you know you’re reading a book in the Trump WH Memoir Canon when there’s an obligatory scene where some asshole relates they TOTALLY would have gone BEAST MODE on this other dude but OTHER PEOPLE held him back

Just a reminder, again. It’s not about you. Whinge and moan all you want. It changes nothing. This is just something that is happening, and I believe needs to happen.

I’ve already heard this from 10 fools before you.

You’re a fool if you think that any new competitor can just come to market with a better ‘service’ or ‘launcher’ while Steam is happily fleecing people for billions of dollars that they can funnel into development.

You’re failing the marshmallow test.

You make me laugh with your characterizations.

Well and your feeling is correct, on a certain level.

Well, while the arc of your logic is sound enough, it ignores the unhealthy relationship that Steam has with its consumers and its partners. You don’t break unhealthy relationships by playing as far and as nice as possible, because the one abusing the relationship will continue to be manipulative and exploitative.

It won’t be available through Steam. IF they had accepted preorders and are refunding them, those customers will find they’re getting a discount if they just move their purchase over to the Epic store.

And my point is that you can’t expect anyone to produce a level of competition strong enough to force Valve and the digital games industry as a whole to change in any meaningful way unless companies are -allowed- to be brave enough to avoid using Steam altogether.

Point being that if Steam continues to be the sales leader, no other service will take off anyway.

It’s a damned easy assumption. If it’s only coming out on Epic, and people scream for it to be available on -both- Epic and Steam, it is because they only want to buy it on Steam.

Why bother offering a ‘solution’ when that solution is simply to allow you to continue to solicit the anti-competitive service that is at question here?

And I am saying that first that is the illusion of choice, because it means most people will stick with the familiar out of ease and lazy familiarity.  And it is also actively anti-business.  Deep Silver chooses where to distribute.  Not the customers.  No competitor will ever actually compete with Steam unless…

I don’t care if you’re ‘okay with it’. That’s part of the point. Your opinions and feelings don’t have any bearing on the way that markets work, or on how much power a company like Steam can wield over your life and lifestyle.

Yeah, this all checks out.

And they’ll be able to afford to drive further development of their platform if everyone is apathetic and sticks with the familiar - how?

People are lazy. Sure, they’re asking for it to be on ‘both’ stores, so they can be lazy and buy it on the same one they are used to buying everything on.  No one is going to buy it on ‘both’ stores.

It seems like the shitty move is mobilizing consumers to try to enforce a near monopoly on digital sales, even though the 30% commission is usurious at best.

Not really doing their job, it’s immaterial.  Unless you’re implying that at the end of the day, a defense lawyer’s ultimate job is to gaslight witnesses and jury.  But you couldn’t be saying that, it would be insane.