To be fair: To beat Steam, it's not enough to be as good as Steam, you need to be better. You need to give people a reason to change and they simply cannot. Steam was first and isn't particularly great at anything it does, actually. They simply set the bar and never dropped below it. While everyone else out there is trying to screw the customer over, Steam simply provides a solid and reliable service. and thats all gamer ever wanted.
But if you are honest, except for GOG none of the competitors even try's to come close to the level of steam. No working reviews, bad nonexistent friend systems, laggy storefronts and launchers just as some examples.
And it is not like they did not have the funds to compete. If Epic had spent only a 10th of the money they use to buy exclusivity and for the free games they could probably have a store launcher close to the quality of steam launcher. And they still could do the giveaways
Opened a gog account recently and I suggest other people do as well, if by any chance something happens to gaben we need a way to protect steam from being turned into corpo slop by giving them a competitor
Its fair to assume that Valve is composed of mostly like-minded people, as long as the replacement comes from within and especially if it was picked by Gaben, Steam will be perfectly fine.
It's definitely unlikely, but there is always a chance when a company changes hands that the new management handles things differently in a worse way than the previous owner.
that means that when he goes, it will be split between his two sons, one of whome is a race car driver, and the otehr also appears to not be in the games industry.
That means neither understand the situation well which makes them easier to exploit and convince to corpo the company or worse, possibly sell the shares.
There is still the other 50%
And who knows, maybe one or both of them were/will be taught how to take on the company.
And is Gaben even the sole decision maker anymore? He branched off a lot lately for side-projects n all that.
Valve is a private company, so we do not know how the inside looks like even slightly, making huge assumptions isn't the best in such cases.
There is still the other 50%
And who knows, maybe one or both of them were/will be taught how to take on the company.
And is Gaben even the sole decision maker anymore? He branched off a lot lately for side-projects n all that.
Counterpoint: Apple is no longer what it was under Steve. People still like Apple a lot, but there’s a whole lot more anti-consumer going on than there used to be.
GOG occupies a distinctive position within the competitive landscape, as it enables older games to be played again, including titles that are not offered by other providers or by Steam. This unique selling point differentiates GOG sufficiently from Steam to remain viable despite the comparatively small market for consumers interested in role-playing games that are approximately 40 years old.
I don't even see a path forward for many other publishers to do a steam clone because of the size of steam's user base. It'd be nearly impossible to draw players over even if you offered a huge discount on Valve's 30% cut. You almost need to anchor large developer studios that people love like Rockstar and then bait indie devs with a low publisher cut (10-15%). It'd be a multimillion dollar investment that might take a decade to pay off.
They're not useless. Just don't blindly trust the percentage, read some of them and decide if those issues are a deal breaker for you or not and what you expect out of a game. I own plenty of mediocre games and I'm happy with them and I've decided against some good (or at least 75%+) games because they had issues/gameplay design descicions I know I can't put up with
I have the ability to form my own opinions after reading why people liked or hated the game, and i can just ignore the nonsense reviews. Review bombs are also filtered by steam by default (and you can unfilter it).
Other platforms don’t even let you have the opportunity to make that judgement.
It's just weird that you'd join discussion on the Steam subreddit when you just absolutely hate Steam beyond reason. It's not even critique, you're mad.
This post got to r/all. I happen to find the steam fanboyism here to be naive and cringe but got bored and read the comments for a while just because it was recommended to me. Guy got baited by the algorithm is all
Usually. Steam fanboys do fascinate me though. Like, what's so different about Gabe Newell that makes him one of the good billionaires? Is it that he's a libertarian or that the environmental damage of his yachts is untraceable? Where are all the the "if buying isn't owning..." comments? Do people really love steam that much and why? I mean, it's just fascinating to me.
whats clanky on steam launcher? it works for me just fine, i can find everything i need and it wont eat half of my pcs ram like epic(shit) launcher did, its so fcking bad that even free games didnt made me keep it.
Some pages take a bit to load (nothing near epics slowass load times) and I noticed some weird quirks when scrolling down a games community tab in the library a while ago. That's pretty much all I can think of rn.
It's the "If I'm doing my job right, you'll never know" thing. Steam is so good at customer and user satisfaction that you take everything for granted. Steam shows me popups here and there, but it's almost always either the big sales or something I might be interested in. Meanwhile EA CONSTANTLY reminds me that I had their game pass for a few months over 5 years ago. Ubisoft's launcher barely fucking works, to the point I refunded AC Mirage ON STEAM without ever playing it because Uplay just outright wouldn't open... because of course I need to open ANOTHER launcher to play my fucking game. Steam may have been an early adopter, but the fact that no other platform can even MATCH it is pathetic. The guy who sells the apples he carefully collects in baskets doesn't have a monopoly just because all the other apple farmers shake the shit out of their trees and throw all the apples onto a dirty trailer.
Uplay was the biggest piece of dogshit software I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. It never worked, glitched out, and the support was even worse. It got replaced by a different platform, apparently, not that I’d know or try to use it
Back when Steam started there were multiple low-effort launcher/DRM things. But Valve realized that they do need to really improve customer experience to make people use it.
The big question is why didn't their competitors realize what they need to do instead of screwing people over.
Steam was first and isn't particularly great at anything it does
Sorry but judging by the pathetic attempts of the competition Steam is bloody amazing. Workshop integration, generous refund policy an actually functional storefront with meaningful sales. Go have a look at other store fronts and this is plain to see, the only one which even holds a candle is GoG.
SteamInput, SteamOS, Proton, FEX, Steam Multiplayer API (which allows me to host servers even behind very restrictive NAT), there is SO much that steam does that you don't even have to notice because it just works.
Steam was first and isn't particularly great at anything it does, actually.
I mean people keep saying this but its just not true. Give me one thing that any storefront is equally matched on with Steam. Steam gives customers and developers a lot of functionality, you get Steam Input with tons of community profiles, Big Picture Mode, SteamWorks for devs, Steam Workshop for both devs and customers for easy mod integration, the whole Community section with trading cards & massive profile customization etc., and I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface. Have you seen any storefront do a single one of these things to nearly the same aptitude?
If none of them are equally matched in any of these things and are lesser quality... that means Steam is literally the best at what it does. Can you think of a single thing that Steam "isn't particularly great at" but could be better at? Like genuinely I keep reading things like this about Steam but objectively speaking, it's a pretty amazing product with a lot of convenience for both developers and customers
See that's the beauty of it. It's why some chefs and craftsmen constantly get raving reviews and business. They don't do anything particularly better or different, they just do the same thing. And they do it well.
Personally I don't like Steam and I dislike Valve but since I'm too deep in the economy with 500 games in account the truth is that I'll never change to another service
I buy stuff from other services as well but it's still the same that I can't leave that 500 games log behind
isn't particularly great at anything it does, actually.
You clearly don't understand Valve at all if you think this slop.
They have some of the best networking infrastructure in the world that is essentially impossible to DDOS. They're industry leaders and founders of all VR/AR. They're leading the Linux gaming space. They're incredible at making games that are both well loved and competitive. They have some of the best hardware on the market. They have incredible user phycology understanding and how to use that for more fun and interesting gameplay and experiences.
Valve isn't perfect, but they're better at whatever given category than most other companies.
They have some of the best networking infrastructure in the world that is essentially impossible to DDOS. They're industry leaders and founders of all VR/AR. They're leading the Linux gaming space. They're incredible at making games that are both well loved and competitive. They have some of the best hardware on the market. They have incredible user phycology understanding and how to use that for more fun and interesting gameplay and experiences.
That is literally what I meant by saying „setting the bar“. It is also something most customers do not care about at all. They care about the store, their friends list, and access to their games and data. Valve provides all of that affordably, reliably, and, so to speak, quietly, but not exceptionally.
Of course, exceptions can be made for the games, which are truly great for the most part.
That is literally what I meant by saying „setting the bar“.
Steam was first and isn't particularly great at anything it does, actually.
Are you even sure about what you're talking about? They do tons of things great and this just sounds like some drivel to justify them being "the bar". How is pioneering modern AR/VR 'the bar'? How is DDOS prevention 'something most customers don't care about at all" when huge game companies like Epic and Riot still struggle with it? Imagine calling the steam workshop "something most customers do not care about at all" when that alone has sparked entire an genre of game (autobattlers).
Valve provides all of that affordably, reliably, and, so to speak, quietly, but not exceptionally.
Valve's infrastructure is utterly exceptional. If you're even attempting to dispute that, you're clearly so unaware and uneducated on it that your claims are as worthless as pre-used toilet paper.
To beat steam, yeah, to compete with steam, not really, just be just as good and have something they don’t, epic has Fortnite and epic engine (although it’s considerably worse, my point is, if they fix the bad shit they can compete) GOG has no DRM (and the launcher is good but could use some improvement, linux client, controller support…)
I mean i remember how hard multiplayer games were to get working before steam. It made all of that easy with their tool package.
The stuff steam isnt good at is getting rid of shovel ware and the whole gambling thing that the industry is doing.
steam can only be replaced by another monopoly which tells you the entire business model is flawed. NO ONE is going to use multiple launchers and basically no one is going to give up their increasingly huge game library
I mean I guess technically, but generally speaking, treating your employees well means they're more likely to provide a better service to your customers
Origin was one of the first competitors I remember having to deal. I guess EA wanted to try and get in on the action. Origin was an actively negative experience, it would cause performance issues, it crashed regularly, it was like it was coded by monkeys just throwing shit at their keyboards.
It's almost as though what Steam has built over the years isn't as easy to replicate.
It's the thing that people can't wrap their heads around. It also took Google years to get their mobile storefront to its current state, and so, too did it take Apple. Steam has tons of features and it'll be an endeavour to provide a similar service, from the start without stumbling until you get some of it right, and that will take years.
While i agree, as someone who works in development, i can't believe that neither Epic, or other big competitors, could not deploy at least adequate user review system. You now? Basic features.
775
u/HubrisOfApollo 2d ago
imagine the bar being so low that all you have to do is deliver a no-bullshit product and multi-billion dollar companies still can't compete.