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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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Fuck Epic Games.
Fuck Apple too, but especially fuck Epic.
Not a fan of epic? Why's that?
Basically, it boils down to them trying to "compete" with steam by either bribing devs to release exclusively on their store, or straight up buying devs and not releasing (or removing) games on steam. It's a shitty way to do business, and I won't encourage it by patronizing them.
GoG and Humble don't have to resort to that kind of BS. Hell, even Microsoft and Sony are opening up more to each other and PC (often via steam, though Microsoft also uses their own store).
Epic is running in the wrong direction, and it's not-at-all for the high-ideal BS they spout about Steam being a monopoly (especially since it isn't, not by a long shot). It's naked self-interest, and it disgusts me.
It kinda is, though. Their competitors do not matter. Not even when funded by jumbo swinging dicks like Epic.
If you're talking about "I want to buy a PC game on the internet", there are tons of competitors (ignoring stores that only service one platform or only first party IPs); Microsoft, Humble, GoG, Amazon, Itch, and (technically, yes) Epic.
If you're talking about a service that offers the social aspects, storage (saves, etc), support, DRM, and hardware/software development (VR, handheld, OS, controller), there isn't any competition, but it's not because they bought everyone. They just develop a ton of things in house, and make an effort to continue to improvel and offer the best experience.
All Epic does is buy developers, hold games hostage, and offer constant freebies in hopes that they'll get enough of a marketshare to take the same cut that valve (and everyone else) does. They're losing boatloads of cash, and it's pretty much just Fortnight proping everything up. Their not mattering is entirely because they just aren't as good. If they really want to have a chance of competing, they need to stop slinging shit at valve in the news, hilariously complaining that Steam is somehow anti-competitive while they themselves do anti-consumer shit like buy dev studios and block access to games.
'Competitors exist' is not a counterargument for 'their competitors do not matter.' In fact, if you look carefully, you'll find acknowledgement of their competitors' existence, in the sentence: 'their competitors do not matter.'
Feature parity don't matter if customers basically just use one store. It does not matter what their competitors are doing - it plainly is not working. Those competitors can develop a ton of games, and exclusively offer some big-name third-party titles, and give away all kinds of freebies, and those competitors still do not matter.
If you think any of this is a defense of Epic then you are mistaken.
People would use more than one store if the other stores had the same or better features.
The only thing their competitors have done is exist and provide the worst fucking service possible while using anti-competitive tactics to try and get customers. The stupid fucks can't even attract customers using anti-competitive practices because they just outright refuse to do what customers actually fucking want and then complain it.
Neat.
Meanwhile:
Whatever the underlying reasons,
customers basically just use one store.
Which is what a monopoly is.
Customers choosing one option over the others isn't a monopoly, it's capitalism at work. There are other players, they're just not as good. Not Valve's fault they can't get their shit together.
Customers having one worthwhile option is in fact a monopoly.
That is not what a monopoly is. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of choice. People have choice. There is only one good choice, though, and people have chosen it over other stupid garbage that doesn't even try. Maybe you'd see that if you took Tim Sweeny's dick out yo mouth for 5 seconds.
This topic invites the weirdest goddamn replies.
It is a failure of moderation that any appropriate response to this baseless insult are equally forbidden.
Suffice it to say: I already told you, none of this is a defense of Epic.
Their competitors don't matter because they provide trash products.
GoG and Itch are full of great games. They just do fuck-all business, relative to Steam.
Epic carries some huge titles like Alan Wake II, and gives away a ton of celebrated games. It does not help.
It's not the games that makes it better or worse. It's literally everything else that Steam's competition refuses to do better at. No one else offers even a fraction of what Steam has. No friends, no community, no sales, no support, no nothing except the most basic-ass online storefront.
GOG at least had a gimmick of providing old games along with patches to make them run on modern systems; but they're no longer the only one doing that.
I would like for people to stop explaining why their competitors do not matter, as if that's a counterargument to the claim 'their competitors do not matter.'
The nuance that you're missing is why they don't matter, not that they don't.
It's not Valve's job to slow down for them.
Who asked them to?
Being a monopoly is not a crime. Not in itself. But it's still a thing, and it's not complicated, and Valve has one.
Why Steam's competitors do not matter... does not matter.
What makes Steam a monopoly is that they don't matter.
Yes it is, lol.
Read up on The Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Antitrust Act.
My guy, even the first sentence on Wikipedia specifies "unfair" monopolies.
There's like five clarifications just in the Background section about how it doesn't cover businesses which capture the whole market simply by being the better choice. Those are still monopolies. By definition. Mono meaning one and poly meaning how are we still talking about this?
Games aren't the difference. GOG and Itch are terrible to use. Straight up dumpster fires. That is why no one buys games from them. It's not complicated.
Epic manages to be an even bigger dumpster fire, who also went out of their way to take away games that had already been advertised, and in a few cases, actually sold for Steam. People actively hate them because they went out of their way to piss in the face of gamers, and also, again, because their platform is dogshit.
Steam's market share is the best because their platform blows doors off of everything else. You will not make a dent until you actually provide a platform that provides actual function that's competitive in any way with Steam. Market dominant companies fail all the time, when something better comes along. The competition is shit that's much, much, much worse.
Okay.
That's why Steam has a monopoly.
Steam still has a monopoly.
Being the best product on the market is not what a problematic monopoly is.
A monopoly uses anticompetitive means to suppress competition, then exploits that market share in anti consumer ways. Steam does neither. They're just better.
A monopoly has the means to engage in anticompetitive practices. Whether or not they do is a separate thing. That's why you clarified "a problematic monopoly."
It does matter whether they do. It's impossible for Epic to have a valid complaint (and the fact that they both throw a tantrum at every company who doesn't just give them exactly what they want, and actually do behave anticompetitively by using their market position with UE to try to force people onto their fucking disgusting excuse for a store tell you they don't) unless Steam is abusing their market position to make competition impossible.
"We can't be bothered competing" is not a valid legal argument.
Having that market position is what defines a monopoly.
Abusing it is a crime that only a monopoly can commit.
Whether they do it or not is not what makes them a monopoly.