this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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Maybe I'm just ignorant to Steam's potentially anti-competitive business practices(?), but to me it just seems like there's a lack of credible competition. I don't know the situation in Vietnam specifically, but Steam's arguably main competitor Epic Games Store still has to use every tactic at its disposal to try and win even a tiny slice of market share. Like exclusivity contracts (which are definitely anti-competitive and anti-consumer), and literally handing out games for free. Yet, people still choose to use Steam instead. Not arguing that Steam treats developers great or anything, but I don't really think they go out of their way to shut competing platforms out of the market. Would love to be corrected on this if I'm way off base, though.
A common reason cited by g*mers for only using Steam is that they "want to have all their games in one place". They will literally never switch to anything else, no matter how good it is, if the majority of their "owned" games can only be accessed through Steam.
That's just a service issue, though. Steam can import CD keys from games that were bought outside of their ecosystem, I don't know why a competing service couldn't do the same with purchased Steam games (other than contracts with publishers etc.). I've at some point used most of the game stores that exist and I'll be honest they all kinda suck. They don't even give me the impression that they're trying to be serious competition.
We already kind of see that, albeit in reverse. Many Steam games require third party launchers, almost as a kind of desperate attempt to get them installed on users' computers.
I can definitely agree with that. EGS in particular is frankly shameful for a company that constantly rakes in obscene amounts of money.