this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

A monopoly is a monopoly. Just because Steam is a good store today doesn’t mean they deserve to hold a monopoly over the pc gaming market. So what happens when Valve has crushed every competitor? Gamers and devs have nowhere to go if Steam turns to shit. Eventually there will be a change of guards at Valve’s C-suite when Gaben retires or is dead. There is a good chance that those new execs will hollow out Steam and extract all the value out of it for their own benefit by screwing over the customers and developers. And they can get away with that if there is no competition. Competition is what keeps Valve in check.

[–] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ubisoft, Epic etc.. have done nothing to make the market better or make it more healthy. Epic is even more anti competitive than it's competition.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Doesn’t matter. It’s still competition. They motivate Valve to create a better store and keep it that way. Since that is Valve’s unique selling point and what distinguishes them from the competition. Therefore I believe devs should make their games available on every storefront. Not just the best one, to give customers a choice.

[–] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Steam was great before epic and has been adding killer features since before egs came along. EGS tactics to win over steam users is to be anti competitive....

[–] XLRV@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Tell that to Epic.

[–] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But they haven't crushed any other competitor through any mechanism but having a dramatically better product.

They don't force you to be exclusive to be on steam. They don't force you to implement any of their Steam stuff. They are very permissive unless you do shit that potentially exposes them to liability down the road, like the NFT nonsense.

And they let you generate keys for literally free to sell on other stores.

All their stuff companies use is because it's things customers value.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The only thing Valve has done with Steam that apparently is anti-competitive, is actually having a decent product with good features and no one else is capable of actually delivering parity with it to be a viable competitor.

A natural monopoly is a far cry from one built through anti-competitive practices, and easily toppled by competent competitors.

Perhaps if Valve's competition was competent, there would be better options.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

True. But Google became the number one search engine by creating a better product and basically got a natural monopoly. And now look what kind of monster the company has become.

Just because Steam is a good store today doesn’t mean it will stay that way in the future. Therefore I rather not see Steam be the only game store left in the pc gaming space.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But Epic is a shitty store today. I'm not going to use it out of fear the Steam might become a shitty store tomorrow.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s fine, neither do I. Because as a customer we have a choice. But we only have that choice if devs make their games available on all stores.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Epic has in the past declined hosting games that don't agree to exclusivity, so it's not always the dev's choice.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Then get mad at the weak-ass competition. Start a fire under their asses to make something that is actually just as good, if not better.

Punishing the one good product for being good is just gonna lead to there being no good products and only shitty ones just as much as your slippery-slope scenario. 🤦‍♂️

[–] Kbin_space_program@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well no. Google used to steal results from other search engines initially.v And then suppressed search results for competing products for at least the last 20 years.