Why Everyone LOVES Valve and HATES Epic

Valve supposedly has a monopoly but we have to talk about how we got here and what the future may hold.
Edited by ‪@HiTechLoLife‬
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[@viewtifuljoe99]

I think the fact that Valve isn't a publicly traded company is the biggest factor in why they focus so much on player experience and improvements.

[@annilator3000]

And also the leadership and employees don't look after "making the most money" but after what's interesting to do. I mean, Steam is unlimited cashflow for them

[@1-4-johnny.cash.fan-8-8]

Yeah, they don't get down on their knees to worship ✡✡✡, so they can act in accordance with public will.

[@Naryoril]

@@annilator3000 Yeah, but they most probably wouldn't be able to do that, if they had to answer to shareholders. Shareholders want short term profit, they rarely care about the long term since they can easily move on to another company.

[@plebisMaximus]

Investors ruin absolutely everything. You could never ever make something like the steam deck work in a public company, it's been over a decade in the works, with Proton, a custom OS for gaming, etc. Investors just want cash and they want it now. Even the promise of far, far greater revenue later down the line if they just throw the consumer a bone isn't enough, we want constant growth. With a corporate structure like that, you'll never ever create anything groundbreaking.

[@cipherstormwolf14]

Free market is always better than a socialist run market > this is what publicly traded means. It is run by the state and its corrupt friends.

[@Kevin-sl3gk]

I personally don't see Valve as a monopoly, but as a Market leader. It's not Valves fault their "competition" sucks at running a platform lol.

[@DerivitivFilms]

for real, they keep thier mouths shut on twitter too, so you don't see thier CEOs acting like morons.

[@glebkorniyenko1084]

Right? If the discussion doesn't start with reviewing pros and cons of each service and offerings to consumers than I'd throw it out the window because that means they hope to lower Valve's cut at no cost to themselves but screaming and crying and pissing and shitting everywhere

[@redring4083]

Fact is that Valve is a market leader only. They literally cannot be a monopoly even if they wanted to.

[@Aereto]

As far as it was understood, Gabe didn't want a leadership position because it reduces his contribution to direct work on a project, but at that same time, all of the projects need his direction and guidance. Steam became a Market Leader because of Valve founders direction and guidance that made a good distribution service in the early years of PC gaming. That's something Epic Games failed to comprehend epically. They moved to provoke gaming communities with their strategies to artificially carve a market segment with incentivized exclusives, enticing enough for starting developers and veterans alike to break community trust going into exclusives for a limited amount of years when they proposed to go on open platform release during development. They could have started with developers waiving fees without strings attached to help developers with the games that are purchased in a lesser known platform over the more well known ones.

[@LPcrazy_88]

There is also a big difference in being a Monopoly by way of making your option the clear best option out there and being a destructive and anti-competitive monopoly like Google. Steam isn't out here buying up smaller markets in an attempt to squash competition, or engaging in exclusivity deals, and even their adverts for the Steam Deck are mild at worst. So what they ARE doing is throwing their money around to build up markets like with their hardware gambles instead of trying to destroy said markets.

[@Tang-qi6zw]

Here's something to remember: Steam's main competition isn't the Epic Game's store or unity launcher; it's piracy. The whole system was designed as a way to combat software piracy by making the official means of buying a game easier and better. They succeeded. Piracy still exists, but was greatly reduced by steam being so much better.

[@hiraunia]

That's a good point. When I was a teenager I didn't really have any money to buy entertainment with so almost eveything I played, read or watched was pirated. Now as an adult with my own money I've stopped pirating almost entirly(With the exception of Sims4 because fuck Ea and Maxis) because I'd rather buy it. It means I haven't been able to play nearly as many games but they're easier to get and you don't have to jump through the loopes of cracking and viruses. Other than sims the only other games I've pireated were old ones that have been out of print for years but I totally would have bought them if they were on steam. That's the great thing about steam, if the game is on there and you have the money the only reason for you to pirate if protest(Which is better achived by not even touching the game) or beinf a cheap basterd which most people don't wanna be.

[@jackdaniel3135]

People would be less inclined to download roms for free if they just let people buy them. No one wants to buy, say, Ocarina of Time for a fifth time just because Nintendo made a new console and took the old online console's store away.

[@R3TR0J4N]

ngl developers adding DEMO's are a welcome one

[@patrickjoseph3412]

I stopped pirating game because steam made things cheep and easy. All my games in one place,can download whenever I want and decent prices.

[@nikidrawsstuffs]

steam kinda makes piracy easier though by letting the user import the game with custom cover art so you can launch it the same way you would any other game

[@CrashD6]

Monopoly is bad... Epic's solution: a worse service, rooted in greed Valve's response: "We are fine with competition" Me: Guess which one gives me the better service?

[@falcon_224]

But epic games gives you a free game every week

[@DerekPaksa]

@@falcon_224 lol. You know what else give you something free? drug dealer. but after 5 year not many get addicted to EGS. you know what happened if a lot get addicted to EGS. no free game anymore. and in 2023, Epic lay off 16% or 830 of its workforce while still giving free game. That's insane.

[@naoaquieopatrickpatrick8565]

​@@falcon_224 so? Steam is still better for the long-time user: steam workshop, achievement system, steam market, wishlist, etc. there's so many things Steam has that Epic doesn't its laughable to say them all. people literally just log into epic to get a random free game then forget its existence soon after, lol. Steam is a better service for people who want to get good games even if they're priced, because the prices on steam are really generous in comparison to Epic and Epic's launcher can't even catch up in terms of features with a 20 year old Steam Launcher, lol. free games don't make a service better, but having a good service to the point the competition tries to sue you for being a "monopoly" when you aren't, therefore proving how desperate they are to try to get a bigger cut on the market, does make a service better.

[@ladykryo4592]

​@falcon_224 and?? Oh yipee, a free game for a significantly worse product

[@JasonSpielberg]

@@falcon_224 I haven't even played any of the free games. I just log in, redeem my free game, and then go back to Steam.

[@Pikminiman]

The key distinction is that Valve has never engaged in anti-competitive practices. Being better and friendlier than the competition is not unfair of Steam.

[@Spartan322]

Pretty much, Valve attained its "monopoly" simply by being better, had it committed acts of being worse, it would be abandoned in time, but its because Valve as a company cares a lot for the consumer that everyone is loyal and flocks to them. It competes in the market fairly, its simply because it knows what it needs to do to compete fairly and rightly is why it has kept its position.

[@kevindsmith10000]

They just lost a lawsuit in the EU for uncompetitive practices.

[@Spartan322]

@@kevindsmith10000 What the EU defines as competitive practices is draconian bullcrap, half the time it intervenes in the private affairs of people who mind their own business and it tells businesses that it has to actively provide services and fines them into the ground if it doesn't, that's not encouraging competitive behavior.

[@kevindsmith10000]

@@Spartan322 Lol, the judgement simply told them that the EU was one geographic band and they can't ban games from being activated in one of their countries just because the key was bought in another for a cheaper price. They either do business based on the laws or they don't and this policy by the EU was looking out for the consumer, that's so draconian. Lol. Stop boot licking.

[@Spartan322]

@@kevindsmith10000 Yeah that's draconian, the EU is not looking out for the consumer by that policy, because that just encourages the local currency value to be inflated on Valve's part, as a result instead of currency values being relative to the economy, they are absolute in accordance to a specific standard in disregard to the standards of living, that detracts from the consumer. You really don't understand the most basic of economics and neither does the EU and its draconian attempts at a planned economy. Sounds like you only care because you get to live in a rich country, you'd rather sacrifice the poor so you get to pay less.

[@maymayman0]

"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates" is the quote that I always seem to remember most from GabeN because it shows the way he sees things. He knows what consumers want and he knows that by giving it to them, he will maintain a consumer base

[@codemonster8443]

Funny thing is that most big budget games ship to PC they ship with Denuvo DRM that kills FPS but hey not value's problem so it gets ignored. If you think valve is stopping Jack Sparrowing, look again. Edit : my point was, pirating is at an all time high. And steam cannot do anything about it. It's not even steams fault that they cannot do anything about it.

[@HellecticMojo]

@@codemonster8443 No one is saying that Valve is anti piracy. Also it's devs who put that in their game, Valve doesn't require shit from them.

[@pitysnows2660]

Devs put the DRM there. Valve doesn't ask for it. It just doesn't discriminate against it either. Which isn't bad.

[@maxentirunos]

Pirates aren't a market share being lost, its waas never a market share in the first place. If the game wasn't piratable, they simply wouldn't play it and no more money would be gained anyway. I think its time for a cultural content revolution.

[@Shitposting_IHMN]

Said years ago and doesnt apply anymore

[@justinwhite2725]

Epic lost me completely when they tried to sue Steam for uncompetotive practices because leaderboards, steam workshop and achoevements werent available on other platforms - yet made no attempt at all to create their own systems for developers to tap into. This tells me they are not genuinely interested on competong or 'free market' at all.

[@happytime2781]

good point, didn't heard about it

[@Not_interestEd-]

How would this even hold up in court? What kind of argument do they even have? How legal is it to be a hypocrite?

[@riufq]

Didn't they already have achievements? And about leaderboard, what leaderboard are u talking about? And yeah, they should make Their own Epic workshop.

[@macisr]

Yeah Sweeney complains a lot, and always tries to change the game to his favor by crying to daddy government, instead of competing. He wants to pull everyone else down to his level. He's a crybaby and an asshole.

[@macisr]

@@riufq They didn't have achievements until like two or three years ago. Neither cloud saves. The friends tab is bare bones as well. There are no reviews in it either. And somehow it runs like ass.

[@Woopor]

Valve got their market lead and huge amount of money, not by using slave labor, not by lobbying the government, not by selling basic needs for absurd prices, not by artificially inflating the price and rarity of their product, not by assassinating competitors, but by being the first and best at giving a service and not shooting themselves in the foot and fumbling that success early.

[@LostTemplars]

At first I read this as “By using slave labor.” And was promptly left confused.

[@KaptifLaDistillerie]

And also by making legendary games like Counter Strike and Half Life and always being ahead in terms of technology. The source engine was a revolution in 2004. They don't just lead because of Steam, but because they are talented geniuses, all fucking demi gods with the lowest paygrade being 500K/year

[@thedukeofdoom6323]

I do think that when gabe steps down or passes valve definitely could turn easily into something terrifying

[@efxnews4776]

Some folks think in leaving their own mark, instead of keep a legacy alive, and that is the real problem, is mostly ego, when Gabe pass out the person who would replace him would want keep is legacy, or will try leave a mark of their own?

[@FoxyCAMTV]

Same as Disney? 😆

[@halo129830]

From what I heard gabe left a nuke button to people trusts that will unequivocally fuck steam up no one quite knows what it does but it could be anything from turning everything on steam free to just outright deleting steams entire code and infrastructure.

[@DeFrizzy]

Lol imagine having to pay monthly for your steam account😅

[@mrtortoise3766]

Gabe found immortality he will be fine

[@nukfigrs6621]

When my Index's cable started wearing down after 2 years of use (the setup cost me like 1500 bucks) not only was valve support incredibly helpful in temporarily alleviating the issue, they also sent a 150 Euro replacement cable free of charge without my set being on warranty anymore, customer service like that is why valve is a market leader

[@cryptidv]

I second this. Valve's customer service is second to none.

[@jackofalltrades9938]

One of my base stations broke randomly and valve sent a replacement for free and a prepaid shipping tag to send them the broken one, best customer support I’ve seen

[@wraithgear4216]

steam will let you return games, sometime even after the return window. game returns were a thing Valve had to fight video game corporations to get, and was one of the big reasons why EGS and Uplay were started. being able to MVP games and inflate marketing hype and trick people onto a terrible experience with no take backs is pretty ducking anti consumer.

[@d4s0n282]

true, honestly only time they dont is if they see you are abusing return games@@wraithgear4216

[@tiefensucht]

A 150€ cable?!

[@goldenhate6649]

Steam also has a “big red button”. If they were to go under, they would put the drm directly on your computer, essentially giving you the ability to play without steam existing.

[@cewla3348]

steam also has no software locking - just that nobody uses family share games outside of official steam usage because steam overlay is that good. Messages, parties, steam multiplayer, built-in calls and browser, there's so many features that steam cannot just install into a game which act as an anti-piracy method. Sure, you can get a steam game for free through piracy, but you're missing out on all the steam features!

[@sleepyguy6201]

common steam W

[@KnownNiche1999]

That is honestly so cool. Never knew about that.

[@KnownNiche1999]

@@sleepyguy6201Drinking Epic's tears with every meal

[@mistahstyle]

I didn't even know this part exist and it's lit

[@bass-dc9175]

My experiences with Epic and Steam on a hacked account over the years: > My Epic account used currency I had to buy stuff in fortenite, I got my account back after a few weeks and removed the bought assets ... but did not refund the money so it poofed into the eather. > My Steam account got hacked and something similar happened. I contacted the support, they asked if I had any physical games linked to the account and I provided a picture of me with the product key of a game I bought (X3 TC). The support answered within an hour and reverted any purchases made after the last time the password changed. That is why I stick with Steam and have never pirated any game that is avaible on steam.

[@bcmelendrez100]

When Apple and Epic games were legally clashing, at some point Valve was asked to hand over users steam personal data (i forget if it was apple or epic) but Valve refused to hand that over. That right there makes valve more trust worthy than any company.

[@TalesOfWar]

I'm pretty sure Epic wanted it, so they could use it to get a competitive advantage against them. Obviously using the excuse they wanted to compare it to Apple's policies etc.

[@StationaryGamingReal]

They'd rather sell it.

[@Tab1300]

It was epic

[@196_hasby5]

Why would any company just hand over their user data, when they can sell it

[@BlackWACat]

Valve also refused to add a refund system until the EU stepped in and said they'd ban them in Europe if they didn't then Valve threw a hissy fit and added the refund system with a fuckton of caveats

[@1un4cy]

Epic: "We aren't a monopoly, we want to take down monopolies to eliminate monopolies" Also epic: >forces games to only be available on their launcher, thus creating a monopoly actions speak louder than words

[@SirMegaManNeoX]

This👈

[@V3ntilator]

I said this for years. Epic is trying to create a monopoly, but still fails hard for several reasons. They are still locking in new games, but media don't care to write about it anymore. Epic also became the publisher for Remedy, which means new Remedy games can never be released on Steam.

[@charlieinabox1164]

As far as Im concerned, games that launch as exclusives are dead on arrival and will never play them. Not just Epic but all console releases. I may play them at some point but I will never pay for them.

[@YOGA47]

Epic monopoly bigger than valve because epic own by Tencent. All top aaa mobile Are tencent. Tencent will always looks like majority %. Tencent do end for epic. Tencent worse then valve u will know if you play mobile. Tencent will always try to lock. Keep everything under its control.

[@godnyx117]

"Actions speak louder than words" is one of my favorite quotes! You go man!

[@AdityaSingh-rp4mt]

Another incredible steam feature is the steam workshop which allows easy access and sharability to mods and assets which provide boost to the gameplay

[@thenarkknight278]

One of the most underrated features of steam!

[@GAMER123GAMING]

@@thenarkknight278 Did you know you can buy games on steam? not many people know about it. Its pretty underrated

[@Obey-Initiative]

i love the workshop i just wish more devs supported it but thats on the devs not steam as the tool is there devs just have to allow it

[@arencorparencorp2189]

and also locks down mods and content to the steam version of the game, its all double edged with steam, and the problem if that with over centralization, steam is playing nice.... for now

[@Klovaneer]

@@arencorparencorp2189 it absolutely does not, it's just an integration tool - a mod on workshop and nexus is identical

[@kanon1118]

I worked with steam as a customer service in the Philippines int the mid 2010s and their offices were so nice. Free food and you get 1 hour besides your lunch break to hit the gym and it was paid.

[@de_nstream]

Merob pala silang opisina dito?

[@-TBH-]

That's probably why nothing gets done over at Valve. Employees with a carefree attitude doing whatever they want instead of being locked on a project.

[@Lolyeet]

Whelp i know which company i'm working for. How good do they treat artists?

[@kanon1118]

@@Lolyeet very well if you can do entertainment design or concept design you can pretty much earn an easy 6 figure salary ( depends on how good you are )

[@Lolyeet]

@@kanon1118 ehhhh im not the best pixel artist i'd say. I asked a youtuber called meatgood and his opinion was that my art is "very beginner". He is a good artist.

[@HiTechLoLife]

Valve is probably the closest thing to a genuine "big good" in the games industry. Valve aren't saints but Valve finally made a service that's better than Piracy. And if we look at what happened to services like Netflix and whatnot, they used to be better than Piracy, but then the streaming wars happened and now getting everything is more expensive than Cable.

[@NinjaRunningWild]

You mean GOG.

[@cybik]

@@NinjaRunningWild them too, to some extent.

[@etienne1062]

​@@NinjaRunningWildGOG does not support Linux, and their DRM free ethics is not systematic. In terms of features, they're not even comparable to steam. It's not that GOG is bad, but they are nowhere near being able to replace steam.

[@hundvd_7]

@@NinjaRunningWildUnfortunately, GOG do not have the balls to piss off developers or gamers even a tiny bit. And that lack of ability means they will never get in the graces of big publishers, which are always the most important. It's a very respectable position, so they are _beyond_ good for that. But they will never be *big* good

[@V3ntilator]

@@NinjaRunningWild GOG will stay on second place for various reasons. Epic Store will fall when Epic runs out of money. You probably know they had to cut losses again recently. Fortnite won't live on forever and they can't backtrack to Unreal Tournament money, because it's buried in a graveyard.

[@giovanna8048]

*Your account got hacked* Valve: "follow these useful guide and we will help you to recover your account" Epic Games: "All I can do is ban your account and the alt your are using right now"

[@sebas_7594]

Hahahha literally, Once a friend got his Steam account hacked, he sent an email to Steam support with some proves that the account was really his, and in 3 hours he got back his account

[@chrismonge3215]

@@sebas_7594 yep, something similar happened to me. My main complaint is that trying to reach support for the hacked account only led to a list of steps to do to "recover" it from the hacker which wouldnt work so i had to do a workaround and submit a ticket under a "purchase that i didnt make" subject to be able to reach support even then, they reached back and within a day I had my account back

[@MasttaGamma]

My steam account got hacked and I just contacted steam and got it back within a week

[@XDRosenheim]

This is why I am forever keeping my physical copy of Counter-Strike: Source. I used that case once to prove that I own my account when I lost access to it, because it was the first game I had added to my account.

[@ManualReview]

@@MasttaGamma My steam also got hacked last Feb. 13, 2024. I didn't panic that much because knowing Valve, they can get my account back safely as long as I messamge Steam support and prove my account got hacked, and they did, I got my account back 2 days later.

[@GeekIWG]

As a long time Linux desktop user, Valve / Steam is simply amazing! No commercial game store supports Linux like Steam. Until they do, there's simply no other real option for us Linux gamers.

[@Invid72]

Epic is actively hostile to Linux gamers so there's no chance I'll spend any money with them. What Valve has done with Proton is nothing short of incredible.

[@rbdunne]

Same, as a Linux guy Steam has earned my money. Supporting it as a tier 1 platform and investing in Proton and driver development.

[@Spartan322]

I always find it hilariously awesome that Gabe leaving Microsoft is what started this whole thing, he's since became their biggest enemy for platform dominance, its quite poetic actually.

[@AdamWarner]

This is it for me, we live in capitalism, and I'm voting with my wallet. Valve aren't perfect, but they are trying to push things forward, open source a lot of their work, and are friendly to Linux rather than hostile to it. By going to any other store front gets me less than I get by going to Steam, so why would I go anywhere else? If Epic, GOG etc started supporting Linux and chipping in to a more open gaming environment, I would consider using them.

[@Aereto]

@@AdamWarner Especially GoG, whose biggest selling point is their efforts to make retro games compatible with modern operating systems... and DRM-free games. Linux is on a per-Developer discretion.

[@squeezydonutz]

Remember when Epic said that publishers could pass the savings on to customers? Wonder when we'll see that happen?? All we ended up with, is $60 - $70 Epic exclusives.

[@musketeer2727]

To be fair, that's on the game devs/publishers to decide to pass on the savings, because if they don't, it just means more profits for the dev/publisher due to having to pay Epic less of a cut. But it may not make economic sense to "pass on savings"; when it's proven your game already sells at the price point you set on Steam, why would you lower it in another storefront just to earn less profit per game sold?

[@darkmanure]

Trickle down economics never work, it's always a load of shit to reap more of the profit.

[@musketeer2727]

@@darkmanure indeed. But if Epic is willing to give devs a bigger cut, more power to them. I personally wouldn't buy anything from Epic store though, mainly because I hate exclusivity with a passion. I hated it on consoles, I sure as hell don't want it reenacted here on PC. Good on the devs for having exclusivity deals to help act as a safety net, but in the long run, it might hurt their game's popularity, because the hype from initial release died by the time they release on other platforms. Exclusivity just doesn't hold as much sway in the PC ecosystem, because we have so many other games competing for our time. You don't catch us at the initial hype, you don't catch us at all.

[@mastroitek]

And the platform is so bad that when I find out that a game on my whish list is an Epic exclusive I take another week to decide if I truly want the game

[@Dynamonic]

Valve invested in PC gaming when everyone else was writing it off to work exclusively on consoles. There was a time in the early noughties when more and more big releases were missing PC and the phrase ‘PC gaming is dead’ was constantly being chucked around. I have no doubt Valve saved PC gaming from extinction and the gaming world is a far better place because of Valve, and Steam!

[@Pheonixco]

Tim Sweeney's own words: 'Consoles Have Left PC Games Behind' in 2008, and now he wants come sniveling back after all the work Valve put into saving the market. This among many other reasons is why you cannot trust him or Epic games, they abandoned the market when it was at its lowest and then when it turned out that Sweeney was completely wrong, they turned ship and were determined to push Steam out the market in anyway possible.

[@diamondhamster4320]

PC still only makes up 22% of global Gaming industry revenue, mate. With Consoles being 28% and Mobile being 50%. Those are just cold hard facts.

[@butterh2]

​@@diamondhamster4320considering how consoles are infinitely easier to use and more plug and play than any pc (save for a steam deck and competitors), it's incredibly impressive that pc comes close to equalling console

[@diamondhamster4320]

@@butterh2 True, there are many factors in the past 4-5 years that contributed to that state of affairs.

[@XKCDism]

@@diamondhamster4320 catering to 100% of the market is better than 28% or 78% that is a cold hard fact

[@E5rael]

I think David Szymanski's assessment of Steam beign lethargic and benign versus Epic being volatile and aggressive has quite a bit to do with Epic being on the stock market, while Valve is free from its short-sighted quarterly cycle and the whims of shareholders. They have creative freedom and can play the long game, while Epic has to get quick and dirty results. I trust Valve more than Epic.

[@eragonbook4]

Also steam doesnt give a crap I cant remember the last time i saw an ad for steam

[@dyingstar24]

It isnt the stock market, it's the fact that epic has a nasty habit of spending way too much money when they really... REEEEEAAALLY shouldn't... There's also the fact that Tencent has a sizeable stake in the company (which was the result of said overspending)

[@GrimnirsGrudge]

Imagine if Epic spent 10% of the money they gave away in free games simply developing their launcher and store to function similarly to Steam. They wouldn't have to resort to court battles to get market share. The customers are the players, not the developers. If your new game service doesn't cater to the customers, it doesn't matter how attractive you make it to the developers. He had all the opportunity to make the best outcome for both sides and failed thinking players only care about free stuff and developers have to worry about pleasing customers, not the platform. Steam understand this way better.

[@hydra7427]

Just look at how Valve handled NFTs vs Epic. Valve doesn't want their store's shovelware problems to get worse, or lead them to become liable for fraud. Epic, meanwhile, just thinks "more money and market share for me".

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

@@flaryy while you maybe right, there is an obvious elephant in the room with Epic, it is part owned by Tencent and Tencent sure as heck are not trust worthy, which means Epic itself will never be trust worthy. I think this video underplays Epic a bit, yes a lot of developers abandoned PC but Unreal engine has also been good for PC, it has always been supported on PC and part of the reason the debate opened in the first place, since Unity wanted to place their inferior engine in such a way it'd be more expensive to use than Unreal. A lot of why steam succeeded however clearly relates back to Gabe Newell himself, and Gabe Newell obviously was also quiet influential in Microsoft when he worked for them. Can valve remain the company it is without Gabe Newell? That will be the ultimate test of steam and likely will be where the pseudo monopoly position of Steam on the market will fade, unless whomever takes over can keep up the philosophy of Gabe Newell into the future and focusing not on (top/triple-aaa) developers but on the customer and being a legitimate market place open to all, which is what steam does.

[@baval5]

Valve openly welcomes competition, they often publicly celebrate competing advancements in game technology such as the Asus ROG Ally. The issue is that no one else wants to compete. They want to try to undercut Valve and take its resources (game developers) so that they can offer less and profit more. Could Valve charge less? I dont know. But what I do know is that for decades Valve has faithfully offered us the best platform with no strings attached and has never removed functionality or added paywalls to what they do, and they dont force games to be Steam exclusive (Valve in fact encourages developers to put their games on as many platforms as possible). Valve might be the only example remaining in all of capitalism where "better product gets better market share" instead of "cheaper product buys out the competition". As for Tim Sweeneys response, anyone who starts out talking about "free markets and fair competition" immediately raises red flags for me. You never hear that from people who *dont* want a monopoly. These are always the people who are saying "all these immoral things im doing is just free market" through a clenched grin.

[@Rootiga]

It's not the only example, but among tech companies it is certainly unique. The only thing that makes a company great is generally speaking its founder who usually has a vision and a goal, which dies along with them. Apple is the best example of this, while there are some other examples like Disney, Southwest Airlines or even KZbin. When an executive uses terms like free market, It's just classic projection. Corporate espionage is more prevalent among tech companies than any other industry for a variety of reasons. So they, more than any other industry, feel compelled to pretend like they actually care about free and fair markets. I also would argue monopolies aren't capitalist because capitalism means a free market, and a monopoly is the definition of a non-free market. Everything in life is a balancing act and the economy is no different, it must be a balancing act of powers between companies and regulations. I do worry a couple decades in the future when Gaben dies though, it is likely Valve will start marking poor decisions because boards never maintain the vision or goal of the founder, they always end up just looking at the numbers

[@kuronanestimare]

Tim Sweeney lost all right to talk about creating Fair Competition when he made a model that encourages games to *only* exist on his platform. The Merriam-Webster definition of a Monopoly is: "exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action". if I cannot buy a game on more than one platform, that is, by definition, a Monopoly on the product. It also doesn't help that Epic, despite using such aggressive tactics as encouraging games to exist only on their platform, also just has a worse client. I can download mods for XCOM2 right off my Steam Client, launch the game, and play them. I can't do that with an Epic Version. I also don't trust that Tencent has such a large share in the company. I have games on other platforms like GoG, and I do like GoG as a business. I do think Steam needs to bring down their 70/30 split to 80/20 (Valve provides enough innovation to the market and features in their client that anything less than 20% is probably a pipe dream) but I'm not going to pay a cent to Epic because bringing the *Exclusivity Wars* to the PC is not how I want this fight to go.

[@evilsworn2901]

They already have a clause that games sold on steam can't be sold for less on other platforms

[@baval5]

@@evilsworn2901 Only if you are including a steam key with the purchase.

[@CommanderM117]

Agreed

[@qfurgie]

Something not mentioned is that Steam also provides servers for the games they host, so that 30% goes there too

[@LiftandCoa]

Immense discoverability, several times the audience, regional pricing, steam workshop, providing servers, a *real* review board is real value to developers and turns into higher profits, by having just immensely more sales. Steam takes the higher price because they provide the better service. Sure you can eat at McDonalds. Or you can to go a restaurant. Both offer burgers.

[@Professorkek]

Valve is the only company I've seen to use their market leadership to benefit the consumer rather than exploit them. It's as simple as that. Any publicly traded company would always profit over litterally everything else, and if they don't, shareholders will put someone new in charge who does.

[@Homiloko2]

Exactly, and that's because Steam is not publicly traded. The moment they IPO and have to appease shareholders, we're f*cked. Praise Lord Gaben.

[@DaxRaider]

epic literally gift you free fullprice games every week ...

[@Homiloko2]

@@DaxRaider Epic also locks games in their store through exclusivity deals, which sucks. Their free games aren't worth the hassle of installing and running their slow, buggy and poorly designed launcher

[@mrrupernater]

​@@Homiloko2 Steam literally was not majorly updated or polished for a while until the epic launcher was first released, which caused major changes. And exclusivity is done as otherwise no one will go to epic. Leaving steam the monopoly it is. Also the split is better for devs (just being devils advocate) I haven't bought a single game on epic. But I have 300+free games on it. And lol it's ain't slow 😅

[@apotato6278]

@@mrrupernater As an actual indie dev using UE5, yeah the split is better. On the other hand, would you rather have 88% of $1000 or 70% of $10 000? As I see it, the Epic Games Storefront is detrimental to sales. It's difficult to navigate and it just looks sorta... gloomy. This, above all others, is the reason Epic can't catch up to steam. They have the resources to fix it, they just don't.

[@Engeloid]

Steam's feature set is just unbeatable atm and with the inclusion of Steam OS and its ability to run windows games so fluently, there is just a bright future for Steam users. Edit: wow this blew up haha

[@radicalraccoon]

I agree. This is showcased very well on the Steam Deck where, while the gaming mode may seem indifferent to running Big Picture mode on Windows on a surface level, it's actually significantly different since gaming mode on Steam Deck actually eliminates overhead by disabling the desktop environment and some other unnecessary system processes, which is something simply doesn't happen on Windows and would lead to significant system instability. Windows can't be decoupled from it's desktop environment (Explorer) as easily as a Linux distro can be. Linux is extremely modular and open and this enables further refinement and optimization for Valve on their own hardware. Honestly, even if Valve holds a significant share of the gaming space on PC, they're currently our best option and demonstrating their good will by making their software and hardware more open than any other developer or manufacturer in the gaming space ever would. Yes, there is DRM, but it's kind of a requirement to make their platform appealing to developers who fear, justly or unjustly, the flexibility of PC and I think they've done as great a job as could be expected since it's still pretty flexible and isn't as draconian as that implemented by other publishers and/or platforms.

[@Foun_D_OnePiece]

Until Microsoft buy them. Literally their long term goal.

[@werdfeefs7027]

Eh, it goes beyond features to basic functionality, though. I recently had to reinstall windows, and setting my games up again from their secondary drive was... interesting. On GoG Galaxy, all I had to do was go into the settings and point it to the installation location. On steam, I could either add the second drive as a library in the settings, or simply 'reinstall' any game to where it was previously, prompting steam to load every other game in that location as well. In the Epic Games Launcher I had to... 1) Rename the folder the games were installed in. 2) Begin downloading a game, waiting until it got to 2-3%. 3) Cancel the download. 4) Move the game from the renamed folder to the new folder. 5) Resume the download and wait for it to validate the game files. This all had to be done manually, and individually - it made me very glad that I had only a couple pages of games in Epic as opposed to the close to 1,000 games I've got in Steam.

[@xenofonraptis8832]

Running games fluently? What are you smoking man? With all the crappy layers, it's faaaaaar from fluently

[@pienotlie9081]

Yeah, it's not some "problem" and they're a "monopoly". They put hard work and money into everything they've accomplished. They've earned their respect and place in PC gaming through care and trust and reliability. And everything they worked for and poured money into for so long, was for us, the PC gamers. Everything is given back to the consumer. No "Steam Deluxe!" with EXTRA FEATURES for $9.99 a month! No. It's just free. GabeN could've been like other execs. and put the bare minimum into Steam to keep it rolling for years while he took stacks of cash home every day. But because he didn't take stacks of cash home and kept re-investing it over and over again to benefit everyone who used their product, he's earned the trust enough for me to be fine knowing that nowadays he definitely DOES take home stacks of cash! GabeN's a super nerdy gamer who *actually* achieved his lofty goal of centralizing the PC gaming space (Games all on Steam), while also decentralizing the PC gaming space (Supporting Linux and building Proton to play games on more OS)...

[@KnownNiche1999]

Valve feels more serious and mature as a company. There is no corporate childish "we love you and appreciate you" that we all know is fake. Valve just makes a good game/update, gives you a price tag, and doesn't talk to you until they have another banger ready

[@justrandomguy5010]

Private company, that's it. Public traded can be be bought by money printers(Vanguard and BlackRock) and then thrown into the trash with EGS, etc. You can't do that, if an owner refuses to sell the stock. That's why they hate Gabe.

[@emilivar4558]

@@justrandomguy5010 You should probably re-think that statment. Valve is a private company, not selling itself away to a corprate overlord, which gives zero fucks about anything but Money. Even the beloved Disney, now owned by Vanguard and Blackrock, now is very clealry more intrested in making money, than the amazing movies we once knew, as Vanguard and Blackrock, also only grow intrested in money. Steam has stopped this corprate greed from reaching the PC platform as much, by not selling, and being private, therefor allowing for indi games, and all other types of games, while keeping a good, easy to use platform and developing more tools and even now, consols, like the steam deck. EGD is trash, and it seems you at least see that fact, but it seems you think having a public company is somehow always a good thing, tho it isnt. Sure, its more "american" and capitalistic to have an public company, but it very clearly isnt better for game devs, publishers or gamers. In your world where Valve would be public, youd most likley see prices sky rocket, indi devs die out, and only the top dogs stay on the platform, which also allows them to make more shit, unfinished games, as it would then be the only things surviving on the platform. Gabe is a smart, but also genuinly caring about the community as a whole, which is why Steam is as it is is. Hating him for any reason is, simply stupid, as he is the only reason really, we have such a massive library of games on PC, and why there even is a game community on PC in the first place. Steam and Valve allowed for indi devs to release on PC even in its dying years, and when Valve then started making games, which are all still seen as mastepieces, it revived and saved PC gaming, possibly forever, as it made it a real competitor again. Steam isnt perfect, Valve isnt perfect, Gabe isnt perfect, but theyre all a hell of a lot better than any other option that exists, like EGS, or selling out to the corporate overlord, driven by greed.

[@B.L.U.S]

I agree with the first setence but the second had not been true for years lol Please Gaben, heavy update?

[@Radeo]

Except when they are having "Latinx" Sales.

[@GAMER123GAMING]

@@Radeo wtf are latinx sales

[@RichardServello]

Free exclusivity on epic is like being allowed to exclusively sell sushi in a gas station restroom.

[@ELFanatic]

You found a way to put into words what I could not.

[@seeibe]

One cool thing Valve did is to invest so much into open source software. Even if Valve goes bad in the next couple of years, their contributions will still be alive and well, and the community can pick up where they left off. The only thing we'll really lose is the games library itself - and I think if that happens we'll see a game preservation movement crop up that makes current piracy look like kindergarten.

[@FunFreakeyy]

Yeah I'm really optimistic about that, even if Valve would shutdown, the hackers and crackers will step in to save the games. This is no technical only a legal problem, like we already see with emulation of abandoned consoles.

[@banguseater]

They also stated a long time ago, not sure if it still stands up, that they’ll release a DRM free tool for all games if somehow they go under, so pretty much being able to own your own copy.

[@Tracenji]

@@banguseater it would be known as the great storage shortage of 20XX

[@GameBoyyearsago]

@@banguseater Piracy Is The best : )

[@sauloaa1]

​@@banguseaterAnd even if they don't release that tool, Steam's DRM is so easy to crack that, any game that only uses Steam's DRM can be cracked in the same minute the game is up for downloading. If Valve announces Steam shutting down, you can be sure that tons of people would group up to try and archive all of it elsewhere, like how a lot of people did with tons of Flash games being saved to the Internet Archive.

[@Evercade_Effect]

Don't forget that Valve doesn't make their customers pay for these features like online gaming, cloud saves, etc. Unlike the the big 3 who charge the customer base. Vavle understands that it's customers who are buying the games shouldn't have to pat for these features since they're buying the games. I love that you said forever library which is 100% on as consoles tend to shutdown their stores and again making the customer pay. Great video!!!

[@rookooful]

some of those features i completely take for granted. Cloud saves have been amazing and free online gaming is a no brainer. I to this day despise how consoles make you pay a subscription cost just to access a game server. Also a lot of game servers are not hosted by valve. They are hosted by the publisher/dev.

[@TremereTT]

also I have rebought games on steam just because of features like steam invite and ease of update delivery and savegames shared over several devices. This includes games i pirated as pupil decades ago.

[@bestinfinity1]

​@@rookoofulunless I have missed a steam cloud gaming service, steam doesn't make you pay because your PC becomes the server (which is no way insecure unless some steam weakness gets discovered to make it so you can force a login into someones account with the app)

[@BotCheese]

@@bestinfinity1 For most multiplayer games the developer or publisher hosts the server, there are also many that can be/are peer to peer. That is not the standard though. (sidenote: some games also let you host your own dedicated server akin to what the aforementioned devs/publishers do)

[@Xdgvy]

​@bestinfinity1 Not always. To use a high profile example, gta is run on 3rd-party servers. If you want to play on console, feel free to grab your credit card, but valve keeps it accessible for free on pc. *also (had to add this) if you hadn't noticed cloud backup, that is de facto off- site from your pc. They do not turn your pc into a server, that's just a local save.

[@matteste]

Another big factor against Epic is just how petty, insufferable and hypocritical their CEO is.

[@sonicboy678]

The amount of respect I have for that guy is proportional to how often I use his given name first.

[@ethanwasme4307]

that's neurodivergents for ya

[@matteste]

@@ethanwasme4307 ...a statement you just said to a neurodivergent.

[@sonicboy678]

@@ethanwasme4307 And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?

[@goldenhate6649]

Neurodivergence is not a scapegoat for being a PoS. Mr. Sweeny is all about the metaverse and monopolization. He strong arms companies, buys out things he thinks he can make part of “ThE EcoSyTeM” and proceeds to give a storefront that has less features than freaking battlenet, a storefront of all of 7 games or so. Epic Games Store just sucks, end of story. They have failed to do anything productive, it launched WITHOUT a shopping cart. Like how the hell, even where I buy rats for my snakes has a shopping cart, like dear god.

[@ArtieTheRunner]

Here's my personal reason why I'll never use Epic Games Store again, at least as a Russian player: due to certain unnamed events, Epic Games completely took away my library of what little games I PURCHASED on their platform, probably thinking that people of my place of origin don't deserve to play games right now. Meanwhile Steam simply doesn't allow to transfer my funds to the Steam Wallet while I still get to keep and play everything I've ever purchased. It's not simply a monopoly on Steam's part, it's just better long-term business practices.

[@void-9572]

Classic Epic Games L. Sucks that you lost that library, hope you get it back.

[@ArtieTheRunner]

@@void-9572 I don't. The only games I got were John Wick Hex and No Straight Roads, which were advertised and supposed to be EGS exclusives. Later on I bought the same games on Steam the second time and actually kept them. Nah, no way am I trusting EGS ever again.

[@RTstudios-xs6fw]

Sorry to hear about that, I hope all this conflict ends soon

[@trelard]

The reason Steam is so popular now (aside from its age) is simply the storefront is VERY accessible. They refined the experience of not just a platform to launch games from, but also refined the storefront in a way that's easy to navigate and be informative. That goes a long way. The Steam launcher is handy. The only other launcher I love is GoG Galaxy. Being able to see all the games I own across multiple platform is a god send with thousands of games.

[@Tymptra]

Yep, browsing the store and looking at games on steam is actually kind of fun by itself. Whereas with Epic, doing basic navigation like searching for games by genre is a struggle.

[@iyoub6931]

Steam is a community, there are forums, artworks, guides, videos, groups and much more. EGS is just a black background with some price tags dotted about.

[@unicodePug]

I halfway disagree with this, since Valve actually downgraded their search functionality. It was better before, but I suspect they removed a lot of the features in order to prune down the bandwidth of search queries and reduce the processing power required for all the advanced filtering you used to be able to do with the old search user interface.

[@brettlawrence9015]

Also love the refund feature saved me loads with poor performance at launch from certain titles.

[@dbunik44]

I really hate the Interface of the Epic store, Ubisoft is even worse

[@clifflogan7974]

To those that think Steam is a monopoly all I can say is “Proton”. Steam has done more to break up the biggest monopoly in PC gaming no one talks about. They have broken the monopoly from Microsoft Windows and has created a growing competition for OS choice on PC. Because of Steam I have shed my dependence on Windows and have been daily driving Linux. Thank you Valve.

[@crazyabe4571]

I personally hope one day Gaben and Steam decide to take on the Mobile industry, seeing them force Apple and Google to stop being control freaks on what one can and can't do with- and on- their own devices would be such a fucking power move.

[@mbos14]

Just make them look up what the word Monopoly means. Steam does not EXCLUSIVELY own the rights to sell games.(MC games store, Epic gamestore, GOG, Ubisoft launcher, EA's Origin, etc exist) Irony of it all Epic can be considerd more of a monopoly with its small market share then Steam is.

[@yoClohrine]

Same dude

[@x0j]

When you say 'proton', you really mean the open source wine project. That has been around since 1993. Great job valve!

[@alex15095]

​@@x0j It's almost as if they found an open-source project of people already making something that they need, and they supported them with money and resources to help further its development! Shocking! They should've NIHed

[@creedus4909]

Might be an unpopular opinion but Valve DID push forward Linux gaming by years if not decades, which is allowing people to make more conscious decisions when it comes to their computers

[@fatusopp4739]

not an unpopular opinion, just a fact. proton and its anti-cheat runtimes make gaming on linux as simple as a checkbox for developers. gaming on systems that use the linux kernel would be nowhere near where it is now without valve and its developments.

[@EximiusDux]

@@fatusopp4739Proton literally is a fork of Wine with some added patches by Valve. Valve drastically helped the Linux world by showing the "mainstream" gamers that it's possible to game on Linux... but they mostly used Linux and Wine as it already was. Even the Steam Deck uses Arch Linux with the KDE desktop or the Steam UI depending on the mode.

[@stale2665]

@@EximiusDux that's a bit reductionist

[@liamburke4406]

​@@EximiusDux You are making it sound like wine was reliable before Valve started contributing. Keep in mind that not only did valve patch up wine for proton, but they contributed their code to the mainstream repo too. .net7 wpf would never run feature complete on wine if it wasn't for Valve and their contributions.

[@EximiusDux]

@@liamburke4406Valve created a few patches to make certain games run better, they worked a bit on the threading system, and also reworked some of the resolution switching but wine was already capable of running most games from the XP and Windows 7 era, and newer. Up to this day, Proton can't run everything even after valve's patches and work. Reverse engineering Windows and creating wine is a project that started during the late 1990s. Don't think valve magically and suddenly "fixed" Wine.

[@TheBossManBoss319]

Steam taking 30% isn’t unreasonable. They host server, downloads, store pages, prebuilt multiplayer server, friends lists and more those were just the ones I could list off the top of my head. None of those expenses are on the developer or publishers. Steam is completely fair in their 30%.

[@xaropy]

i think 25% would be better

[@TheDude50447]

The main problem I got with Epic is that they tried to get the extremely anti consumer "exclusive" concept from the console over to the PC.

[@deuswulf6193]

Valve pulled some exclusivity deals in the past as well when starting off. It's not like they haven't tried it, the difference is they did not need to push that hard because they were literally the only player in town and many publishers forced us to use their service as it was a type of DRM. By attacking exclusivity deals, you could be argued to be anti-developer. It goes both ways. The developer's want to pass the risk to Epic, which is essentially what these deals are. The developer gets their ROI (return on investment) and can continue making games, where as they are not guarantied success if its on Steam. Exclusivity is only anti-consumer WHEN the platforms have a cost of entry. For example, if a game goes exclusive on the Playstation, and someone does not have a playstation, they have to spend hundreds of dollars just to get the system in order to play that one game. That's not true with Epic Game Store exclusivity. It cost nothing to use to use the EGS, or GOG, or Steam. These have no barrier to entry, no financial cost to access. Thus it cannot be anti-consumer.

[@TheDude50447]

@@deuswulf6193 As long as there is no cost I totally agree. But I dont know what epic is planning. The console exclusivity concept makes billions so its reasonable to assume theyre after something similiar. Even the attempt needs to be boycotted from the get go. Valve had some exclusivity deals simply because they were the only one. They never went aggressively after such things with large sums of money like epic. Valve have demonstrated time and again that theyre not monopolizing and that theyre among a very tiny group of almost trustworthy companies. Epic isnt. And they are from a market place where gate keeping and monopolizing are the standard.

[@deuswulf6193]

@@TheDude50447 Its about incentives. If a game you want to play is on X platform, you then have an incentive to use X. Valve knows this, which is why their first party titles are exclusively on steam. Exclusives are not a bad thing, they have no inherent good or bad status. Think of it like film, if a studio makes an offer to have the sole rights to air a show on their network, do people boycott? Do they get upset because their preferred network is something else? Not really, they only care if its accessible. They are not applying the same logic to gaming, which shows a bit of hypocrisy, especially when its a normal practice and market monopolies have it occur normally simply due to being a market leader. In the beginning, Valve actually was aggressive in getting publishers to put their games on steam as the sole means of playing and launching the game. Even physical box copies stared having nothing but codes inside. They don't have to be aggressive in their strategy anymore because they control the market already. Valve is monopolizing the market because they quite literally a market monopoly ("A market monopoly is a type of market structure where a single seller or producer assumes a dominant position in an industry or sector"). They are quite aware that consumers feel entitled to have games on their platform, so they know their current strategy can be passive in nature. Having consoles like the steam deck help further solidify their position, which is fine. It's a smart move on their part. This could have only been possible with having a market monopoly.

[@nvelsen1975]

@@deuswulf6193 It costs you your data, your security, processing power, space, time.... So Epic is anti-consumer. Not saying Steam is great though, it took me a while to shut down all its unnecessary updating and background functions. Steam eats up hundreds of MBs of memory.

[@deuswulf6193]

@@nvelsen1975 By the logic you are presenting, just about most software and online services are anti-consumer then. Can you really name anything that is not using your data, or your computers "processing" time, or any of the other thing you mention. That's a pretty pretty low bar to set for what counts towards anti-consumer. Honestly, I think most of that is overblown, hyperbolic and selectively applied. There are two big changes I could actually consider anti-consumer, one is this shift to software as a service (aka SaaS) rather than as a product. The other is what Valve did, which is turn PC games (a type of software) into an account locked (DRM) product, which is more of a floating license than it is something tangible. In the past, you could give away your games to a friend, a family member, or you could trade it in for something else. That right as the consumer has been lost, which is actually an anti-consumer move, but the bias in favor of Valve has many excusing that overtly anti-consumer move which has become normal in the PC space.

[@emilytheimp]

When Steam redesigned their UI and storefront recently I straight up expected it to turn much much worse, as is usually the case with UI redesigns. To this day Im still shocked that's totally not what happened.

[@hoosierman6665]

Seriously one of the very very few cases where something changed with something millions are familiar with and there wasn't some kind of outrage. Now that's good design.

[@DeisFortuna]

Yeah, like, basically every steam UI update hasn't really felt like a UI update in the same way as *everyone else* seems to think UI updates need to happen. Nothing really moves, if anything, information usually gets *clearer* and the same basic layout is preserved so your muscle memory doesnt really get destroyed. Valve literally just does a new coat of paint instead of destroying their UI like everyone else does.

[@huskpl3yz358]

Me when i spread lies:

[@nightmareTomek]

@@DeisFortuna So few companies understand this.

[@VashStarwind]

I HATED it at first, and was pretty pissed about it, but tbh it has grown on me, I actually really dig the big green PLAY button now..

[@geckoman1011]

I live in an area with limited bandwidth, so the deciding factor for me was Epic required me to be logged in to play while I could play offline with steam. I brought the issue up with Epic and their response was so bad I've literally never opened up their app since.

[@TheBlueReverb]

I am genuinely curious, how did the response go? No need to share if you don't want to. :o

[@assetaden6662]

​@@TheBlueReverbknowing epics responses, it was like "move to a better place lol"

[@ariffarzmi5560]

I had no idea about the always online part with Epic with how little I used it. Given my unstable internet, I'm gonna keep sticking to Steam.

[@MtnNerd]

I didn't know they did that. I guess that confirms I'm not going to Epic ever

[@HunterAnsorge-ok9jk]

In fact, if it’s your wifi causing problems and not an issue like fallout 3 not working on windows 10, the real problem IS YOU 😂😂😂

[@GoldSrc_]

Valve has earned the right, and enough respect, that there's no reason for Volvo to stop the 30% cut. That 30% pays for all the amazing features Steam has, even the most mediocre games get to enjoy all the community features that the best games also enjoy, delisted games that are no longer sold also get to keep those features. Epic has been buying exclusivity, they have to do it, otherwise nobody would buy games with them. Until Epic builds _all_ the features Steam has (and more), epic will never be a competitor. You have to jump through hoops to play Epic games on Linux, games on Steam pretty much just work on Linux. I remember someone comparing both with fruits, would you take 88% of a grape? or 70% of a watermelon?

[@toiletfx5679]

I have never really seen Steam as a monopoly. The reason Steam is so big is not because Valve made some shady backalley deals with developers, it's because it is just simply the best option for buying and storing your games. Countless other companies tried and failed to compete with steam over the years. I mean look at Epic, at first, people were rooting for them when they announced they wanted to compete with Steam, then they just stopped updating the store and wondered why people moved on.

[@kada0420]

If they take half of their time improving the launcher itself, it would at least have a bit of a following. Edit: remember the time where they celebrated for having cart. Like wow every launcher has that took them months just for that

[@toiletfx5679]

@@kada0420 Yes I do remember laughing my ass off about this.

[@Sombre____]

Yeah, Steam is just a paradise for gamers and devs. (If you forget the Early Access scam market)

[@Coecoo]

Valve has done tons of "shady backalley" stuff in order to kill off competitors, you just don't see a lot of it as a regular user. Two of the top of my head are them banning any developer that put prices on another platform that is lower than the one on Steam. And they recently just locked down all third parties access to their workshop servers, making it impossible to manually download & save mods as a server owner or to not update & get issues as a regular player with the primary intent of blocking other storefronts from getting mods.

[@freak0429]

@@Coecoo "if they want to charge less at Epic then they don't need our services. 🤷‍♂️" Afaik, no other storefront even has a mod workshop like steam. All major mods are done thru nexus/vortex anyway. If its not on nexus it might as well not exist in my eyes. Steam workshop has always been little mods.

[@tdoyr2119]

1: Valve is actually consumer friendly 2: Gabe is a good guy 3: Technically it’s an oligopoly, not a monopoly 4: Steam is just an industry leader because it’s straight up superior to the other options

[@clubardi]

i thank you for revealing the word oligopoly to me, never heard of it

[@TheGrinningViking]

Listen, Gabe is the most in the way of half life 3.

[@jackmcallister1256]

Valve had a decade ahead of anyone else to make a marketplace. It was going to just be Valve games initially then realized there was a huge pile of money lying right there for the taking that everyone was ignoring for the moment. In the beginning Steam wasn't very good, but they were able to grow and workout a lot of issues. Other store fronts were half baked, never fully realized, and just a means of peddling that publisher's games. Epic is the only real competition out of all of them and it's still not a feature complete store at all. It lacks a shopping cart for crying out loud.

[@tdoyr2119]

@@jackmcallister1256 I will forever believe that the ONLY reasons people use Epic are for the free game promotions and for Epic brand content. Anything available on Steam for the same price will be bought on Steam instead of Epic

[@TNH91]

Building on what @@jackmcallister1256 wrote; anyone wanting to make a marketplace with a launcher can take most of their lessons from Steam, free of charge. They don't _need_ to make their own mistakes, they can look at the mistakes Valve made and avoid them. And possibly try to make a better experience. Epic hasn't gotten there yet, and that's quite impressive given how much time they've had to get up to par.

[@toasunder]

As a game dev I feel I should mention, steam has a lot of features for developers to integrate into their games such as steam connect which allows developers to integrate multiplayer without having their players port forward or having to pay for their own micro servers for players to connect to each other through. Dani's Squid Game used this for its multiplayer. Features like this gives steam and edge with charging 30% over other platforms on PC.

[@BrokensoulRider]

Isn't that 30/70 split also making sure that Steam can keep providing those sorts of tools and regularly updating them so you guys have all the latest?

[@monkaSisLife]

yes. but people don't see that. all they see is big bad greedy valve taking 30%. Most Devs complaining about the 30% are in my eyes just disgustingly entitled.@@BrokensoulRider

[@pigalex]

i was about to say this. there are ancient games on steam that haven’t been update in years that still have perfectly working multiplayer because of steam’s support.

[@BrokensoulRider]

That makes sense. @@monkaSisLife

[@ihx7]

this is insane especially because on xbox and ps the devs pay 30 percent and you pay 10 per month with servers that arent even paid for by xbox/ps

[@TheTank_V2]

I think its kinda funny that to get the epic games launcher to support my controller i had to add the epic launcher to my steam library as a non steam game so that steam could force epic games to let my controller work.

[@DrTeeth66]

Valve's is the _only_ distribution contract that requires zero exclusivity. So - while there are many games currently only available on Steam, there's no 'Steam exclusives'. The only place that requires exclusivity when distributing third-party PC software is the Epic Store - they're not even _attempting_ to "compete"

[@Tn5421Me]

technically, there are steam exclusives. not sure you can get valve's first party games anywhere else.....not that i'd want to

[@CanIHasThisName]

Exclusive is exclusive, doesn't matter the reason. And Steam has more exclusives than any other platform, including consoles. Epic also doesn't require exclusivity by any means, they offer incentives for exclusivity which are entirely optional.

[@clifflogan7974]

Not sure what games Valve forces exclusivity. Portal and the Half-Life series has been available on consoles. I would say Half-Life Alex is kinda exclusive but only because no one else has made VR so accessible. If a game is only found on Steam it is that developer’s decision not Valve’s.

[@CanIHasThisName]

@@clifflogan7974 Likewise, when a game is only found on EGS, it is the developer's decision. We are only talking about exclusivity to the store on PC, not PC exclusivity.

[@DrTeeth66]

@@clifflogan7974 That's absolutely right. Also, Valve could _easily_ have locked Alyx to the Index hardware exclusively; instead, they ensured that the game runs on every PCVR headset. Exclusivity is just not Valve's style!

[@Cantimule]

Couple of additional bits to add. 1) The 30% is only for games sold through the Steam store. Developers can generate keys to sell anywhere else that they please. 2) A big difference with Valve compared to almost every other major game publisher is that they do not have shareholders. It is not legally obligated to squeeze every last cent out of its customers and assets like other companies have to, meaning it's far more flexible in terms of investments into longer term projects and experimental features. 3) Tim's comments on how social gaming is growing thanks to cross-platform play should be openly mocked, as it was his company that bought popular social games Rocket League and Fall Guys and then immediately removed them from Steam. Epic Megagames was, back in the day, kinda seen like how Valve is seen now. I can't help but feel there's a lot of resentment about not being in Valve's place and I don't doubt for even a second that they would enforce a monopoly of their own if they had the chance, for the reasons mentioned and because half the company is owned by Tencent.

[@Tab1300]

I miss the old epic.

[@primary2630]

That's the exact reason why no one likes Epic. Like withholding games, their subpar service in comparison and having the company be puppeted by companies like tencent

[@KamchatkaGaming]

I got Rocket League a few months after it released on Epic, and after playing on their free to play I bought a key which was way more expensive than the original game for Steam just because I believe Steam to be so much better. And since then, all Epic has done is further make the game worse.

[@DS-nv2ni]

Mmm then why do *they squeeze every cent out of devs instead? Please dont talk about what you dont understand, you just want to agree with your favorite yt, think with your own brain, Valve is a monopoly and is doing a lot of harm to the industry, you can't see it, so you believe it doesn't exist, but that's your problem (as for most people, as they are uninformed just like you).

[@DS-nv2ni]

​@@studiouskid1528 No one is forcing me? That's not true, there is a monopoly, Valve or Epic makes no difference to me, even if there were 3 companies, it would be a cartel, and between a cartel and a monopoly there is no much difference, and this is a problem with unregulated (or better to say corrupted) capitalism a priori. I can't do what you think a dev should do, only a few very rich investment groups in the world could attempt that. You are just ignorant of the topic, and try to make up some point to win a debate on internet apparently, if you are intellectually honest just inform yourself or don't talk about things you can't understand. I'm salty yes, because I have to work to produce something for people that don't deserve it and even celebrate the enemy, the real cause of why games suck nowadays, with these naive thoughts. If it wasn't for company like Valve, the games industry wouldn't be lead by business sharks but still by the same type of people that made the epic games everyone is nostalgic about. Why don't you learn how to build a game business and develop your own? And the indie devs that sustain Valve are just a bunch of kids that saw some little money and praised the platform, no dev sane in his mind will ever sustain anything of this.

[@Maxkraft19]

I think people forget that Epic owns the game industry at large. Epic is a publisher, online game store and the maker of the Unreal engine. They are not good guys sharing profits with small devs. They just don't care about them. They make most of their money from Unreal and the games they own. Trying to own the game industry from development to enduser does not make you a savior. It makes you vertically integrated. You know that thing monopolies always try to do.

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

I partially disagree with this. Epic have definitely done some shitty things that show they do not care for developers, Fortnite being a huge obvious one. Since PUBG was made in Unreal engine and Epic had access to it's source code, Epic then basically releasing an entire new mode in Fortnite based off of PUBG is very very questionable, as an obvious example. But at the same time, Unreal engine is not a monolopy, there are alternatives and Unreal has continued to support PC for a long time. They are very money orientated, but their success does mostly come from the quality of their service (the unreal engine), more than shitty practices like say EA or Activision rely on. Epic can definitely never be trusted and they have done shitty practices, but it's I'd rather place them more into a true neutral category than a predatory category like numerous other players in the market. The issue then is that value is generally seen as good for the industry, thus why people will remain loyal to it.

[@garrettbellinghausen8389]

Perfect. You have explained why I could care less about epic. They don’t care about gaming or their store precisely because they make money else where. Also at the same time that’s not true, look at developers that epic as accrued,Psyonix for example. Rocket league is still running on the same shit servers and terrible net code since I can remember(4 years before epic bought them) and the only change made to the game since epic bought it was more aggressive micro transactions. I have seen this with a few other titles as well. And don’t get me started with fornight, they have been riding that cash cow on nostalgia for the last year.

[@ayylmao182]

Lmao epic doesn’t, especially when they flooded their launcher with dead crypto games

[@Phoenix.Sparkles]

@@DoomsdayR3sistance Just because competition exists, that doesn't mean Unreal engine couldn't be a monopoly, though I don't know anything about Epic or Unreal engine really, so I can't speak on that.

[@auliamate]

@@Phoenix.Sparkles Unreal is far from a monopoly. Big player, not a monopoly. The only way would to be outright buy up other game engines, and I’m sure no one (besides the idiots at Unity) would agree

[@eugene531]

Epic Games is the White van with "Free Candy inside" sign Valve is the Ice Cream van that sells variety of cheap and delicious ice cream

[@Samagachi]

They give out a lot of free candy though

[@FozzieOscar]

something that will always stick out in my mind was one time when people were complaining that the lack of a shopping cart was causing peoples cards to get locked when buying multiple individual items. Tim's response was along the lines of "we dont think that feature is necessary for our financial success as a business"

[@Kingzcro]

Extremly outstanding move😐

[@Dwivil]

Don't forget how gearbox had to be the ones to build the preloading games feature if you preorder a game. A team of game devs did better than a team of devs focused on the store itself. They're a complete joke on features for EGS.

[@pieceofschmidtgamer]

The irony of the Epic Games Store is that they intended to knock Steam down a peg or two but ended up actually improving Steam's public image. Prior to the launch of the Epic Game Store, Valve was actually receiving a fair bit of criticism on their storefront due to the glut of shitty asset flips and other garbage games that crowded out actual good games. After EGS's subpar launch and their manipulative tactics like making exclusivity deals with developers at the last second despite the devs' promises to release on Steam the negativity around Steam kind of ran dry.

[@KuraMad2000]

When the epic store was first announced with the plan to give devs a better split and provide fair competition to steam, I was all on board with that. I was fully intent on being committed to purchasing all my games on epic because it sounded great, same price, more money to the devs, it was a no brainer. All that came crashing down when Metro was pulled from steam 2 weeks before release after months of advertising on steam. I support devs, but I loathe bullshit corporate dishonestly like that, especially the part about fair competition while bribing up exclusivities. The longer it continued, the most obvious what epic was up to, and I loathed it as much as I loathe EA's business practices.

[@halogeek6]

​@@KuraMad2000 fucking this. i still have not and never will play any title that did that bait and switch bullshit. those backroom exclusivity deals did more damage to the develupers and games reputation then epic itself, we were all on board with epic right up until they started pulling that shit.

[@IVIRnathanreilly]

​@@KuraMad2000I actually had gamepass around that time on my xbone and played the first metro, loved it and was going to move on to the next games on pc instead (Xbox was for college). None of them have been played or purchased since. Scumbags

[@VitchAndVorty]

EPIC 'hates' monopoly, but Tim keeps paying devs for exclusivity. I really hate their work ethic.

[@chillfluencer]

I collected every free game Epic offered. I do not care.

[@badwolfe44]

I think at the end of the day its not so much a monopoly as, no one has done it better than Valve. Valve, from what i can tell about their 2 acquisitions, doesn't seek to take out competition, which is one of the key factors of a monopoly. I think they have the best balance between the consumers and producers in the gaming industry. I definitely agree with the 15% for under 1m profit, but at least Valve puts a good portion of the current 30% back into their services and products, making consumers happier, which means more sales in the long run.

[@conchobar]

Doesn't Valve have a "Most Favored Nation clause"? If so, this severely hinders any new game stores from competing on price. Hence why Epic chose its exclusivity route for make their store more competitive.

[@badwolfe44]

@conchobar I'm in no way a legal expert, but from what I can tell, this is more about self preservation if a significant competitor showed up, so they wouldn't just lose all business immediately. And I believe it only applies if you are selling your game with steam implementation on another site, so if you sell your game on GOG and steam, you can't sell it for less on GOG and still have a steam key implementation for that copy

[@BrotherO4]

you mean the same clause that everyone has? @@conchobar let me explain a business tactic. enter into a market, offer prices that cant be match by taking a lost. no one can matchg that because taking a lost would mean going out of business. Keep doing it until you grab a major hold of the maket and than profit. Epic games have been bleeding money meaning they must and WILL raise their cut, if they dont... well? epic already fired 18% of their staff. now there is one problem with this tactics... if you dont grab any market share than you will be the one going out of business. Epic thinks its apple with unlimited money due to Fortnite... but its not.

[@imaginalex5850]

a lot of people love unreal engine of epic and their asset store more then the game store.

[@newbietricki239]

and just to add as well the more popular your game is on steam the less cut that Steam takes the least amount of 10-15% depending how much volume got moved.

[@MrWillypanda88]

it is such a disservice to consider Steam as "just a launcher." They provide cloud save, reliable and good server speed, CONTROLLER DRIVERS, complete with customization, this is such a dealbreaker for me, try playing Horizon Zero Dawn with Dualsense, and gyro aim when L2 is being held. Anything related to Proton and Linux gaming, for once we can use alternative OS to Windows! Family sharing! I can share my brother my games so we don't have to buy the game twice, a FUNCTIONING Gamepad UI if you want to set your PC for couch gaming or as console-like point that can also do other things beside gaming. From my personal experience, It was hilarious when I realized I had to put my EGS launcher into STEAM so I can have a proper controller support

[@user-md1lu2cl2n]

Speaking of family, I created a steam account for all of my siblings, and if the game is good, I'm usually buying it for all of them, because it's very convinient to play together on Steam. So the developer get (100 x 5) x 0,7 = 350% of the game price. I think it's better than 100 x 0,85 = 85%. Anyone who want to compete with Steam should implement easy crossplay between Steam and they platform (provide developers with complete solution, in case Steam would disagree).

[@mattegamer2372]

I completely forgot Controller Drivers were a steam exclusive thing! For the longest time I've wanted to buy an xbox 360 controller to replace my Nintendo Switch Pro Controller purely for the integrated Microsoft drivers to run pretty much any game and be able to play it on a controller. I love the feeling of the pro controller, but swapping wouldn't be too much of a problem for me. However, unlike literally no one else, steam has made working controller drivers that work for my pro controller and allows me to use it in literally any game by just adding any program as a non steam game to steam. This is such a small quality of life feature that literally no one else would ever think of making probably, but here we are.

[@MrWillypanda88]

@@mattegamer2372 I mean. I played my Steam games using knockoff DS4s. works with bluetooth and all. Even my Android phone clamp controller works (Saitake 7007F)

[@Lidoe]

As long as the workshop and game developer toolkits exist, steam will forever be my goto

[@Bazel_The_Bombardier]

they also do maintenance every tuesday fixing any bugs before they even surface

[@ashina2146]

Valve is probably the only Company who realize that the only way to combat Piracy is Availability. There's a lot of games I have received from "someone" without "paying" but in the end I ended up buying said game on steam, even though I don't need to.

[@alexlehrersh9951]

ignoring that either steam does have heavy censotrship or even dont let some games in

[@dielucool9640]

@@alexlehrersh9951 Steam have censorship? which are the terms? because i seen a ton of fucked up shit on steam

[@sfsreiq]

I just bought Alice Madness Returns on Steam because it was there on sale. I don't even want to play it again, I pirated it years ago, but heck, why not?

[@simplysmiley4670]

Same. I do sometimes engage in a bit of, _sharing._ But at the same time I treat that more as trying out the game before paying for it. If I like the game from the half an hour or a full hour I put into it? I buy it on Steam or GOG. Usually on Steam. Did it with Dwarf Fortress, got a copy from a close friend, tried it out for an hour, then bought it on Steam at full price and got several hours invested into it now.

[@wakaneut]

Almost a decade ago, I was "sharing" games. Why? The ONLY way in my country to play games. VERY few games released in my country. They also openly sell copied games in DVD on stores. Then I found steam and with its regional prices, some illegal games were actually more expensive than steam. I moved to Steam, looked at the thousands of games available to me (started at Arkham Asylum), I never went back. I even bought some games that I've completed 'cuz I like them so much.

[@Azrael-xl3jl]

Valve literally single-handedly made Linux a viable gaming platform thanks to their work on SteamOS, Proton and Steamdeck.

[@deuswulf6193]

That was mainly out of fear that Microsoft has all the leverage by relying on their OS, and any changes to that OS, which also had a competing game platform, could spell the end for Valve.

[@pigpuke]

That was purely to create the SteamDeck which runs their own home brew of Linux (SteamOS), it had nothing to do with the altruism you suggest. It was 100% financially motivated, Valve couldn't care less about gaming on Linux except they can make a profit from it.

[@Azrael-xl3jl]

@@pigpuke Actually, you are wrong. Steam OS was created for Steam Machines, way before Steam deck was even planned. However, I suggested nothing and their reason for it doesn't matter since it's open source. I simply stated a fact - the fact that they did it and it benefits everyone using Linux as Proton can be used on whatever distro you want. Thanks to Valve Linux took 3% market share. Who cares about their intentions, it's open source and Valve plowed down millions into developing something that everyone can download from Github and use, for free. Imagine whining about that...

[@pigpuke]

@@Azrael-xl3jl True enough, I forgot about the ill fated Steam Machine. But that doesn't change the underlying intent or motivation. "Who cares about their intentions" AKA "the ends justify the means." They didn't intend for Linux to capture market share beyond their ability to capitalize on a virtually untapped market. Don't get me wrong, I do think that better accessibility is a good thing. But to say we can't scrutinize the motives is absurd.

[@93Kristiank]

Also one key point to remember is that any work done to Proton is NOT exclusive to SteamOS. Anyone can get the same benefits on any distribution of Linux you are not required to use Valve's distribution.

[@BortPimpson]

The biggest difference for me, is that valve isn't a publicly traded company. Meaning their decisions and future are determined by the leadership of the company who can make decisions that aren't necessarily profit driven and are for progress/good of the industry. Whereas Epic has a fiscal responsibility to their shareholders to make decisions based on finances. Which is why you're seeing a bunch of layoffs over there, they gotta have a good 4th quarter so those people are expendable.

[@crazyabe4571]

lets make it worse- Epic is straight up owned by Tencent, a chinese megacorporation that owns a good chunk of the mobile gaming market outright- they enforced that Epic bundle litteral spyware with their launcher, and are very clearly expecting them to produce a profit or be discontinued.

[@Shadowclaw25]

The Second epic would be bigger then steam the prices would skyrocket, devs would be exploited by illegal ways etc etc etc. but gladly Steams to big for them to beat them, even when they just throw money out to make cheap exclusives for a short term. I Always buy a Game on Steam if possible. And i even sometimes put money in my Steam acc. which i would never do by any other game publisher not even close.

[@jovancurcin3694]

Epic games is not a publicly traded company.

[@ShiningDarknes]

It is owned by a Chinese company though, and Tencent to boot, one of the worst ones as far as money-grubbing goes. @@jovancurcin3694

[@bobaorc7839]

Did you know? In America, if a publicly traded company refuses to perform an immoral (not illegal) task and the shareholders catch wind of it, the shareholders can actually take the company to court for financial losses. You can be sued for not doing the greasiest thing possible to make money because it means these passive income speedrunning scumbags might not get every possible penny. Yeah, I'd rather not have a company that can be sued for not adding micro-transactions as the industry leader or even competitor, thaaaanks.

[@AndrewChumKaser]

Simply because Valve understands what they must to do to make people happy: Provide a good service that people want to use. Nothing more, nothing less. They're far from perfect, but they do what they absolutely need to do most of all, which at this point ends up being very little at a time.

[@firnen_]

The issue I have with epic's "competition" is the same I have with streaming services' "competition". That being, gobbling up exclusive titles doesn't actually provide competition. It means there are now multiple monopolies existing in parallel. Consumers still don't have a choice which service they want to use in a lot of cases, they have to go to a certain one if they want to get a certain product. Competition would be all store fronts offering the same library, but differentiating themselves over things like customer support, features etc. Not content.

[@VitchAndVorty]

This. Exactly!

[@user-vh7ok3ph7x]

thats an olygopoly

[@andrewsanderson8566]

This type of competition is part of what killed vr.

[@penix3323]

Their competition consists of a) paying devs and users to use the Epic Games Store (free games, exclusivity deals, 10 dollar coupons that Epic Games are paying for, 0% revenue special treatment) and b) taking less revenue share for offering way way way way way way less features (kinda like a 2 star hotel taking less money per night than a 4 star all inclusive hotel. Not sure why everyone in the industry jerks off to the 12 % of EGS and hates solely on Steam for 30% instead of looking at "revenue share per service/features". You wouldn't compare other things like phones, hotels, etc solely based on the cost but on what it offers). If EGS would succeed, b) would only show that Steam is better than it has to be and would be a reason for Valve to shut down features instead of making new ones and a) is highly unsustainable, so they would stop with a) completely, losing the very few "good" things EGS had going. EGS is no competition, it's the most laziest try to buy themselves into the platform holder free money glitch and them succeeding would de facto be worse than Steam being a 100% monopoly

[@VitchAndVorty]

@@penix3323 Steam never bought the 'exclusivity'.

[@wakaneut]

I'm no Linux users. But I always like how Valve has been supporting Linux users, even created SteamOS. Never expected that it was one of the foundations of the famous Steam Deck. And if you know Steam Deck you know Valve designed it so that users are free to tinker/mod/upgrade/play/etc around with it. It understands the nature of PC game computing and embraced it, instead of restricted it for control.

[@matasa7463]

In Gaben we trust. The dude cares about game devs and gaming.

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

As a veteran Linux user, what Valve has done is both more impressive and less impressive than it sounds at the same time. Proton is mostly a method of packaging already existing projects together, Valve has obviously done some work on it themselves but some of the central technologies aren't new and weren't new when Proton came along, nor had much to do with Valve. But what Proton has done is supply a reliable distribution method which developers can work with, Linux suffers a lot from just how many varied distributions of Linux there are and which fundamentally makes game development with respect to Linux, difficult. In regards to steam itself, Proton is very simple, in regards to UI, there is barely anything there that the user needs to do. About the most anybody might do with Proton is to install a custom version, usually GloriousEggroll.

[@Patcheresu]

​@@DoomsdayR3sistanceValve have been huge proponents of Linux gaming long before Proton.

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

@@Patcheresu Indeed, but Proton was their first major attempt. Valve has no reason to limit itself too Windows alone. It's also worth remembering that Steam even use to work on Playstation 3.

[@cespi_]

@@DoomsdayR3sistance Valve is doing it just the right way. They took what was already available like wine, dxvk and others, built new solutions on top of it and are giving those solutions back to the community. There is a nice article on phoronix on what a wonderful contributor to open source software valve is.

[@WallNutBreaker524]

From my limited Understanding. Valve knows who it wants to be, and who its audience is. A Gaming Company for Gamers. Nothing more, nothing less. Quality over Quantity, Community over Corporation.

[@NarestWhal]

The only reason Valve is considered a monopoly is because they prioritize their customers, which makes them so far ahead of any other studio. Striking down Valve and Steam (in it's current state) would only discourage companies from trying to help their consumers/customers.

[@superspies32]

And also at the beginning, Valve was legendary game dev with Half Life, be considered at one of the pillar of FPS and its mod raised to become juggernaut on FPS and e-sport. Now what Epic has, Fornite is a hit but its nowhere to be like Half-life since the beginning of Battle Royale was PUBG.

[@NarestWhal]

@@superspies32 *stares in H1Z1*

[@superspies32]

@@NarestWhalnot understand, its not developed by Valve

[@NarestWhal]

@@superspies32 "Since the beginning of Battle Royales was PUBG"

[@razvan7578]

> Valve doesn't do something bad and focuses on doing good > Valve wins It's really that simple

[@blacklisted756]

Ah yes, Once again Gabe Newell does nothing and wins

[@SoulReaper1942]

@@blacklisted756 Turns out when something everyone else is doing is stepping on endless rakes you don't have to do much. Though to be honest I don't even agree that Valve has done nothing either, lets not forget the Steamdeck and Proton. They are also where they are now because they did a lot a decade ago, tbh, a lot of enshittifaction is unnecessary changes to something that was fine and is now shit because felt the need to change it so they could claim they 'made it better', often so they could ask for more money to try and fuel their need for infinite endless and exponential growth. Honestly, how much I trust Steam scares me, I hate big corps, they are pretty much all terrible, but Valve has earned the trust over decades, I just have to hope whoever takes over from Gabe can continue the legacy.

[@taari1]

It's how I treat it in real life. I'd rather pay more if I get a better product in return. The quote with the "lethargic neutral entity I know" compared to "the unknown devil" hit right home with me. I don't glorify Steam, but they never do anything to drive me away. They're never aggressive, they're never "in your face" - and as someone who hates "in your face" type behaviour probably more than most, I appreciate this.

[@steelbear2063]

Aside from their support being useless dogs - Steam is great. Well mostly

[@vulturesalesman]

​@@steelbear2063I haven't had too many issues with their support team when it was needed. They helped me get my account back very quickly when it was hacked, but I have heard that they can be kind of lousy, so I think a better word for them is inconsistent.

[@songyani3992]

@@steelbear2063 That's upto each person's experience because I've been having great ones with STEAM support

[@orppranator5230]

Meh. Whenever I open a game nowadays, steam opens as a full window instead of just a button on the task bar. Plus it also opens a second window entirely to advertise about some new game thats available.

[@Michael-hj7vj]

@@orppranator5230 Nah, literally skill issue. Plus, they don't advertise their shit (like Dota and CS2 exclusively), but the events (like indie games, horror games, new year games etc + new releases) so I don't see the problem with it.

[@benediktgeierhofer4146]

As a small dev I find publishers take more and offer less to small creators. Steam might charge a lot but they also are reliable. Like never did I have the fear that they stab me in the back or algorithm me away for not being very profitable. And fact is that without them and the service that they offer a lot of us indie devs wouldn't have a viable business. They offer a so stable and reliable platform for gamers that among the millions you can find at least a couple hundred or thousands to buy your small hobby project and steam makes it accessible to those like a charm.

[@gravity00x]

It's funny that Tim Sweeney tried to use exactly this fact, to discredit Steam as a Storefront, saying they are ""robbing and exploiting" indie devs"

[@atunalamarinera]

Thanks for that system i bought a game called "this book is a dungeon" it's a really simple indie game, it looks like the first proyect of someone, in other page algorithm this game will be lost and ignored, but thanks to steam it gets one copy saled more. Note: i don't recommend "this book is a dungeon" probably you will pay for it play 2 minutes and forgot about it existence.

[@asteria9963]

not only that, they also put a lot of effort into serving us the games we're interested in, meaning your game does not have to rely on popularity alone. if you develop the kind of game i enjoy playing, there's a good chance steam will show it to me at some point. discovery is more important than profit margins.

[@ravenanne1734]

​@@asteria9963 I frequent my new releases queue more than my discoveries queue because steam shows me what it thinks I'll be interested in. Because my account is so new and has a lot of cheap keys redeemed, it's a bit confused and it tends to show me some of the most unplayed, unreviewed, cheapass dogshit shovelware indie games I've ever seen. And I'm glad, because I just ignore what I don't like and move on, and occasionally I find a little hidden gem from someone genuinely trying, that hasn't gotten a single purchase.

[@jianng7795]

@@Hel1mutt It was first delisted on Steam China. Valve has less control on Steam China, as all games on there has to be approved by the Chinese government. The decision to pull the game from Steam entirely is the developer's decision, not up to Valve.

[@ausnik]

Your closing line perfectly encapsulates WHY Steam is so beloved. They didn't chase "titles" and "exclusives". They focused on the user experience first and the games and developers followed. If Epic and others were to do that, we' have a much better situation on our hands. The consoles chasing "exclusives" for decades has been one of the biggest banes of this industry and Steam single-handedly fixed that for the PC market.

[@filipstamate1564]

Fixed that by having most developers releasing only for Steam and staying Steam-only forever. But no, somehow those are not exclusives. You need Steam to play the games, but no, totally not exclusives.

[@duckyduckington9736]

@@filipstamate1564 they aren't because steam doesn't OWN those games so the games could port whenever they want. The devs just prefer steam because its the most simple and convenient option.

[@filipstamate1564]

@@duckyduckington9736 You're not making any sense. Epic doesn't own the games that are only on their platform either. And yes, they are exclusives. Can I play them without Steam? No? Then they're exclusive. Exclusive doesn't just mean that somebody was paid or influenced to do it (although by your own admission devs are influenced, even if indirectly, to release on Steam) it also means that they're only available from a single source. If I don't want to use Steam, I have no other option. That's exclusivity. But of course that doesn't bother you. You don't give a crap about the state of PC gaming or about other gamers or any of the other bullshit Steam fanboys keep claiming they care about. If the game is on the platform you like you couldn't care less that it's not available anywhere else. Some of the worst hypocrites, the Steam fanboys.

[@Blunderkit]

@@filipstamate1564 epic offering deals to developers to make their games exclusive, essentially makes those games exclusive. what you describe as "steam exclusive games" are games where the developer hasnt bothered to port, not where there is some exclusivity deal between the dev and steam.

[@Mirthful_Midori]

@@filipstamate1564 It's tiresome that anyone still tries to claim that publishers choosing not to release on platforms other than Steam is in any way equivocal to Epic paying for exclusivity deals. There's nothing stopping them from releasing their games on any and every platform they want. When Epic pays for exclusivity it means that publisher is contractually obligated to not release on other platforms, for however long the specific contract stipulates. You aren't cute for pretending not to know the difference.

[@generalsmite7167]

Value would be considered a natural monopoly which means it’s a monopoly completely through merit and fair competition and others can’t meet the high cost of entry to compete . As long as it has done nothing to harm competition in the market it should be fine and from what I’ve seen they have not. Also steam is not a great example of a monopoly

[@MangaManifaction]

The problem with epic's "competition" is that exclusivity competition will always end up hurting the consumer

[@deuswulf6193]

Hardly. Keep in mind, most PC games were essentially exclusive to steam even without specific exclusivity deals. Steam started off as a form of account locked DRM, and it became the only place to really sell PC games effectively. The consumer often harms themselves though entitlement. Steam did more harm to the consumer by foisting account locked DRM on us, removing the ability to trade and sell games, which you can still do with consoles (in other words, its not all roses and rainbows. As a consumer you lost one of the biggest rights you had with physical, non account locked, products). Exclusivity deals are fine, though more risky for the platform publisher, as they essentially take on the financial risk on behalf of the game publisher or developer.

[@LuisSoto-fw3if]

​@@deuswulf6193wtf do you mean "Hardly"? Epic pretty much tells you "if you want a better deal, then don't go to the competition" and now some games are locked by them. How the fuck is "if you want to play this game, you gotta use MY store front!" not hurting the consumer?

[@deuswulf6193]

@@LuisSoto-fw3if I mean you cannot prove it harms the consumer. That kind of rhetoric is pure hyperbole, and not consistent with the attempted logic they are presenting. Steam having exclusive games are some how not harming the consumer, but Epic doing it some how is? You don't understand how this works, which is why many of you posture over this subject, and take on whatever the perceived consensus is. For example, your "epic pretty much tells you" is false, its just selective framing in order to confirm said biases. Why do you think many of these developers and publishers want an exclusivity deal, so much so that they approach Epic hoping for one? Did you think Epic was poaching them lol? Epic says, if you put it on their platform exclusively, then they will essentially pay for any sales that don't meet the developers target. So if they are hoping to sell 100 copies in order to meet a return on their investment, and they only sell 50, Epic will be effectively buying the other 50 for them. It puts the financial risk on Epic, not the developer. Not only that, Epic's royalty was anywhere from 0% to 12%, on top of that. Because the publishers and developers wanted such deals, they created a first run program which there is NO royalty at all for the first 6 months of a launch. How is this anti-consumer? Its not, its pro-developer. One platform wants to take 30% of your earnings, the other is willing to take nothing at all, and even cover missed sales targets if going exclusive. How are you turning that into some kind of threat from Epic? People need to stop with the consumer entitlement and actually look at the details, its not what they project it to be.

[@MangaManifaction]

@@deuswulf6193 "consumer entitlement" Ah yes, thinking about my own and others self-interest. How entitled. I should be thinking about the ones selling me a product instead, my bad. Also, I said "exclusivity" as in exclusivity in general. I never once said that it was only epic's exclusive deals that are bad. Exclusivity, in general, will NEVER benefit the consumers. The perfect world that would have the healthiest competition, would be a world without exclusive games and the places selling them would have to INNOVATE to get the consumer to their place. By having exclusives, you're forcing the consumer to come to you, if that want that specific product. But if there were no exclusives, each seller would have to innovate and come up with ideas to get a consumer over to their side, which would make storefronts even better than today and it would benefit everyone.

[@deuswulf6193]

@@MangaManifaction Consumer entitlement is exactly what it is. Let's not beat around the bush here. A large part of this involves those who feel entitled to have a game on steam, rather than be exclusive to Epic. Why? Because steam is their platform of choice. That is entitlement. If a game is exclusive to steam, would you really rally against it with the same energy everyone else is raging against Epic? No, of course not, because it is obvious that the reason for the anti-exclusive posturing is due to a preference over steam. Imagine telling a developer or publisher that they have to release their game, you know the thing they created with time, money and a lot of hard work, on the platform you want rather than give them the agency to do with what they want with their own product? Exclusivity on its own is not harmful to the consumer. Sorry, but that's just a fact. Can you make an argument why it is so? Does the consumer win out when the developer loses out? Developers need money in order to develop games, platform owners need money to further develop said platform. If something is exclusive and it brings in money because of that, it benefits the consumer when the source is able to develop due to making more profit. The only reason people hated exclusives on consoles, was because the consoles cost a lot of money. If a game you want to play is only on the xbox, and you have a playstation, well tough luck the only way you can play it is if you cough up a few hundred dollars just to get the other console. It was a barrier of entry. Tell me, how much does the Epic Game Store cost to install? What about GOG? What?! They are free? No cost? Then there is no more excuse to be upset out exclusivity as there is NO barrier of entry. Competition is based on incentives, this is a universal rule in a free market. Exclusivity is just one incentive designed to encourage users to use the platform. It benefits the developer, it benefits the publisher, it benefits the platform owner, and with no cost of entry, the consumer has no room for complaint. Helping developers, helps the consumer because the latter relies on the former to give them what they want. Got it? Its not rocket science, just people are too biased to be honest about this subject.

[@darkmega97]

The thing about Valve's monopoly is that it exists because they offer the best product. Tim came in with a vastly inferior product and somehow thought he was going to shake up the market in any form with it

[@lorgariiix]

Its funny how we still call that useless POS a product?

[@thejuiceweasel]

Valve just released a new SteamDeck version with an OLED display and tons of improvements, _at the same price_ as the old Deck, no extra cost, and they sell the old ones at a discount. I know having a monopoly isn't great, but man, they're just so great from a customer perspective.

[@Not_interestEd-]

They're able to do this because they're a private company, they have no shareholders to appeal to. Valve can trot along at it's own pace in its own way without greed trying to throw it off its intended course. Epic, as great as it sounds, is a public company, and will probably fall flat because investors just want money.

[@jasperfizzelle-halloran4867]

But it's not a monopoly. Valve isn't trying to buy out other companies or prey on indie companies with exclusivity deals. They're just endorsing a healthy marketplace, and making money through their good public perception.

[@calidara3236]

But steam is not a monopoly, GOG exists, Epic obviously, xbox for windows, publishers own stores/launchers (ie Ubisoft), physical gamestores etc. What they are is the market leader.

[@ericpeterson2960]

One of the biggest benefits of steam is the ability to backup your games. I have backup games moved the files to a external drive and put it on my legion go without needing to connect to the Internet to restore the backup and get back to playing. U can archive your entire steam library if u wanted to. The alternatives either do not let u or required more hoops to jump in order to back up your game. It's not just saves, it's the entire game

[@pRopaaNS]

Keep in mind that Steam isn't an actual monopoly. People just chooses it because it's a great platform that have earned its trust, and the alternatives just doesn't hold up.

[@KuroNoTenno]

It's a monopoly that came about because no competitor can even compare. GOG is the next best thing and it lack a LOT in functionality, while EGS didn't have a shopping cart for... how long?

[@sonicfon]

​@@KuroNoTennodidn't EGS signed shady contracts, and GOG like: no drm games. That's all. Steam has servers to distribute petabytes of games+ game servers+ inventory+ etc.

[@KuroNoTenno]

@@sonicfon GOG also sells old games and makes sure that can at least run on the modern hardware.

[@roxaskinghearts]

epic got how much from fortnite trillions gucchi houses and 0 infrastructure while their free games prove why they wont surpass even playstation funny when the client bugs out at a few games little alone a few thousand

[@Solus749]

@@KuroNoTenno yea I have 3 launchers "techically". My biggest one is steam, gog for drm free things and thinsg like diablo 1, heroes of might and magic 4 etc ( which even original devs don't have on their stores ) and uplay for those few crossovers on steam. Techically I also have blizzard launcher since I have starcraft 2 ( all champaigns) and diablo 3 ....not that I play it much but techically I have that.... Epic messed with things I consider standard practice such as decent customer rights, return rights ( original deal was 2 per year on epic when it launched, actually illegal here in europe ) atop of other issues such as installing things not asked for ( forthnight) and tapping into steam friend and wishlist upon installation. That is scanning another companys files I didn't give access too because it would be more difficult "later". Nah epic can die in a fire

[@RNorthex]

"...but I simply do not believe those are the reasons behind the actions so much as they are convenient justification for the actions" is the quote that summarizes my feelings on the entire epic debacle. Barely anything has been consistently in line with Epic on what Sweeney is saying and 'all ends justify the means' is an insane level of trust a company - with major tencent shares, AI scraping, dark pattern systems, hostile exclusivity - is pleading for.

[@irkedcs]

Was busy typing up this comment and thought, hmm I wonder if anyone else mentioned tencent in a comment here..... well said

[@danang5]

Tim Sweeney at the start of EGS:"the Epic Game Store will be curated unlike steam where anyone can just pay to publish a game" also Tim Sweeney,when Steam ban NFT games: "Fuck curation,NFT GAMES COME HERE TO EGS"

[@gravity00x]

It's so bizarre, everything they do on the store front is utterly shortsighted. Everything they do with their engine, how they constantly try to make it the best possible game engine it could possibly be, innovating in such a way that it truly benefits the entire games industry as a whole, with long term planning and goals in mind, is such a stark contrast to their epic games launcher.

[@Femroe]

@@danang5 I'm really baffled by Sweeney taking that approach as well as the exclusivity stuff.. and then in this video we see him talking about free markets, when he is straight up stifling it about as much as possible. Valve deciding not to be the arbitrator of what games were "right" and which ones were wrong, was a step forward. Some may say it's bad that Valve allowed the likes porn games and what have you, but ultimately, the storefront is still curated to the end users settings, you don't have to see that stuff. And it ultimately makes the platform more open and allow more indie developers inside the door, as well as providing more options for a larger and more encompassing audience. You can see in the charts at the end of the video just how many new games are being added to Steam each year. And the issue of asset flip games and such were of course bad, but they were also not exactly big sellers or things that got shoved in the consumers face, and the straight up scams do get removed.

[@strategicperson95]

​@@Femroe that last part especially is true as looking back I think all the blow back was disproportionate by people who deliberately looked for that garbage: like Jim Sterling. When I remembered that those like Sterling went out of their way getting those bad games, and then remembered how the Steam store works by taking your purchase and play history in mind, it clicked why they got those types of games in their recommendations. So their complaints ended up being, complaining how the steam store is working as intended.

[@Shiggy_]

At the end of the day for me, steam offers very consumer friendly practices like extremely lenient refund policies and seasonal sales and they’ve been doing this consistently before anyone else even thought about it. And that’s what I’m looking for consistency, not a quick deal only to get screwed over when they change their policies a few years later

[@Someone--Else]

Um, they were forced into adding that refund system after lawsuits coming out of the European Union from what I remember. Then Steam doesn't put games on sale, as Steam is not a standard retailer that buys products at a wholesale rate, then sells those products at a retail rate, they instead sell things on consignment. What this means is they don't buy any of those games, they just set up a place for others to sell their games, and take a cut when sales are made at the prices the publishers/developers set, so those sale prices are coming from the publishers, and developers in charge of those games, not Valve/Steam. This sort of selective amnesia, or blindness demonstrated by you, and so many others is exactly the kind of thing that has people thanking Valve/Steam, for things they had nothing to do with, or even had to be forced into. Then it should be noted that there's a class action lawsuit in the works over Steam's 30% cut being viewed as anti-trust practices. Around 30%, or higher is a common retail markup rate for traditional retailers, but that encompasses the risk taken by purchasing inventory they may, or may not be able to sell, the costs of storing physical inventory, and the cost of maintaining physical store fronts to sell said physical products, these are costs, and risks Valve either does not experience, or deals with at a significantly reduced rate, so that 30% is seen as arbitrary, and excessive.

[@dragonwings1273]

I remember I bought GTA V on Steam when it was on a discount, and afterward realized that it wasn’t cross-platform, the only reason I bought it (I already had it on Xbox and bought it for my sister to play with me). I filed for a refund, not knowing if it would be accepted. Not only was it accepted, I got refunded the FULL price. I got like 20 extra bucks or something out of it.

[@fgk44]

@@shama-llamading-dong5370 "can I buy a game, 100% it, and refund it?" I would say the fact that they even let you refund it if you do it under 2 hours is generous enough... But for real though, do you know you can refund a game on steam even if you've played it for well over 2 hours? This is what I personally like about steam, they actually look at the reason why you want to refund the game! If you give them good reasons, for example: half-baked games that just not good, bad story writing, intentionally trying to increase play time, etc. If you're sincere with your request, they would actually allow you to take your money back unlike other platforms out there which are quite "strict" about their refund policy. Edit: Sometimes you also need to provide them with some concrete proofs, but still, it's quite customer friendly.

[@aoki6332]

@@Someone--Else First of all no steam add there refund policy on 2015 when they started to accept other currency than USD and the block was not from Europe but Australia and South Korea so to pass the restriction they made the current system and the current lawsuit is Kinda bs and was dismissed be the judge they call steam a Monopoly yet whitout it they could not sell there game and there no one stopping you to use another service that like using a taxi and being mad that it cost you to much no one was stopping you to walk you use a service you pay for it

[@mockingbird52]

For real Xbox gives u 3 refunds a year

[@abadgianluca]

We need to pray that when Gaben's time with Valve is over, it won't become a public company or the new management sells it out.

[@drpallus]

Very unlikely to happen. Gabens son was raised by well Gaben and i am sure he taught him good company practices, but even if he doesn't become the new ceo the other higher ups will probably align with gaben pretty closely or otherwise they wouldnt be higher ups. I believe Gaben put in meassures so that the company would not go in a drastically different direction after his retirement.

[@TheMrakic]

lets hope he is raising his son to be a good CEO :)

[@alitabattlebot013]

@@TheMrakic hail to the son of the king I suppose...

[@TheMrakic]

@alitabattlebot013 I don't understand this mentality of your people. Once in a fcking decade company provides good service without trying to rip you off, and you still gonna be bitching. At the end of the day no one is forcing you to use it

[@gavinthejanitor]

something also worth considering, if epic didn't need to compete extremely hard with steam, would they not increase their cut to 30% too? their store has a lower cut, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because that's about the only way they can compete with steam

[@Falllll]

And even then most people I know would rather buy at a somewhat higher price on Steam simply because Steam offers a better product.

[@JewTube001]

Not really. You're assuming a lot there. Tim has tripled down on this point so I can't see that ever happening unless he died or left the company. Keep in mind Tim is a developer himself and cares more about being a good developer than a billionaire.

[@Chroma710]

@@Falllll But that is not even a factor since the players always pay the same, 60 euros on epic 60 euros on steam. The only difference is do you give more money to AAA companies on epic or potentially give money to Indie game devs on steam because I've never even seen an indie game sold on epic.

[@robincray116]

​​@@Chroma710It matters a lot for the devs, and it has a downstream effect of shittier games. In order for a dev to break even their games need to get enough revenue to cover development costs. If you skim 30% of revenue then devs are going to take less risk, chase safe popular trends, be less ambitious, won't spend the extra cost to polish games. It dive this point imagine what kind of games would we get if the cut is even more extreme like 50% or 80%. You will get will get shitty unpolished games that will try to wring any proft possible and lowest minimum cost just to stay survive. Well more so than what it is now.

[@Chroma710]

@@robincray116 Yeah and Epic games would NOT let the opportunity of increasing cut% while steam remains at a very reasonable 30% cut and continues to make pc gaming better. Do you really think Tencent is successful because of their ethical policies and respecting player's time and money? A billion dollar Chinese company?

[@liothesilverwing3016]

Here's the thing--if devs really want gamers to take interest in EGS, EGS has to offer a competitive product to Steam, and it just flat-out doesn't. To this day, the interface leaves a lot to be desired and in most cases, is a minimum viable product that seems to have learned nothing from Steam's early years. Moreover, Epic is 40% owned by Tencent, a company people would be very wise to be wary of, where personal information is concerned--under current law in China, they are required to give any of that over to the CCP, no questions asked. Beyond even that, Epic employed extremely heavy-handed exclusivity agreements, which gamers rightly fear is an attempt to turn the PC marketplace into the worst aspects of the console marketplace. So no, it's not as simple as "everyone should use EGS so game developers win out".

[@FanTheDeck]

Outside of the Tencent stuff, I think you said a lot of what I said in this video. Valve doesn't simply simply enjoy first mover advantage - they've cultivated a loyalty by developing feature rich software. In order for EGS (and other competitors) to court gamers, they need to do the same

[@liothesilverwing3016]

@@FanTheDeck There's also another major problem with Epic--no one knows if their library is going to be around in perpetuity. Console-makers have already shown that you can't expect to keep your library playable, physical or digital, short of praying old hardware and installed copies last. With a volatile Chinese company owning 40% stake, and proof already that their fortunes rise and fall at the whim of a mercurial dictatorial regime (which has already tanked Tencent's value once by simple decree), can we really say with certainty that Epic, as much money as they might currently have, is safe? Moreover, people absolutely should doubt Epic's stated intentions--if they really cared about what Tim said they do, they'd have no reason to block Linux from running their games. On the contrary, they'd want to make it easier for gamers to make the choice on OS. In actuality, they're more concerned about making sure the Steam Deck can't run Fortnite than allowing Linux users in general full access.

[@TravisAxel]

This. Every time I see EGS offer free games to entice people I feel like theyre missing the point. Steam has deterred me and likely many others from piracy because of their numerous features as well as great sales. It honestly makes me feel stupid pirating if I can get a new game for $7.49 and have a built in friends list, party chat, multiplayer features, streaming, native mod support and forums where everyone already has an answer to your question. If youre JUST giving me a free game I can JUST pirate it anyway. No reason I have to download your launcher especially if its bloated as shit and doesnt have the featureset to justify it. If you genuinely want to make a competitor to steam and not just get an additional cut of revenue then work on your laundry list of missing features, dont crutch on free games as your only tactic to bring people in. Invest in and nurture your platform. Otherwise Timmys whining about valves monopoly is just sour grapes.

[@AndersHass]

@@liothesilverwing3016Steam can also shutdown and thereby lose all the access to your games as well so I dont see it as a problem for Epic specifically. One can argue less likely to happen for Steam but it is a potential issue nonetheless.

[@liothesilverwing3016]

@@AndersHass I pointed out exactly why this is a potential issue for Epic. They are beholden to investors, and particularly to an investor who has already felt the ground shift under their feet once already. If Tencent decides they need to carve up Epic to save themselves, you can bet they'll get the rest of the controlling stake they need, and then go about doing exactly that. Valve, meanwhile, isn't publicly traded, and isn't vulnerable to such nonsense. Moreover, Steam has been around 20 years now, longer than any other digital storefront--even Microsoft's original game store on Windows has gone dark since then.

[@Cptn.Viridian]

I think something that is VERY important to note is that, unlike most of the gaming industry, a privately traded company. Unlike a publicly traded company, they don't have the immediate need and legal requirement to make as much money as possible. At the very least, they have less of an incentive to charge as much for as little as possible, and can actually take part in serious long term investment and risk, as we have seen with proton, VR, and SteamOS. It's not a guarantee they won't or can't turn evil at a moments notice, HOWEVER, unlike everyone else, they are not legally required to.

[@vladprus4019]

Not gonna lie, having legal requirement to generate more and more money is pretty much a guarantee that the actions of the major market actors will be as trashy as possible. I'm concerned with the fact thatt this thing even exists. There are a lot of law stuff that seem to serve a purpose of "regulating" the market by providing the trashiest actors the biggest gun (current version of copyright is another example of that).

[@claymeistereu]

The biggest flaw of Democratic Capitalism is, that it has no system of incentivizing actual long term progress. As you said, Gaben had the restraint to not go public, but instead take his company to serve gamers, and steer the future of PC gaming on a rightous course.

[@michaelrichard9122]

Valve with money - Creates the steam deck for hand-held gaming. Making Linux a huge viable option for PC gaming. Servers are pretty reliable. Customer service is pretty good. Epic with money - Has Unity engine. Spends most of their money on lawyers to sue everyone else (i.e. Apple, Google). Launching games feel like they take forever.

[@tabinagi]

I remember when Steam was just an online updater for Valve games back in '04 and '05. I've been on Steam since 02-25-05 and my friend has been on since December of '04. Back then, it was a new technology that allowed Valve to update their games (ie Counter-Strike) without having to put patches on other websites that you had to download and install separately. It was a huge step forward at the time. And when Valve added Half-Life 2 to the library later on....they realized the potential their platform had. Q4 in '05 is when the first non-Valve games started to pop up. It transitioned from a digital library and updater to a digital marketplace. Valve have had almost 2 decades to work on Steam. And while the initial response to EGS was positive, that ended real quick when they started with their exclusive BS. Sweeney has said on record that Linux is something EGS will never support. And he equated Linux and Windows to Canada and the US, basically saying Linux was inferior to Windows (hah!). Steam has added so much and made PC gaming so much better as a whole over time. And while I hope that it won't be a "live long enough to see yourself become the villain" scenario, you just never know. Devs complain about the 30%, but Valve does a LOT of the work for the devs for that 30%.

[@carbonbeaker409]

Honestly, only reason I still use Windows is compatibility issues with some of the larger softwares that I use day to day. Linux is just so much nicer XD

[@sakesaurus]

It will happen. Ability based elites always degrade into an exclusive circle with no redeeming qualities. Steam has limited time before it goes to crap. And that's why I love them. Instead of being intimidated by these claims of unfair tax, trading away their power to people who don't need it/wasting their potential they take their 30% and use it for good (aka supporting linux gaming, true ownership instead of season pass and their awesome localisation). It takes a lot of money to compete with these ubfair practices, like platform restriction, bad translation, planned obsolescence etc. Just simply being different and taking a stance is innovation.

[@sakesaurus]

​@@carbonbeaker409Linux has wqys to go in terms of compatibility. You sometimes have to be a programmer yourself and release the builds of that software in order to use it. I wish this wasn't the case BC I'm LAZY.

[@carbonbeaker409]

@@sakesaurus Yup, that's pretty much why I stick with Windows for now, the video editing software I use etc doesn't have tested compat patches, and I'm not willing to put in the effort rn to make my own.

[@steelbear2063]

Well Linux *is* inferior to Windows, everything is

[@hatchmaster_5745]

The reason that Valve holds a monopoly isn't because they really have the means to crush their competition, or because what they do is all that complicated or difficult. The reason vavle holds a near functional monopoly is because they provide the best service of all the game distribution platforms

[@trollwayy5981]

Mod downloading is too easy with steam, yeah i’ve got nexus and such but literally subscribe and there i am

[@turtlecat3507]

I'm glad someone said this, because the video despite accusing others of making monopoly a trigger word, seems to have made monopoly a trigger word, by at least 90% of economists accounts it would be considered a monopoly (which isn't inherently bad).

[@Zedgo99]

They have a SteamVR, Bigscreen (for secondary monitor televisions) and the regular PC format. All routed through basically one program. With a unified social/UI between them. Nobody on earth offers that. No one.

[@deuswulf6193]

I disagree. Valve hold's a market monopoly because they 1) had a head start in account locking games as a form of DRM, which all the major publishers happily signed on to, and 2) consumer entitlement, which is to have all their games in one place rather than many. No matter how good a competitor will get, they will still want it to be on steam because that's what they already invested heavily into.

[@SirCanuckelhead]

@deuswulf6193 I disagree. If a new service came out that was better than steam, people would change. Epic isn’t even close to matching the service of steam. Epic thinks exclusives is the way, shiny things, where steam has been consumer focused.

[@karibui494]

If Tim was genuine in what he said EGS would be competing by putting their money into a better product and not by holding games at ransom to force people to use their product. Each storefront has its strong point, gog is drm free, steam supports Linux, itch is open. But the EGS has no differentiating factor besides offering free games and paying for exclusives

[@peacemaster8117]

Absolutely, Tim can sing the "free market competition" song but it's gonna ring hollow so long as he's using his Fortnite vbucks to buy up exclusivity deals and reduce the total amount of choice consumers have.

[@The_Man_In_Red]

@@peacemaster8117 That didn't work out so well, Epic just recently laid off 800 employees due to their "unsustainable" spending habits 🤭

[@V3ntilator]

@@The_Man_In_Red Epic store will fall when Fortnite falls. If Epic Store still will exist, they won't pay for exclusives anymore.

[@spugelo359]

@@V3ntilator I would have far more sympathy for Epic had they not abandoned Unreal Tournament. Currently none. It's such a shame. Loved the idea of it, like... not the multiplayer part of it, yes it's really fun too, but the single player campaign. Like building a team and then taking part in a tournament with it. Haven't found a single good game like it. Only game I've seen some close is a 2D flash version of Unreal Tournament and then another 2D flash game with similar idea, but with swords and bows instead.

[@kada0420]

Dont forget it takes minutes to open games on epic. Its just annoying

[@skuripandaburns3489]

My library is 300 games. That I paid for. Now granted, most of them were bought on sale... but 300 games is leaps and bounds more than how many games I may have pirated before Steam (and I haven't pirated any since the Orange Box). 300 games that I can download at any moment I choose. Games that are now long abandoned by the devs, and aren't even sold on Steam anymore, are still available to me for download. The only games that are no longer playable are the ones the devs or publishers actively disabled by turning off servers their DRM needs (not Valve's fault, although they could pressure publishers to use less DRM). Steam gives me the option to now share my library with my kids, on their own accounts with their own saves and their own achievements. I have nothing against other launchers and do use them but Steam just does everything right for me. The peace of mind that my library is mine to download ad perpetuum on a whim is in today's day and age unique.

[@KB_13247]

i think one thing you kind of missed here, was that valve was virtually singlehandedly the reason for the rise of indie games. their greenlight system and wishlisting is what enabled indie games to actually flourish and sell. before steam greenlight i doubt very many people owned any indie pc games.

[@si2foo]

ohh this is somewhat wrong. people still played indie games and steam green light wasn't what enabled it. it was steam as a whole. they allowed indie devs to put up money and if there game was playable they go on steam. steam had stricter criteria for indie games which prevented the flood of shit that is in the new releases now.

[@KB_13247]

@@si2foo you're delusional if you think people played indie games anywhere near the rates they're at right now. like 3/4's of all of my mainstream gamer friends who i've played with for literally 3 decades play half indie games now compared to like only 2 of us 15 years ago. greenlight changed the landscape for indie games entirely. edit: and even then we played maybe 1 or 2 indie games that i can think of. now my most recently played games are 1/2 to 3/4's all indie games.

[@pigpuke]

@@KB_13247 Greenlighting has nothing to do with indie games explicitly. AAA and indie developers make use of the greenlighting process and early access mechanism. As far as how many indie games are available...that's not a good thing necessarily. Steam is flooded with crappy indie "games" that are worth less than the cost of the bandwidth they consume to download. Way too many Unity asset flips, etc. Anyway, in 20 years, I have played 2 indie titles on Steam that have been worth anything. ProjectZomboid and RimWorld.

[@KB_13247]

@@pigpuke let's see. i have rimworld, blasphemous, 9 yuears of shadows, death must die, holocure, star valor, gravyard keeper, deliverance and reign, halls of torment, deep rock galactic, SPAZ 1 and 2, vampire survivors, monster sanctuary, rogue lords, bloodstained curse of the moon 1 and 2 and ritual of the night, legend of keepers, hades, iratus, gaia beyond, astroneer, stardew valley, darkest dungeon 1 and 2, forts, abandon ship, windward, hand of fate, spellweaver, awesomenauts, endless sky, destination sol, gauntlet, terraria, ftl, moonbase alpha, tropico 3 4 and 5, wizorb, reus, space run, risk of rain, desktop dungeons, strike suit zero, to the moon, undertale, bit trip runner 1 and 2, to name some of my most played indie games. most of them benefitted from steam greenlight. like yea, there are shit indie games. of course there are, just like there is shit anything in any market. but the fact is a huge number of really really fucking good indie games have popped up, and it's no coincidence that this explosion only happened after steam greenlight came about.

[@Nico78Not]

@@pigpuke Don't worry, once you grow up and age in your twenties, maybe you'll understand what market research and player interest is.

[@harrywilliamson7043]

The question if it is worth it is valid, but that 30% cut ALSO covers a lot of services Valve offers developers, not just consumers. Just from a marketing aspect, listing on Steam will get your game in front of more eyeballs, and more importantly based on their algorithms, far more eyeballs that may be interested in buying the game than a small developer could ever hope to reach even if they had the money for a full-on marketing campaign. This is something Epic has very little to offer outside the exclusives they engage in. To be more on point. 30% to Steam is not the same as 30% on Google or 30% on Apple. They all include different services for that 30% and if it's too much or not depends on just what you get beyond just the right to list your game on the store front. Epic's really low cut also comes with bare bones store front that just doesn't have the same payoff for the developer, unless you get selected as an exclusive (where you get a guaranteed payout) You hinted at it, but If Epic really wanted to take on Steam, they should have started with the store front and tried to do at least some of what Steam does. Instead, they put up a bare bones store front and almost seem to stop developing it. To take on Steam, you need to offer up something better to the consumer and on that Sweeny and Epic failed and didn't even seem to try. Also, Steam is hardly sitting on their laurels. They continue to seek ways to improve the store front and better ways to connect developers' games with customers. Its why they barely acknowledged Epis and Sweeny. Right or wrong they see themselves offering a valuable service worth that 30% cut and felt confident that would continue to attract the lion's share of developers and customers.

[@lo53n]

It feels like a lot of devs take for granted all services the Steam is providing. It's not perfect platform, but it is the best we have so far in terms of what it provides both developers and consumers. Devs crying about Steam taking 30% cut don't know how much effort it would take them if they decided to cut themselves out of Steam. Put game on Steam, market the game additionally via your channels of choice (youtube and social media) and basically you are done with releasing the game. If you want to do it yourself, you need to come up with activation key system, marketing, hosting the game downloadables, process payments and abide to current regulation - and we are not even talking about various integrations that Steam offers. Epic talks big with the low cut share, but lets be honest - EGS is not customer-centered storefront. They are focusing on devs, offering them more and more lucrative contracts to get timed monopoly on games in hopes of luring bigger playerbase. Yes, there is less shovelware trash on EGS, and they have crossplay libs which Steam is lacking, but they are taking in other kind of garbage Steam actually is throwing out - NFT games. It is really hard to compare Steam and EGS, one of them is constantly moving forwards with features and experiments that are not really fitting game store (i.e. Steam Machines, controllers, Steam Deck) and slowly shaping the gaming to be available on all PCs, not just Windows, while the other is trying to spray money in hopes to pull people to their barebone store.

[@blackpepper2610]

talking about?@@lo53n

[@Dwivil]

@@lo53n EGS isn't on the side of developers either, they're on the side of publishers. Developers aren't the ones who pick exclusivity (in some indie cases they would probably be the one choosing so), but rather the publishers who want a larger cut of the game price and so they eat up tim sweenys words. I think a lot of people forget about the publisher taking the lions share of the profits from games, rather than the developers.

[@MrMTGPsycho]

THANK YOU!!! There's a reason Ubisoft wasn't dumb enough to segregate their shop from Steam and why literally everyone but Epic and Blizzard has come back. Hell, Sony exclusively released their PS4 catalog on Steam.

[@cedric7751]

As a developer, I can tell you that the services that steam provides for 30% is nowhere near what you got when it was first introduced. I released my first games on steam in 2011 and valve did a lot of work for us. At the time, content was validated by actual humans, it was hard to find a shitty game on steam. They were telling you what to improve in the game and even suggested how to make the promotional content more appealing. They had fewer users, but having your game published on steam was like a badge certifying the quality of the game, which led to insanely high conversion rates. My first game made over 200k sales on steam in the first month, without us doing any advertising at all, it was all done by steam. Nowadays, you just pay $99, pass an automated test that just checks if the game installs properly and launches without crash and poof, your game is published, along with 30 to 50 other games published the same day. You get a bit of automated advertising, but it is drown in a sea of shitty games so unless you spend money on advertising outside of steam, your game has 0 chance to become successful. 30% in 2011, was the best goddamn deal you could have ever dreamed of considering that publishers were usually taking 70% (they provide more services like funding, deals with retailers, etc tho) but in 2023 it's a ripoff and you now have to spend time waving through the sea of scammers and "steam curators" who contact you for free keys when you make your page. You get the eyeballs count, but not the attention because steam doesn't filter the games. All they really need to do to turn it into a developer paradise again is to have real content curation, done by valve employees. Limit the amount of games released to only a few per day and implement campaigns like "game of the week/month" to promote games that the valve team deems worthy of being played to incentivize developers to spend more time on making a better game. Everyone will win here, except the developers of shitty games who should never have seen the light of day.

[@TheDarkKratoz]

I think that Valve simply elevated Steam outside the confines of PC Storefront/Launcher into being a 4th platform alongside Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation. The 30% cut is justified by the platform holders developing and supporting the platform, as well as fronting the cost of holding and distributing the games. EGS clearly attempted to use a low cut as a gimmick, and it didn't work out. Users don't give a care about how much of the $70 they're spending goes to the publisher, they care about the product they're receiving, and the launcher and storefront are inextricably tied to the product. With Valve now supporting Steam with multiple hardware and software components, the 30% cut is absolutely justified.

[@EmpReb]

The steam deck pretty much imo was them laying down they are the fourth platform. They are not PC gaming they are steam that happens to be on PC.

[@Jo-Heike]

Would you still agree that some of the suggested exceptions for small and indie studios from the 30% cut would be beneficial for the industry and something Valve should do?

[@Pulstar232]

​@@Jo-HeikeDunno? Theres a lot that Valve offers that genuinely could be worth the 30% cut. They offer servers(for downloading and multiplayer purposes), the distribution, a forum, a community, arguably the most benign DRM(that developers have the option of opting into or not, IIRC), the steam workshop, the steam market(okay maybe this isn't that big an offer) and a few other things I can't think of right now. I can see them going to 25%, but due to how Steam as a company works, that would require a relatively grassroots movement from inside the conpany.

[@peterpan4038]

That's not even the end of it. Plenty of steam games are sold during steam sales, and steam usually only takes 15% from games sold during sales.

[@Jo-Heike]

@@Pulstar232 Did you not read my comment? I am talking about making an exception for new/small/indie developers, I am not arguing about the validity of the 30% as a whole.

[@frosty9392]

valve is the closest thing to a benevolent business as we'll ever see

[@titcab8159]

Bro you don't even know how much money valve makes 💀💀💀

[@frosty9392]

@titcab8159 um... so? they pay their employees extremely well they constantly work on things on behalf of gamers (like forcing companies to allow refunds) they release products for a loss every game they release is at least A tier -- sure, every ui update seems to break more and more stuff, and make it feel clunky and slow.. but aside from that

[@titcab8159]

@@frosty9392 Whats benevolent in this ? they can do all these things because of the enormous amounts of money that steam brings

[@frosty9392]

@titcab8159 most companies pay their empress like shit, stuff their own pockets, and provide no real value

[@evancampbell7048]

A piece of this that always goes unmentioned is that the %30 Steam cut was substantially better for developers when it started. A digital sale only taking %30 was less than production, packaging, and shipping of discs, on top of third party retailers like Game Stop taking their cut.

[@oxaile4021]

Also the fact that other marketplaces only take a smaller cut because they need something to appeal to publishers and devs. Do people genuinely think epic wouldn't take at least 30% if they were in the position of valve? My guess is that it'd likely be much more.

[@mbos14]

They have a problem with the 30% cut but then will also complain that steam kicks them of their forums they where using for communication with their buyers when the go Epic exclusive.(some of the devs to be clear but still like to point it out and this was the vocal once's) Sure Epic takes a lot smaller cut at only 12% but also offers so much less for that much smaller cut and like the person above me stated as soon as they can will up it to be as close to Steams cut or even equal to it. Its like saying the burgers at a 5 star restaurant are expensive because your local fast food place sells burgers for 5 Euro's. This comparison carriers even more weight since nowadays McDonalds here is getting as expensive as a full blow restaurant.

[@WolfHeathen]

Three major reasons for why Valve doesn't have a monopoly: 1) There are plenty of other platforms where you can buy your games. 2) People choose to utilize Steam because it's a better and more convenient product. 3) Epic tarnished its own reputation right from the start and displayed their draconic business practices for all to see. I have personally never bought anything on the Epic Store and I don't ever intend to. Every single one of these steps have one thing in common: agency. Valve isn't forcing anyone to use their platform and it isn't a massive conglomerate that owns every single other platform within the same industry.

[@simplysmiley4670]

There's also the quite obvious _neutrality_ of Steam. They genuinely don't care what people say on their storefront as long as it's not illegal or against their policies. It's a nice safe heaven for people to say what they think of the games they play which is both good and a bit bad. Good as you can warn other people across the globe to not buy and support certain games for whatever reasons you may have and people can agree or disagree, and show it, as well. The reviews aren't hidden on Steam, you can view all of them fully and like or dislike them, even comment on them, you can view discussion forums to talk with other people about the game, something I feel other storefronts and especially ones like EGS, Origins and Battle net don't want whatsoever as it would only hurt them to let people voice themselves on their storefronts.

[@aetherwizard3218]

astro turf

[@ashurad_fox5991]

I'm not a game dev, but a software dev... And I can pretty much understand why it is preferable to put your games onto Steam than Epic. I even talked to some friends of mine who are now game developers to understand some difference in decision both store has. 1. The graphical design and layout, Steam's graphical layout pretty much gives the games in their store a promotion for anyone to see which makes it easier for new games or on sale games to be noticed. Epic on the other hand has one of the most mobile and bland Graphical design e-commerce platform I see today. (Unless your game is popular already it's not really a good platform that can advertise your game... which is not good for new game developers) 2. Public statistics and reviews, Steam has a public review and track which games have many players playing it. Epic doesn't have that. (The main point here is that, if you buy a multiplayer only game.... it's pretty much useless if that game has no other players to play with. And public reviews can show if the game is good for other gamers as well, which could boost sales) 3. Availability, Comparing both Steam and Epic... It's pretty clear Steam is better optimized and loads faster. And Steam has an offline mode for those that don't have access to the internet due to and event or such. 4. Developer friendly, Steam is mostly a "DIY" publishing for your game updates.... just make a build and upload that's it, You're done and everyone can play that build now. Epic on the other hand takes longer due to it's process for updating games (You literally had to give them the build first and once it's approved then it will be updated) 5. Market, Sure Epic has lower cut cost... But since the platform isn't even good at advertising your product you will be losing a lot of potential market if you are a game developer. Steam on the other hand, while takes 30% of the sales it advertise your product on the store page and it's easier to find. So the cost can be mitigated by the sale overall given some time. So while I don't mind steam getting a competition, if the competition isn't even up to standard then I pretty much will choose to go back to the "Monopoly Store" since it's just fundamentally better. A lot of steam's features is justifiable for a 30% cut since they are giving a lot of stuff like easy tools, a standard anti-cheat, marketing, a proper platform, storage and more.... Since if we compare "modern" platforms nowadays those stuff? It will cost way more for the dev/company than the 30% that valve is taking... I myself has experienced in that for just a simple information system that was outsourced to another company. It's very expensive each and one of those services.

[@decenthumanbeing67]

I agree

[@Kingzcro]

I can defenetly say Steam is optimized sooo much better then Epic, Epic litterally used to freeze my PC when i closed games that i was playing on it I don't use Epic anymore, the only games i played on it were the free ones they give out sometimes

[@pencileraser9477]

​@@Kingzcro epic also starts up incredibly slow, and most icons and pictures in some cases even take 5-8 seconds to load even in a mid-range set up. While steam feels smooth and fast

[@oo--7714]

Nah steam isn't better optimised, it always needs an internet connection or you can't sign in and loads a lot slower than epic games launcher on my laptop

[@kiloneie]

EPIC literally broke for me with some bloody service dying on me, which i couldn't get fixed no matter a clean reinstall, admin mode or anything, and the only thing i have it for is the free Civ 6 i got there(then bought Gathering Storm for cheap).

[@kahuugaming5935]

Gaben is singlehanded keeping valve on the straight and once he's gone then Valve is gonna fall from grace

[@CaptainMyron]

Valve's effort to free us from paid OSes with its support for Linux and Wine (through proton and steamOS) will always be the reason i buy from them and wait for them to get a product. With the latest iterations of windows being very intrusive and essentially preying on my data, i use my windows partition the less i can. Gaming on pc has been arbitrarily locked to directX and Windows for too long. If Valves manages to keep up with proton development it will dominate on the OS front too in the future. I still remember the amount of effort required to simply play wow in Ubuntu back in 2008.

[@andrewgreeb916]

Steam is very good, I occasionally go into gog to find older games that need help to run, like the og dungeonkeeper.

[@Cobalt985]

Honestly it's seriously understating it to present Linux support as "free from paid OSs". Far more important is that Linux is free in the "freedom" sense. You aren't tied to Microsoft's empire that is continually locking down more and more things and who have entirely turned their OS into an advertising platform. The last consumer Windows version that was actually about making a good operating system was 7, and both before and during that time they did many things that were objectively bad for consumers and sometimes legally anti-competitive. Valve hates Windows for basically the same reasons we do, but the motivations are just more profit focused. I want freedom to do what I want with my computer for security and data privacy reasons. Valve wants the freedom to do with the OS what they want so that they can create stuff without needing, for example, very hacky drivers.

[@GewelReal]

For now I run Windows with every crap cut out. Best of both worlds. Such Win 11 version only using 500MB of RAM on a 32GB system is just beautiful to look at.

[@valrond]

I paid 3€ for my windows 11 license. Thanks Valve for keeping your monopoly. It's like Microsoft has developed the tool for Windows to be a gaming machine too.

[@GewelReal]

@@valrond your comment makes no sense but aight

[@CFWhitman]

Technically, being a monopoly is not illegal. It's exploiting monopoly power to be anti-competitive. Valve hasn't really done anything to stop games from being available on other stores. They haven't made exclusivity deals with publishers. They haven't barred anyone for making their game available elsewhere, or things like that. Some may be wondering why EPIC can make exclusivity deals. Doing these things is not illegal unless you are in a monopoly position, so EPIC is in the clear as long as they are not the biggest game store. Edit: One thing I do dread is the possibility of Valve one day becoming a public corporation, because public corporations are always willing to put the screws to their customers to provide "more value" to shareholders.

[@CanIHasThisName]

It is extremely unlikely Valve would go public. They have a very strong precedent to not do that from their past, plus they are pretty much printing money and getting money is the main reason why a company goes public. However, they have a crushing grip over the PC market and what's scary is that so many gamers actually celebrate that fact. Valve does have a price parity policy which is by some seen as anti-competitive and they are currently being sued for it. They prevent games being sold on other platforms for a lower price.

[@CFWhitman]

@@CanIHasThisName Let me be clearer. As long as Gabe Newell owns Valve, he will almost certainly never take it public. The danger of it becoming a public corporation only really comes in once it passes on to someone else. It seems that Gabe expects the person who inherits it to feel the same way as he does about it. However, things like that are never completely certain. It's always possible that the next owner will accept an exorbitant amount of money to sell it and it will be taken public.

[@zwenkwiel816]

​@@CFWhitmanlike the dude says though, only reason to.go public is if you need money. As long as your company is profitable and you don't need capital to expand or something there's no reason to sell shares. Don't forsee Valve running out of money any time soon...

[@HotSkorpion]

@@CanIHasThisName They dont have a GRIP over the market. They are not holding anyone randsom. They simply have the BEST offering that frankly, noone else has even began to try offering something better. That is not competition. They were the first, and they have 20 years head start. Valve and steam have done more FOR the pc market than every other distributor combined, and if PC gaming is still relevant and growing today, to Valve we owe that. As long as they continue to prove time and again that they are worth the confidence put in them, why wouldnt we celebrate that fact?

[@CanIHasThisName]

@@HotSkorpion Don't kid yourself. The fact that most devs can't afford to not release on Steam is due to the fact Valve does have a grip over the PC gaming platform. Not to mention the fact most devs cannot bring their games to other platforms at a lower price is anti-competitive. Steam is in a position where they don't have to compete over the market, they own the market. Gabe Newel won't live forever, and if Steam continues to be in their current position, it will be too late to cry when the new ownership decides they don't like the old policies anymore. In the long run, monopoly is never good for the consumer. Celebrating it is foolish. It's perfectly fine to acknowledge Steams positive impact on PC gaming, but that doesn't mean they should maintain monopolistic position on that market.

[@mangocheese3823]

One thing I don't think you touched about steam is the fact that they do take 30% but they also give out steam keys. Steam keys are just a digital gift card that gets you the game for free in your steam library. You can request as many as you want as a dev and sell them anywhere and avoid the 30% cut. Steam not only provides this feature but actively promotes creators to use this. This feature basically bypasses the 30% cut and helps small creators get more out of their game but also helps steam by having no downsides not to toss your game on steam

[@GamerDaPeter]

​​@@SpajkistBecause devs dont get any profit from those keys sold on g2a, they are mostly stolen. Would you as a dev react different?

[@MummyOymmuM]

@@Spajkist The keys sold on g2a have nothing to do with free steam keys, they are bought used stolen credit cards and when the chargebacks come the developer takes the loss. That's why they are way worse than pirating.

[@SleepyStreak]

​​@@GamerDaPeter"Mostly stolen" lmao what do you think they hack the devs computer and print out keys? They're mostly legit keys bought on sales and sold post sale for slightly higher than sale price. Theres been only small instances of keys being "stolen", and they're not even stolen. The original person buys them, sells them on G2A, then refunds them before the buyer can redeem them. Which even though that was a small minority of cases, has since long been fixed.

[@kajak8979]

@@SleepyStreak No, most game keys are stolen! They are not getting them from the devs... i reccomend watching some video essays on this topic that go deep...

[@kajak8979]

There are ofcourse sites that provide keys from legit sources, but sites like G2 don't

[@Pork-Chop-Suey]

I'm still alive and waiting for Left 4 Dead 3, Half-Life 3, and Portal 3.

[@UrpabaDaGoat]

Portal 1 end credits song reference?

[@KibaSnowpaw]

What I appreciate about Steam compared to Epic is the level of customization and user-friendliness it offers. On Steam, I can personalize my profile, easily manage my friend list, write and read game reviews, and create groups for friends, family, or anyone interested. It also allows me to interact directly with developers. These features are missing in the Epic client. If Epic were to adopt a more Steam-like approach, I would be more inclined to use it. As it stands, I don't have much interest in it, similar to the other 20 game clients I don't care about.

[@Wylie288]

Epic is a STORE. Not a social media platform. Not one thing you mentioned has anything to do with steams store.

[@KibaSnowpaw]

@@Wylie288, I understand your point about Epic being primarily a store, but it's important to consider the broader context of digital game distribution platforms today. Platforms like Steam have evolved beyond mere storefronts; they've become social and community hubs for gamers. This evolution reflects changing consumer expectations. Gamers often seek a more integrated experience where purchasing games, managing libraries, socializing with friends, and engaging with communities are all part of the same ecosystem. The features I mentioned - profile customization, friend management, review systems, and group creation - enhance the overall user experience and are increasingly expected by users. While Epic's focus on being a store is valid, ignoring these social and community aspects can be a significant oversight in today's digital distribution landscape. The gaming community values these features, as they enrich the gaming experience, foster community engagement, and create a sense of belonging. Incorporating such features could potentially make Epic more appealing to a broader user base.

[@nugget5449]

My main issue with the epic games store is that it keeps logging me out

[@KibaSnowpaw]

@@nugget5449 Steam can end up doing that too. My friend had that problem, and reinstalling it didn't help.

[@NaniTheFrick]

@@nugget5449 Oh I hate that so much! And the boring, depressing black/white UI added the hate fuel

[@UnduGT]

One thing I would like to add: I switched to Linux years ago and no longer plan to use Windows for various reasons. Valve, with Steam, is the only gaming/store company that supports Linux gaming. But not only that, Valve has contributed a lot to the development of Linux gaming and Linux desktop in general over the last decade. Valve's Proton now works so well that Apple has even started developing a similar system for Mac. And all that work led to the Steam Deck, which in my opinion is the best console that has ever existed because you have a device that not only has significantly more games than all other consoles combined. It also has a very consumer-oriented quality, with things like allowing you to set various options for each game, from frame rate to battery usage, or Valve simply uploading a video of how to open the Steam Deck so you can for example, repair it yourself if you know what you're doing. For me the choice is very simple, choose a company that tries to make as much money as possible from you, sometimes even using the most devious tricks? Or choose a company that says exactly how much money it takes and then invests it in a good service for you? Of course you have to be careful and nobody knows what Valve will do in the future, but at this point in time there is no argument that could make me even want to install Epic Game Store. (Apart from the fact that there is no official Linux version)

[@robertkeaney9905]

I've had some good luck getting a lot of GoG games running on Linux. But its hit and miss. I hope it improves in the future because I love Good old Games DRM policy.

[@phoenixvance6642]

The world would be a better place if epic/gog gave a single fuck about linux

[@x0j]

yeah lemme guess you just use a windows emulator to pirate windows games. You might as well be running windows buddy, you're not a true linux user - running nonfree software.

[@kuhluhOG]

"Valve's Proton now works so well that Apple has even started developing a similar system for Mac." Apple is pretty much forking Proton for their uses. Like Valve did with Wine (which before that wasn't really all that good, but good enough to build it up).

[@paegr]

If Valve ever gets bought out by a publicly-traded company or becomes publicly-traded themselves, it's all going down the toilet. The reason Valve can be pro-consumer is because they have no legal requirement for infinite growth forever, unlike public companies.

[@pRaX85815]

I remember in the very late 90's / early 2000's when Valve was laughed at by most of the industry peers for their idea of going fully digital. They earned where they are and are a market leader, not a monopoly. In all these years, I never felt mistreated by Valve. Quite the contrary. Which is not something I can say about anybody else in the space.

[@darkflmmstr]

True, even when valve/steam stumbled and did something the consumers didn't like they always rolled it back and took a step back to see how they could make it better

[@user-yo5lr5jy2e]

Does valve have a monopoly? Yes Is it through illegitimate means? No

[@christopherstreet5713]

A big part of my love for Steam is accessibility. I'm disabled as of 2017 and the Steam Controller has kept pc gaming and every day usage possible for me

[@will_stevens]

Best wishes to you, man!

[@FoxyCAMTV]

What happened?....I am genuinely curious.

[@christopherstreet5713]

@@FoxyCAMTV Combination of an aortic dissection and chronic back pain worsening has led to where I can't use a typical desk setup anymore

[@BlacKi-nd4uy]

try gog galaxy, you can add also steam an other games too.

[@christopherstreet5713]

@@BlacKi-nd4uy I use it and other launchers as well; Steam functions more as a controller program for me first and a storefront second

[@marciusnhasty]

Fellow KZbinr Bellular has openly stated that Steam discoverability beats even 0% from Epic for new developers. Steam brought so many more eyes to his game that he said best way to support him is on Steam, even though Epic takes smaller cut because of how many additional sales each copy sold on Steam can create. He made the entire video on how Steam provides value for its cut. It is mostly marketing stuff that other stores can't provide because it all works thanks mostly to humongous user base.

[@ChemySh]

important to note that he's a game studio himself, so he's putting his literal money where his mouth is I like him for his balanced take on why some devs accepted Epic's money, but as a consumer I utterly despise any form of platform exclusivity. If I want a carefully curated garden I'd buy a console, not a PC that I have to troubleshoot often to maintain my freedom. Fuck epic for bringing the exclusivity wars onto PC.

[@marciusnhasty]

@@ChemySh Yeah my comment became too long so while trimming it I removed the part about The Pale Beyond and why Bellular legit knows what he's talking about. Steam has the user base due to having best feature rich store app + Gamestop acquiring and anhilating Impulsedriven store from Stardock. Backend of impulsedriven is now known as Origin, both Gamestop and EA just changed UI without ever adding any new value features. Epic fails to add basic features Stardock easily developed twenty years ago and wastes money on exclusivity.

[@Obey-Initiative]

i know it ENRAGES me like they choose to just use exclusisives then trying to make the store better and they act like the better cut to the devs matter it doesnt the games dont reduce in price or become less bugged or have less microtransactions@@ChemySh

[@ChemySh]

@@Obey-Initiative I'd have to disagree on the last part. Bigger cuts for devs (especially indies) means more livable wages for the devs, which theoretically should improve quality even though the game price doesnt reduce. Theoretically, the epic deal should also mean less microtransactions because the dev is guaranteed to break even just by putting their game on EGS (Bellular considered this too and got us viewers actual numbers). If only EGS didnt do its exclusivity bullshit alongside other assorted Sweeney-isms, it might've actually challenged Steam's hegemony.

[@Obey-Initiative]

matters little to the consumers@@ChemySh

[@Zerecese]

Epic exclusivity was annoying to be sure, but where it devolved into outright scummy practices was when they started poaching kickstarters/funded projects with *already purchased/promised* Steam keys.

[@rrteppo]

Darkest dungeon 2 went this way. They started as a Kickstarter to Steam company with their first game and there was a massive supportive community, and tons of creative mods and modded characters. Then they released in 2021 on Epic and were exclusively everywhere but Steam until 2023. At this point I refuse to buy the game entirely.

[@peterberg3446]

@@rrteppo Given the reviews, I dont think we missed much. I LOVED darkest dungeon but refused to support/buy/play DD2 because of epic exclusivity. If we dont take a stand now with our cash, exclusives will become the new norm for PC gaming.

[@WhatIsTheHeat]

@@peterberg3446 Yeah there are so many games that were hyped up to be released on Epic, Steam and maybe GOG and then they get bought exclusivity and announce they are only releasing on Epic Games at least for a few years which betrays most of the steam fans, then the game comes out and the game is really bad and most likely rushed (looking at Saint's Row 2022). Companies seem to realise that once epic buys exclusivity they don't have to worry about polishing their game as much.

[@devinnullenvoid29]

@Zerecese This is THE reason I will never install Epic's game store. Epic is perma-banned from my system.

[@Murtida]

@@WhatIsTheHeat One thing that Steam does about this, is now legally hold publishers liable IF they create a Steam page for a product and not release it there within 30 days. Soo shitty publishers can no longer abuse Steam wishlists system to get more publicity before going exclusive

[@unsufficient]

ive got gta 5 on epic games. i cannot describe how much a pain in the ass it is to deal with epic and rockstar