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Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business' (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/gaming@lemmy.ml
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[–] 91 points 2 years ago (18 children)

You know who will give you money? Customers if you stop treating them like piñatas.

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  • [–] 52 points 2 years ago* (16 children)

    Valve is an excellent example of a company that is privately owned, so they don't have to satisfy shareholders with constant growth for growth's sake. And yet they're still growing and making a profit, because they make a good product.

    Phil and Xbox don't have that luxury because their masters sold out decades ago.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (15 children)

    Valve is also a good example of platform monopoly. People need to stop treating valve like they aren't also a big problem with the modern games industry. They are PC gaming's landlord taking a 30% cut of every sale. You have to be smoking crack if you think that doesn't hurt game developers.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    They are a monopoly because they've had the best product on the market consistently for 15 years. There used to be huge resistance to them and their drm from gamers, but they have shown over many years that they are trustworthy, unlike others that have tried this.

    This is not an Apple or Google store situation where proper competition could not exist. They were always up against giants like Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft or more recently Epic.

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  • [+] -21 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    No they don't, Steam barely ever gets updated, it's not magically better than the others it's just the one everyone uses.

    Digital storefronts are natural monopolies. No one wants to use a different game launcher because it's annoying to remember multiple passwords, to remember which game is where, to install and have multiple launchers running. None of that is Valve doing some amazing engineering that no one else has done, it's just the natural state of game launcher / storefront economics. The only reason Steam is what people prefer is because it was the first one on the scene and has the lion share of users and games for sale.

    We see the same thing happen with streaming platforms, the same thing happen with social networks. And Steam is also a social network which reinforces the monopoly. The other launches have friends and chat and shit but no one uses it because their friends are on steam or discord.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't doubt that Steam being first to market is the biggest reason for their success, but you make it sound as if there's some alternative store that is better for the consumer in some way. What's the alternative? I have yet to see any other store/launcher come close to Steam in terms of features, even more so when it comes to Linux support, which Valve have turned into a viable gaming OS pretty much by themselves. In the end, even exclusivity and drastically lower fees for publishers didn't make EGS the success that Tim Sweeney wishes it was and I think at that point being first to market can't be the only explanation. They have to be doing something right.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Today, yes, I agree. It's really hard to compete with them anymore. But 15 years ago when everyone was rushing to capture the market, there were many opportunities to do so. Steam and valve were never infallible, but at least they took feedback and stayed consistent, unlike their competitors.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Nothing stops you from busting your games on other platforms when available. I always choose GOG over steam personally. What cut they take from publishers isn't consumers' concern.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Bullshit. That 30% cut pays for all the features that make steam a better store than any other store. Those features are all free for the gamers, because they are essentially paid by the devs in that cut.

    If that cut wasn't worth it, I don't think Microsoft, ea and others would have come back to steam after trying to make their own stores (and failing).

    How can it be a monopoly when I can just download another store with a click of a button? Which I have also done, and even bought games from those said other stores, but the experience was just completely miserable compared to steam, up to the point I've considered rebuying those games on Steam.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    They could definitely treat developers better, but they're an example of treating customers right. That's why they're the biggest platform, and that's why they admittedly have something debatably close to a monopoly.

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