Again, doesn't sound similar to me. There are plenty of exclusives both on the streaming and the videogames world. But the history on steam doesn't follow Netflix's history at all. I think the problem is equating a public trade, stockholders driven service that is entirely in the gutter of service quality and shitty corporate behavior. With a private company that has a mostly solid ethic track record (with few exceptions) that offers unrivaled added value. Netflix already lost the streaming wars. Max exclusives will never go to Netflix, Disney would rather feed children to the pigs than share their IPs. While devs already negotiate time windows to end the exclusivity deals with Epic right out of the gate. Publishers will foam at the mouth about exclusivity just to release steam versions two years later. It's a massively different situation to Netflix.

They'd have to do something really crazy to have me pick Amazon over GOG!

... and then they'll recoil in horror when you mention that's what a monopoly is. Monopolies can be positive and functional. They're still monopolies. Streaming was better was Netflix was the only choice, and had everything, for a reasonable price. Competition's supposed to be what drives those qualities. Exclusivity breaks that. Exclusivity splinters the market into desperate fiefdoms. But there's still a word for when only one store matters.

What position are they taking advantage of? If they ask for a smaller cut than 30 percent they get botched at for being anti competitive and being too cheap to try and compete against. They ask for more than 30% and they're price gouging. Sure, everyone who works there is happy and sleeps in piles of money, but they can't do anything about it without turning into more of a monopoly. As it stands they at least blow money on potentially cool things in R&D like the steam controller, steam box, and Steam Deck. What do you actually want Gabe to do? He's already far and wide the industry leader in employee compensation, and he can't take a smaller cut without becoming a monopoly. Yeah, he could donate loads of money to charity, but his giant stack of cash also keeps his private company lush with funds to continue paying his employees if anything dire does happen, instead of doing like everyone else and laying off people.

'Why didn't they just try harder?' is an increasingly worrying take. A company could copy Steam's storefront and backend, verbatim, and it wouldn't impact Steam's monopoly on PC game sales. They're entrenched *and* they're well-liked. You can't buy a reputation overnight. Blaming the action without considering the environment is still a mistake. Epic tried everything, and people still scoff about UI, like *that's* the billion-dollar difference. Nah: it's attributing the difference in outcome to surface-level distinctions. And if Epic unfucked their apparently ugly storefront, these people would pick another excuse, because I guarantee you it wouldn't change EGS's irrelevance.

Steam was the first to offer 2 hour/14 day refunds, as well as refunds over broken games. They brought reviews to the storefront. Communities and discussion boards to communicate with devs and find like-minded players. Demos, 4 packs, easy access to servers and SDKs, easy update delivery and tracking for consumers... It's a store-front with a strong focus on consumer happiness. People are not going to give that up for EGS or Prime, which are run by psychopaths and not even remotely consumer-friendly. Tim Sweeny even said EGS is made for developers, with the implication it is not for consumers. GOG is probably the closest competitor that stands any hope of success but they have steered clear of actually entering Steam's territory, preferring to grab a market Steam neglects (retro PC gamers). Considering they have not developed the other systems Steam has I don't think they *want* to compete and are content to coexist.

You're defending the owner of a yacht collection and saying his money is used to keep his business lush... Get real.

I hate the idea of more game stores because exclusives piss me off, and that's the only viable tactic another store could use to get people to leave steam. When Netflix was all there was, it was great. We saw in real time how that shitshow ended. I had to bring out my old ship and chart new waters. I do not want to do this with my game library.

Something like 70% of their net income comes from AWS that pretty much runs a huge portion of the internet.

And you didn't answer my question.

No no, you don't understand! He's one of the *good* billionaires! (/s for some of you, and for others perhaps you should reconsider why you feel the need to defend a billionaire, regardless of your opinion on video game platforms)

It's basically like G-Force now for a selection of GOG and epic games

Neat. Explaining how they got the monopoly doesn't change that they have a monopoly. Amazon or Epic could do all that - and they genuinely could, god knows they have the money - but the result would not be the same. They exist in the context of Steam already running shit. Adoption is a feature you cannot design. That's why Valve had to force it on people via Half-Life 2. > Tim Sweeny even said EGS is made for developers, with the implication it is not for consumers. What an absurd read. As if middlemen taking a third of revenue is pro-consumer.

Because such a ridiculous take doesn't warrant a response.

>What an absurd read. As if middlemen taking a third of revenue is pro-consumer. Considering this was a shift from retail where getting games to retail cost a great deal more, how exactly is that bad? Also you know nothing stops gamedevs from selling their keys elsewhere and getting all of the revenue right?

That shift was a quarter-century ago. 'It used to suck worse' is a bad excuse even when it's fresh. I don't care what Steam would cost if they were a brick-and-mortar store; they have only ever done digital distribution, and they have done it for a *while.* Their cut is so huge that they can afford to let devs sell keys elsewhere, knowing it makes no difference to their immense profit margin. Largely because their monopoly is self-reinforcing, and the number of off-site sales is a rounding error. Meanwhile: What Epic means by "for developers" is, developers keep more of the money. Walk me through how that's bad for you.

Lol. Sure, buddy.

From the get go you start by saying that if they try to lower their cut people will accuse them of trying to become a monopoly, which is completely idiotic considering they're already in a monopolistic position. Then you act like rich people have no power over the fact that they're accumulating wealth while the majority of the world is struggling to live. I have zero respect for people who defend those who take advantage of the majority. Off to the block list with you.

Lol. Take advantage of who?

I don't think they tried releasing a compelling product.