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> Steam itself is not necessary and is just another system to lure users and developers into a Vendor Lock-In This ignores the history of how Steam came about
by AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> Steam itself is not necessary and is just another system to lure users and developers into a Vendor Lock-In
This ignores the history of how Steam came about in the first place. The PC gaming industry was basically dying because physical distribution was expensive, which made the games expensive too, so a lot of users just pirated games (by downloading them from the internet) because it was easier. Valve recognized that piracy was a symptom of a service problem and set out to create the convenient service experience of piracy in legitimate form. It was actually widely hated at first because people assumed malevolence, but over time Valve has proved their good intentions with the platform. They helped kick off the indy explosion with the Potato Sack, they allow developers to sell Steam keys on other stores without giving Valve a cut, they never ask for exclusivity, and despite what many internet whiners complain about they actually try pretty hard to have worthwhile recommendation and review systems.
> Everything useful it provides should be part of libraries. In a better world - we would use a package manager or Flatpak to install games.
This is basically already the case. Steam is the manager, and it also provides the libraries for its functionality (DRM, workshop, achievements, etc) that are entirely optional. There are games on Steam that don't use any of that and you can copy them to a system without Steam and they run fine (BallisticNG was like this last I checked). Hell, as EA and Ubisoft proved you can even install and run your own alternative client as part of your game you sell on Steam (though thankfully the store now warns users about this behavior).
- pjmlp 6y agoYet here I am, playing PC games while keeping my PC Steam free.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoI'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Of course you can play games without Steam. But I think it is disingenuous to characterize Steam as "just another system to lure users and developers into a Vendor Lock-In" when Valve has seemingly not put any effort whatsoever into locking in anyone despite their unquestioned market dominance.
- pjmlp 6y ago"Unquestioned market dominance.", not really.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoYou disagree that Steam is the market leader in PC game distribution?
- pjmlp 6y agoI definitely do. Any independent market reports from IGDA or similar to prove otherwise? Valve own marketing material doesn't count.
- judge2020 6y agohttps://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-12-20-gamesindustry-biz-presents-the-year-in-numbers-2017 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-12-20-gamesindus... The above article estimates the PC gaming industry sold around 32.3 billion in 2017, although from [0]: > If you throw out revenue for packaged retail titles and browser games, that leaves the dedicated digital PC game business with a total value of $23.9 billion – and that number includes DLC, which the Steam estimate does not. > If the numbers are right, that means Valve own at least 18% of their specific market This is by no means exact, but 18% for PC gaming is huge and, given that these are global numbers, probably doesn't account for the PC games market in China. 0: https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-revenue-2017 https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-revenue-2017 1: https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260 https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260
- pjmlp 6y agoWhile 18% is a big number it definitely isn't "Unquestioned market dominance.".
- friendlybus 6y agoThey recently stopped developers promoting on steam, sale of their game on other platforms. Makes a lot of sense and if the battle with epic games gets worse we might see lock in.. Fortnite changed steam's dominance. Epic games is buying out a lot of games to offer on their store and they have the cash to burn on it. Who knows where all the fortnite fans will be in 5yrs, epic or steam.
- seg_lol 6y agoHeh, are you saying that Steam could have been (or is) the equivalent of Snap on Ubuntu? https://snapcraft.io/about https://snapcraft.io/about