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Can anyone overthrow Steam on PC? "As long as Valve is independent and not a publicly traded company," analyst says it looks impossible (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

but also trying to replicate everything steam does is a giant undertaking

I don't even use that many features of steam, so I don't think replicating them all is required. Probably starting at the top few and prioritising by usage/request would be enough. Attracting devs and the up-front costs for not just dev but infra is probably the most prohibitive thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    You might not use that many features, but you can't know what other users and developers might need. For some, the built in multiplayer and voice system might be a make or break feature, and for others it might be remote play together.
    With how many users, developers, and features there are, it's not enough to start replicating a couple features and promising more later. When is the last time you bought into a promise and weren't disappointed? If you want to be serious competition, you better give it your all.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I can't know, of course, but it is possible to start in one area to an MVP to a good chunk of people and add features by requested priority. Trying to do all of it all at once so feels like the wrong approach (with 20 years of software engineering and some project management experience)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    I mean we are talking about trying to overthrow THE gaming giant. Smol MVP and expanding from there might be the right approach most of the time, but in this case you run the risk of becoming Epic 2, the store that took several years to add a shopping cart. And in that time where you're expanding you're in that awkward space where people would have to use both Steam and your system.
    So I think it's better to come out of the gate swinging. Obvs you should run lots and lots of internal tests, but as soon as you release to the public, you should be able to replace Steam for lots of people.
    I could be wrong, but I rarely am :)

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