Games
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Valve got to where they are by simply being the option that offered the most convenience to end users.
All the things this lawsuit is challenging are true. Valve does have a defacto monopoly on PC games distribution, they do not let you buy DLC on other platforms for games you own on steam, and they do take a 30% cut of sales.
Having these be limited by government regulation is a good thing. It would increase interoperability and increase competition in the space.
If those things get changed, people will still continue to use Steam because they continue to offer a service that "just works". Every other storefront that has attempted to compete seems to either trip over itself by trying some anti-consumer behavior to increase short term profit(EGS, Uplay), lack discoverability features(itch), or not offer enough benefit to endure cost of change(GoG)
I'll be that guy and say that I do prefer buying from GOG, going as far as paying more money in doing so, so the issue isn't really 'friction' but 'mfs don't bother offering on GOG'.
My hate for drm has only grown over the last two decades, and so I'll get stuff wherever I can that isn't plastered with it. But it's not even a rounding error in comparing the number of games available of steam vs GOG. You'd have to go so far out with zeros that you fall off the page before encountering a positive value (0.00000[...]00001%). Which is upsetting and frustrating, since the other option is steam or piracy. And I do like rewarding developers for their work, so that leaves one option basically all the time.
Indeed, and now what GoG is pursuing stronger Linux offerings I may shop there more, but Valve had contributed more than just a shop and launcher. The Linux work with Steam Deck and Proton has been invaluable.
There are games on Steam that don't have DRM (since it's not a requirement from Valve). The most prominent examples I can think of are games from Toby Fox and Klei Entertainment.
Steam is a DRM system.
I am not being flippant or facetious. Steam is literally a DRM system with a shop grafted on top. That is what it has always been. If a game is on Steam, it be definition has DRM.
Steam is a distribution platform, with DRM provided as an optional feature for the developer. If I wanted to play Deltarune without using the steam launcher, I can go to the downloaded directory and simply launch the executable. For convenience's sake, most users will use the steam client to launch their games, and some games force you to due to developer choice. In order to play the game I wanted to play though (Deltarune), steam only served as a storefront and a download repository.
But for the games without DRM you can just download them and run the executable. Bypassing Steam
Sure, if you stop using steam you can't re-download or update the game, but if the game didn't have DRM, you can just keep copying the existing executable
I'd love to see this as an official tag on the store page.
In terms of straight numbers, isn't Steam's large "advantage" there it's offering of independent, mostly unregulated games from small time devs? Are those really using drm? Even if there are, I don't really think most users are choosing Steam over GOG for access to "Asset Flip #57354".
I thought the small indie devs were mostly on itch?
Itch is exclusively indie devs, afaik, but since Steam started their Greenlight initiative, the number of games released per year has rocketed up. 2012, the year Greenlight started, only 441 games were released on steam. Two years later in 2014, almost 1500 games were released. 2017 released 5600. 2021 released 10,200. And last year had over 21k. How much of that do we think is really DRM'd, AAA published software?
I'd argue that GoG also falls into the lack of discovery catagory.
That said, I'd argue that the lack of discovery isn't just a player issue, but ties back into the other side: publishers and devs. These storefronts/launchers are unessisary middle men. A software company can run its own store, and make its own launcher. Just look at so many of the big titles over the last two decades: Minecraft, League, Tarkov, War Thunder, Roblox, and more recently Hytale. Looking at players is only half the puzzle, the other half is how these storefronts compete against each other, and even against direct-to-customer sales for publishers.
So, for publishers/devs, what does Steam offer?
And at what cost?
Now to compare to, lets say, GOG:
Offers:
Costs:
Because of this, its no wonder that they can't get more of the market. Why would someone choose to sell there over Steam, or even over direct-to-consumer?
You left off the newer steam deck which opens your games up to a mobile audience.
Just to be clear, distributing on Steam adds nothing functional to a game's playability on the Steam Deck (afaik). A game from GOG can be played in a Deck just as well as one from Steam, albeit with slightly more effort.
That said, I know customers will flow toward the path of least resistance, so even a little more effort will push them towards a different source.
I think that's the crux of it. It can be done, but I would bet the vast majority are just playing steam games on SteamOS
So if you launch on Steam, you can reach PC users and Mobile users, and someone might decide to buy the game on steam knowing it will work easily on both.
This is also survivorship and selection bias though. Not only would you not have heard of the ones that failed, but these are the games confident enough to not launch on Steam in the first place. Several of them are so old that Steam was in its infancy and not the de facto storefront when they came out.
Steam was the defacto storefront when all those games came out.
In 2005 when Roblox came out? No. League of Legends came out in 2009, and I had barely started shopping on Steam for non-Valve games back then. Most of us were still buying games on disc at Walmart. Minecraft was doing early access before Steam had the feature.
My point is that it is an option, and still a competitive one, when so many still use this option. If it wasn't, these games wouldn't have succeeded and/or would have died off. Its an option middlemen have to out-compete, and I'd argue many don't.
Just a little correction.