I would love for Steam to have **actual competition. Which is difficult, sure, but you could run a slightly less feature-rich store, take less of a cut, and pass the reduction fully on to consumers and you'd be an easy choice for many gamers.

But that's not what Epic is after. They tried to go hard after the sellers, figuring that if they can corner enough fo the market with exclusives the buyers will have to come. But they underestimated that even their nigh-infinite coffers struggle to keep up with the raw amount of games releasing, and also the unpredictability of the indie market where you can't really know what to buy as an exclusive.
Nevermind that buying one is a good way to make it forgotten.

So yeah, fully agreed. Compared to Epic, I vastly prefer Steam's 30% cut. As the consumer I pay the same anyways, and Steam offers lots of stuff for it like forums, a client that boots before the heat death of the universe, in-house streaming, library sharing, cloud sync that sometimes works.

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[–] FireTower 163 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I trust a steam monopoly long before I'd trust epic. Epic is run to meet the needs of share holders and valve is run to meet the needs of Gaben.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gaben isn't going to last forever. But honestly the only other good games storefront is GoG. I'll continue using Steam for as long as it's still good.

[–] FireTower 32 points 1 year ago

I've used GoG once for a game that wasn't on steam but I have done much more. Honestly I acknowledge that this ephemeral moment in time where PC gaming is kept in balance by Gaben can't last. But I really think the lens we should look at PC landscape today is one of appreciation. If EA ran the game in steam's shoes we wouldn't get things like summer sales or games at reduced prices long after their launch.

Don't be sad it will be gone be happy it happened.

[–] Cabrio 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Gaben has been hands off at valve for a decade. He's off breaking world records with research submersibles. Playing with his rubber duckies in the bathtub.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is that not what you want from him?

[–] Cabrio 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just saying that trust in Gaben and trust in Valve are two separate things. Valve has been doing fine without Gaben at the wheel.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The point is that, other than Gabe, Valve doesn't have any shareholders to put before their customers. A publicly traded company, on the other hand, effectively has no choice but to cause as much harm as possible to their customers and to society in general in order to maximize short term shareholder profits, leading to runaway enshittification.

[–] brawleryukon 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A publicly traded company, on the other hand, effectively has no choice but to cause as much harm as possible to their customers and to society in general in order to maximize short term shareholder profits

Nobody is talking about public companies here. Both Valve and Epic are private companies.

If you want to complain about profit motives, that's a capitalism problem overall, not an issue with public vs. private corporations.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

One of those companies is partly owned and heavily influenced by a publicly traded Chinese company.

[–] MiikCheque 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

are you referring to tennacent (likely misspelled)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

No I am referring to Tencent Holdings Limited

https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=700:HKG

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you think he uses a steam controller to steer the sub?

[–] Cabrio 3 points 1 year ago

If he is I know someone who could use one. Oh...

[–] Chobbes 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Both Valve and Epic are private companies. I still trust Valve over Epic, but I think technically Tim Sweeney has pretty much full control over Epic as well (for better or for worse).

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

He does, but not the stake Gaben has. Sweeny sold 40% to tencent. This still gives him control, but thats a very large shareholder that can push and pull when they want.

[–] brawleryukon 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They can't "push and pull" anything. With Sweeney owning 50%+1, Tencent and anyone else he sold shares to can literally do nothing - he will always have the final say. And since the company is private, there's almost certainly an agreement/contract in place on those share purchases that if someone wants to dump them they have to offer them back to him/the company first. Since it's not a public company they can't just go sell their shares on an open market. The threat of a large shareholder is gone in a case like this - they can't stage a hostile takeover and they can't dump and run.

[–] bighi 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You’re thinking of technically taking the decisions in the company. But shareholders can do much more. Like influencing the value of stocks by selling too many at once.

[–] brawleryukon 1 points 1 year ago

Tell me you didn't actually read my comment without telling me you didn't read my comment.

[–] stevehobbes 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You’re also assuming there are no other shareholders………..

Sure, maybe those 106 are sharing 10% but I doubt it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Another point for me at least, I actually put in effort to not getting made in China products where feasible. The same thing applies here, supporting epic is supporting China. I really just prefer not to support China, so no epic games for me.

[–] Chobbes 1 points 1 year ago

Ah that’s a fair point. I haven’t paid too much attention to this. Thanks for providing some more context :).