Comment on As Xbox and PlayStation flounder, Steam is reportedly having another record year

mintiefresh@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I feel like this is not rocket science here, this is business 101.

  1. Make the customer happy

  2. Enjoy increased revenue

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  • motruck@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    N,o, it is economics and at some point over the last decade or so companies decided that the customer should be subjected to a constant shift of quality until it arrives at a level where it is the worst they are possibly willing to accept. Quality down profits up. Welcome to our new world.

    This is the new “the customer is always right” attitude.

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    • HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      profits down but stocks rise with increased investment.

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    • Ashtear@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The concept of “firing your customers” even became part of marketing strategy in the last decade. Amazing what kind of nonsense bubbles up out of the muck when markets see less competition.

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    • 565746521@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Right behind us, is what they meant.

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• creamfresh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  20 years ago, the exact opposite was said about Steam and they didn’t change much. People just got used to it.

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  • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    No.

    As a person who resisted hars 20 years ago, they earned it. I didn’t get used to it, I found value. In cloud saves, in steam sales, in no pushy advertising, and so on.

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    • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      My husband remembers buying The Ship in a store, and when he went to install it out said he had to install something called Steam for the multiplayer. He was baffled and annoyed.

      Now all the games we have save a few from GOG are steam.

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      • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Some games are bought directly from the developer too.

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    • BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      They failed at first attempt with steamOS, but they learned the lesson, and came back swinging with years of preparation.

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    • dreamkeeper@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Yeah the steam “sales” that cost more than used physical games because valve killed them.

      The steam cult among PC gamers is fucking absurd.

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      • LwL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I see 0 reason to buy a used game over pirating it so I don’t really see what was lost. In both cases the devs get nothing, and buying from someone else is a hassle, and having large physical media instead of just some files is also annoying.

        If we didn’t have steam we’d instead have the fucking epic games store or EA origin (or whatever they renamed it to). Just because valve isn’t perfect doesn’t mean any publically traded company wouldn’t have been so much worse. And they also did plenty of actual positives with SteamOS, Steam Deck, being the first to push consumer VR with the Vive…

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  • bountygiver@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Sure they didn’t change much if you ignored all the improvements they made to the platform.

    If they didn’t the other competitors wouldn’t be irrelevant today.

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    • dreamkeeper@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      They literally cornered the digital sales market from the very beginning with HL2. It has nothing to do with “improvements to the platform”. By the time other companies had the infrastructure to try to catch up it was far too late. If you wanted to sell a PC game digitally, you had to do it on steam.

      So much ridiculous counterfactual revisionist history in this thread.

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      • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        By the time other companies had the infrastructure to try to catch up

        How many years did it take epic to implement a shopping cart for their store? It’s so horrible they’re scrapping it and rebuilding from scratch. Almost a decade and they couldn’t get the basics right.

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  • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    They haven’t changed much? They have like literally a million more games available on their store now.

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    • creamfresh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The basic principle is the same: a DRM-enabled online store, and more often than not the only source for certain games, a monopoly.

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      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        DRM is not required by Steam. Developers choose to add it.

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      • locahosr443@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        And with those resources they decided to make a huge long term investment in making PC gaming on windows optional, then even the worse experience. Don’t see that loser Tim sweeny doing anything of that value… It’s not exactly a monopoly either… You can install any other available store on your pc, unlike consoles. More competition would be great but steams market share was earned in an environment that wasn’t a walled garden.

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• HerbGrower@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Are they? Their returns policy is crap compared to GOG. Not sure how its even legal for them to refuse refunds just because you used a product for over 2 hours.

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