this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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1: Steam is NOT a monopoly, competition exists for it, its just that most of it is garbage, and the few that arent, GoG and Itch, Steam outcompetes
2: This is a problem of Steams competition being bad, not with Steam itself
I'm sorry bud, but Monopoly doesnt mean "Really large company" Steam has competition, it doesnt do anything to hamper competition, and its easy enough for new competition to arise. It is not a monopoly in any sense of the word. It is the top player as a digital videogame marketplace because it is leaps and bounds better than all of its competition. You dont like the risks of digital ownership? Understandable, GoG exists to fill that niche.
It definitely doesnt need me to. I'm just calling bulshit on arguements that are bulshit. And it being in court for that doesnt mean its going to lose, I'd be surprised if someone wasnt attempting to sue them if it meant they could get more money, welcome to capitalism. And Steam has the position it has and is the "default" game store entirely because it is an amazing storefront and its competition sucks. You have to go out of your way to install Steam, the same amount of steps as any other digital storefront. Anyways idealists like you who dont even have a toe in the real world exhaust me, so I'm going to block you now
This isn't Steam specific; this applies to almost every digital marketplace. Yeah, it sucks, but there's some things you just have to accept. When's the last time you bought a physical copy of a PC game?
You don't need to buy physical copies. Games from GoG and, for example, itch.io can be downloaded DRM free.
This reminds me of a certain CEO who said gamers need to "get comfortable not owning games" so that subscription models can grow. I can imagine so, so many gamers in a couple years saying this sentence about that and so many more new exploitative practices.
The truth is, we don't need to accept it. They need us to accept it so they can get away with it.
Pushback is crucial.
It's not steam's fault that the competition is garbage 🧐