• nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksOPM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    10 months ago

    The problem is that all the competition to steam is far far inferior to steam in technology and ideology and future prospects. Steam isn’t a publicly traded company, has features that are pro consumers, is supporting other OS’s and doesn’t have a CEO that is a prick like epic.

    • echo64@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      Sure. But what if Gabe newel decided to sell tomorrow. Just wants to retire maybe he’s pretty old. What if Microsoft buys it and you’re left with a monopoly you don’t like. That’s the eventuality of every unhealthy industry.

      • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksOPM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Well it will be a sad day and Ubisoft, Microsoft and Epic competition won’t fix anything if steam goes to shit. Steam is basically the unicorn and once it becomes extinct we won’t get anything half decent to replace it with. Publicly traded companies are the bedrock of unhealthy industries.

        • echo64@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          10 months ago

          Competition in the marketplace is the only thing that has any chance of saving you when that day comes.

          You are in lucky days today. Tomorrow won’t be so good, but you can choose to support an industry controlled by a monopoly, or you can support an industry with healthy competition.

          I would hope that Gamers aren’t so near sighted, but I’ve been proven wrong over and over again.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            20
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            10 months ago

            “Supporting competition” is not a good enough reason to use a shitty service. If I start a service that charges twice as much as Steam and has none of the features would you use it in order to “support competition”?

            If the only reason to purchase from Epic is “they exist” that’s not good enough.

            I will happily avoid Epic’s attempts to be a monopoly now over worrying that Steam might be shitty in the future.

            • echo64@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              9 months ago

              It’s super weird to me that you guys think epic is trying to be a monopoly. Epic had 0.00001% of the market. In their wildest dreams they might expect to get ten percent.

              • woelkchen@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                9 months ago

                Epic had 0.00001% of the market.

                The numbers for Fortnite, available on EGS but not Steam, tell otherwise.

              • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                9 months ago

                Just because they aren’t good at it doesn’t mean they aren’t trying very hard to do so, and will clearly be very shitty if they ever achieve it.

          • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksOPM
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            14
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            When steam shuts down and we have Ubisoft and Epic to replace it with I’m just moving to itch.io and probably torrenting my steam library if it comes to the worst. Also I might actually stop playing games since steam is pushing proton development forward and without them I have no reason to play or buy anything new. Epic’s shitty CEO has made toxic remarks against linux before and Ubisoft just couldn’t care less. I’ll support a company that supports my interests, epic doesn’t so I don’t simple as.

          • Zorque@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            That would be helpful if they actually tried to be competitive on the same level.

            Unfortunately they’re only competing for profit, not as a service. Which is why they’re failing.

            Competition bettering service only works if people want to compete to create a better service. That clearly isn’t the case.

      • leftzero@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        Then we’d go back to sailing the high seas, until a better alternative shows up; as Gabe said, piracy is a service problem.

    • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      10 months ago

      I feel Steam vs competitors is like how after 1st wave MCU, everyone was jumping on that bandwagon, but instead of putting in the groundwork just skipped ahead, or like the monsters one just abandoned it because of one bad movie.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          10 months ago

          No, 99% of the reason they use it is that they were first to market, made it mandatory for their first party games that were extremely popular at the time (and even today) and became defacto mandatory for many third party games as it made it simpler to control piracy to just sell through them or include a key in the physical copy and force people to install Steam. The majority of Steam users are casuals that couldn’t care less about their forums, cards, social profiles and so on. It’s the same thing in everything, there’s enthusiasts that think everyone is as crazy as they are about their hobby, the majority are just casual users that will never know/use half of the possibilities available to them because they don’t care.