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NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:08:47 +0000
From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Epic Game Store tops $1 Billion USD in 2024
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:08:47 -0500
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There's a related article talking about how Amazon expected it could
dominate the PC gaming market-space and yet repeatedly failed to
dislodge Steam/Valve.* Like Epic, they thought that just throwing huge
amounts of money around would be sufficient, and were surprised that
tactic didn't work. Apparently the idea of actually creating a product
that could compete on features never occurred to them.

To any other would-be competitors to Steam, here's a (probably
incomplete) list of features you need to have in your storefront:

    a) a way to launch games (duh)
    b) a way to buy games (also duh)
    c) preferably a way to make the launching bit the default, 
       and not the storefront
    d) chat
    e) user reviews
    f) discussions
    g) workshops for mods
    h) screenshots & saved videos
    g) sharing libraries amongst family
    h) remote play
    i) toggleable FPS counter
    j) cloud saves

This is just a minimum of features Steam adds (feel free to add any
others you think are essential). There's a lot more functionality too,
but if your client doesn't add at least these basics, you have the
inferior product and why should anyone bother with it?

The thing is, I WANT there to be a more robust marketplace. Steam has
been a reasonably good curator (considering it's a modern-day
corporation) but you can't DEPEND on their good behavior to last
forever (and Valve has its dark side too). But almost all its
competitors** have relied too much on their money and name-recognition
rather than creating a product people might actually want to use. And
it doesn't work. Gamers aren't going to flock to your platform just
because you're Activision, or just because a few games are exclusive
to your client, or just because you occasionally give away a 5-year
old game for free. You've tried that tactic for years and Valve only
grows stronger.

So maybe try a new tack?






* its on PC Gamer, but we'll overlook that:
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/amazon-apparently-thought-it-was-gonna-compete-with-steam-since-the-orange-box-but-prime-gamings-former-vp-admits-that-gamers-already-had-the-solution-to-their-problems/
** EA, Ubisoft, ActiBlizz, Microsoft, Rockstar, Bethesda, Epic,
Amazon... just to name a few