undefined | Better HN

0 pointsindigochill2y ago0 comments

> There are a bunch of companies trying to compete with valve.

What strikes me as a bit odd with relation to specifically competitors to the Valve client (essentially a game library and store rolled together), the competitors that come to mind are...

* EA/Origin

* Epic

* Ubisoft

EA and Ubisoft are only selling games they publish, IIRC. Epic sells games from other publishers, but always gives Fortnite preferential treatment (and has the Unreal Editor in its own tab in the client, or did last I paid attention).

Valve is still by a large margin the only one that comes to mind that feels as close to a neutral store/library as you can find (even when they released Artifact and Alyx, neither of those were permanently pinned to the top like Fortnite is in the Epic store). Of course, developers can still buy preferential treatment, but it at least feels like you're competing with other developers and not "the house".

I'm not making an argument that Valve's being anti-competitive here, just it's surprising to me how hard these competitors -aren't- trying to be a real competitor. I expect due to internal pressures from their respective game publishing branches.

0 comments

Apocryphon2y ago

There’s GOG, but they seem more niche for retro/hardcore gamers.

indigochillOP2y ago

Ah, of course, I knew I was forgetting one. They did start that way although they've branched out since then. For example they sell Everspace 2, which is a much newer game.

They actually might be my favorite since all the games they sell are DRM-free. You can download the installer of every one of their games locally and they'll run "forever" without any dependency on GOG or their Galaxy library app (unlike Steam). Though their selection is more limited since IIRC they manually review every game they list.

However, even they tend to favor their "in-house" games (they're a sibling company of CDPR which developed the Witcher games and Cyberpunk 2077 and you'll frequently see those featured prominently there). Not as bad as Epic, though. More in the style of how Steam advertised Half Life 2 and Portal in the early days of Steam.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse