18 ms·
So You Want to Compete with Steam
- PostOnce 9y agoWhat if Steam had to, by law, share your game library with other services? i.e., just like you can take your phone number to any other phone company, or how banks in europe have to share info, you were able to take your game library with you to any other game distribution service? Perhaps the same could be done for iOS/Android portability
- grahamburger 9y agoI've often wished that this would happen for movies / music. When I buy a streaming movie on Amazon I'd like to be able to transfer it to Google Play or vice versa.
- joshtynjala 9y agoCheck out Movies Anywhere.
- drb91 9y agoHow do you transfer from movies anywhere to eg your itunes account? Because otherwise they seem like just another walled garden.
- mastax 9y agoAny (participating?) movie on any linked account is automatically added to all linked account libraries (as I remember it).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chungy 9y agoYou can connect your Movies Anywhere account to Vudu, Amazon, Google, and/or iTunes. Then your library shows up on those services.
- drb91 9y agoWow, I stand corrected, that actually seems pretty useful!
- tambienben 9y agoYou wouldn't transfer a car to Google Play, would you?
- grahamburger 9y agoI'm not sure what that means. Every way that I can think of to compare movie ownership and car ownership suggests that I should be able to transfer a movie from one service to another.
- craftyguy 9y agohttp://knowyourmeme.com/memes/piracy-it-s-a-crime http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/piracy-it-s-a-crime
- euvitudo 9y agoExcept the way the movie/music folks look at it is probably the same way they look at VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and BR 4K and so forth or vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, etc... Apple, Amazon and Google are yet another "format" as it were. More platforms means more money for them. It's not about the customer--none of them cares, except at that moment in time the customer forks over the cash for it.
- on_and_off 9y agoI would love this. Could be extended to a lot of services tbh : Music Libraries in Spotify Contacts in Facebook One of the reasons I love GOG is Connect : got a game on Steam ? Now you have it on GOG too.
- YeOakAye 9y agoThat would be great... Assuming it would work both ways, I would consolidate, on Steam, all the games I currently have on Origin, Bethesda Launcher, Battle.Net Launcher, Epic Games Launcher, uPlay, Twitch Desktop App, a few I've forgotten, and whateverthefuck Rockstar's GTAV launcher is called.. Though that's probably not what you had in mind.
- yAnonymous 9y ago>What if Steam had to, by law, share your game library with other services? Then players would move all their games from crap clients like Origin and Uplay to Steam.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoYou'd need to pay Steam a librarian fee, or something. People would buy games on the low cost markets with the crap management and low user numbers, then transfer to eg Steam. Steam pick up the costs of updating, managing users, etc., and the other sellers get the money from sales.
- c3534l 9y agoThe convenience of having your game licenses all in one place over the long term is too great. The only way you could shut down Steam at this point is create an open industry standard that would allow a license to play a game to transfer seamlessly across platforms. No one wants to buy a game from a website that isn't going to exist in a year and will take your game with you. And no one wants to have 10 different platforms on their computer. And certainly no one wants to have different platforms offer different games that can only be accessed from that platform. But of course the gaming industry has an entire business model built on exactly that: console gaming. It's kind of a miracle that Steam even exists and people are going to be very resistant to replacing it with a completely fractured system of owning PC games.
- cptskippy 9y agoGOG links to your Steam Account and will add games to your library that exist in your Steam Library. It only does this for participating publishers but it's still an effective way to copy your library.
- c3534l 9y agoWell, I guess that explains why people like GOG and hate Origin.
- kuschku 9y agoGOG also has no DRM'd games, at all. It's truly amazing, and if possible, I always buy from them.
- kbart 9y agoYes, GOG is the only place I buy games from. I don't want to have spyware installed on my PC in a form of DRM or be able to play games only while connected to Internet, so I don't use Steam at all.
- 9y ago
- discoursism 9y agoThis article is full of good observations. A shorter way to say it is that the distance between Steam and "perfect" is not very large, and there isn't enough margin to be had to justify the cost of building something to close that gap. And that's assuming you can identify the features that would bring you to perfect from where Steam is. I cannot even imagine a game distribution product that would get me to switch from Steam, unless there were Very Important games on it I couldn't get on Steam, or unless the prices were at least 10-15% lower.
- larsiusprime 9y ago> unless the prices were at least 10-15% lower. Article's author here :) You couldn't even do this, because every distributor I've ever heard of reserves the right to match your full retail price. So you can't even cut your margins in a bid to pass on the savings to the consumer. So yeah, it's tough out there.
- jhanschoo 9y agoThe article takes pains to point out that itch.io pretty much has better tooling, but Steam has walled-garden effects that probably even "perfect" is not good enough.
- coldacid 9y agoAs someone who does video games in his spare time, this was a very enjoyable read.
- krapp 9y agoReally, Steam seems to be the closest thing Windows has to an application/package manager[0]. It's almost kind of a shame that it's more or less entirely for games and game development software - something like it with sourceforge/github integration or an API for general purpose Windows installers would be nice. [0]notwithstanding whatever Windows 10 might have, because I still refuse to touch that, but it's probably not as good as the Steam client.
- davvid 9y agoIf you're looking for a package manager on Windows, you might be interested in Chocolatey: https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/
- krapp 9y agoIt looks nice, but the whole paradigm of installing software by copying and pasting commands into a root shell is terrible. And I say that realizing it's only a step removed from downloading an installer and running it, but still.
- j_s 9y agoChocolatey has some slightly-awkward-feeling freemium thing going on; there was a good discussion of Windows installer stuff recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15791781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15791781 https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Chocolatey-Comparison https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Chocolatey-Compari... (scoop) is an option focused on dev tools, http://boxstarter.org http://boxstarter.org for repaving dev/vm machines. Proprietary https://ninite.com https://ninite.com for normally-installed stuff, not sure if the free edition updates things.
- kakarot 9y agoFree edition of Ninite only installs 32-bit applications, unfortunately.
- 9y ago
- FussyZeus 9y agoMind you the USERS don't even want a lot of Steam's competition. The GOG downloader is...okay? Origin is almost universally hated and every time one of these big companies announces $NewNotSteam the collective community rolls their eyes and groans, dreading the new application that has to be installed, and kept running so it can update, to accomplish the exact same thing that Steam, GOG, Origin, and uPlay already accomplish because $NewNotSteam's parent company has an executive somewhere that is tired of giving Valve money and had sufficient pull to change it.
- wernercd 9y agoReally though... other than perhaps Blizzard... is there any secondary store worth looking into? Outside of Windows/Android/iStore... There's nothing worth switching. I've passed up on purchasing games (IE: Mass Effect 3) because it's tied to a shitty NotSteam...
- discreditable 9y agoBlizzard's client is pretty but has its own drawbacks. I uninstalled it recently after it tabbed me out of a competitive match with a UAC prompt to update itself. The Bnet forums are full of people complaining about that particular issue.
- FussyZeus 9y agoAgain GOG's is ok. It's not great, but it's also not an obstruction like Origin is.
- eropple 9y agoIt's not avoiding Steam, because plenty of games there are given as Steam keys, but I have a $12/mo Humble Monthly subscription. It's literally more games than I could ever play, but there are some really good gems every month. They also have the "Trove", which is a bunch of DRM-free downloads that cycle in and out over time. I also use GOG when the GOG-tuned Dosbox version of a game is better than the Steam one. I don't use their downloader app.
- megaman22 9y ago
- phreack 9y agoThere are plenty of businesses where you can just roll up, make a better yet not more innovative version of the leading app, and just take all of the customers. Game distribution is NOT one of them, at all, by any stretch of the imagination, at this point in time. I've saved this article to share every time I hear that pitch.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mrhektor 9y agoCould you give us a few examples of such businesses? Do customers really switch for marginal improvements?
- kirillseva 9y agoThe usual example of switching Uber for Lyft when the rates on one app are lower than in another
- pitaj 9y agoI can give a few more examples where marginal improvements are not enough, which really boils down to "anything with network effects". - Messaging (WhatsApp, SMS) - Social Media (Facebook)
- usrusr 9y agoSteam entrenchement goes so much deeper than "just" network effect: DRM (and even DRM-less, to some extent, for convenience) requires trust and despite a choppy start, Steam has definitely built a lot of trust. Maybe even earned (debatable, but I tend to agree), but definitely built. Trust that they are likely to still be around n years down the line, and trust that they don't shove every imaginable profit maximization down their captive audience's throat. They have a headstart of more than a decade to any upstart and the growing of trust cannot be artificially accelerated. On top of that there are financials. Valve are not expected to disappear any time soon because of their huge earnings. Again, impossible to replicate. And they are a private, mostly (or exclusively?) founder-owned corporation, so there is at least a possibility of making "good enough" money, which is important for the "not shoving unwanted features down customers' throats" part. A VC funded startup, or worse, a publicly traded company could never reach "good enough" profits. It's the goose that lays golden eggs: a publicly traded company would inevitably keep rising into overvaluation until it eventually reaches the point where the only way to justify it is to cut up the goose in search of even higher profitability.
- grawprog 9y agoAs specific as this is to steam competitors this seems like good advice for trying to get into any crowded niche market. A friend of mine lately found the random hobby of promoting dog toys and such through instagram. He started with pretty much nothing but pictures of his dog and over a few months has begun working with different manufacturers and distributors to make and sell custom products and to distribute existing products and I've watched him do almost everything described in this article to succeed. He's spent his own time and money to help big name companies get more customers, helped smaller companies expand their business without much incentive to himself at first other than a mention here or there or some free products, in turn he used those products to gain more business for those companies and eventually became well known enough to start getting small amounts of cash and more expensive products. Eventually these companies trusted him enough to make some of his custom designed things and get commission on their sales. I'm kind of getting sick of hearing about instagram but it's been cool watching him grow this weird little business he's been doing.
- AlexDanger 9y agoI wonder if CD Projekt heard the same arguments when they started GOG? Certainly they leveraged The Witcher and anger around DRM to gain traction. But they've found a sustainable niche that does not depend on going head to head with Steam's colossal network effect. Steam is generally pretty great. But off the top of my head I can think of two areas where Steam arent delivering; - Greenlight. Good idea, didnt work as planned. Room in the market for some kind of Greenlight/Kickstarter hybrid? - Gaming for kids and educational software. A Kahn Academy approach but with games instead of lessons.
- larsiusprime 9y agoArticle's author here. GOG.com got started in 2008, which was critical to their success. Steam had much lower market share back then. If GOG started today I would give them much, much, lower odds of succeeding. And consider also that Desura, Direct2Drive, Impulse, etc, which also were around in that rough time period, are all dead and gone.
- Chathamization 9y agoGOG only started selling newer games in 2012, and even then it started only selling a few. Before that, it was a place to buy old games (hence the original name, Good Old Games). I think GOG's success was because for its first few years, it was selling games that simply weren't available on Steam or anywhere else at the time. When it did finally go up against Steam, it already had a decently large customer base, and was able to set itself up well a a DRM-free Steam alternative.
- larsiusprime 9y agoI agree with all of this!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- masklinn 9y agoIndeed. First they got a market which was unserved (old games), then they got the CD Project Red games (Witcher series), then they branched into third-party games.
- methodover 9y agoDiscord could do it. Discord SHOULD do it. There needs to be a serious competitor to Steam, something with significant enough market share that Steam gets scared. Steam could be so much better than it is -- I'm not saying that it's a bad product, just that it could be better. Discord seems perfectly positioned to take on Steam. They already have incredible adoption in the gaming community. And they have quite a bit of experience at this rate too. (Maybe I should go work for them and push this line from within...)
- barbs 9y agoHow likely do you think it would be for Valve to buy Discord?
- scott_karana 9y agoDepends on how much funding Discord has already raised, I bet. Their VCs are generally going to want a massive exit, and I bet the valuations after previous raises are non-trivial. Guessing that Valve is adverse to acquisitions in general too, for their weird cultural reasons. EDIT: $725 million. Not cheap. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/
- stock_toaster 9y agoI'm surprised Amazon hasn't bought them. Seems like it would fit well with their twitch property.
- phit_ 9y agoThey bought Curse instead. Using it's former Curse Voice client and turning it into a games store.
- Lazare 9y agoTwitch (and thus Amazon) is currently making a big play to compete head to head with Discord. At least among the people I talk to, it's an abject, miserable, flaming disaster, but I think it's a bit early for Amazon to walk away from it just yet. And they might yet pull it off; they have the resources.
- dvt 9y agoI'm actually pretty cynical when it comes to this kind of thing (for example, I don't think anyone can really compete with Google Search anymore), but I need to disagree with this article. It fundamentally misunderstands a few crucial elements of how game publishing (and consumption) works. Keep in mind that I am a long-time user of Steam (my account is 14 years old, having signed up literally the day it came out). 1. The gamers Gamers are by definition quasi-technical and, by their very nature, will be welcome to (at least) trying out a new client or platform. I, and most of my friends, and probably most of Twitch, have not only Steam, but also GOG, and also the God-awful Origin, and Epic's launcher, etc. So installing a new client so I could play some games I like is really not that big of a deal. Steams social aspects were always secondary to its game delivery platform -- besides, most people use Discord to keep in touch, no one really takes Steam's "social network" seriously. I think that's a non-issue. 2. The developers If you're an indie dev that's toiled for the past 3 years on a small game that you hope will make it big, you will release it on every platform -- let me say that again: you'll release on Steam, on Itch, etc. On every. Single. Platform. If you (really) want to sell AAA games, you can just be a run-of-the-mill distributor at first, and just sell keys. Worrying about developer friction I think is fundamentally misguided. 3. How to win Imo, winning would look something like this: scout indie developers building the next big thing (they'll be a lot of false positives, so a lot of $$$ helps here). Make them sign contracts to only distribute through your platform. Do this for like 10 or 20 games, even if the contracts suck for you (hell, I'd give them > 100% revenue share). Now you're funneling people through your platform to play the newest "Cuphead" or "Super Meatboy" or "Dark Souls" -- obviously this isn't easy, but I do think you could hypothetically compete.and slow.
- muzani 9y agoAlso a huge point to consider is that games also have to be as cheap as Steam. I used to buy pirated DVDs once upon a time because the real thing would cost about a month salary. Now Steam games in third world countries are so cheap I just buy a bunch I don't intend to play. Even the discount sites and Humble Bundle aren't able to match up against Steam in third world countries.
- andybak 9y agohttps://isthereanydeal.com/ https://isthereanydeal.com/ regularly shows me titles on my wishlist that are cheaper on somewhere other than on Steam.
- muzani 9y agoSteam sells up to 4 times cheaper to people who live in certain poorer regions, and this also gets the usual discount. So some old game sold for $10, might get a 75% winter sales discount, plus a further 75% off in poor countries, down to about 60 cents. It's clever because it takes purchasing power into account. So a game that's about 1 hour salary in the US would cost about 1 hour on a Indonesian salary as well. This is going to be really hard for many competitors to match.
- hellbanner 9y agoWe sell our game on itch http://QuantumPilot.me http://QuantumPilot.me Developer chooses what cut to pay to itch, which is nice. DRM free, easy to setup -- 5 minutes compare to 5 hours with Steam. Itch supports indie game dev by letting community manage "Game Jams": http://itch.io/jams http://itch.io/jams Their site + client is open source: https://github.com/itchio https://github.com/itchio
- kasbah 9y agoThe client seems to be open source but their site doesn't. https://github.com/itchio/itch.io https://github.com/itchio/itch.io is just an issue tracker.
- hellbanner 9y agoMy mistake, thank you
- sergiotapia 9y agoSteam has lost that "discovery" aspect to it. It's now mainly weaboo garbage, early access and PUBG clogging up the trending and leaderboards. I feel like I can no longer discover cool titles or great things people are buying on the site.
- dageshi 9y agoYes, an entire industry of youtubers volunteered to take care of discovery and curation for games, valve saw that and decided to "just" be the video game version of Amazon and take care of sales and distribution.
- cyborgx7 9y agoWhich is a decision I agree with. I feel like the ones who sell the products and the ones who recommend the good products shouldn't be the same people.
- aeoost 9y agoYou can subscribe to curators whose recommendations will populate the main page. One I like: 'Weird games for your pleasure' http://store.steampowered.com/curator/7099409-Weird-Games-for-Your-Pleasure/ http://store.steampowered.com/curator/7099409-Weird-Games-fo...
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y agoI really don't feel like there is a better way to handle it than the curators system. I mean, look at Youtube and Amazon recommendations, they're awful.
- kuon 9y agoAmos has been doing some insanely great work with the itch.io app and butler. If you are interested in how it works, I highly encourage you to read his blog [1]. [1]: https://amos.me/blog/2017/efficient-game-updates/ https://amos.me/blog/2017/efficient-game-updates/
- madisfun 9y agoThe day you try to contact Steam support, you'll know how to compete with Steam.
- animal531 9y agoTheir support is truly worthless. I bought an add-on to a game, it downloaded to 99% and refused to finish. I mailed support, perhaps 2 weeks later I received a generic did you try to reboot your PC response. So I listed the 10 different (including and up to complicated) things I had tried up to then and mailed back. Another 2 weeks later I get another response along the lines of whether I've tried restarting my Steam client. After a 3rd round I just gave up. In the end it was a network issue on their side that auto-magically resolved itself (after 1.x months)
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y agoTheir support is pretty bad from what I hear, but then again, so is Microsoft's. Bad support doesn't seem to be the kind of thing anyone is making decisions based on, no matter how much people like to bitch about it.
- nkkollaw 9y agoI wish Steam supported hidpi. It's kind of ridiculous they don't.
- jlebrech 9y agoAt some point itch was one of the 99%. Maybe taking on newgrounds or miniclip with a wasm based gaming platform is the niche?
- lmm 9y ago> At some point itch was one of the 99%. It sounds like itch is more of a lifestyle business than something trying to compete with Steam. And maybe they got started with indies back when that was more of a "blue ocean" (Steam used to be quite anti-indie in the early days). > Maybe taking on newgrounds or miniclip with a wasm based gaming platform is the niche? Now that is a good idea.
- larsiusprime 9y agoNewgrounds is run at a loss, for the record.
- parski 9y agoExcellent write-up.