> Alan Wake 2 wasn’t profitable until EGS exclusivity expired Well yeah, because EGS sucks. If you look at Steam's competitors, none of them are really developing their feature set. So even if customers were dissatisfied w/ Steam, who is actively trying to earn their business? > aren’t you worried that having one good option is being one good option away from having no good options? Sure, I'd _love_ it if another platform stepped up to actually compete w/ Steam. My expectations are fairly low: it needs to work well on Linux. Heroic largely resolves that for EGS and GOG, but I'm not particularly interested in supporting a platform that only works because some community project has done the work for them. So if GOG supported Galaxy on Linux as a first class citizen, I'd probably still use Heroic, but I'd buy a _lot_ more games from them. But as it stands, GOG is one update away from blocking access to my games through a launcher, and dealing w/ WINE/Proton directly is a pain. EGS is so far away from what I care about that I don't think they could ever earn my business, but who knows, maybe they'll surprise me. But the fact that we're even _having_ this discussion is a testament to Steam's success. Heroic probably wouldn't be a thing w/o Valve's investment into Proton/WINE, so GOG/EGS wouldn't even be a consideration for me at all. But since that work _was_ done, I now have more options. I've played some GOG and EGS games through Heroic, so it's not even theoretical, they are realistic alternatives. It's important to note that at every turn, Valve has earned my trust. When games are pulled from their store, owners of those games still have access (e.g. I bought Rocket League on Steam, and when they went EGS exclusive, I _still_ had the old version of the game). They have a solid refund policy, and they have gone out of their way to make things more pleasant for their customers. Even if they didn't have a dominant market position, I'd probably _still_ choose them just based on the user experience. So yeah, not having a realistic alternative isn't great, but I don't think it's because of anything nefarious Valve has done, but instead lack of interest by their competitors.

Valve will never IPO, yes! I don't care *why*. Platforms that IPO universally get worse and worse as they wring every drop of shareholder value from their users to feed the infinite growth machine. Platforms that have shareholders (which includes Epic and CDPR's GOG) have a primary motive of "being more profitable than last year". If, let's say, Epic made ten billion dollars in profit last year but *also* made ten billion dollars in profit in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, it'd be a *failed company*. I'll happily take the only company in the PC gaming space that's content with *one* money printer over every other option that's always thinking about how to make a second one, or reduce the ink costs, or blah blah blah. It's just a happy coincidence that in the PC gaming space (unlike pretty much every other space), the shareholder-free thing is *also* the most popular, and best thing. I'd use the worse less-popular thing if that thing were the only thing free from growth capitalism. If a game dev doesn't value their presence on the Steam store higher than the cost of Steam's service, they don't list on Steam. Simple as. It's just that a lot of dev studios consider "visible on the Steam store" to be very valuable indeed. That's what they're paying for, not the stuff about Steam that benefits the user (client features like Input, Workshop, Cloud, Community, etc).

You are insistent on not changing your perspective on it being a monopoly because you want it to be one. It's not like your scenario. Other people have figured it out. Epic game store is right there and so is GOG and others. People do buy from them and some prefer them. The problem is that you want it to be a monopoly as an excuse for why people are using the service more than others. That is simply not the case. You ignore that people do shop around sometimes and others don't cause it's easy and not everyone is how you think of them. You are Don Quixote yelling at the windmills thinking it's gonna save the country. Have an actual alternative you want instead of just being upset how things are.

So is the issue that Valve kicks you off the platform if you sell your game cheaper somewhere else? That does seem a little troublesome. I don't think Apple or Sony has those restrictions? Apple takes 30% as well, right?

Yes, that is the big thing many people are missing. Valve takes a 0% cut from Steam keys sold outside of their platform. The 30% does not apply. The only rule Valve sets out here is that you don't sell those Steam keys for less on other storefronts. Which imo seems fair enough if Valve is doing the distribution and asking for nothing in return. The big sticking point is whether the 30% cut isn't too high in the first place.

Sorry that my mean words hurt you more than Valve abusing you.

> Valve will never IPO, yes! I don't care \*why\*. Wow.

Your requirements are extremely niche, most gamers don’t care about Linux. Maybe they should have an option of a store that doesn’t charge 30% but is Windows only. Again, it doesn’t matter if Valve got into a monopoly position fair and square. The moment their monopoly is self perpetuating is the moment we no longer are in a free market where quality and price are main considerations for consumers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_anarchism_and_libertarianism Dang. What now.

Plenty of explanation for this in this thread already, why waste this guys time too.

i’m still not sure you’ve read that page

No, you can go through my post/comment history and see that those are my long-held beliefs that I support with arguments/facts unlike people I discuss with.

You haven't put 1 factbto support an argument. Telling people they are wrong isn't a fact, it's a statement. You know nothing haha

Weird that none of you will answer a plain question.... Almost like you don't have actual reasons.

Ok, I’m not entertaining sealions.

i’m still not sure you’ve read that page

A store charging 30% has zero impact on the end user if the price is the same, which it is in many cases. And popular titles pay 20%, not 30%. > The moment their monopoly is self perpetuating is the moment we no longer are in a free market That depends on your definition of "self-perpetuating". To me, it's only problematic if Valve is anticompetitive, such as paying for exclusives (like Epic does), preventing cross-play, or charging a subscription or something for users to keep having access to their games. Just having a better product isn't anticompetitive though. I've laid out my requirements for a viable competitor, and I'm sure other gamers have their own. If a competitor wants our business, they need to meet our requirements.

In 2025, a company that is just looking to make a shitload of money is enough to automatically "win". Valve: "What are you selling?" Video games, video game hardware without vendor lock-in, and in-app purchases. "Who are you selling it to?" PC gamers. Literally everyone else in the space except for Itch, which is decidedly focused on too-indie-for-indie games and is small enough to be acquired if it ever gets popular: "What are you selling?" The promise that we'll make more profit next year than this year. "Who are you selling it to?" Shareholders or a corp that'll buy the whole company. It's an absolute no-brainer. Until *anyone else* can answer these questions in the same way Valve does, Valve is automatically the best player in the space.

And there is it, you have no argument so you go insults. You can't accuse people of sealioning if you have 0 evidence to support your argument.

So is the issue that Valve kicks you off the platform if you sell your game cheaper somewhere else? That does seem a little troublesome. I don't think Apple or Sony has those restrictions? Apple takes 30% as well, right?