this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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[–] julianh@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They mainly have a monopoly because everyone else's attempt to compete sucks. I haven't seen any launcher that has half the features or conveniences steam has. Most of them are slower too.

Steam offers actual value. Other launchers just feel like a lazy way to add drm.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, yeah. Steam has been around for a very long time and is the only real option. They have a ton of extra money to spend that a new competitor hard never expect to match. That's what makes it bad. Yeah, it's a great product, but what would we have if there was an actual competitor pushing them to be better? Would they take less of a cut or would they make Steam even better? Maybe they'd reduce prices of games for consumers even.

The fact of the matter is no one else really competes, so it's a monopoly.

[–] julianh@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

The hardest part is getting games on the platform, and epic and gog have already done that. Giving it features that steam has is just a matter of money and time, which other game companies definitely have.

I agree it's a monopoly and I'd love to see a good competitor. But it's different from something like at&t, where to even be a cell service provider you need a huge investment, time to build infrastructure, and government approval. All you need to make a good game launcher is a dev team, which is what these companies do all the time.