The online game marketplace industry hasn't existed for 30 years.
Sega Channel. Which was 94 so while it wasn't strictly thirty years, it's pretty close.
Anyway, I just looked up revenue numbers, and found a 2017 quote about Valve earning $4.3 billion on operating Steam that year.
Good for them, they provide the best service to the customer.
but a 30% cut for being a glorified CDN and credit-card processor
Is a dramatic, almost deliberately dishonest reduction of the services Steam provides.
Steam has the largest base because they provide the most convenient and most useful service to the one group of people in this equation whose opinion matters. The customer.
is exploitative rent-seeking
It is literally nothing of the sort. They have the largest base because they have the best product. No one has broken them because no one actually bothers trying to compete with them. Epic certainly isn't trying to compete with them, hence their constant use of illegal trade practices instead.
I don't give two shits about what cut the storefront takes. I care about the service provided to me, and I will use the best one, which is Steam.
Sega Channel. Which was 94 so while it wasn't strictly thirty years, it's pretty close.
Good for them, they provide the best service to the customer.
Is a dramatic, almost deliberately dishonest reduction of the services Steam provides.
Steam has the largest base because they provide the most convenient and most useful service to the one group of people in this equation whose opinion matters. The customer.
It is literally nothing of the sort. They have the largest base because they have the best product. No one has broken them because no one actually bothers trying to compete with them. Epic certainly isn't trying to compete with them, hence their constant use of illegal trade practices instead.
I don't give two shits about what cut the storefront takes. I care about the service provided to me, and I will use the best one, which is Steam.