They remain one-stop shop for games. The gamers don't have to weigh down their systems with a bunch of different bloated game stores, each "needing" several GB of memory occupied at all times and adding minutes to machine startup.
Not to mention conflicts between a bunch of different anti-cheat and anti-piracy technologies on the same machine. And stores with bad UX (e.g. that make you suffer additional wait screens or naggings; Steam is as unobstructive as it gets).
Compare that to Netflix: at the begining, it was a "one stop shop" for movies, it had a lot of classic movies and TV for reasonable price. When the concept was proven, the production houses revoked the license for content. Competition came to the sector and each movie production house set up their own subscription based streaming service. You need to keep paying a whole bunch of services if you want to be able to keep up with all popular TV production or watch classic movies.
So, the competition would in theory be great. But even if stores didn't have subscriptions, the gamers don't want to fill their personal data, check privacy settings, configure, troubleshoot, debloat, ... a different app store for each game. When people have a slice of time to play, they don't want to deal with all of these.
I'm sure that when Valve forgets what keeps them successful and start becoming a Netflix, the Steam store will get replaced.
https://www.palladiummag.com/2026/09/22/wealth-taxes-could-k...
Moreover, you could create a multi-tier share structure where controlling ownership belongs to the founder whereas financial interest in the business belongs to the holders of other equity flavors, which is fairly common (e.g. Meta, Snap are structured this way).
Then the founder can [choose to] sell those cash-flow-stocks while holding on to the ownership stock.
It's utterly hyperbolic to suggest that a wealth tax would kill privately-controlled corporations.
You might be better off taking out a loan against the value of the business to pay the tax, if it's a one-time tax. The problem is when they come for the second wealth tax, and then the bi-annual wealth tax, and then the annual wealth tax. There is no likely scenario where it's a one-time tax.
Apparently, the world is "used to" the way intellectual property works (or doesn't work, depending on your view) for TV shows and Movies, in a way that probably wouldn't fly for video games; which is to say -- in both you're going to have to compete against "free" or "on the internet" or whatnot. I suspect monopolizing video games is much harder than TV and Movies (probably because we're so beholden to arguably odd copyright ideas?")
By your own reasoning, Netflix did not 'become a Netflix' by doing anything wrong.
Browser also severely limits the bloat, mutual compatibility and privacy issues (and also Android and iOS up to certain extent). This makes technologically much easier to have a bunch of different content stores on the same device.
EDIT: I'm keeping the sentence in original comment. Valve can mess up and become a Netflix due to its own fault, e.g. if they try to use the store to primarily finance and favor their own productions. This might come to pass if they become publically traded company, as datakan mentioned.
Put up or shut up Epic. I'm unemployed so you can hire me to do it for you, but I'll bet you'd rather just whine about it.
Valve also allows non exclusive distribution on PC. Games don’t have to launch on steam exclusively. Why do others not capitalize on that?
Seems like it’s mostly a “grapes are sour” argument pointing to valve and saying they’re not greedy enough to allow us to profit.
Is that true? And if it is true, why is that?
Pointing to free games on Epic and non usage tells you that people don’t want Epic. Doesn’t tell you why. Nor does it tell you whether people continue to stick with Valve. And that is the point in my original comment.
If Valve isn’t good, you can’t just say people won’t go for another better option “just because”.
Except that the experience just sucked. It was mediocre. My biggest gripe is that launching games was really slow, the store was kind of painful in lots of little ways and it was sort of annoying to deal with them in general.
Maybe they fixed those issues but it was too late to retain me. I literally repurchased the games I was still playing on steam which didn't have those issues.
At some point, in the early days, Steam was a bit rough. I remember a summer where occasionally steam would stop launching and you had to reinstall it (back when it was a blocky dark green app). But Steam got over those teething pains and has been really high quality since.
Itch.io is great, I don't use their launcher (just haven't tried it) but I use them and enjoy them. Their checkout experience is fairly sane. It's not as if I refuse to use other platforms.
But Epic just lowkey was not a great platform.
They've undoubtedly locked us all in, but they've shown themselves to be trustworthy and reliable.
> A former Epic Games developer is calling out Steam users, saying that they wouldn't move on from Valve's store even if a better alternative emerged.
Second para:
> Kiaran Ritchie, former principal animation engineer at Epic Games kicked off discussions surrounding Steam's 30% sales cut last week (with the assertion that "you could vibe code a Steam alternative in a week"). Which in-turn led noted Steam hater Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to assert that "Valve has held gaming back for years" – because the person whose company proudly asserted it had "vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher" knows what's holding gaming back!
Third para:
> Ritchie elaborated on their opinions on the 30% cut in a separate post, with the post saying that while developers are paying 30% in order to access Steam infrastructure, "in reality it is purely to get access to the massive Steam userbase." He adds "PC developers have no option but to distribute through Steam or lose the vast majority of sales."
Curious, where does it answer my question in the first paragraph? Could you elaborate?
Id software did much more, and much earlier, for linix gaming
What else did they do?
Part of that switching cost is your purchased game library only works with the platforms you purchased it from. A fact that currently greatly benefits mostly Steam on desktop platforms.
So I do expect that a court case in the future will be Epic Games suing Steam in order to have "game portability" between game platforms.
I mean, I really appreciate how Steam Big Picture gives me a console like experience on my PC and how the Steam Deck works like a PS Vita or a Nintendo Switch. But really if I had to click on a desktop icon to play a game or find it the same way I find other applications on Windows, Mac or Linux, I'd just do it.
So I guess you could make a better launcher but there's only so much upside!
I'd say though it's a very San Francisco mindset to be obsessed with things like launchers: like wanting to have some space you can colonize to interpret everyone's experience. Next thing you know it is stuffed with ads and "discovery" in the store would be all about paid discovery, users would be trained that it's a terrible idea to go browsing for things in the store, like it is on Apple, etc.
I like this quote:
Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at research and analyst
firm Newzoo told GamesRadar+ that "As long as Valve is independent and not a
publicly traded company," it looks impossible for Steam to be overthrown as the
de-facto PC gaming marketplace.
I don't think that's necessarily true. If there was a launcher that was at least as good as steam in every aspect, and also had access to more games it would stand a chance of competing. Especially if its store also had lower prices.
Agreed, I also would care about a Steam replacement if it were better. Metrics I care about and my perception:
- Hasn't rug-pulled my games or publishers in a significant way.
- Has contributed back to the community in a number of ways.
- Spent the last 20 years being (mostly) solid and reliable.
I'm sure that's true, but Steam did reduce their take for games making over certain thresholds: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/03/valve-changes-revenue-shar...
Presumably, that was a response to other storefronts/launchers appearing, which means the competition did force them to change behavior. Companies don't give up revenue without cause.
Did they do something to Fortnite that I don't know about? I thought the only thing Fortnite did was allow pay-to-win in their community games (just like Roblox), otherwise the main game is still cosmetic only like Valve's games.
Epic even removed lootboxes from Rocket League after purchasing the developer.
Yes, probably. I bought Fortnite for $40~ when it was a completely different game; a cooperative player vs. environment building game with wave attacks. This game was entirely about microtransactions and gambling. After every round/storm passage you'd be sent to an unskippable screen with it.
Then Epic saw how well PUBG was doing with the Epic engine and turned Fortnite into a PUBG clone. In this new PUBG clone called Fortnite the gambling and microtransactions were just as bad as in the original Fortnite. Over time as the new PUBG clone called 'Fortnite' became a world sensation it both faced more scrutiny and had other monetization options with IP licensing. They massively dialed back the gambling/microtransactions but still face many court cases about it today.
You probably have only played the modern versions after they were changed it to avoid further consequences for their actions. Valve never went nearly as far and so it's lesser gambling system still exists to this day.
No free market invisible hand here.
I don't want a Steam replacement. I just want it to go away.
Gamespy was better.
Here's a few things Steam does: - Digital store - Cloud features for saving, achievements etc.. - Multiplayer and social tools. Discussions, guides etc.. - User workshop for mods, which is just amazing for the games that support it fully - Streaming and remote play - Library sharing with the family - Offline access - Mobile access - Steamworks for developers - Proton for Linux, just fantastic, and how I use the ecosystem today
There are probably more things I have missed, but I don't know of any other platform that does the above?
If Tim and his team spent as much time on making their platform better than on whinging they might have something to compete with. He could have had another draw card with UT4 but he killed that, for his cash cow Fortnite. He put all his eggs in one basket and realises he doesn't have enough for an omelette now.
I would love another competitor and I think that is GOG, if they can keep up the momentum and stick to their difference, encouraging studios to release DRM free games. I use both platforms and I am happy with both.
They are probably right though, why would I move to another platform, when my whole library is already with Steam. I am not going to waste that money to use another platform, and I don't need or want the fragmentation that currently exists for streaming content. There is probably room for another successfull platform, Steam really does need proper competition to keep them on their toes.
dunno how to bullet list...
My Steam account is old enough to drink. I've had it for some two-thirds of my life, not even adult life but life entirely. All of my games are already there. It's like if a friend invited you to come play video games in 1989 but he doesn't have the cool NES games you want to play, they're all back at my place. What, we're gonna play Clu Clu Land all day? Give me a break.
Even if I was to switch to Epic, outside of the supposed altruism of "We take less of a cut from developers!" what is the benefit for me as a gamer, or as a consumer? The Epic Games Store has very few games I can't get elsewhere, even on console, and the experience compared to Steam is just lackluster. It just is. Valve has had a lot of time to iterate on it, and Steam was absolutely despised for the first several years of its life, but the experience of using the two platforms could not be more different. Beyond that, if I do switch, I still need to have Steam installed because all like seven million of my games are already on Steam, and they can't be moved.
And of course as a primary 4X multiplayer gamer, the "join game" button on steam profile is something every platform should look to implement (once they have a correct mod workshop equivalent).
Previously I used Steam. I have ~700 games in my library. I now purchase from my phone.
That being said. This is a Microsoft forced solution. I refuse to use Win11 or online Windows anything.
Epic, which used to receive my business, changed the privacy rules to access my purchases and was blacklisted on my network as a result. Sunk cost be damned.
Anything can be replaced. Epic went out of their way to be blacklisted and Steam did not.
I don't know much about the person who said this, but it strikes me as missing the point of what we do when we build products: you could vibe code Steam the program in a week, sure. You can't vibe code the trust Steam has in a week, nor can you vibe code the two-sided ecosystem they've built in a week.
The metrics to win over Steam gamers aren't hard - and it could be done with another well-funded and like-minded CEO. The problem is that the metrics that Steam wins with are for users, not board members, not C-suite, not investors, not shareholders. Valve is no saint, but they are pretty damned close to as close as a capitalist can get.
You couldn't get a competitor financed.
not to mention the money (hundreds of millions) spent on securing exclusive launches.
Epic is evil. They're at the bleeding edge of in-game gambling with microtransactions. And they actively compete with their customers. Epic has even used their position with the Epic engine to clone a business customer's game and release it for free in their walled garden. As a gamer Epic stole the game Rocket League from me after I purchased the native linux version from the company Psyonix. Then Epic bought Psyonix and said there'd be no changes to Rocket League. 6 months later and no linux or mac clients people bought could play the game. Epic just buys game companies and puts their games behind it's app store and/or gives them away for free to try to lock people into their app store. They're abusive and exploitive and they constantly lie and make things worse for every game they buy.
People don't like that kind of behavior from Epic so they chose not to use their products and app store. This is just crybullying from Epic.
I think Roblox, Minecraft, WoW, LoL, and Fortnite all prove it's fully possible to operate outside that closed platform and see success, as well.
Only up to a certain point. Valve still doesn’t recognise inheritance and people dying as a very real thing.
They expect families to just throw away dad’s login details because he died.
I understand that this is most likely the licensing legalese they have in place that forces it this way, but it really is time that someone in the EU took Valve to court to test this.
As a small game developer, the steamworks SDK takes care of so many things I no longer have to care about. I don't have to run NAT punching infrastructure, I don't have to run a presence server and matchmaking services, handle user PII, cloud saves, workshop mod hosting (which can get very large with texturing and media), etc etc. It has an attractive value as a game developer too, not just as an end-user.
launching the installer/game is probably one of the least impactful components of steam, and certainly not why it got popular
GOG is doing fine. itch.io is good enough.
Epic is just crap and it shows.