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0 pointsFnoord8y ago0 comments

I know plenty of people who like Steam, including myself. Netflix also does DRM but it Just Works (tm). What sucks is having many platforms.

For example, cable TV (from whereever you are from), Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime is 4 already.

For gaming, there is Steam, Origin, Battle.net, GOG that's 4 already.

If you take a smaller "app store" like Origin the question arises why does this even exist? It brings nothing on top of Steam.

If you want to compete with a product you need to compete on price or features. Well, price is zero, so you gotta compete on features. They can't compete on features, so EA enforces you to use Origin. Screw that. I want all my games in one managing app.

The reason Origin and Battle.net exist is because EA and Blizzard want control and keep people within their own infrastructure and offerings. I do get that from Blizzard's PoV. From EA's, not so much.

Plus that only works because they're reasonably big, and I doubt it works on the long term.

Valve, instead, choose to not only distribute their own games but also provide a complete platform for other publishers. They even allow you to import games which aren't on Steam such as Battle.net ones.

GOG specialises in DRM-free games which Steam doesn't.

0 comments

MagnumOpus8y ago

> Well, price is zero

Except it isn't - Steam reportedly charges a chunky 43% extra on top of what the publisher gets (30% of the retail price you pay goes to Valve).

Other platforms try to charge the same, but for a near-zero-marginal-cost good, it is a bit strange that there is no price competition yet...

FnoordOP8y ago

True, my bad -- it isn't from a developer PoV, and if the developer forwards the cut to the consumer, Steam is more expensive. This actually regularly happens.

The article does mention this, and also mentions a platform who don't take a cut, and explains how it is difficult to compete with these.

I'd argue though that if you self host instead of outsource (to e.g. Steam), this also has costs. So the reasoning that you'd save that 30% would be unreasonable.

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