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JesusWang's avatar

Man, what a good read this was, great work Ryan. It is interesting to start seeing some *hard-to-see-but-definitely-there* cracks on Steam's impenetrable defense throughout the years.

Yes, Steam has done A LOT for gamers around the globe, and they have earned their position at the very top of the market by virtue of arriving first and managing to defend their position while being very consumer friendly. But there are things that could improve, things that most are willing to let slide due to convenience, and its a good thing to finally star having a discussion about it.

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luqizilla's avatar

The concept of monopoly you brought up is something I have thought about so much already.

While I agree that it is in Steam's merit that they were able to build such a well-rounded product, it reached a point at which they became renters and are doing more harm than good, and the way they shook policies around to support the big guys rather than the other way around point out they're trying to stall (such as Apple did through their process) rather than solve for it.

And while I think Epic is doing god's work by suing Apple and trying to "right" this, they only targeted EGS at developers, failing to understand that this gtm was supposed to be focused on the end consumer and have sprinkles towards developers rather than the other way around put them at this awkward position.

The platform itself is evolving, but still lags so much behind Steam and tbh I think it's as much about community (friends list, reviews, groups, playtime counter, friends also played, and so many other features built through decades) as it is about sunk cost fallacy (games library)

great read, Rigney!

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