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Maybe I'm not as aware of all the details as others, but it seems to me that Valve has maintained their position by creating an incredible platform and collecti

by nilkn 10y ago

Maybe I'm not as aware of all the details as others, but it seems to me that Valve has maintained their position by creating an incredible platform and collection of products (Steam itself, Steam Link, the Steam Controller, etc.), not by engaging in anti-consumer practices. For instance, SteamVR has full support for the Rift. The Chaperone features will even work with the Rift. More than that, though, I see very few examples of people being upset about the existence of the Oculus Store. People are upset about hardware exclusivity. Hence... > Further, Oculus doesn't make any money on hardware right now, what can a person expect them to do? I'd expect them to act in such a way as to maximize software sales, which means avoiding hardware exclusivity at all costs. Again, I and most others don't really have a problem with Oculus creating their own store. Sure, it's a bit annoying, but we understand they can't really survive by letting Valve profit off software sales of games they've funded. None of this justifies hardware exclusivity though. This leaves open the question of why they are in fact pursuing hardware exclusivity. I don't have a good answer to that and I'm not sure anyone outside of Oculus does. If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that they must have thought that their content was just flat-out better than anything available for the Vive so that it was strong enough to drive both software and hardware sales. Unfortunately, I suspect they were wrong. Their approach backfired and developer support is centering around the Vive now.

cwyers 10y ago
I think it's far more likely that they've maintained their position through first-mover advantage than anything else. Steam is a website wrapped in an application that was built before building applications out of websites was cool, and it shows -- what you get is an outdated version of WebKit and a video player that somehow manages to be worse than the one Polygon uses, and Steam doesn't even have "monetization" as an excuse there. They've largely abandoned curation, Early Access and Greenlight are a steady stream of horror stories... there's a large list of things wrong with Steam that nobody at Valve seems to even care about fixing.
- nilkn 10y ago
  I don't agree. I think the first-mover advantage gave them a big leg up, but people wouldn't have kept using the platform for 12 years if they were relying entirely on that. Competitors like Origin might have had a fighting chance if Valve hadn't constantly been creating a superior suite of products. You mention issues with Early Access and Greenlight, but these seem like trivial problems when compared to how solid the platform is overall. Steam as a platform is just far and away superior to any other choice in the gaming space. I can play any PC game at my desk or in my living room. The interface scales great to a TV screen. The Steam Controller is innovative and incredibly customizable, and it's supported by virtually any game in Steam. SteamVR is very fully developed itself and supports both the Rift and the Vive; it even goes so far as to support Chaperone with the Rift despite the Rift not having any room-scale-tracked controllers yet. It has honestly grown into one of the best software ecosystems I've ever seen by offering functionality that competitors can't even dream of.
  - cwyers 10y ago
    I think you're talking about a lot of features here that don't even amount to a percentage point of Steam users. Go look at the Steam Hardware and Software Survey results. SteamOS doesn't even show up in the top five Linux distros that Valve reports. There may be Windows users who are using the Big Picture Mode, but I'd guess not a whole lot of them. There may be Windows users who are using the Steam Controller, but I'd guess it's smaller than the ones using Big Picture Mode. Those are not the reasons Steam is beating Origin.
    - nilkn 10y ago
      Just to be clear, SteamOS is not needed for Steam Link and I've never used it. Steam Link just streams content from your PC.
      - cwyers 10y ago
        Valve doesn't publish figures on the number of Steam Links sold. But just look at the Steam Hardware Survey[1]. Valve recommends a quad-core PC to be used as the host[2]. But half of Windows users have two CPUs or fewer. The number jumps up to 64% when you look at OS X users. Meanwhile, the top 10 graphics cards are pretty well split betweel the latest NVIDIA cards and a bunch of Intel on-motherboard cards. I don't think the sort of enthusiast that buys a Steam Link is anywhere close to the bulk of Steam's audience; there are a lot of people who are playing games on laptops, not gaming laptops but just laptops. 1) http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/ http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/ 2) https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIAV-1617#improvement https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIA...

by nilkn 10y ago

cwyers 10y ago

I think it's far more likely that they've maintained their position through first-mover advantage than anything else. Steam is a website wrapped in an application that was built before building applications out of websites was cool, and it shows -- what you get is an outdated version of WebKit and a video player that somehow manages to be worse than the one Polygon uses, and Steam doesn't even have "monetization" as an excuse there. They've largely abandoned curation, Early Access and Greenlight are a steady stream of horror stories... there's a large list of things wrong with Steam that nobody at Valve seems to even care about fixing.

nilkn 10y ago
I don't agree. I think the first-mover advantage gave them a big leg up, but people wouldn't have kept using the platform for 12 years if they were relying entirely on that. Competitors like Origin might have had a fighting chance if Valve hadn't constantly been creating a superior suite of products. You mention issues with Early Access and Greenlight, but these seem like trivial problems when compared to how solid the platform is overall. Steam as a platform is just far and away superior to any other choice in the gaming space. I can play any PC game at my desk or in my living room. The interface scales great to a TV screen. The Steam Controller is innovative and incredibly customizable, and it's supported by virtually any game in Steam. SteamVR is very fully developed itself and supports both the Rift and the Vive; it even goes so far as to support Chaperone with the Rift despite the Rift not having any room-scale-tracked controllers yet. It has honestly grown into one of the best software ecosystems I've ever seen by offering functionality that competitors can't even dream of.
- cwyers 10y ago
  I think you're talking about a lot of features here that don't even amount to a percentage point of Steam users. Go look at the Steam Hardware and Software Survey results. SteamOS doesn't even show up in the top five Linux distros that Valve reports. There may be Windows users who are using the Big Picture Mode, but I'd guess not a whole lot of them. There may be Windows users who are using the Steam Controller, but I'd guess it's smaller than the ones using Big Picture Mode. Those are not the reasons Steam is beating Origin.
  - nilkn 10y ago
    Just to be clear, SteamOS is not needed for Steam Link and I've never used it. Steam Link just streams content from your PC.
    - cwyers 10y ago
      Valve doesn't publish figures on the number of Steam Links sold. But just look at the Steam Hardware Survey[1]. Valve recommends a quad-core PC to be used as the host[2]. But half of Windows users have two CPUs or fewer. The number jumps up to 64% when you look at OS X users. Meanwhile, the top 10 graphics cards are pretty well split betweel the latest NVIDIA cards and a bunch of Intel on-motherboard cards. I don't think the sort of enthusiast that buys a Steam Link is anywhere close to the bulk of Steam's audience; there are a lot of people who are playing games on laptops, not gaming laptops but just laptops. 1) http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/ http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/ 2) https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIAV-1617#improvement https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIA...