this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
176 points (97.8% liked)

Games

17589 readers
1186 users here now

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc..
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 6 points 17 hours ago

I think their biggest hurdle was that they are owned by Jeff Bezos

[–] [email protected] 8 points 18 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Every single Amazon product is a half-arsed mess off things that barely function. They're basically just a delivery company that charges a percentage of the package value now.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 8 points 1 day ago

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

[–] SamboT 1 points 23 hours ago

This is why you never really trust anything from a lemmy comment kids.

[–] Broadfern 109 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Everything, including:

  • giving a shit about the customer and having them permanently own their own games, even DRM-free like GOG?

  • Not forcing online connectivity to access the library?

  • Not shoving ads and spyware into the rest of the Amazon platform?

  • Appealing ethically by paying all employees a living wage?

  • Prioritizing innovation in expanding native Linux compatibility?

🤔

[–] Pregnenolone 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Most of the games that Amazon give away are GOG codes lol

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

GOG codes are the absolute best.

[–] Broadfern 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well wipe my ass backwards and call me biscuit; I have been informed today.

[–] criss_cross 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah I found that out too and have been cashing in

[–] RightHandOfIkaros 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Steam doesn't give customers permanent ownership of their games. Its extremely rare, but game licenses do occasionally get revoked on Steam.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Which means that's an area where they could've tried to set themselves apart from Steam.

[–] RightHandOfIkaros 5 points 1 day ago

Those are terms set by the games publishers, Steam and other platforms pass them on to the customer. The only platform big enough to strongarm publishers to not do that is Steam, but it would definitely make some publishers pull out of Steam completely.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

I just installed all the free games I got from Amazon before deleting my account and they're all DRM free...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Broadfern 4 points 2 days ago

Apologies, I should have added the sarcasm tag. /gen

Case in point is that Amazon will try everything for profit except not be cunts

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 day ago

No they didn't.

I never saw a simple program with a clean store front and no bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago

I mean, they didn’t try making a good game store.

[–] andrewth09 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Steam? Set your sights lower. Maybe try to beat GOG or the EA launcher.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] qbus 3 points 1 day ago

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

[–] steeznson 8 points 1 day ago

Their Luna product seems to be different to Steam. It's a streaming platform like Playstation Now or the Google Stadia one that got shut down.

The other games that they've got on there primarily seem to be DRM-free GOG codes, mixed with some for the Epic store. Maybe they meant they were taking on Steam by boosting their competitors?

[–] [email protected] 63 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Ethan Evans desperately trying to keep his job as VP of Prime Gaming:

[–] Harwood97 68 points 2 days ago

I didn't even notice they tried to take on Steam.

[–] Feathercrown 21 points 1 day ago

They barely tried at all

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Nobody is going to overtake steam without being better. Corporate suits are also too out of touch to even come close

[–] Tarquinn2049 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No publicly traded company can compete with a well run private company. Infinitely growing profits breaks everything. Never take a company public if you can help it. It may even be preferable to shutter it if that is the only other option. Having stupid amounts of money is cool and all, but it does nothing useful. Money is only a tool if you actually use it... a golden hammer sitting on a shelf does no one any good.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah even apple is talking about potentially introducing ads into maps when their whole positioning of premium price has meant premium product and experience.

But the pressure of continual stock increases means company has to keep chasing exponential growth as opposed to being content with sustainable growth.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nobody is going to overtake Steam even if they're better. People don't want to have multiple libraries to deal with so you see them brag about paying for games to have them on Steam even though the game has been free on other platforms... Sometimes they even have claimed them and will still spend money to have them on Steam.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Steam will stay great so long as they stay a private company. It's the enshitification of going public and appeasing boardmembers and shareholders that ruin companies like Valve. I hope GabeN chooses a great successor when he decides to step down. Hoping for another 27 years of awesome.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Also a company that isn't primarily a gaming company isn't going to overtake them.

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

No book store could ever take on a retail store....

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Tried everything except building a nice service that doesn't get in the way and that works, without enshittification and monetisation everywhere.

[–] ISolox 16 points 2 days ago

Cloud streaming is not a replacement for steam.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Beat the competition, then enshittify yourself while your customer base sticks with you is the strategy used in all Amazon products. Amazon is the last storefront I would want to sell games in the scale of Steam.

load more comments
view more: next ›