I did not realize they were trying to compete in the first place.
You can see why Amazon’s efforts suck just by using it. That isn’t to say I defend Steam, or Epic, or GOG, or UPlay, or Origin, or Battle.net, or Microsoft Store because they all suck. They suck for existing as separate things that all do the same thing but each eating 500Mb of space on my computer.
The ideal situation would be a federated platform where everyone shares a single sign on, everyone shares the same update, backup & restore mechanisms, everyone can join the same lobbies and matchmaking. But that’s too sensible.
Or they stop trying to lock people in with exclusive games and instead attempt to actually compete by the quality of the service. I know it will never happen but I can dream.
Why does every single picture of Gabe look like hedonism bot wrapped in skin?
Amazon tried getting into game production as well and seems to have middling results at best. Having the financial backing is significant, but it doesn’t guarantee success.
Valve can make some good calls, but do you guys -really- think enshittification is not coming for it ever? It’s just a matter of time.
Valve is Augustus Caesar. A benevolent dictator that did much to improve the quality of life of his citizens, but still a dictator. They’ve centralized control over the PC gaming sphere and brought tons of legitimate improvements to the hobby. Not they have no legitimate competitors. Epic Games is a mosquito bite, Prime Gaming is nothing, GOG is the closest thing and even they’re miles behind.
It only took a couple of generations to go from Augustus to Nero. I do not anticipate good things once Gaben retires/dies.
When Gabe dies, sure, enshittification will happen. In the meanwhile, enjoy Steam for what it is for now, but prepare with contingencies.
I admit that I still make Steam purchases, but this has started to be in the back of my mind when doing so. It is still another company that sells stuff that the customer ends up not owning. With all that they’ve done for gaming on Linux and doing right by their customers so far, it’s just so hard to doubt them.
That’s not how Capitalism works!
/s
The larger company simply needs to create/invent problems that the smaller company cannot solve, and then sell a solution.
And buy them out at some point too. Very important step.
The larger company needs to hinder the smaller company with pointless slapp lawsuits. That way the smaller company will be too busy to innovate anything new.
So after investing millions in this, this is incredible insight that the VP has gained:
- Talk to Real Customers Before Writing Code
I really recommend reading his LinkedIn post, just to understand how these people think, and how fucking incompetent people at the top raking in millions are. It’s surprisingly honest for a LI post (although that bar is very low), probably because the guy is now retired and doesn’t give a shit anymore.
I honestly never even processed that Prime Gaming was a thing and that it was trying to compete with Steam. I just knew they purchased Twitch and thought they’d probably abandon it into a shitty, old and slow site like they did with IMDB and Goodreads.
What’s awesome is you will still catch Twitch streamers actively encouraging people to use their free prime gaming sub to their channel or any channel because “fuck Jeff Bezos” lol
Could you link a screenshot of the LinkedIn post? I don’t want to make a LinkedIn account.
As VP of Prime Gaming at Amazon, we failed multiple times to disrupt the game platform Steam. We were at least 250x bigger, and we tried everything. But ultimately, Goliath lost. Here’s why:
The 15+ year long attempt to challenge Steam started before I was VP of Prime Gaming, but we never cracked the code. Not under my leadership or anyone else’s.
The first way we tried to enter the online-game-store market was through acquisition. We acquired Reflexive Entertainment (a small PC game store) and tried to scale it. It went nowhere.
Then, after buying Twitch, we created our own PC games store. Our assumption was that gamers would naturally buy from us because they were already using Twitch. Wrong.
Finally, we built “Luna,” a game streaming service that let people play without a high-end PC. Around the same time, Google tried the same thing with their product “Stadia.” Neither gained significant traction. The whole time, Steam dominated despite being a relatively small company (compared to Amazon and Google).
The mistake was that we underestimated what made consumers use Steam.
It was a store, a social network, a library, and a trophy case all in one. And it worked well.
At Amazon, we assumed that size and visibility would be enough to attract customers, but we underestimated the power of existing user habits. We never validated our core assumptions before investing heavily in solutions. The truth is that gamers already had the solution to their problems, and they weren’t going to switch platforms just because a new one was available.
We needed to build something dramatically better, but we failed to do so. And we needed to validate our assumptions about our customers before starting to build. But we never really did that either.
Just because you are big enough to build something doesn’t mean people will use it.
Reflecting on these mistakes, I realize how crucial it is to deeply understand customers before making big moves. That’s why James Birchler’s guest newsletter caught my attention—his piece is a practical guide on obtaining real customer insights and using them to challenge entrenched assumptions that can hurt product success.
James breaks his advice down into three key steps, illustrated with stories from his time as VP of Engineering at IMVU:
- Talk to Real Customers Before Writing Code
- Test Assumptions, Not Just Features
- Build Measurement Into Your Process
After explaining how he learned these lessons the hard way (getting screamed at by customers and board members), James shares action items you can implement within a week to improve how you understand your customers.
I wish Amazon had followed James’ playbook before trying to take on Steam. But since we didn’t, at least you can.
At Amazon, we assumed that size and visibility would be enough to attract customers
Literally “we’re big so we’ll make money” with no thought on the product actually being offered.
Hilarious.
“But we acquired a successful franchise! All we have to do is attach a handle to it and crank it and the money will come flying out!”
This is such lukewarm obvious stuff to anyone who’s done any agile project management that it’s mind-boggling they would fail to do it.
But I guess it’s what happens when decision are made by bean counters with absolute authority.
It’s corporate arrogance. “We are so big we can take that market” without understanding what built that market. They think business is numbers but it is about relationships with people.
Feels like every 5 years some major Internet company looks at how many billions video games draws in, established markets with PC and consoles, and how much hype and marketing gets thrown around the space and decides they can do it better.
With zero understanding of what consumers want, expecting to be able to charge extra for content that no one asked for or services like steam offer for free, and usually with such an awful UI and interactions with the consumer you wonder if they see potential customers as anything but cattle to be figuratively slaughtered and try to milk as much currency as they can with overpriced subscription(s) and not-so-micro microtransactions.
Every prime gaming offer I took was for games on steam. I really thought they were just promoting twitch with drops and stuff, not actually trying to compete. Haha, the balls.
Lrrr: Why does the larger company not simply eat the smaller one?
Pretty ballsy to put up a long LinkedIn post that boils down to “I am incompetent and should not be hired under any circumstances.”
Not when you’re retired
Huh, did they make an alternative I don’t know about?
It’s not as if gamers could smell the stench of corporate greed
I love your optimism, but looking at the current trends of preorders, microtransactions, gacha games, … Most gamers don’t care about corporate greed and dive into it head first…
There’s also this thing that happens where, as a whole, we’ll just act capriciously.
I don’t know if it’s true of younger gamers but my generation seems to really choose at random whether we like your product or want you to die in a fire. Any fishy behavior can tip that scale pretty quickly, and if we already recognize a brand, and it’s not one of our arbitrarily Chosen Few, then we might not even give you a chance. Just because we know the name, and that’s already a strike against you.
Granted I’m not a gamer, but I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of prime gaming. I’ve heard of steam though.
Prime Gaming gives away free games every week or so. It’s one of the perks available to those subscribed to Amazon Prime.
Those games can be on EGS, Amazon’s own launcher (that nobody uses), GOG, or Legacy Games Launcher.
I’m a vivid gamer. I’ve never heard of prime gaming.
My partner streams on twitch. I only found out about prime gaming because I’d get notifications from twitch that I can claim free games from epic and GOG. So I got several big titles that way.
thanks for reminding me to get my free games.
Easy: Amazon just gotta invent new problems for gamers! And then sell the solution.
Then there’s me on Gog buying DRM free games that I can download and keep at my leisure.
Yep. GOG is good. I’ve been getting a bit more into itch.io as well though. itch is packed with small simple experimental indie stuff. I’ve got no interest in most of it; but there’s a surprising amount of good stuff there too. (At least, it was surprising to me when I started visiting it more frequently.)
I don’t use the Amazon launcher, but I’m pretty sure the Amazon games are DRM free as well. Not sure if it’s all of them but I know a lot are
Amazon launcher requires an internet connection for games, at least the free ones.
You’re not the only one.
Whilst I do have a small collection of games in Steam, my collection of games in GoG is about 30x larger, because I prefer buying from GoG when I have the chance.
As the old saying goes “Possession is 9/10 of the Law” - when the installer of a game is in your hands (kept in storage media under your control) such as with games in physical media or offline installers downloaded from GoG, even if they wanted to take it away from you, they would have to take you to Court for it, whilst if the installer of a game is in somebody else’s hands (in Steam’s servers or in GoG’s servers if you only ever use their launcher and don’t download offline installers) they can take it way from you (even what happens is they just mistakenly locking you out of your account) and now it’s your problem and you have to throw yourself at their mercy to get what’s supposedly your stuff back and if that fails take them to Court (which for most people costs more than the games are worth).
It’s hilarious that people think “Steam is great” because they don’t often lock people out of their game collections or remove games from people’s collections and when they do and people throw themselves at their mercy to get it reversed they’re generally understanding, when Steam themselves were the ones who created a system where they have all the power and you have none, it’s just that so far they’ve not purposefully abused it and are generally nice when their own mistakes cause problems which one wouldn’t have in a different system - they’re comparativelly better than most other stores because those other stores are so shit (except GoG, IMHO), but they’re still worse than good old physical media when it comes to consumer rights.
Absolutelly, use Steam when it’s worth it for you, just do it with your eyes wide open, aware that you’re chosing to be at their mercy because the system they designed for digital game sales makes sure all customers are at their mercy, so they’re definitelly not your buddies, just (so far) nowhere as abusive as most faceless companies out there.
It’s weird how gamers see Gabe Newel as “their” billionaire, and valve as “their” corporation, and convince themselves that this makes it ok and ethical to be a billionaire and a massive corporation bordering on monopoly. Stop behaving like these corporations are your sports teams.
It’s more people like Valve as a service than liking Gabe. Helps that it is a private company so not beholden to stockholders and has a reasonable amount of employees for a more sustainable business. Not that it can’t all go to shit, but I trust publicly traded companies even less when it comes to having to rake over consumers to keep increasing stock prices.
Your mom was wrong
I feel similarly, but I don’t (often) see people forgiving Steam’s faults. You can like a product and a company for doing good things for you without believing they’re beyond fault. Steam is pretty fucking nice. Saying you like it doesn’t mean you believe it’s 100% good and Gaben can do no wrong.
I think people just ignore and don’t pay attention to them. Also valve is great at hiding them.
It’s no secret that a lot of their ventures are funded by child gambling addictions that valve had enabled
I think reason Valve die hards don’t care about the loot box portion is because they are the type more likely to be using Valve to buy games so spend more of their time buying and playing individual games.
The ones most exposed to loot boxes seem to be the ones who are the type to only play 1 or 2 games, and are fully invested in live service titles and is a majority of their gaming time.
So likely very different demographics when it comes to type of games they play and what they spend. One leaning more towards in game virtual goods than outright buying games. So it’s a group that can be completely unknown to game collectors.
I always forget about loot boxes tbh, because I don’t use them. But you’re totally right.
Ive never heard anyone say that its ethical for someone to be a billionaire if they are Gabe Newel.
Ive heard people say they like steam and would prefer to do business with a non-enshittified private company.
Their „sports teams” are vessels for billionaires to make more money too. They have barely anything at all in common with sports.
It’s weird that a corporation is able to and continues to offer a good product at a reasonable price, do so in a way that is convenient for the customer, and somehow hasn’t enshitified yet.
People like valve because valve earned that trust.
To add to that, if valve starts going in a direction I don’t like, I may cut ties with them. Gabe and Valve haven’t earned undying loyalty. They have earned the benefit of the doubt for now. We should be skeptical of anyone that is profit driven, but there isn’t anything wrong with enjoying moments where their actions seem to align with our interests.
I don’t see it that way but Steam has never enshittified in way that was noticeable to me and the features they offer along with the games are valuable. They are also a big driver of Linux development for games. That earns them a lot of points. If they flip or something better comes along I have no loyalty to them.
True, we shouldn’t be ‘backing’ them.
Consumerism and capitalism essentially dictate that large-scale gaming can’t exist without publishers. Studios need to get funded, and most developers struggle with tasks like publishing, marketing, analytics, and handling payments. While a company could theoretically manage all of this itself, it demands a lot of specialized talent, which schools only teach to a limited extent in a manner relevant to the gaming industry.
Publishers (almost) can’t help but be somewhat offensive to the public. They are there to make money and (the good ones, at least) put money back into the market so they can make more money.
Valve is less offensive than many/most. Gabe was an underdog story. Valve released some damn fine games before they primarily became publishers.
How a corporation uses its money and how it earns its profits should be under scrutiny. Customers can have a “fair” relationship with a company where everyone gets what they want - a good product at a fair price and a fair profit.
However, if a company gets their profits via enshittification, suppressing wages and benefits, using their profits to politically undermine workers and engage in monopolistic behavior, etc. they are just another run of the mill evil corporation.
Yeah, billionaires suck. You don’t get to be a billionaire by not taking as much as you can vs improving the costs to customers or employee benefits.
Yeah you are totally right, we shouldn’t think of corporations as friends.
There is however a difference and that is that Valve is a private company while others like Amazon are publicly traded and therefore even more profit-orientated. As long as Valve makes enough profit to be able to cope with a couple bad years it is doing alright.
This is the key thing. Publicly traded companies effectively have no head. They are driven by the legal mandate to pursue the profit motive for faceless and litigious investors. Yes the ceo/chairman of the board usually has a controlling share, but some rando who has one share from Robinhood can sue if they think the company is not operating with their interests in mind.
Small businesses and private companies can also be evil, but at least everyone who owns the company knows each other. They may decide to take a loss if they think it would make them look better to the public in the long run. Public companies cannot. They are expected to gobble up as much profit as they can. And when they can’t make more profit they are gobbled up by other more vigorous companies that are owned by the same investors. It’s a sick game that is eating the world and humanity to death.
The only launcher I use the same amount if not more is gog.com. Give me those good old games.
Maybe it’s nice on windows, but on other systems, got still relies on steam.
GOG + Lutris
GoG is just the best. They don’t have all the nice things Steam has, like workshop for example, but they compensate for it by actually selling you a game, not just renting it out with drm.
GOG providing installers is absolutely amazing.
