Steam monopoly?

[Fanatical Meat]

There are ample brick and mortar stores plus other online means of buying games. Steam is not a monopoly

 

[CPA]

If the competition couldn't compete with Steam then you wouldn't have GMG, GetGamesGo, GamersGate, EA, Ubisoft, Gamestop, UPlay, Gamefly, GOG and Amazon. Period. Steam is not even close to being a Monopoly on digital sales.

Craig, I'd love to know how you know that the other sites are struggling, especially since only Amazon, Ubisoft, and EA are public companies, yet they still don't provide a breakdown of digital sales.

The other thing I find interesting is your analogy to Walmart and their forced pricing to Steam, when we obviously have more indie development AND indie distribution than ever thanks in no small part to Steam.

 

[fixbsod]

Seeing stuff like the new employee handbook for Valve employees (posted quite some time ago online) makes me feel confident in their model. It is not a profit driven public machine and focuses on employees and gamers. Ironically this model appears to really be the best -- Costco anyone? Gabe is already one of the richest men in the planet -- the 854th richest actually, and I can't see him just KILLING his baby to climb up a few more rungs, especially to sell out to some POS like EA or ATVI.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm just worried about Gabe's inevitable retirement. The day he leaves, who will step into his place?

That is, unless he funds and successfully invents a technology that allows his brain and his personal likeness to be preserved in a computer for an indefinite amount of time, thus making him Valve's eternal president. He certainly has the money to do it.

 

[Dankk]

The thing I dont share is the unquestioning trust in Gabe Newell. Everyone could be right that he is a friend of gaming and wont screw us over, but is there any proof of that?

The past decade has shown us that Gabe is a pretty sensible guy and he knows how to run a consumer-friendly business.

What if EA made a huge offer to buy out Steam?

They already did. Valve turned down their offer, and Gabe said he would rather disintegrate the company than sell out to someone else.

EA proposed a measly $1 billion, which is kind of weak. Gabe Newell's already a multi-billionaire.

And what if he decided to someday say "Server costs are too high, you have to pay a monthly fee to keep your account active?" I bet there is something in that TOS that would allow it.

There's no hard data for this, but somehow I'm pretty sure Valve isn't having any trouble paying for bandwidth. And if they did suddenly impose a monthly fee on Steam's tens of millions of users, it would be corporate suicide.

 

[CPA]

There's no hard data for this, but somehow I'm pretty sure Valve isn't having any trouble paying for bandwidth. And if they did suddenly impose a monthly fee on Steam's tens of millions of users, it would be corporate suicide.

What I'm pretty sure of is that the hosting company has a contract that is very favorable to Valve and would not be so stupid to outprice themselves. There are plenty of other hosting companies that would submit bids for Valve's business.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

ha I believe there is a story about some of his old MS boys meeting him with a buyout offer and he gave them the finger and walked out of the meeting.
Greatest danger to steam is Gabe's mortality. He's a big guy I hope hrs taking care of himself.
Regardless even if steam becomes the only game seller on the planet. Lets be honest, games are not a necessity for anyone

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Even if you could prove that Steam were a monopoly by definition that does not automatically make their market position harmful to their consumers or prevents other competitors from entering the marketplace. The only way Valve could turn Steam into a harmful actor in the marketplace would be if they were actively engaged in lobbying government to help cement their position in the marketplace by demanding taxes, subsides, contracts, regulations, mandates, etc be enacted or granted to them for their own benefit and the detriment of consumers and others who compete against them for consumer dollars. Outside of Valve actively courting government to do the above I don't see how Steam is harmful to anyone since it is consumers who choosen Steam in mass because of its features and competitors exist to challenge Valve and Steam if they were to slip. Additionally if the market stays relatively free of government interference one day Steam will not be #1 because in the end even the big boys eventually decline unless they have government to cement their position. E.g. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Sony, Sun etc all have seen the competition erode their position or have had markets shift away from them due to changes in technology, changes in user trends, or just changes in leadership, etc.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

If the competition couldn't compete with Steam then you wouldn't have GMG, GetGamesGo, GamersGate, EA, Ubisoft, Gamestop, UPlay, Gamefly, GOG and Amazon. Period. Steam is not even close to being a Monopoly on digital sales.

Just out of curiosity, how does it factor in that you can get Steam keys for many purchases on at least some of those sites? When that happens is Steam getting a cut?

 

[KaOTiK]

Just out of curiosity, how does it factor in that you can get Steam keys for many purchases on at least some of those sites? When that happens is Steam getting a cut?

No they don't get a cut when another site sells a Steam key. In fact, any dev/pub that has a game on Steam can request Steam keys of their game so that they (dev/pub) can sell them else where if they wish.

What does Steam get out of it? Brings more people to them using the service and makes people more invested in their library having more games in one spot. You start using the Steam client and see all the sales they have, they get sales that way. The cost for them to server and host the games for people to download at the scale they do is probably beyond dirt cheap.

 

[CrystalBay]

My only problem with Steam these days is how the software profile/activity function lags and errors.

 

[frozentundra123456]

The past decade has shown us that Gabe is a pretty sensible guy and he knows how to run a consumer-friendly business.



They already did. Valve turned down their offer, and Gabe said he would rather disintegrate the company than sell out to someone else.

EA proposed a measly $1 billion, which is kind of weak. Gabe Newell's already a multi-billionaire.



There's no hard data for this, but somehow I'm pretty sure Valve isn't having any trouble paying for bandwidth. And if they did suddenly impose a monthly fee on Steam's tens of millions of users, it would be corporate suicide.

I was just making up random, probably unlikely scenarios. All I am trying to say, is that where human beings are involved, things can change and one can never be sure what will happen. Just look at what happened to Bioware. I guess I am enough of a cynic to consider any business not to be a friend of the consumer out of the kindness of their heart.

 

[Dankk]

I was just making up random, probably unlikely scenarios. All I am trying to say, is that where human beings are involved, things can change and one can never be sure what will happen. Just look at what happened to Bioware. I guess I am enough of a cynic to consider any business not to be a friend of the consumer out of the kindness of their heart.

I agree with you. It's good to be cynical. Corporations exist to make money, not to help people. Your logic is sound.

Valve has been respectable up until now but no one can say for sure if that will change.

 

[Aikouka]

I'd probably buy it for $5 if it had multiplayer. Would be fun playing Monopoly with some of you jamokes I call Steam friends.

KT

Everyone knows that hipsters cool cats use tablets as their digital game boards these days!

 

[Dankk]

Doesn't work.
People will still pay the same, or more, for a Steam copy than for a no DRM copy.
Seriously. At least some people will.

Some people will, but not everyone.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

I was just making up random, probably unlikely scenarios. All I am trying to say, is that where human beings are involved, things can change and one can never be sure what will happen. Just look at what happened to Bioware. I guess I am enough of a cynic to consider any business not to be a friend of the consumer out of the kindness of their heart.

You are right that businesses exist to make money (i.e. they are not charities) but having that as their prime motivation means they are often very receptive to methods and means of communications that you do not see with say government in society. Hence when their customers vote with their wallets and stop buying their stuff often the shit hits the fan and most businesses go into panic mode and try to address their flaws. Especially when popular word of mouth gets out of about a business not meeting the expectations of its customer base and people stop buying their products, their competitors move in for the kill and generally the entire affair turns into a giant cluster fuck, e.g. Microsoft's XBox One debacle and Sony's brilliant play on letting console players know that they were heading in the opposite direction.

 

[BrightCandle]

Steam for me offers predominately 3 particular features/services. These services are a large part why its such an incredibly useful tool and some of this is just Microsoft's fault. I feel their failures at least some aspects have helped Steam dominance.

1) Install and update of games - These are clearly operations that Windows could and should have done something about a long time ago. Microsoft has limited Windows update to its own apps and OS but in practice having an open standard here and a decent updating tool would have serious hampered Steams rise to power.

2) Finding new games - I check Steam's new releases page every few days at least and this means I find games that are released on Steam. I wish we had a website that did the same thing but across many such digital services, something I could check daily. I suspect it would be quite a popular site.

3) Friends link in games - The steamworks games do allow some pretty decent finding of games and joining friends. But we are almost always on Teamspeak before we join anyway and its a reasonably rare requirement as I tend to play dedicated server games because lets be honest the peer to peer thing sucks.

(1) and (2) could and should have been done better elsewhere by different organisations.(3) is done by various other services but they didn't combine the 3 aspects.

I don't think Steam really counts as a monopoly, nor am I concerned that people like its service. I am more concern that people don't take notice of its downsides, its failure to provide refunds on games that don't work, its intrusive DRM that requires periodic online verification and checks on game start. These are not good things, it is far from a goody good company looking out for our interests. There is a reason laws are soon to be introduced in the UK to turn digital "services" like Steam into goods that can be returned under the same laws as physical things, and that reason is Steam and its bad behaviour in regards to refunds.

 

[DeadFred]

Doesn't work.
People will still pay the same, or more, for a Steam copy than for a no DRM copy.
Seriously. At least some people will.

Yes, and those people are morons.

 

[lamedude]

ha I believe there is a story about some of his old MS boys meeting him with a buyout offer and he gave them the finger and walked out of the meeting.

MS had their chance but they chose the money pit (Xbox) over the money printer.

Valve originally approached several companies – including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks – to build a client with these features, but all turned them down.

How different would the world be if any of them said yes.

 

[darkewaffle]

Depends on what you care about. I don't think Valve is sacred by any means but they make good games and run an OK program. But I think they give consumers shiny baubles (sales, badges, achievements, Greenlight) to distract them and milk their own reputation (imagine if Origin had the same badge implementation first and how that would have been received) and procrastinate 'real' improvements to Steam. Not to mention, each of those baubles makes them more money.

Steam is a ten year old program that, to this day, is still inexplicably missing a number of elementary functions; it wasn't until Origin let users determine their install directory for games (which they offered almost right off the bat) that Steam finally (at that point 8-9 years old) gave users that option a few months later.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

amazon
d2d
gog
origin
gamefly

direct digital competitors, amz and origin in particular have HUGE resources at their disposal.

services like play store and apple store are the same too, just different focus.

not to mention tons of B&M options

its not a monopoly if there is viable competition. people prefer steam because it is the best, not because it is the biggest. from what i can recall they aren't even buying up competition or anything, just focusing on their product.

i really dont see the point here, other than FUD.

 

[clok1966]

its simple, STEAM is winning because its best.. all this worry about "what if" doesnt matter, as soon as STEAM screws up or starts screw people in any way, then somebody else will come along. The simple reason STEAM is the big boy, is STEAM is doing it the best.. EA (example) could kill STEAM quickly if it just offered better deals FREE addons, some "time wasters" like achivements and cards, etc..

its basic, STEAM wont be beat till somebody does it better. NOBODY forces use steam, you can skip it.. but it works well and is a good deal for most people. Be a better deal and work better, STEAM will be second..

question is not the "what If" about STEAM, its more "WHY" haven't the others done something to beat it?

EA- other then buying game devs and sucking um dry, have they ever done anything right? they just expect us to use it cuz they have a huge games.. F them.. give me a reason to use it.. maybe I will.
GOG- doing it all correct, but not enough new stuff for the "new" gamer
GMG- doing it mostly right, but doing the thing nobody likes, couponeing, rebating type stuff.. when in the history of the world has anybody liked this? Just give us a cheap price! second best to STEAM (opinion).
the rest- just coasting.. not doing anything to entice us..

STEAM did it right.. gave us some for free (levels, addons, games) not much but some.. but whre it got it really right, CHEEP prices.. simple click ordering.. fast servers, simple DRM that is the least annoying of it.. vast selection. And if you do some reading, they are bar far the best for the game dev too (on ease of use).

to beat that you just have to do it better, there is no STEAM monopoly, anybody can try beat it.. but greed stops them. You dont beat um buy offering less.. and so far everybody is LESS then STEAM.. that's not STEAMS fault.

 

[CPA]

Depends on what you care about. I don't think Valve is sacred by any means but they make good games and run an OK program. But I think they give consumers shiny baubles (sales, badges, achievements, Greenlight) to distract them and milk their own reputation (imagine if Origin had the same badge implementation first and how that would have been received) and procrastinate 'real' improvements to Steam. Not to mention, each of those baubles makes them more money.

Steam is a ten year old program that, to this day, is still inexplicably missing a number of elementary functions; it wasn't until Origin let users determine their install directory for games (which they offered almost right off the bat) that Steam finally (at that point 8-9 years old) gave users that option a few months later.

And let's not forget there are plenty of games you can't even buy on Steam - like any Blizzard game.

 

[Craig234]

Even if you could prove that Steam were a monopoly by definition that does not automatically make their market position harmful to their consumers or prevents other competitors from entering the marketplace. The only way Valve could turn Steam into a harmful actor in the marketplace would be if they were actively engaged in lobbying government to help cement their position in the marketplace by demanding taxes, subsides, contracts, regulations, mandates, etc be enacted or granted to them for their own benefit and the detriment of consumers and others who compete against them for consumer dollars. Outside of Valve actively courting government to do the above I don't see how Steam is harmful to anyone since it is consumers who choosen Steam in mass because of its features and competitors exist to challenge Valve and Steam if they were to slip. Additionally if the market stays relatively free of government interference one day Steam will not be #1 because in the end even the big boys eventually decline unless they have government to cement their position. E.g. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Sony, Sun etc all have seen the competition erode their position or have had markets shift away from them due to changes in technology, changes in user trends, or just changes in leadership, etc.

That is way off base. The issue has nothing to do with the government - that is some baggage you are bringing to the topic.

I've bought games on a good dea on a non-Steam site - and then they go on sale on Steam and I want to re-buy them for the simpicity of habing more games in one place. Right now if I want to avoid accidental re-purchases, I have to check several sites for whether I have already got the game. As Steam draws in buyers with great sales, made possible by the volume they have, that's more people who are building Steam libraries who then have that incentive to try to always get things on Steam or with Steam keys.

Try starting a business to compete with that.

It's pretty amazing that companies like greenmangaming can compete with Steam on price at all - smaller volume competitors don't have the leverage to keep doing that. Who gets a better price from a supplier - Wal-Mart or a small store? I feel bad for companies trying to compete with Steam nowadays. They're only going to be able to beat Steam on price on a fraction of titles if that, and more people are going to just not want to buy at various sites just to avoid having those collections all over the place.

And like I said, this isn't even like a Wal-Mart, where every time you go to buy an item, you can pick any store that's best for that purchase, this creates more and more people locked in to 'I want it on Steam so my stuff is in one place'. No other service can compete with Steam on that and become a competitice 'one central location for your games'.

It's extremely unreliable to depend on the goodwill of one guy to be 'nice' in a big company.

At some point people have the company who can make a lot more money doing things one way than the old way. When in the history of business has any company who had dominant market share ever kept being run at far less profit because it's 'nice', because they cared about doing well by customers? There re all kinds of companies who have done that while building market share, and then eventually, money talks. I'm not saying Gabe will do that - but the company won't always be run by him.

It's just not sensible to say 'the laws of the issue of monopoly are suspended because Gabe says they are' for more an a temporary period.

Like I said, I don't have a solution - if the people who talk about Steam falling and being replaced are right, that'll still be a blow to those who invest in Steam as their one repository for years now. That doesn't solve the issue, it's part of the problem. All we can probably do is discuss this; having some universal library doesn't seem likely, why would Steam cooperate with that, who would profit and build it, etc.

Right now it's partly a question, how long will sites like gamersgate be able to compete? If the competitors fall, the pressure for sale prices will be lowered also.

 

[Craig234]

To repeat one thing some people are misreading: Steam is not now a monopoly. But they're more and more a dominant player, moving from being just one competitor that's 'the best' getting a lot of business each purchase, to having additional competitive advantage no one else does as people want one location for their games, and to a lesser extent things like these new card and badge systems ('I'd rather get it on steam for the cards').

In the phase as companiee become dominant, they're typically very attractive to customers with good service and prices. It's what comes later that's an issue.