The secret is to not be a public company ran by a board of directors who actively enshittify the crap out of anything they touch.

Valve is privately owned by Gabe who unlike the CEOs that usually get selected by these boards isn't a complete psychopath.

Gabe specifically said in an interview that he would have never been able to hire and retain the talent Valve currently has had it been a public company. The board would have demanded layoffs and outsourcing to countries where labor is cheaper with zero fucks given to product quality, reputation or long term growth.

And dedicate years of work into improving Linux compatibilty to future proof the company? A board of directors would have shut that down immediately.

Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at research and analyst firm Newzoo told GamesRadar+ that "As long as Valve is independent and not a publicly traded company," it looks impossible for Steam to be overthrown as the de-facto PC gaming marketplace.

Yeah, no shit! As long as they're not beholden to shareholders that need them to enshitify their platform as much as humanly possible before the users can't stand it anymore and leave in droves... It's just impossible to compete with them!

Who would have thought!

you could vibe code a Steam alternative in a week

As usual, completely missing the fucking point.

losing 30% to Valve is probably better than joining the list of games that flopped on PC because they were Epic Games Store exclusives.

Epic burn!!

So the billionaire execs that are whining and bitching, pissing and moaning in this article, run worse gaming platforms than steam currently. Now have they ever TRIED improving their own gaming platforms to make ease of access, UI, and customer service better for PC gamers? No. No they havent. They just look at the more successful company that is doing exactly that, and complain about them having a monopoly when they really just run a better business model and take care of their customers. I mean the only rhing Epic games has going for it are the free games every month, and even those are pretty hit or miss (as in they started free but now theyre just getting "featured" as free) and it makes it seem disingenuous. When we see large sales on steam, theres some kind of price reduction on basically everything in the store. They want you to build up that library and get to gaming, none of the other nonsense. Summed up, this is the equivalent of powerade executives coming out and complaining that gatorade is curbing the market because they run a better business, and its really nothing other than another billionaire being a crybaby in a public space because they want to hoard more wealth.

These dudes have no connection to reality. They only understand how to extract. They have no idea how to make anything. The assertion that you could vibe code a steam replacement completely misunderstands what makes Steam work. Sure there is an element of an entrenched market, but Steam sales are famous among their customers. They have mod support built in. Great features like remote play, streaming, social features. They've done amazing things for Linux gaming slowly chipping away at Microsofts control of the OS market.

These executives brains are completely rotten.

With my PS4, I decided to pay for the online gaming because the free games and online play with Rocket League. It's seemed like a good deal, I guess. Anyway I lapsed the payment. Then found it all the "free" games I collected (and never played) required a subscription. And Ironically, Rocket League didn't require a subscription. So I basically was paying for a Netflix like gaming service where you slowly get games if you remember to click on them each month. But in reality, I was just giving Sony free money.

That ended it for me.

A former Epic Games developer is calling out Steam users, saying that they wouldn't move on from Valve's store even if a better alternative emerged.

So this guy admits that Steam is the best right now...

I've worked for several ISPs. None can hold a candle to Cox Communications. They were public for a time, but as I heard it the family bought back control and privatised it again. Like Valve, they can do whatever the fuck they what, on whatever timeline they want.

Build a great product or service, the people come. Built shit, the people leave. Turns out that's how capitalism is supposed to work. Somehow the consumer has elected to buy products and services from companies that shit all over them. (NOT the case for Valve, because I didn't write that well.)

Better how? Steam already does everything almost perfectly

Funny way of saying monopoly.

moth supposes they might be correct about one thing. there are so very many Steam users who are rabid fanboys. we've all seen the memes of GabeN depicted as a Messiah. there's a not insignificant portion of the Steam user base which does not want any competition for Steam because they believe in the righteous supremacy of Valve. it gives moth the icks, and as such in the very few occasions when I buy a game instead of sailing the high seas, I buy from other retailers like GOG, Epic, or Itch.io.