I laugh when i see this shit.

Imagine creating a platform which is so feature rich, and costs nothing for consumers to use, that other distributors want to legally force you to separate it from your store so they have a chance to sell the consumer the same game, for the same price (or more), but on "an equal playing field".

It surprised me that only 10% had tried selling their games on GOG. I guess the thought of going DRM-free was scarier than the monopoly of Steam.

What makes Steam so compelling for consumers is that it's more than just a digital storefront and launcher. They've expanded into so many different areas: Steam Input, Steam Remote Play, Steam Friends, Steam Workshop, Proton, Steam Marketplace, etc.

There is so much they do that it's not really just a store anymore -- it's an all-in-one platform. Most competitors do not come close to equal in any of these features; they usually just have basic launchers and maybe decent friend systems.

In my opinion, GOG is the best competitor yet because of their DRM-free installers and GOG Galaxy on windows which allowed you to have all your games in one place.

Remember when Ubisoft came crawling back to Steam?

I mean, they're not really wrong. Valve has a monopoly on game distribution the same way that Google has a monopoly on Internet search. Alternatives exist, but they aren't really competing with Steam.

Valve has so far been pretty pro-consumer which is how they got to where they are, but yhat doesn't really change the fact that they essentially get to set the rules for digital distribution of games.

If only all monopolies were so user-positive.

I suspect what's unique in valve's case is that they don't have investors and board members and other stakeholders to lead them toward short-term profit maximization.

Unless games become something we truly own, steam is going to stay dominant. It's more like a utility than a storefront. If you want to remove the dominance of steam you need to force a way to move libraries of games to other platforms.

Steam also got their monopoly the honest way by simply being the most consumer friendly option.

It's a monopoly that benefits the consumer.

It could easily not be a monopoly if any other company was dedicated to making as good of a customer experience.

from the overall pool, 75% of respondents were senior managers

So... not developers, but businessmen.

Is it a monopoly though. Monopolies are there to protect the consumer, not really the seller. A developer does not need to use steam at all. I really don't think steam can control the pricing like that. Like, if steam started to raise prices on people buying the games, then I feel like people would still jump ship. Places like gog and itch.io exist. There are plenty of game stores as well, Microsoft, Nintendo, ea.

The problem developers have is they feel if they make a PC game, that they have to put it on steam and no other platform or they won't make money. But the developer still has choices and I feel like steam is pretty reasonable with their cut and the tools they offer developers. A developer can even sell their game on a different platform at the same time they sell it on steam. They can even sell steam keys on their own website if they wanted to.

To call steam a monopoly is a bit of a stretch. People still have plenty of choices and steam isn't circle jerking their consumers.

Steam is the reason I was able to get away from windows without having to give up a lot of games (and probably would need to do annoying troubleshooting for the ones that do work, since most of the compatibility issues I have seen were because the game tried to run natively instead of via proton).

Turns out if you invest in making your platform not suck it ends up paying dividends. Figure it out dumbfucks.

It's only a monopoly in that it's so much more popular than everything else that's come along, and the main reason for that is because it's better than competitors. Most others are just publisher stores, and almost all have functionality that users disagree with.

In the OP article, the game distribution platform Rokky is also apparently a publisher store, having recently bought the rights to distribute Chinese games in the west.

The problem with this "anti-monopoly" rhetoric is that players want to play on the same platform as everyone else.

Game distribution platform Rokky has just released the results of a study it conducted with 306 senior managers of PC game developers (all from the US or UK)

Unsurprising that they find this, since that's what their business is about.

MAXIMIZE GLOBAL GAME SALES WITH ROKKY

Expand sales of your PC game beyond Steam. Sell game keys to 200+ global storefronts simultaneously with Rokky. Enjoy revenue increases of up to 100%.

Valve is "de facto" monopoly, bit the actual monopoly potential is in Microsoft hands. Microsoft is for PC gaming industry what Google is for the web browser one. Sure, there may be other cool web browsers, but it's Google that (through Android base) decide whic web browser will be delivered with the next billions of Android mobile device: some elderly people on smartphone don't even know what is a web browser ("oh, you mean when I Google? I don't know: I just Google").

All future new PC will be sold with Microsoft Store and Xbox junk ware: Microsoft has been exceptionally shitty for not being the actual monopoly in the PC gaming industry. But that's a very feeble protection: break Valve business is just a mandatory "security update" away to happen. They can break Steam little by little (such as suggested by Tim Sweeney) or just a big blow by sheer monopolized manipulation (such as Google not allowing adblockers to chrome to feed their advertising business)

Something I think a lot of people in first world countries might not be thinking about also, is that Valve set very reasonable prices in third world countries for about 5-10 years. It meant not having to pirate games anymore, risking viruses and having to look for cracks every update, having distributors closed down, etc.

Steam set reasonable prices, had a download manager that could pause downloads, offered download servers in several regions and countries to make it faster, etc. And now they're making gaming on Linux easier. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Platforms like EGS have been throwing incredible games at us for years (until recently), and they can't get enough people to stick around because it's just not worth the trouble even free. I have collected many of those games, and I ended up buying them on Steam because it was just easier to deal with, even with third-party modding (such as SMAPI for Stardew Valley).

The one thing I will say against Valve/Steam is that their social platform is a shitshow and either they should invest in moderation or just shut it down, because it's impossible to enter there and not be blasted with racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. It sucks because there have been times when I went to a game's Steam forum and found out about some recent bug or workaround, so there is value there, but it's completely overtaken with all the bigotry. But I get it, gAmErS... if they ever moderated that place, their userbase would probably shrink.

Valve has a huge amount of good will to burn and the cynical side of me is waiting for the day they start.

How'd they get their polling pool? Sitting outside the Valve corporate office?

They're a functional monopoly in my case since I'm on Linux. GOG is the main competitor for my money.

Bullshit. There are many other PC games stores and launchers. Only reason they don't have lot of users is because they are just not very good. In my view, Valve is not actively trying to establish any monopoly, their competition is mostly incompetent, especially EGS. Of course, I understand that if devs want their games to succeed, they have to play by Valve's rules, but let's face it, that's where customers are. This is not by some trickery of Valve. It's because Valve happens to be very pro-consumer. So, I don't agree with the assertion that Steam is a monopoly.

Epic games store could have been great and yet, Epic's disdain for gamers has caused it to fail. Now EGS is just a glorified Fortnite launcher for the most part.

I am not saying that Steam or even Valve is perfect. They are not. They are just leagues better than their competition.

When you buy something digital, since it’s expensive, you want an assurance that the platform would honor your access for many years.

Valve has the best chance of that.