this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2026
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Can anyone overthrow Steam on PC? "As long as Valve is independent and not a publicly traded company," analyst says it looks impossible (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 1 week ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] GottaHaveFaith@fedia.io 28 points 6 days ago (5 children)

People don't want their library split on multiple stores. There's always going to be a monopoly because of that, unless we start having multiple exclusives on different platforms. For videogames it's accentuated by the fact that people want to be able to interact with friends, so they need to be on the same platform. Steam came first and had the best features, so they won.

Music? Spotify is in front of everything else

TV/Movies? This is the exception, as in this case there's a lot of content that can be available on a platform and not the other. Netflix is still first, but if you look at the numbers the gap is lower.

I used to buy everything on gog, now with the steam deck I went back to steam. Yeah I know, I can use gog there too, but using steam is easier for sync etc. So, you see, steam made something amazing, the steam deck, and everybody copied it, but they were still the first.

If gog made a steam deck client with easy management I'd gladly go back to them. They still take a 30% cut but I'm happy to support DRM free games. Itch is also nice but they don't have a lot of games (I do play 99% Indies).

IMHO there are no good or realistic solutions:

  • lots of exclusives
  • interoperability between stores, like the fediverse (this would actually be really cool)
  • everybody sell games directly
  • everybody goes back to buy physical
[–] Don_alForno@feddit.org 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

People don't want their library split on multiple stores. There's always going to be a monopoly because of that,

Nah. We could introduce regulation mandating that libraries have to be interoperable.

[–] bitfucker@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago

They already could do it. They just do it in a very shitty way. What do you think EA launcher and Ubisoft game is doing on steam? They NEED their own launcher/store for the game to run when you purchase it FROM STEAM.

[–] blah42@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 days ago

Going back to buying physical would put all the indies that can't afford a publisher out of luck too (I know people like physical, but its important to note)

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 6 days ago

Netflix was doomed when content that was previously on the platform for removed from the platform.

This was never the case for dvds, but dvds weren't as profitable...

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

GOG used to do GOG Connect where you could bring some games from steam to GOG. They did it in waves and it was available maybe a few times a year. I got at least 200 games on GOG that way and it got me to spend more with GOG. Wish they'd bring that back in some capacity.

[–] Willy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

maybe someone will REA steam and add that.