That's essentially the issue. Market effects competition failing.
Compared to nothing, yes there is 30% value is CDN hosting and a forum. Compared to a competitor there isn't - it's mainly network effects.
Or put differently, if you changed the name steam and launched them today along with a competitor that charges 15% is there enough more value to use Steam to downlad at that higher fee?
The answer is very likely not; however, that competition can't happen because of past network effects.
You want markets to compete on who has the better product, not on who got their first.
If that was true, the competitors with lower fees would be flourishing while Valve struggles.
Game buyers don't care about the cut. They pay the same price. They're absolutely going to use a more polished more reliable service that actually offers refunds for defective games.
Game buyers are going to use the thing that's sitting on their desktop. Every other aspect of either store is tertiary.
EGS has been shoveling money in a furnace, solely to also be sitting on some desktops, but Steam has a decade+ head start and it's going to be an absolute slog.
Yea, what I totally want is going back to 10 years ago when my gaming PC was loaded down with a gazillion craptacular "launchers". Every publisher seemingly had one. I'll take Steam tyvm.
What I want is healthy competition for marketplaces so that one company can't massively diminish the value they were offering over the course of a decade and still command the same prices.
Comments
That's essentially the issue. Market effects competition failing.
Compared to nothing, yes there is 30% value is CDN hosting and a forum. Compared to a competitor there isn't - it's mainly network effects.
Or put differently, if you changed the name steam and launched them today along with a competitor that charges 15% is there enough more value to use Steam to downlad at that higher fee?
The answer is very likely not; however, that competition can't happen because of past network effects.
You want markets to compete on who has the better product, not on who got their first.
If that was true, the competitors with lower fees would be flourishing while Valve struggles.
Game buyers don't care about the cut. They pay the same price. They're absolutely going to use a more polished more reliable service that actually offers refunds for defective games.
This is falling for the better mousetrap... trap: https://www.monash.edu/business/marketing/marketing-dictiona...
Game buyers are going to use the thing that's sitting on their desktop. Every other aspect of either store is tertiary.
EGS has been shoveling money in a furnace, solely to also be sitting on some desktops, but Steam has a decade+ head start and it's going to be an absolute slog.
Yea, what I totally want is going back to 10 years ago when my gaming PC was loaded down with a gazillion craptacular "launchers". Every publisher seemingly had one. I'll take Steam tyvm.
What I want is healthy competition for marketplaces so that one company can't massively diminish the value they were offering over the course of a decade and still command the same prices.