this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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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.
So because Battle.net failed to predict market correctly 100% of PC gamers are stuck with Steam until the end of the world. That doesn’t change the fact that Valve lucked into the position they are in and was paid billions for this already.
PC gamers aren't "stuck with Steam," they very much have options. And Steam is likely way better than whatever Battle.net would've become, so I'm quite happy with how things turned out.
And yeah, Valve was quite lucky in nailing the timing, however, that was also a very conscious choice since they filled a need they saw. Valve is perhaps the best company you could ask for to have such a dominant position, pretty much any other company would've resulted in a way worse situation for gamers.
PC gamers are stuck because Steam is a self-perpetuating monopoly. If your entire library is on Steam, and Steam has almost all of the games you’ll just keep on buying there for convenience (and that’s what happens, analysts estimate 90% market share). Alan Wake 2 wasn’t profitable until EGS exclusivity expired because gamers opted to wait rather than buy this gem of a game on a different platform (that gives away games like candy).
Even if you think that Valve are just the best, aren’t you worried that having one good option is being one good option away from having no good options?
Well yeah, because EGS sucks.
If you look at Steam's competitors, none of them are really developing their feature set. So even if customers were dissatisfied w/ Steam, who is actively trying to earn their business?
Sure, I'd love it if another platform stepped up to actually compete w/ Steam.
My expectations are fairly low: it needs to work well on Linux. Heroic largely resolves that for EGS and GOG, but I'm not particularly interested in supporting a platform that only works because some community project has done the work for them. So if GOG supported Galaxy on Linux as a first class citizen, I'd probably still use Heroic, but I'd buy a lot more games from them. But as it stands, GOG is one update away from blocking access to my games through a launcher, and dealing w/ WINE/Proton directly is a pain. EGS is so far away from what I care about that I don't think they could ever earn my business, but who knows, maybe they'll surprise me.
But the fact that we're even having this discussion is a testament to Steam's success. Heroic probably wouldn't be a thing w/o Valve's investment into Proton/WINE, so GOG/EGS wouldn't even be a consideration for me at all. But since that work was done, I now have more options. I've played some GOG and EGS games through Heroic, so it's not even theoretical, they are realistic alternatives.
It's important to note that at every turn, Valve has earned my trust. When games are pulled from their store, owners of those games still have access (e.g. I bought Rocket League on Steam, and when they went EGS exclusive, I still had the old version of the game). They have a solid refund policy, and they have gone out of their way to make things more pleasant for their customers. Even if they didn't have a dominant market position, I'd probably still choose them just based on the user experience. So yeah, not having a realistic alternative isn't great, but I don't think it's because of anything nefarious Valve has done, but instead lack of interest by their competitors.