I mean, provide evidence that it doesn't? Why would we have to seek dev opinions to prove this?
wish that would be true, then all thess games would be not windows exclusive anymore. And i could like get like an linux game console to play fortnite.
To me, the amount of excusing from the gamer community is incredible. Stuff like “they’re not a monopoly because they’re ethical and I like Steam.”
They are, in fact, a growing pseudo monopoly. They take anticompetitive measures, with their APIs and storefront policies (like dictating pricing on other stores). Set aside the 30% cut, and no, it’s mostly not enshittified on the consumer side…
Yet.
How can people type that out on Reddit + Windows 11, or on their phones, with spam and ads in their face, without seeing the future danger? The irony is tremendous.
Don’t mistake me, I like Valve and the storefront they’ve run so far. I happily use it. But I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them, and am waiting for the shoe to drop.
I don't know what you're expecting. Publishers don't put every game on GoG and all the publisher run stores are very anti consumer, or they're EGS which will definitely turn anti consumer the second they think they've got the market share. Where are you wanting people to buy their games?
As far as I am aware, they only dictate the pricing of Steam keys on other stores. That seems fair to me, because they are doing the distribution in that case. Games that are on Steam can be cheaper elsewhere if they're distributed separately.
That being said, I totally agree that they're a monopoly based on their market power.
72% of devs have no clue what the word monopoly means. That would mean that Steam is the only store selling PC games on the market, but that's not the case. Hell, the article itself mentions several:
However, it also noted that developers have started utilising other platforms including the Epic Game Store and the Xbox PC Games store.
Almost half of those surveyed (48%) have distributed a title to both stores, while 10% have used GOG and 8% have used Itch.io.
So, a monopoly? Most definitely not. A market leader or holder of a vast majority? Yes.
I'm just waiting for the day Steam makes Proton proprietary after outcompeting all the indie open source Linux gaming solutions. And watch as gamers promptly not give a shit and be as uncritically worshipping of this giant profit oriented corporation as they are now. The speed at which people abandoned and outright started hating on other Linux gaming compatibility layers developed by individual people for "sucking" is insane. This is so on the nose Embrace Extend Extinguish but god forbid you call that out and spoil the vibe for people.
"Every other corporation of this size has proven to be my worst enemy but Steam is definitely my friend and has zero ulterior motives. In fact fuck you for daring to speak ill of them."
I'm not sure that's how that shakes out, you can't exactly extinguish open source projects, they may go dormant but they are still there, and there would be the last open source proton build to start from too.
It would also annoy the very people who are most likely to make their own compatibility tools and inconvenience themselves to spite bad business practice. Maybe in some future world where everyone is on Linux/proton, the people who just blindly use windows today because they always have would just keep using the now proprietary proton, but that's far from the way it is today.
Honestly I just use what is easiest to get working, used to do every game manually, then used Lutris, now I use Steam, probably will use something else that's easier in the future, especially if/when my library disappears. Til then I'll support the company that made it much easier to leave Microsoft behind. Nice bonus: valve is one of the least bad large companies in the US at time of writing, so it feels less awful to give them money.
But steam would never do that!
🥺 <-- see? It's just a lil guy!
Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve.
Steam News | Steam Beta Client news
Useful tools:
SteamDB
SteamCharts
Issue tracker for Linux version of Steam