Now we can not buy their games on Steam, too! π
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I was hoping to see this comment!
It's funny because if Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft and Epic joined forces to make one platform they could put a dent in the steam monopoly.
But since they're bunch of shittiy toxic managers with mentality of screwing everyone around for their own benefit, it's never going to happen. They will always fail and crawl back to Gabe
For a short period, yes probably. But Bethesda is a failing studio and so is Ubisoft. EA has popular sports games but Iβd guess thatβs a very small portion of PC sales considering those games do poorly on the platform compared to consoles. Epic does have loads of money but not enough to float the other companies.
In my view, Microsoft and their GamePass stuff is the only real competitor that will ever take a small dent out of steams sales, mostly because of the Call of Duty titles being on there now. But in order to take 0.05% or whatever of their sales they had to: own the OS for almost every computer running steam, buy dozens of game studios, compete (and lose) in the physical console market over decades, and they had to buy not one but two of the largest studios out there. To the point where they own a significant portion of the iOS App Store that is orders of magnitude more money than PC games and still they cannot compete with steam on their own operating system.
If that doesnβt spell out how unstoppable Steam is, I donβt know what will. The thing that might actually hurt Steam is if those publishers were all GamePass exclusives. Even then, Steam would be just fine I think. Crazy.
Steam does good by the customer. No one else does. Only when they are customer first will they make a dent in Steam sales.
Homie, motherfucking Microsoft couldn't put a dent in STEAM.
Please Microsoft couldn't even maintain Skype dominance after they bought it.
Its literally the prisoners dilemma but they're too greedy to look at it factually π
Explanation for those that don't know https://youtu.be/TJCGTNIwmv8?si=lRAX3BPpKO2j_SOX
Epic enshittified early. The whole system was terrible and they force it onto you. Here is valve actively making it easier to play your games while epic was like "It's PC gaming, you get the good with the bad, suck it!". You can't simply buy your competition when your competition has more money than God.
Epic is failing because Tim Sweeney refused to innovate the platform.
Fuck Tim Sweeney with a linux powered dildo.
He is the reason linux gaming is being held back.
Pornhub video title would be: "Getting all my weak spots penetrated at once by software using 'unsafe custom kernels' "
Even Microsoft doesn't seem to be actively preventing their games from running on Linux. Fuck Sweeney.
That picture of Gaben badly needs the addition of someone feeding him grapes
Someone add the stylized female version of Engineer feeding him grapes
Ubisoft could put their games for free right into my PC's games folder and I still wouldn't play them. They're shit.
Once youβve played one Ubisoft game youβve played them all. They did that thing where they took the best gameplay loops from each of their games and implemented them in their other games. So you always feel like youβve done it before.
Their stories dance around the idea of saying something meaningful without actually taking a stance on anything. They feel like theyβve been approved by a board of directors and not the vision of an artist.
Absolutely soulless.
Spot on, I feel exactly the same about their games.
I used my money to put one of their games in my library and when I noticed (after the refund window) that it was an Ubisoft game, I decided to play something else.
I don't subscribe to the sunk cost fallacy.
Man, I don't like the Steam monopoly on principle, but I have to admit I do struggle to pay attention to Epic exclusives. It's simply the launcher I open the least after GOG and Steam. I've though "hey, wasn't that Ubi Star Wars thing out" like two or three times and forgot about it between remembering that's an Epic thing and deciding whether I wanted to buy it.
But hey, since we're going multiplat again, I could use some newer Ubi games on GOG, too.
Valve is just one shite CEO away from going from PC's blessing to its curse.
I choose to believe that Gabe's will bequeaths Steam to a cohort of independent non-profits and co-ops which will each be charged with attempting to continue to elevate gamers and gaming according to Gabe's 1,200 page manifesto.
GabeN will name twelve disciples who will spread His word and continue His work.
sixteen (0-F), but yes.
Itβs a good monopoly, for now and hopefully for a long time.
The fact that Valve went out of their way to make gaming better in Linux, says a lot imho.
It's tough for any public companies to compete because they keep setting off their own footguns, ensuring they don't succeed in the space. As long as Gabe is around I'm okay with this one (1) monopoly, as a treat.
The weirdest thing is that steam doesn't have a natural or self reinforcing monopoly. It wouldn't take much for another company to copy their business model, and provide a competitor. In practice, however, they all fall flat on their faces.
Steam's model is to give up short term gain for a smaller long term gain. Over time, this has snowballed into what we see now. Gabe is happy to get ever richer from his golden goose laying away. The competitors get started, then try and gut the goose for a quick buck.
It kind of does.
You get user lock-in as users buy more games, making it so Steam is always a store to buy from. You can't deplatform from Steam. At that point, you can't replace Steam with another DRM platform to pay existing games. That creates a large customer base which becomes a must add for vending new games.
It isn't a hard monopoly, but it helps create a soft monopoly.
I'm on the same page as you, it's tough. I have no idea how any other platform can really achieve competitor status with steam, and this is a big problem for us consumers and for developers.
All Epic had to do was build a good store front with similar features as Steam provides. They didnβt. Their store sucked from the beginning and it also blows now. Relying purely on exclusives and freebies was a losing game - they needed to back it up by making the service worthwhile beyond that, and they utterly failed to do so.
I have no idea how any other platform can really achieve competitor status with steam
Aside from all the (other) obvious options replicating Steam, theres always the tried and true option of offering lower prices. To my knowledge, no one has been willing to try that yet.
Lower prices was a promise by Epic. We take a smaller cut from the devs so the savings can be passed down to the customers.
Didnt happen, buying on Epic is just getting a worse experience and giving the devs more money for it.
That's half the reason I don't buy Ubisoft games. The other half is their launcher and DRM system.
Why is it always this one photo of Gabe? It's like a meme format that journalists use unironically any time Steam comes up.
Especially because IIRC he lost a bunch of weight since and looks better
Oh man, that picture of Gabe just keeps getting better.
Ubisoft left steam? Didn't even know it, their games have gotten terrible reviews for so long, and their uplay platform is so shitty, I have skipped them until they fixed their game dev or cancelled uplay, haha.
Didnt even know they left. Not bothered with any of their games in so long.