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.
I really don't think that sentiment is all that common. People like to use Steam because it's a good service, and always innovating new ways to be a good service. There's no reason for family sharing to exist, or for it to have recently been overhauled in such a way that it's even smoother and more pleasant to use. They just did it because it makes a better consumer experience. There's no reason for Proton to exist, or for Valve to push into linux gaming at all. Linux was such an insignificant, tiny market. But Valve is making it a significant market single-handedly and that's fucking awesome.
Of course Valve, just like any other company in a capitalist society, only wants money. But Valve, unlike most companies in a capitalist society, is guided by the principle that people will fork over their money if the service is good. And they're goddamn right.
If Epic made a good service, or if Ubisoft made a good service, or if EA made a good service, or if Rockstar made a good service, or if Blizzard made a good service, or if anyone else made a good service, they'd have no problems getting people to use their service and Steam. The problem is that any time somebody other than Valve makes a game store, the only selling point for it is "you can't play this game if you don't download our store." Nobody ever tries actually making something good.
I specifically feel that way. Steam is a resource and a convenience and it makes life more difficult to interact with games in a other way. Steam should be nationalized by vietnam.