoly, they haven't broken the law since they allow open competition against them. They have simply provided a superior product to consumers. "Exclusionary or predatory acts may include such things as exclusive supply or purchase agreements; tying; predatory pricing; or refusal to deal." I am unaware of Steam doing any of this. Epic on the other hand, absolutely does.
    3. Business Justification: "The monopolist may be competing on the merits in a way that benefits consumers through greater efficiency or a unique set of products or services." Steam is providing a unique set of services that benefit the consumer. So it seems that have a business justification.

    Put simply, Steam is not a monopoly by the dictionary definition and likely wouldn't be found to be a monopoly in a legal sense either.

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  • [–] 1 point 19 hours ago
    1. Obtaining a monopoly by [various reasons] is legal

    Steam is not a monopoly

    Am I missing something here? Just because Steam doesn't violate the (comparatively weak) US antitrust law does not make it not a monopoly. Especially when there are clearly legal ways to have a monopoly according to point 2 and point 3.

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