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Steam keeps on winning
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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I know everyone loves Valve, but it feels super weird to be celebrating a monopoly so much and so ferociously. (I know Steam isn't a technical monopoly. We don't need to have that discussion)
Gaben is old, and he's gonna retire. It'll likely be a lot sooner than anyone here is comfortable with. When Valve gets sold, or even when gaben isn't in total control anymore, things are going to start changing, and there isn't going to be a healthy, diverse marketplace to soften that.
There is a very good chance that the PC platform will be a really horrible place because of the lack of consumer choice in which they can purchase and play games.
It's not Steam's fault if their competitors can't make a good product. Steam is still the only one with Linux support.
"This product is worthless because it doesn't cater to... Let me check my notes... Under 2% of the market and even less if we don't count the Steam Deck!"
Ok buddy
I really don't understand this argument. Aren't you basically pointing out that Steam is better because they cater to a demographic that most companies won't consider because of the small market size?
No, I'm pointing out that it's perfectly normal that other companies don't see the point of spending money on it. Steam has 70% of the PC market which is 96% of the market and you think it's a good idea to put energy into trying to capture some shares of less than 2% of the market where they have basically a 100% hold.
Don't start a business.
I understand that it's normal, but the argument still doesn't make sense for the purposes of this discussion. For people who do use Linux, it is worthless since they can't use it. I also can't blame Linux users for not liking a company that has been hostile to them (i.e. removing Linux support from a game that had it.) You're just reinforcing that Steam is a better option for them.
The problem is that the complaints aren't "It might be a good product, I can't try it because they don't support my OS of choice and that's understandable considering the small user base" which is perfectly reasonable, the complaints are "Epic sucks because they don't support Linux and [insert a bunch of stuff that hasn't been true for years or that also applies to Valve as a company]" which isn't reasonable.
It's not just that though. A lot of people have already pointed out that Epic appears to be actively hostile towards Linux by removing compatibility for games that had it before. People have also pointed out that turning on Linux compatibility for EAC is fairly trivial, but they refuse to do it. For some games, Linux users have to go through extra loops just to make it work. So when it looks like a company is treating a certain demographic as something that's worth less than shit for no apparent reason, I'm not too surprised that they'll have a negative attitude towards that company.
And say what you want about Valve, but they have pushed Linux compatibility and it's not surprising why Linux users have a more positive view of them over Epic. As I've already said, your argument reinforces this point.
You have a comforting and appealing way of getting your point across that totally leaves the listener/reader readily open to considering your opinion. Keep doing that.