this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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The wolfire games lawsuit is so damn cringe.
No company is your friend, but there's a reason Steam is number 1. The reinvestment in the platform and breadth of features steam has is unrivaled.
Epic has been trying for nearly a decade now and their store doesn't even have 1/4 the features of steam.
I love GoG though. For me they offer something steam can't, installers for my games.
The reason Steam is #1 is because they were first to the market and everyone’s so invested into it.
That’s why today’s business model is „dump VC money until you’re ubiquitous, once monopolised drive the prices up”. We see that with things like Just Eat / Glovo, Steam or YouTube.
Steam has so many more features than any other platform.
First to market or not, that's why steam is number one.
None of its competitors offer the community, market, discussion boards, rating system, friend system functionality and overall reliability that steam does.
It has competition, just not on PC.
Epic is atrociously bad. From hampering system performance to a total lack of any of the above features, using epic sucks.
The Xbox app is somehow seemongly always broken despite literally being developed by the platform holders and with a shit load of cash behind it.
I don't love the idea of a steam monopoly but you gotta also give them their flowers, it's a fantastic storefront, arguably the best when considering all gaming platforms that exist even outside of PC.
It is where it is because it was the first.
If tomorrow someone made a better Steam you’d still buy everything there because that’s where all your games are. Be honest with yourself.
No, it is where it is because Valve decided it wanted to invest in it outside of it being a launcher/updater for Valve games.
And it's not really the first. The first was probably Battle.net by Blizzard, which initially was a way to connect players (chat and join games) back in the mid-90s. It wasn't a game sales/distribution service for many years, but it got there w/ the release of the dedicated desktop app in 2013 and had some of the core features that makes Steam special (chat and match making). In fact, I had the desktop app before I had a Steam account, which I created in ~2013 when Steam came to Linux (I switched to Linux in ~2009, and had played games on Windows for years before that). Blizzard was never interested in becoming a game distribution network, so Battle.net remained largely exclusive to Blizzard titles.
I wouldn't have bothered w/ Steam if it didn't provide value. I was fine managing games individually, and I bought many games from Humble Bundle and directly from devs for years before Steam became a thing. I only started preferring Steam when it provided features I couldn't get elsewhere. These days, it provides so much value since I'm a Linux user, that I honestly don't consider alternatives, because everything else is painful. Heroic launcher closes that gap substantially, so I'm actually considering buying more from GOG (outside of a handful of old games I can't find elsewhere).
If another launcher provided better value vs Steam, I'd switch in a heartbeat. I use both Steam and Heroic, and I still prefer Steam because it has great features like controller mapping. But if, say, GOG supported the features I care about on the platform I use, I'd probably switch to GOG because I also care about DRM-free games. But they don't, so I largely stick to Steam.
So Battle.net started selling third party games when? Man, think your argument through before committing to paragraphs.
Valve supports Linux just to safeguard their monopoly. They killed native ports because they pushed Proton so hard. Alyx supported Linux natively even but check now.
All of this is pointless for most of the consumers. You’re making an argument that because they care for this niche it’s worth paying 30% cut. Most people would be fine with something to download and update their games with.
It was proposed, but Blizzard rejected it:
Battle.net basically approached the same problem as Steam but from the multiplayer side, whereas Steam approached from the distribution side.
I wouldn't put it like that. They support Linux to safeguard against Microsoft pushing their monopoly, and they did seem to be gearing up to do just that. Epic had similar concerns, hence the lawsuits against Google and Apple.
How is Linux support pointless? Having more options to play your games is a good thing! I don't think Heroic would've had as much of an impact w/o Valve's investment into Proton/WINE, and that gives customers a choice on which platform to buy and play their games on. It also allowed for the Steam OS market, and competitors are absolutely welcome to create their own spin with their own store, they just don't for whatever reason.
Downloading and updating games, for me, is actually the least important part of what Steam offers. I care far more about Linux support (I was a Linux user before I was a Steam user), Steam Input (Steam Deck, and I prefer controller on PC), and consolidating sales to one store. Whether I need to launch it separately or whatever isn't a big deal.
Translation: agree with me or you are wrong.
Earth is round.
Off topic
Valve good, belong to tribe now, gib upvotes.
And you think others can't argue when you lower yourself to the floor in order be angry without purpose. Smearing yourself in mud to show us just makes you a mess.
I started to use user tags to make communication more efficient, I can adjust communication to members of the Valve tribe.
Me tag you in computer. Me know you Valve simp. Me pretend me Valve tribe. You know.
huge laugh from the audience
So now you decided to be condescending because you view yourself as a superior human and deface yourself to what you think others are like? Wow. That's awful.
Me no waste time on people wasting me time. Valve good. Gib upvote.
You think I'm wasting your time? Boy howdy do I have a mind blower for you.
You are wasting your own time. I can't do anything to it.
And you are being pretty good at wasting that and yourself already. Wasting time by not even bothering looking at yourself and your actions is gonna delay you a lot.
Let’s move this convo to YouTube comments section, you’ll be more comfortable.
You are acting like a bully because you are upset about something and have decided to take it out on the largest target you could find and anyone that doesn't agree with you, or your method of acting like a bully.
.
Yeah that. That's what I'm talking about. It's like a tantrum.
Pure emotional response to hopefully get one from others. You are a bully.
.
And you insist on getting the final word. You want it and your wants are not able to always be met which causes strife. You view silence from those you bully against as your victory for shutting them up.
Your opinion on value of your contribution to this discussion seems to be a bit overblown.
And you'rs has been non existent while you are making responses of a period to just have the final comment.
My opinion of your contribution is accurate to what you have, and my contribution has been me conversing with someone who doesn't care.
I'm gonna stop responding now. Feel free to think about things, or just post your follow-up comment so you can get your tiny victory with no meaning that means we know you lack the maturity to understand your actions.
.
Brother I already buy things on GoG lol.
Steam is great and all but ownership is far more important to me personally
Great! Not everything’s available there unfortunately. Some games release on Steam only even. So you probably are affected either way.
90% of people buy on Steam. And they do that because their entire libraries are on Steam.