Valve has a monopoly at being the only online gaming storefront that doesn’t suck.
Has he inherited the David Jones curse? Is there any photo from him in the last 10 years that is not on a yatch?
His hobby is yachts, which tells you how well Steam is doing for him.
His hobby is marine biology, which in turn necessitates yachts.
Honest question, is there any other store that directly supports seamlessly running games on Linux? Even games that do not natively build for Linux?
Edit: Because in that case, Steam does have a monopol on Linux, since it’s the only store that can seamlessly/without 3rd party tools run most games.
Given that Proton is open source, provides plenty of instructions and permits reproduction and distribution (BSD-3-Clause-Open-MPI), any other store could likewise include it or a fork of it. They may have a factual monopoly, but it’s not enforced legally in any way.
It’s just that nobody seems to compete meaningfully. Steam has a vested interest in being independent from Microsoft, maintaining their own SteamOS and making games run on it. Other companies just might not have the same commercial drive. And if there are easy to use 3rd party tools that people are content with, why would they bother investing in their own solution? They’re accessible to the Linux market through no work of their own.
Of course, there are some companies actively not wanting to work with Linux. Some just don’t trust the platform. Some require particular technology that might not work on Linux. For example, things like kernel-level-anticheat being confined to the wine environment defeats the point of spying on the whole OS. And some would require additional work to make it run smoothly, which obviously is an investment into a market they may feel doesn’t promise enough profit.
running gog games through heroic is pretty much as seamless as steam
I use Lutris myself to run GOG games and have the same experience.
Mind you, sometimes I do have problems and have to tweak things to get them to run (usually switching the runner to wine-ge instead of wine-staging).
It’s very rare to be totally unable to run a GOG game in Linux with Lutris.
I would say that my rate of success with Steam is roughly the same.
That said, in Lutris I can run my games sandboxed with networking disabled, which I cannot in Steam (even if I started Steam itself sandboxed with networking disabled, Steam itself needs Internet access).
Maybe Steam is a little more seamless for non-technically adept users (of which there are more and more running Linux nowadays), but at least Lutris (and, I expect, Heroic) are way much more configurable and hence give a lot more possibilities for power users to do things like sandboxing or even to solve problems with running some more obscure or AAA games from a certain DRM-heavy era (for example, there’s a game which no matter what I couldn’t get to run in Steam, but with a bit of tweaking I could get a pirate copy to run in Wine under Lutris - still now that game is listed in ProtonDB as not running in Linux)
It’s good that the community stepped up when CD Projekt didn’t.
Sorry but I have to disagree.
Holy failed updates batman. After I update some games, I have to fully restart heroic or it is an endless loop of “installing update” -> “Update available, click to install”
‘pretty much’ is doing heavy lifting
idk about that problem but some games just fuck. sometimes the instructions from others in “check compatibility” help
I was just curious whether technically Steam is a monopol for Linux, as in being the only store where you can run games without using 3rd party tools.
Not that I mind, running games on Linux is super easy nowadays (My favorite is Faugus launcher), but technically it can be another hurdle for some people.
But when I need to play some Epic free game, Heroic is awesome.
I mean, they develop and maintain Proton yet they don’t even prohibit you from using it on other things. If literally any company did that, their shareholders would riot…
…so I don’t think it technically qualifies as a monopoly, but they probably could have had a legal monopoly using an exclusivity patent on the tech (although they technically can’t patent the whole thing because it’s based on Wine, but they could have done this in a way that they could have).
That is a fair point. I’m also not trying to discredit Steam, I don’t really think there’s any kind of a problem as of now (well, apart from the fact that it could go downhill very fast once Steam changes hands), and the services they provide are reasonable and for me worth the 30% cut, especially their Proton work.
No. You can use Lutris although it appears to be unmaintained. Native Itch games work fine. Even better than the Windows versions do on windows because you don’t need Admim privileges to install for whatever fucking reason
Oh, I know how to run my games, my point was more that in that case, Steam does have a literal monopol on being the only store that can run most games on Linux without using any 3rd party tools.
Not that I mind at all, and it’s not a real problem, but I was just wondering if that’s technically the case.
Asked about this rule, Newell repeatedly denied it exists, even when shown internal communications seemingly showing Valve employees enforcing it: “Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms.” When asked how Valve would react if it ever happened, Newell initially said he was confused by the question and then added, “Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we’re providing.”
It would be interesting to see what happens if some of the larger publishers did this.
Someone few weeks ago posted a link where there were few emails that were exchanged with Valve and puglishers(?) with redacted pieces here and there. Their point was that Valve tells devs/publishers to match prices of their games on their own stores to prices on Steam.
I may be not a great english speaker, but in reality it did read that if a company wants to make discount somewhere else, they need to match the exact same discount on Steam. Point of that was that Valve doesn’t want customers to think that Steam is an expensive option when shopping for games.
I think that this is a common misconception and Gabe was annoyed that interviewer had not double checked information regarding Valve policies.
This has been re-hashed over and over. The terms are that if they want to discount steam provided keys on another platform they have to match that price on Steam. Steam keys are free to generate for them. They are free to distribute them on any platform. But the deal they make when they generate the steam keys is that they will adhere to the pricing rule.
If they want to discount keys generated on Epic’s store, then they can generate and sell them at any price they want.
We HAD a lot of choices. Because there were lots of digital distribution platforms back in the 2000s.
Until that libertarian bastard paid publishers to use Steam for DRM on physical releases.
Used its Most Favoured Nation clause to prevent other services from charging less.
And whoops. They all go out of business.
Generations of G*mers have grown up only knowing the Steam monopoly. That’ll they create any old excuse to try and defend it.
Until that libertarian bastard paid publishers to use Steam for DRM on physical releases.
Source on that?
You won’t get one, unless they decide to post a pic of their asshole.
It’s all to common nowadays that PC gaming for a lot of people (and especially people new to the platform) is essentially “Steam” gaming…
I hate to agree with a billionaire, but he’s right. Currently steam is not a monopoly at all, and hasn’t yet gotten so dominant that it amounts to one.
But they are the single most dominant outlet, and are in the first stages of having an ability to control the entire market in unfair ways to the point of crushing competition. It won’t be long before they do have that ability completely. And we can’t just trust the billionaire because he’s shown an unusual degree of user focused choices overall. Even if he’s perfect, he ain’t immortal, and as soon as he’s not in control, there will be fuckery
as soon as he’s not in control, there will be fuckery
This is what I don’t think a lot of people will be prepared for …
I dread if there’s gonna some useless MBA coming around afterwards and saying some shit like: “why don’t we charge steam users $9.99 to play their games per month?” and start cutting projects that benefit gamers to “save money” – who needs Proton? who needs to invest in things like couch co-op? Then give themselves a shitload of money in exchange for all the goodwill that Valve have built up over the years.
But Valve is not a public company, so you don’t get randos. Gabe is very aware of this fact himself.
Yep. This is how it goes downhill.
Some business analyst will make a pretty chart showing a massive revenue increase Vs some minor player attrition caused by the monthly subscription model, and the board will salivate at all those billions they’re gonna get.
Is that revenue necessary? Not at all. But capitalism says you must maximise profits regardless for the sake of it, and without an all powerful overlord to say otherwise, it will be a tragic downfall.
I really hope Linux will get a bigger market share, thanks to Steam devices, before Steam has to change CEOs and starts the inevitable enshitification.
Because for Linux gaming, Steam’s support for Proton is pretty much a monopol.
Most of 3rd party launchers for other stores also rely on Proton under the hood, IIRC.
Nobody stops EGS to implement Proton. Neither ActiBlizz, Ubisoft or EAs Origin.
The “monopoly” in this case is again just other stores not wanting to do what gamers want. Proton is FOSS and anyone can use it.
Here’s the thing. There are other places. Epic, Amazon Gaming, Origin/Battlenet/Ubi, itch, Microsoft store, gog…
Most suck at discoverability or they don’t have the variety of Steam. Some are shitty by design (Origin, Ubi, Battlenet) - intended to only get you to play their games. Others like itch aren’t built for scaling out to deliver thousands of big games.
This isn’t a thing like Apple’s walled garden, I feel like this is Steam out performing the competition.
I agree. That’s not what this is about though. This is about Valve using their market dominance to force price parity, supposedly to “protect consumers” (which is bullshit and doesn’t make sense). Yes, they’re the better storefront. I’d be willing to pay a little more to use it.
That’s one way the competition can compete though. They can’t make as good of a product, but they can make a cheaper one. They should be able to charge less, and make less profit per sale. Valve has ensured no developer can do this though by threatening removal if it’s cheaper anywhere else, and you can’t afford to not be on Steam. This would be good for consumers as it’d drive Valve to compete, either with an even better product or by lowering prices. There’s no way consumers lose, and I don’t get why people rush to fight for Valve on this.
Steam quite literally provides almost everything you could ever need too, it’s so much more than a storefront. It’s genuinely mind blowing just how many services steam offers, I don’t think anybody, including valve employees knows about every function and service it offers tbh.
Does steam provide a good service? Sure. Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don’t realize the amount of money valve is making off them. What we need is a good old fashioned bill at every purchase detailing how much money these rent seeking stores are extracting from you.
I don’t want the 90 services and bloated platform steam offers, I want to play my game and pay the developers.
It’s absolutely worth the cut they take. Ask every developer and publisher.
It’s hard getting recognized outside Steam.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
Also, Steam charges the industry standard rate iirc, same as google, apple, etc. While we can complain about that rate (last paragraph in mind: To what end?) its not as though Valve is doing anything extra greedy.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
And most of the time that extra doesn’t even go to the devs, the publishers keep it. So you’re not even helping the devs for the most part.
Besides, Steam won’t even take a single cent from Steam keys sold outside of their storefront. Devs are free to sell their games on stores like Humble or Fanatical at whatever price they deem fit.
Steam charges the industry standard rate… That Steam set originally decades ago.
Steam initally launched in 2003 as a updater/server browser for Valve games like counterstrike, half life, and team fortress classic. Apple music came out earlier that year, which isn’t a 1:1 relation but likely influenced things wrt download pricing.
Steam didn’t have its first third party game til late 2005 which puts the chance for it to standardize a rate for game downloads right around the timeframe of xbox live and psn launching (late 2005, mid 2006 respectively), so I wouldn’t be shocked if word got around the industry about that stuff, though that’s just me making reasonable logical deductions (People love opening their big fat mouths, lot of folks in the same circles, etc.) rather then anything solid.
Then you have the option to buy from epic who take a lower cut. I prefer Steam because of the convenience and features it offers. Until another storefront can supersede steams features then I don’t see a reason to switch
One, it’s kind of silly to just ask someone accused of doing something bad/illegal and then take their word for it. What’s Gabe going to say? “Oh, yep, we are a monopoly, you’re right.”
Two, Valve makes some damn good software. Steam is really slick, has generally only improved over time, and has worked pretty flawlessly on every platform I’ve used it on. They also provide a great storefront experience, game managing experience, and have contributed to some awesome open source projects.
Three, I have zero doubt that Gabe and Valve in general has done some shady shit such as but not limited to the alleged unspoken policy mentioned in the article. No one becomes a billionaire ethically.
Realistically, Steam is a monopoly.
That’s not illegal. In fact, it’s not even (necessarily) a problem.
If they misuse their monopoly position, then it becomes a problem.
Absolutely. If steam was pulling 1/10th of the stuff Google and Apple does on their marketplaces, that would be a problem.
The reason Steam is dominant is its better than the others. So long as publishers are unwilling to pass the lower cost of the platform into consumers, there is no incentive to change.
Also, Steam is the only platform that gives regional discounts in many regions. Its the main reason I don’t use GOG as much as I would like to.
Does anyone have a link to the “internal communications” mentioned in the article showing Valve employees enforcing the unwritten rule? Seems foundational to the whole issue, I’d like to read them for myself.
Also:
… but a big challenge Epic Games faces is simply that an awful lot of gamers don’t seem to want an effective Steam competitor: Steam rules the roost, and they like it that way.
The article mentions that the Epic Games GUI isn’t great, and I think Steam’s monopoly (It is, for sure, a monopoly) is backed up in part by the fact that they’ve had the time required to develop a decent interface that at this point, not many people are too itching to leave. With software everywhere enshittifying Steam keeps looking better in comparison, and I think that challengers need to at least focus on building out a comfortable trustworthy GUI before there’s a serious argument for dethroning Steam.
How many years did it take for Epic to implement a shopping cart in their store?
GUI is definitely a big reason, but features as well. Epic could make their store snappy as hell and their GUI easier to use, but that doesn’t give us controller remapping, game recording, an overlay with a web browser, per game notes, per game news, community guides, baked in mod support, performance data overlay, controller centric mode (big screen mode), and god knows theres more I’m missing.
Personally, I’d put my money on GOG becoming the real competitor over time. GoG Galaxy feels absolutely better than Epic does, and the fact it integrates other storefronts is such a major benefit that it makes it at least capable of competing with steam in the long haul. If GoG Galaxy gained all the features Playnite has, it would easily be able to compete with Steam.
Steam’s “monopoly” is purely because none of their competitors bother with pro consumer updates.
I guess he’s not wrong. You can buy them on Steam, or you can buy them on your other account on Steam, or you can have a friend buy them on Steam and gift them to you, etc.
Sometimes, I don’t even buy them…
Steam is the superior platform and you they can’t compete with a company that gives consumers so much value, so they’re gonna claim monopoly, which is ironic because they don’t breakup actual monopolies, so why should they fuck over something that isn’t a monopoly? Oh right, because antitrust is a tool for companies to attack competition, not to avoid the consumer hellscape of monopolies.
Offer more value to gain market share. If you can’t, I guess your business model is worse than Yoru competitors, isn’t it?
My wonder is who is this benefiting? Is this a bid to get gaming under stricter control by destroying its main outlet for many?
You mean to tell me that Gabe Newell wasn’t magically the only “good” billionaire? Color me shocked.
“Customers have enormous choice” about where they purchase their games, Newell testified, including “whether they buy the game on an Xbox, whether they buy it on Steam, whether they buy it on Epic Games Store or whether they buy it directly from software developers.”
Last I checked, Steam only sells PC games, it does not sell Xbox games. No one cares about Epic cause it sucks. I don’t know how many devs directly sell their games to the public. Itch.Io is extremely niche. That leaves GOG which does not have anywhere the market share that Steam has.
At the same time, Steam is, if not a monopoly, awfully close to one: It is so deeply entrenched that Epic Games has spent years literally giving away its games, and has barely made a dent—in fact, New Blood boss Dave Oshry said earlier this year that Epic freebies were great for sales on Steam. The Epic launcher is admittedly not an optimal experience, but a big challenge Epic Games faces is simply that an awful lot of gamers don’t seem to want an effective Steam competitor: Steam rules the roost, and they like it that way. A big majority of game developers, meanwhile, reckons that Steam really does hold a monopoly on the PC games market.
Gabe Newell, the co-founder and president of the gaming company Valve Corp., spent a morning in November 2023 with a handful of lawyers at the Arctic Club Hotel in downtown Seattle, talking in circles. Newell’s company runs Steam, the dominant online store for PC games, and was facing a lawsuit filed by a set of independent game developers who claimed that Steam operated an illegal monopoly in the $40 billion industry. Because developers relied so heavily on Steam, the suit argued, Valve has been able to stymie competition and charge “supracompetitive” fees.
The suit, which is ongoing, centers on what the developers alleged was a tacit company policy designed to punish them for offering discounts at competing online stores. But instead of defending the purported rule, Newell just denied it existed. “Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms,” he said, according to a previously unreported transcript of his deposition. Presented with internal communications in which Valve employees appeared to be enforcing the rule, Newell repeated his denial, at times verbatim, again and again. When an attorney pressed him on how Valve would react if a developer did charge less money for a game on a competing store, Newell demurred. “I’m confused by your question,” he said, before later adding, “Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we’re providing.”
But not all of Valve’s partners are thrilled with its influence over the market. In addition to the indie developers claiming to be burdened, court filings in the antitrust case contain email correspondence in which leaders from large corporations including Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Warner Bros. appear to be scrambling to do anything they can to avoid running afoul of Valve. The fear among some developers is that doing so can lead to penalties or even expulsion from Steam — a potentially devastating outcome for their game sales.
The US lawsuit Newell was deposed in, which has been certified as a class action, alleges that it “is not economically feasible” for game makers to leave Steam in favor of a rival store and that they are effectively “forced to comply” with Valve’s rules and high fees. A UK case echoes those claims, alleging Valve is “locking in” its users to Steam and earning “excessive” commissions.
Unless they want to buy them at a store with a nice box and cover art and a manual :P
