If you’re talking about “I want to buy a PC game on the internet”, there are tons of competitors (ignoring stores that only service one platform or only first party IPs); Microsoft, Humble, GoG, Amazon, Itch, and (technically, yes) Epic.
If you’re talking about a service that offers the social aspects, storage (saves, etc), support, DRM, and hardware/software development (VR, handheld, OS, controller), there isn’t any competition, but it’s not because they bought everyone. They just develop a ton of things in house, and make an effort to continue to improvel and offer the best experience.
All Epic does is buy developers, hold games hostage, and offer constant freebies in hopes that they’ll get enough of a marketshare to take the same cut that valve (and everyone else) does. They’re losing boatloads of cash, and it’s pretty much just Fortnight proping everything up. Their not mattering is entirely because they just aren’t as good. If they really want to have a chance of competing, they need to stop slinging shit at valve in the news, hilariously complaining that Steam is somehow anti-competitive while they themselves do anti-consumer shit like buy dev studios and block access to games.
‘Competitors exist’ is not a counterargument for ‘their competitors do not matter.’ In fact, if you look carefully, you’ll find acknowledgement of their competitors’ existence, in the sentence: ‘their competitors do not matter.’
Feature parity don’t matter if customers basically just use one store. It does not matter what their competitors are doing - it plainly is not working. Those competitors can develop a ton of games, and exclusively offer some big-name third-party titles, and give away all kinds of freebies, and those competitors still do not matter.
If you think any of this is a defense of Epic then you are mistaken.
Feature parity don’t matter if customers basically just use one store.
People would use more than one store if the other stores had the same or better features.
It does not matter what their competitors are doing - it plainly is not working.
The only thing their competitors have done is exist and provide the worst fucking service possible while using anti-competitive tactics to try and get customers. The stupid fucks can’t even attract customers using anti-competitive practices because they just outright refuse to do what customers actually fucking want and then complain it.
Customers choosing one option over the others isn’t a monopoly, it’s capitalism at work. There are other players, they’re just not as good. Not Valve’s fault they can’t get their shit together.
That is not what a monopoly is. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of choice. People have choice. There is only one good choice, though, and people have chosen it over other stupid garbage that doesn’t even try. Maybe you’d see that if you took Tim Sweeny’s dick out yo mouth for 5 seconds.
If you’re talking about “I want to buy a PC game on the internet”, there are tons of competitors (ignoring stores that only service one platform or only first party IPs); Microsoft, Humble, GoG, Amazon, Itch, and (technically, yes) Epic.
If you’re talking about a service that offers the social aspects, storage (saves, etc), support, DRM, and hardware/software development (VR, handheld, OS, controller), there isn’t any competition, but it’s not because they bought everyone. They just develop a ton of things in house, and make an effort to continue to improvel and offer the best experience.
All Epic does is buy developers, hold games hostage, and offer constant freebies in hopes that they’ll get enough of a marketshare to take the same cut that valve (and everyone else) does. They’re losing boatloads of cash, and it’s pretty much just Fortnight proping everything up. Their not mattering is entirely because they just aren’t as good. If they really want to have a chance of competing, they need to stop slinging shit at valve in the news, hilariously complaining that Steam is somehow anti-competitive while they themselves do anti-consumer shit like buy dev studios and block access to games.
‘Competitors exist’ is not a counterargument for ‘their competitors do not matter.’ In fact, if you look carefully, you’ll find acknowledgement of their competitors’ existence, in the sentence: ‘their competitors do not matter.’
Feature parity don’t matter if customers basically just use one store. It does not matter what their competitors are doing - it plainly is not working. Those competitors can develop a ton of games, and exclusively offer some big-name third-party titles, and give away all kinds of freebies, and those competitors still do not matter.
If you think any of this is a defense of Epic then you are mistaken.
People would use more than one store if the other stores had the same or better features.
The only thing their competitors have done is exist and provide the worst fucking service possible while using anti-competitive tactics to try and get customers. The stupid fucks can’t even attract customers using anti-competitive practices because they just outright refuse to do what customers actually fucking want and then complain it.
Neat.
Meanwhile:
Whatever the underlying reasons,
customers basically just use one store.
Which is what a monopoly is.
Customers choosing one option over the others isn’t a monopoly, it’s capitalism at work. There are other players, they’re just not as good. Not Valve’s fault they can’t get their shit together.
Customers having one worthwhile option is in fact a monopoly.
That is not what a monopoly is. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of choice. People have choice. There is only one good choice, though, and people have chosen it over other stupid garbage that doesn’t even try. Maybe you’d see that if you took Tim Sweeny’s dick out yo mouth for 5 seconds.
This topic invites the weirdest goddamn replies.
It is a failure of moderation that any appropriate response to this baseless insult are equally forbidden.
Suffice it to say: I already told you, none of this is a defense of Epic.