I can’t deny that Steam has a large marketshare over the digital video game distribution market, and that it could abuse its position, and that the 30% distributor cut is steep. All true. Is it currently abusing its position? Arguably yes and no.
Looking through the evidence document provided in the video, the alleged link between decreased % of multihoming indicating the enforcement of a PMFN is weak IMO. Steam’s support for Linux, its own Steam Deck, good customer service, return policy, family sharing and remote play are major reasons to be a Valve patron, not always about price.
The evidence at 9:05 in the video that suggests Valve says they “stop selling them altogether” was in response to a Steam Key inquiry. The other quotes were related to removing it from the front page and sales feature pages (not delisting but not there unless you search for it). That’s not delisting but perhaps it is anti-competitively deranking it. I’m not sure what the rules are though, like a grocery store doesn’t have to put a product at the front of a store when a rival has a steeper sale for it, but they could ask for the same discount while offering to make it similarly visible. Overall it’s not nearly as serious as OOP makes it seem.
Yet another dumbass that doesn’t understand the agreement and how it only pertains to selling keys for games that unlock on Steam at other stores; it has fuck all to do with limiting a developer from releasing games on other stores. Only if you’re selling a Steam key on another store.
Huh. And here I’ve been a satisfied Steam user for 20 years. Weird.
Its not, its absolutely not and if you think so, maybe unplug your router. Steam is most of the time the cheapest and most user friendly store you can find.
Und: Linux. Ende der Diskussion.
Wahr. Wobei ich.io auch Linux native Spiele anbietet (nur über die Webseite und ohne Proton compatability layer, also wirklich nur native Spiele)
More user friendly than itch and Game Jolt?
Unless you’re going to tell me that Itch has a dynamic library filtering setting, family-sharing, the ability to have local machines on the network speed up my downloads, and the ability to dynamically remap controller profiles per-game, then yeah, steam is more user-friendly.
Way more
Yes.
How so?
First off, what does Game Jolt even have? Indie games are fun but if the roster is only indie games I’m not gonna find much to play with my friends.
IMO itch.io is not a steam competitor, they are an indie game and game asset hosting platform and seem to be aimed at developers more than players. The search function is alright. But downloading an exe is definitely less user friendly than having a GUI with a play button.
I have never bought a single game on Steam for this exact reason. I will buy from any game store except Steam.
The service on Steam is nothing superior over others. For people that want privacy but can live with DRM, I like Heroic open source launcher for playing games on both Epic and GOG, but Heroic does have issues launching Fortnite.
