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this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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The problem is these stores (Epic but also the Microsoft Store and Amazon's PC game store) only come along because some executive says "hey what if instead of Valve taking a cut from most PC games, we took a cut from most PC games", there's 0 interest or intent for them to be competition (as seen by the exclusives) for Steam or improve the developer/user experience.
Any time these massive companies offer a cheaper subsidised alternative to any existing product it's to push out the smaller players with less resources and build their own monopoly.
Absolutely. It's also an immense amount of work to get a platform up to a competitive standard with Steam; I'm not sure a small company will ever be able to catch up in any short term time frame.
But stores like Fanatical, GreenManGaming, GameBillet, etc. have the better idea of just being stores that focus on getting customers better deals. They don't even attempt to edge onto Steam's turf because a storefront can't compete with Steam, nor can a half-baked launcher.
Reality is that Valve has functionally a 20 year head start on any company that wants to try and edge in on their turf. So it can't be done just to get a cut of sales because you're not going to have the follow-through to build the user base if that's your reason.
I disagree with your statement. 20 years of head start could also be seen as 20 years of polishing a previously non-existent service. Today Steam's features are widely known. Just make an app with same or similar features and you're golden. The blueprint is there!
As an example of "what-could-have-been" I would present Immich which is an alternative to Google Photos and iCloud. Developed by a tiny group of people. It does lack some features that Google Photos/iCloud has. But for the most part it easily could substitute anyone's photo-storing needs.
If bunch of people with no money in their pocket and only free time off work managed to develop a fully functional, well polished photo app that would rival market giants, why cant market giants make something that would rival Steam?
I see your point, but I also think that Steam is so much more than what your example gives. In your case, Steam also has Instagram built in, it has photography forums, it has low-level interfaces to standardize hardware control across multiple camera brands and types, it has a body & lens store, it offers additional software to aid in photo editing, and... and... and...
It's really an impressive accomplishment what Valve have done with Steam and the hardware/software in its orbit. And that's not even mentioning all the work that they've poured into the open-source community to make Linux a viable gaming platform. Yes, it serves them all in the end, but little of it is easy and it's all taken a lot of work over the years.