Why not mention WHY he’s successful (not because they act like a toxic monopoly).
The Steam libraries provide cloud backups, live streaming, remote play, transparent linux support, controller support, licencing. All this stuff is a few lines of developer code. Even multiplayer support over the internet they facilitate and is apparently a few lines of code. And, that excludes steam’s awesome handling of dependencies, so you don’t get weird DLL errors 10 years after buying a game. It’s because he gives people what he wants.
This is the stuff nobody talks about… But, it provides the tools so small developers CAN compete with bigger ones.
Many of us with games we purchased 10 years ago, are finding they still work in Windows, and often also work in Linux now too (without any effort on their part), because Steam assists with dependencies, portability, linux-compatibility and libraries. Whereas, even Wii U stuff you need to re-buy for switch.
For me, Linux support was a huge draw card actually (GOG still don’t have an official one), and they’re one of the huge reasons why Linux is still competitive in the desktop market (whilst Wine has existed for a long time, Linux Steam made it seamless via Proton, and you can’t even tell which ones are running proton, and which are native anymore in most cases). Steam aren’t really competing against other game developers either (other than with Half life), and they’re not blocking any of their customers from using multiple platforms. They’re certainly not forcing exclusives
Also, provides free steam keys for devs they can sell or give out freely elsewhere.
Imagine if Apple allowed people to sell their apps on their own website, but you’d still get the license on the app store, without Apple getting their 30% cut? Valve literally does this.
Basically the only rule is that the prices should be the same on all platforms.
This is the part that the “walled garden” arguments I see conveniently ignores so often. Humble games and key reselling, good and bad, exist because of this rule. That 30% otherwise covers Steam dealing with sales, key distribution, payment providers, and all the legal liabilities that comes with that for you. Unless you can securely and continuously run your own shopfront below that 30% margin, there’s not a whole lot of incentive to do so… But Steam isn’t stopping anyone, not even Epic in fact. The so-called wall is like a foot high.
The DRM isn’t even that deep either and has known tools to remove it if you want. It exists as a bare minimum requirement for copyright law and Steam friends but not much else, hence why publishers often use things like Denuvo still.
We don’t ‘defend’ Valve’s monopoly so much as they really aren’t doing anything special to maintain it besides making Steam libraries accessible on more hardware. They compete by merely existing in the same space.
Because he’s the ceo of a for profit american tech corporation that managed to hook up people into a proprietary walled garden that over the years developed into a close-like monopoly
That walled garden has a huge welcome mat and door.
Other stores can literally add an icon in steam and add their purchased games to the steam interface (like emudeck does)
And there is no attempt by steam to block you from the desktop to install other things, or even other stores (like ps5, switch or Xbox).
Finally, consoles are likely more popular these days. One of the prerequisites of a monopoly would be that you’ve got a majority of the share overall and can dictate the market… Steam can’t really
👌
Be a random developer and release a successful game without steam at all.
Dumb ass.
Chads in here love to axe billionaires until it’s this guy.
Why not mention WHY he’s successful (not because they act like a toxic monopoly).
The Steam libraries provide cloud backups, live streaming, remote play, transparent linux support, controller support, licencing. All this stuff is a few lines of developer code. Even multiplayer support over the internet they facilitate and is apparently a few lines of code. And, that excludes steam’s awesome handling of dependencies, so you don’t get weird DLL errors 10 years after buying a game. It’s because he gives people what he wants.
https://partner.steamgames.com/?ref=stebet.net
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features
This is the stuff nobody talks about… But, it provides the tools so small developers CAN compete with bigger ones.
Many of us with games we purchased 10 years ago, are finding they still work in Windows, and often also work in Linux now too (without any effort on their part), because Steam assists with dependencies, portability, linux-compatibility and libraries. Whereas, even Wii U stuff you need to re-buy for switch.
For me, Linux support was a huge draw card actually (GOG still don’t have an official one), and they’re one of the huge reasons why Linux is still competitive in the desktop market (whilst Wine has existed for a long time, Linux Steam made it seamless via Proton, and you can’t even tell which ones are running proton, and which are native anymore in most cases). Steam aren’t really competing against other game developers either (other than with Half life), and they’re not blocking any of their customers from using multiple platforms. They’re certainly not forcing exclusives
Also, provides free steam keys for devs they can sell or give out freely elsewhere.
Imagine if Apple allowed people to sell their apps on their own website, but you’d still get the license on the app store, without Apple getting their 30% cut? Valve literally does this.
Basically the only rule is that the prices should be the same on all platforms.
This is the part that the “walled garden” arguments I see conveniently ignores so often. Humble games and key reselling, good and bad, exist because of this rule. That 30% otherwise covers Steam dealing with sales, key distribution, payment providers, and all the legal liabilities that comes with that for you. Unless you can securely and continuously run your own shopfront below that 30% margin, there’s not a whole lot of incentive to do so… But Steam isn’t stopping anyone, not even Epic in fact. The so-called wall is like a foot high.
The DRM isn’t even that deep either and has known tools to remove it if you want. It exists as a bare minimum requirement for copyright law and Steam friends but not much else, hence why publishers often use things like Denuvo still.
We don’t ‘defend’ Valve’s monopoly so much as they really aren’t doing anything special to maintain it besides making Steam libraries accessible on more hardware. They compete by merely existing in the same space.
Because he’s the ceo of a for profit american tech corporation that managed to hook up people into a proprietary walled garden that over the years developed into a close-like monopoly
That walled garden has a huge welcome mat and door.
Other stores can literally add an icon in steam and add their purchased games to the steam interface (like emudeck does)
And there is no attempt by steam to block you from the desktop to install other things, or even other stores (like ps5, switch or Xbox).
Finally, consoles are likely more popular these days. One of the prerequisites of a monopoly would be that you’ve got a majority of the share overall and can dictate the market… Steam can’t really