• dogs0n@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        311·
        9 hours ago

        Luckily unlike monopolies in other sectors, Steam doesn’t involve itself in evil oractices that more or less stops others from competing.

        Someone just needs to make a better store, but they can’t because no company big enough to compete is willing to be as user friendly.

        Epic, probably the second biggest store people thing about, can’t even make a good platform. They try underhanded practices like bribing developers and customers… maybe they should make their store work properly first.

        • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zipEnglish
          11·
          7 hours ago

          I’m rabidly pro-consumer about most things but I struggle with how we define a market when we talk about steam. In order for steam to be a monopoly you have to drill down through super categories of software sales and then video game sales, to the platform level.

          If you look at all digital delivery video game sales they still don’t have a monopoly. You don’t have to deal with steam to play a video game. It’s only PC video game sales where they are close to a controlling market share.

          But Steam has far less power over PC gaming than Apple, Sony, or Nintendo do over their respective platforms. Gamers and Devs basically HAVE to deal with those companies to have access to their markets.

        • MashedTech@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          8 hours ago

          Also, public companies can’t make good products because they don’t have long term vision. They don’t have long term vision because they need to have good short term profits and profit margins. Look at Xbox eating itself just because they need to have a 30% profit margin right now!