this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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When a monopoly is faced with a smaller, more efficient competitor, they cut prices to keep people from switching, or buy the new competitor, make themselves more efficient, and increase profits.
When Steam was faced with smaller competition that charged lower prices, they did - nothing. They're not the leader because of a trick, or clever marketing, but because they give both publishers and gamers a huge stack of things they want.
Sure, Steam seems fairly okay, especially their Linux support, but I still mostly prefer GOG, wherever possible, because it offers more control to their customer over the product they bought.
It helps that Valve is not publicly traded, but I fear that if the current owner (Gabe Newell) dies, there might be a shift in business practices.
Enshittification can still happen in privately traded/owned companies, it generally happens slower and in case there are other reason for the owner(s) to maximize short term profits (e.g. business built on VC money), it can happen faster.
Gog support sucks tbh. Steam refunds everything no questions asked. Bought elden ring on gog, wrong region, couldn't activate it back home. They told me to suck it. Fuck gog
In what region is Elden Ring available on GOG?
Gog is also much easier to deal with via a VPN. I bought some region locked games easily doing that and could play them anywhere, because they are DRM-free. Steam is much more difficult, because each account belongs to a specific region. Moving accounts means you have to have an bank account and address in different countries, so easy for rich people, more difficult for ordinary folks.
He probably has it confused with green man gaming, the CD key site.
Ah, true. My bad.
So more-efficient competitors emerged against the supermajority market leader and didn't impact that company's market share.
Hmm.
Thats not what they said, "More efficient" didn't happen.
Just either a wildly more toxic environment with Epic, or a cheaper but much less user friendly one with GOG.
Steam didn't need to change because neither of the competition understand the market.
Steam didn't need to change because none of their competitors challenge their de facto monopoly. Reasons do not change how it is plainly a monopoly. They have a supermajority market share, and people glibly admit, they don't even consider buying games except on Steam.
You said
But now you are saying that they didn't challenge the monopoly? If they dont even challenge then how are they competition?
Steam let's me buy games and play them. The interface with Big Picture Mode let's me interact with the store.
The issue I see is that no one is competing on PC with Steam because they keep trying to tie themselves with the fucking trainwreck that's Windows.
They keep trying to tie themselves with shitty desktop launchers.
They keep trying to tie themselves with toxic customer service.
There is competition, but it's with Sony, Microsoft and their consoles.
That's equivocating two definitions of "competition."
... that's admitting they have a monopoly. That's the monopoly we're talking about. You're not disagreeing with me, you're just picking unrelated definitions and talking about something else.
Steam's competitors, on PC, are services like GOG and EGS. Their teensy market share doesn't disqualify them as competitors. They are in the exact same market. That's why they have a "market share." And Steam's market share is so overwhelming that you're treating their would-be rivals like they do not exist.
I could basically buy anything that I get on Steam, on either Epic or GOG. Their market share is not why I buy games on Steam, I gave you those reasons already.
I do not run Windows because its a shitty hostile environment that contractually prevents distributors from providing an optimised interface for gaming. It inserts adverts into every section, and even Windows users unironically complain that Windows Update is malware.
In response to a comment reading: "Reasons do not change how it is plainly a monopoly."
Their market share is what make them a monopoly. That's what the word means.
Upvoting 'no competitors means it's not a monopoly' is tribalism. Y'all don't care about the words. You are performing loyalty. Comments defending the ingroup must be good and smart and right... even if they're repeating the initial criticism.
'Steam's competition doesn't matter.' 'Wrong! They have no competition.' That's worse. You know that's worse, right?
Thats not what was said at all.
No competition is not good. But Epic is worse competition, and GOG is halfhearted competition that is an ultimately worse experience for most people.
You literally said "no one is competing on PC."
If you're not arguing against calling that a monopoly, I'm pretty fuckin' sure everyone else missed it.
That's half my sentence, dont add a full stop where there wasn't one in quotes. It makes you a liar.
And then I list reasons why i don't see the alternatives as credible competition.
"Because" doesn't change what we're talking about. You said: "no one is competing on PC". That's a monopoly. That's you, calling Steam a monopoly. Do you understand that? Saying 'Steam is a monopoly because...' would not change that.