From the opinion piece:

Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.

  • Aux@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    But it does abuse its market position. By setting very high developer/publisher fees and forcing everyone to pay them. Don’t forget that from Steam perspective, developers and publisher are their consumers, not you. Their business is similar to supermarkets. Supermarkets don’t sell stuff to you, they provide selling and logistics services to produce manufacturers.

    • derpgon
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      But those fees are counteracted by large user base, which is large due to the fact the platform is great and provides it’s users good features that aren’t elsewhere. A s large user base means large buying power, which directly translates to higher sales and thus higher profits.

      If a supermarket gives the customers a nice place to stay, and provides extra features others don’t, the extra cost for having your store in there (in Steam terms higher commissions, although I personally think it’s adequate, but I digress) is offset by having bigger profit overall.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        That doesn’t mean Steam doesn’t abuse its power. Because they sure do.

        • derpgon
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          How? By being a good company? Look at the Google Play Store lawsuit, and why were they sued, any why they lost. Steam is not abusing it’s position. And if you think they do, gimme an example or two please.