6 ms·

Yes, but Apple and Google have monopolies. Not a "gamer", so I don't really know what "Steam" is/does, but I suspect they must have some kind of moat. I'm not

by pravda 8y ago

Yes, but Apple and Google have monopolies. Not a "gamer", so I don't really know what "Steam" is/does, but I suspect they must have some kind of moat. I'm not sure that people are comfortable with Patreon taking a 10% cut. I'm not happy about eBay taking a 10% cut, but they have a monopoly. Jack Ma, please bring Taobao to USA!

tapland 8y ago
Steam is, despite there being a lot of competition, the de facto one stop shop for digitally distributed PC video games (and is in itself a kind of DRM protection). I think that a large proportion of gamers would be happy for almost all of the competition to disappear in favor of getting everything on the Steam platform.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > I think that a large proportion of gamers would be happy for almost all of the competition to disappear in favor of getting everything on the Steam platform. Yup. Competition is good for the market in general, and for consumers in a more indirect way, but balkanization of content space and having to deal with the crappy apps of me-too competitors is a real pain. (There's probably some economical theory around this that I don't know, but my gut-feel classification is this: competition is good for consumer when competitors are providing the same, or at least directly substitutable, goods and services. Individual video games - and music, movies, books - are not substitutable goods, so the competition is useful only to the extent you can get the same game/movie from any of the competitors. Exclusive publishing deals make competition harmful to the consumer.)
  - speedplane 8y ago
    > There's probably some economical theory around this that I don't know ... competition is good for the consumer when ... Yes, there is a pretty standard economic proof that much of capitalism is based on. It says that an economy is most "efficient" (you can take a class on that word), when three pre-requisites are met: 1. Perfect information: Everyone knows the value of everything. 2. Commodities: Products created by competitors are equivalent. This works well for oil and bananas, but not so well for much else. 3. Access to Capital: This means new competitors can start competitors and enter markets easily. This isn't so easy when there is regulation, monopolies, or network effects. In short, there is a set of circumstances when things work really well. However, in the real world, those circumstances rarely arise.
- Asooka 8y ago
  That's because Steam's community features are second to none. I don't really want a monopoly, though, having more than one store is better in the long run, even if it sucks having to register for multiple services. At least it's not like streaming where your costs go up the more services you register for. The ideal would be if Steam could let other publishers plug in their platform for a much smaller cut of the profits and handle sales, forums, friends, wikis, with the other publisher handling distribution, marketing, etc. Or at least if it could function as OAuth and I could use my Steam profile on other publishers' services, carry over my friends list, maybe achievements, etc. Of course that still leaves Valve in a monopoly position, but I think it's an ok compromise.
  - tpxl 8y ago
    Steam functions as an OpenID provider, so external vendors could (theoretically) use Steam logins for their platforms. The problem with "competing platforms" is that they're mostly not competing platforms. Recently Metro: Exodus was pulled from Steam store to be sold as an exclusive on the epic store. This is not competition, this is a monopoly on distribution of a title. When different platforms emerge where most platforms have most titles (or offer DRM free like GoG or Humble Bundle), then we will have actual competition.
- imtringued 8y ago
  Keeping Valve in check is worth the friction. Today they might be benevolent now but when Gabe Newell is gone they will have same problems as Apple because Steve Jobs is gone. There is a high risk a new CEO will just be a paperclip maximizer.
  - baq 8y ago
    valve is different (not sure if for better or worse) in that it's privately held.
jjeaff 8y ago
eBay takes 15% plus some listing fees and that doesn't include the PayPal fees.
koonsolo 8y ago
The alternative is always to offer your content from your own website, and take 100%. The game developers who were around before Steam, know how much that costs (promotion wise), and know they get a lot for that 30% cut. The same is true for those other platforms. You seem to be a person that expects all internet platforms offer their stuff for free. And another thing: all of those platforms mentioned have competitors, so calling them monopolies is quite strange. It's not because they are market leaders that there is no alternative (which monopolies don't offer)
- pravda 8y ago
  >You seem to be a person that expects all internet platforms offer their stuff for free. Oh gosh, no! I expect them to offer their stuff at the profit-maximizing percentage. That's the whole point of having a monopoly, so you can charge monopoly rents. Now I am curious about this "Steam" thing. Looks like there is an about page: https://store.steampowered.com/about/ https://store.steampowered.com/about/
  - koonsolo 8y ago
    Please tell me which one of those things you named are a monopoly, and I will name the closest competitor. I'm thinking about Craigslist, Snapchat, Vimeo, Mixer, etc. Don't confuse market leader with monopoly. Before Steam, you had several casual portals (all competing with each other). Do you know which cut they took? 70%. Do you know why platforms nowadays take 30%? Because it's well worth the 30%, that's why. And if you think a platform can live off a 3% cut, please show me the successful on that does that.
    - pravda 8y ago
      > Do you know why platforms nowadays take 30%? Because it's well worth the 30%, that's why. That is not the way things work. Why does Apple take 30% of sales? Because Apple prices at the profit-maximizing percentage and because Apple figures that the profit-maximizing percentage is 30%. Lower, and they leave money on the table. Higher, and sales volume goes down. Ever hear of something called "consumer surplus"? A gallon of gasoline would well be worth $10 to me, but I pay a lot less then that! Why? Because of competition.
metildaa 8y ago
Valve cut their fees to 15% recently for games that sell well, and reduced the normal fee from 30% iirc. Epic Games has brought serious competition to the industry, offering a broadly used game distribution channel for a low price.
- Deimorz 8y ago
  No, the normal fee is still 30%, and the reduction is only for extremely high-sales games and never goes below 20%: > Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838 https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/d...) The Epic store really isn't much of a competitor at all yet, the only reason it's having any impact at all is because they've been paying developers to release exclusively on the Epic store.
  - nikeee 8y ago
    I think you underestimate Fortnite. It is a game played mostly by kids and teenagers. Often, they don't have a Steam account. So if Epic catches them, Steam won't get them.
on_and_off 8y ago
It should be mentioned that Steam's monopoly is assulted by new players like Epic with a 12% cut. Which might be for the best, Steam is in dire need of a serious competitor (I know GOG and co exist but sadly they have not been able to make a real dent in Steam's marketshare). Steam has dropped so many balls and the main thing going for them is inertia. Also, just because paying a large cut to various middlemen is common does not mean it is ok.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  It is not even close to assaulted. It is not inertia, but network effects and completeness of package offered by Steam, as well as resale deals.
  - tpxl 8y ago
    Inertia is also a thing. No way am I leaving 150 titles behind or splitting a collection of a game between different platforms (eg Far Cry 1 -> Far Cry 6).
lobster45 8y ago
Steam is a platform for video games and is by far the leader in this market. They do have some competition, and their take is 30%
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  About the only places I'd call actual competitors... Are none. Nobody is close to 10% of Steam sales and specialized in video games. They are a monopoly and will push the price. They cannot push it too much or a cheaper small store might overtake them, but competition is not the force setting the price. The cost of switching is. The network effect strength are. Maybe someone in China could, but they don't directly compete. GoG has a niche they're trying to expand, as does Humble. A few other small stores. Game company ones (EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft) are not even close. Funny enough, the small shops often resell Steam keys...
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    Gog recently announced that they'll allow third party stores to resell gog keys (mobile, so no link). I really hope that shakes the market up a bit (and I generally really like gog and always prefer then when there is price parity)

by pravda 8y ago

tapland 8y ago

Steam is, despite there being a lot of competition, the de facto one stop shop for digitally distributed PC video games (and is in itself a kind of DRM protection). I think that a large proportion of gamers would be happy for almost all of the competition to disappear in favor of getting everything on the Steam platform.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> I think that a large proportion of gamers would be happy for almost all of the competition to disappear in favor of getting everything on the Steam platform. Yup. Competition is good for the market in general, and for consumers in a more indirect way, but balkanization of content space and having to deal with the crappy apps of me-too competitors is a real pain. (There's probably some economical theory around this that I don't know, but my gut-feel classification is this: competition is good for consumer when competitors are providing the same, or at least directly substitutable, goods and services. Individual video games - and music, movies, books - are not substitutable goods, so the competition is useful only to the extent you can get the same game/movie from any of the competitors. Exclusive publishing deals make competition harmful to the consumer.)
- speedplane 8y ago
  > There's probably some economical theory around this that I don't know ... competition is good for the consumer when ... Yes, there is a pretty standard economic proof that much of capitalism is based on. It says that an economy is most "efficient" (you can take a class on that word), when three pre-requisites are met: 1. Perfect information: Everyone knows the value of everything. 2. Commodities: Products created by competitors are equivalent. This works well for oil and bananas, but not so well for much else. 3. Access to Capital: This means new competitors can start competitors and enter markets easily. This isn't so easy when there is regulation, monopolies, or network effects. In short, there is a set of circumstances when things work really well. However, in the real world, those circumstances rarely arise.
Asooka 8y ago
That's because Steam's community features are second to none. I don't really want a monopoly, though, having more than one store is better in the long run, even if it sucks having to register for multiple services. At least it's not like streaming where your costs go up the more services you register for. The ideal would be if Steam could let other publishers plug in their platform for a much smaller cut of the profits and handle sales, forums, friends, wikis, with the other publisher handling distribution, marketing, etc. Or at least if it could function as OAuth and I could use my Steam profile on other publishers' services, carry over my friends list, maybe achievements, etc. Of course that still leaves Valve in a monopoly position, but I think it's an ok compromise.
- tpxl 8y ago
  Steam functions as an OpenID provider, so external vendors could (theoretically) use Steam logins for their platforms. The problem with "competing platforms" is that they're mostly not competing platforms. Recently Metro: Exodus was pulled from Steam store to be sold as an exclusive on the epic store. This is not competition, this is a monopoly on distribution of a title. When different platforms emerge where most platforms have most titles (or offer DRM free like GoG or Humble Bundle), then we will have actual competition.
imtringued 8y ago
Keeping Valve in check is worth the friction. Today they might be benevolent now but when Gabe Newell is gone they will have same problems as Apple because Steve Jobs is gone. There is a high risk a new CEO will just be a paperclip maximizer.
- baq 8y ago
  valve is different (not sure if for better or worse) in that it's privately held.

jjeaff 8y ago

eBay takes 15% plus some listing fees and that doesn't include the PayPal fees.

koonsolo 8y ago

The alternative is always to offer your content from your own website, and take 100%. The game developers who were around before Steam, know how much that costs (promotion wise), and know they get a lot for that 30% cut. The same is true for those other platforms. You seem to be a person that expects all internet platforms offer their stuff for free. And another thing: all of those platforms mentioned have competitors, so calling them monopolies is quite strange. It's not because they are market leaders that there is no alternative (which monopolies don't offer)

pravda 8y ago
>You seem to be a person that expects all internet platforms offer their stuff for free. Oh gosh, no! I expect them to offer their stuff at the profit-maximizing percentage. That's the whole point of having a monopoly, so you can charge monopoly rents. Now I am curious about this "Steam" thing. Looks like there is an about page: https://store.steampowered.com/about/ https://store.steampowered.com/about/
- koonsolo 8y ago
  Please tell me which one of those things you named are a monopoly, and I will name the closest competitor. I'm thinking about Craigslist, Snapchat, Vimeo, Mixer, etc. Don't confuse market leader with monopoly. Before Steam, you had several casual portals (all competing with each other). Do you know which cut they took? 70%. Do you know why platforms nowadays take 30%? Because it's well worth the 30%, that's why. And if you think a platform can live off a 3% cut, please show me the successful on that does that.
  - pravda 8y ago
    > Do you know why platforms nowadays take 30%? Because it's well worth the 30%, that's why. That is not the way things work. Why does Apple take 30% of sales? Because Apple prices at the profit-maximizing percentage and because Apple figures that the profit-maximizing percentage is 30%. Lower, and they leave money on the table. Higher, and sales volume goes down. Ever hear of something called "consumer surplus"? A gallon of gasoline would well be worth $10 to me, but I pay a lot less then that! Why? Because of competition.

metildaa 8y ago

Valve cut their fees to 15% recently for games that sell well, and reduced the normal fee from 30% iirc. Epic Games has brought serious competition to the industry, offering a broadly used game distribution channel for a low price.

Deimorz 8y ago
No, the normal fee is still 30%, and the reduction is only for extremely high-sales games and never goes below 20%: > Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838 https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/d...) The Epic store really isn't much of a competitor at all yet, the only reason it's having any impact at all is because they've been paying developers to release exclusively on the Epic store.
- nikeee 8y ago
  I think you underestimate Fortnite. It is a game played mostly by kids and teenagers. Often, they don't have a Steam account. So if Epic catches them, Steam won't get them.

on_and_off 8y ago

It should be mentioned that Steam's monopoly is assulted by new players like Epic with a 12% cut. Which might be for the best, Steam is in dire need of a serious competitor (I know GOG and co exist but sadly they have not been able to make a real dent in Steam's marketshare). Steam has dropped so many balls and the main thing going for them is inertia. Also, just because paying a large cut to various middlemen is common does not mean it is ok.

AstralStorm 8y ago
It is not even close to assaulted. It is not inertia, but network effects and completeness of package offered by Steam, as well as resale deals.
- tpxl 8y ago
  Inertia is also a thing. No way am I leaving 150 titles behind or splitting a collection of a game between different platforms (eg Far Cry 1 -> Far Cry 6).

lobster45 8y ago

Steam is a platform for video games and is by far the leader in this market. They do have some competition, and their take is 30%

AstralStorm 8y ago
About the only places I'd call actual competitors... Are none. Nobody is close to 10% of Steam sales and specialized in video games. They are a monopoly and will push the price. They cannot push it too much or a cheaper small store might overtake them, but competition is not the force setting the price. The cost of switching is. The network effect strength are. Maybe someone in China could, but they don't directly compete. GoG has a niche they're trying to expand, as does Humble. A few other small stores. Game company ones (EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft) are not even close. Funny enough, the small shops often resell Steam keys...
- Semaphor 8y ago
  Gog recently announced that they'll allow third party stores to resell gog keys (mobile, so no link). I really hope that shakes the market up a bit (and I generally really like gog and always prefer then when there is price parity)