Valve has an arguably better platform but is more expensive and doesn’t have some exclusives. That would be a great opportunity for a competitor yet nobody broke through despite pouring billions in. Weird, huh?
Valve didn’t figure out how to port Steam to ARM and dragged their feet on x86-64 so I’m not sure where that money goes, probably gambling research.
Valve has an arguably better platform but is more expensive
Yes, I think everyone would agree that Steam is the best PC games platform
doesn’t have some exclusives
Well yeah, that’s the definition of exclusive. Sony, Epic, and Microsoft pay to have games not available on other platforms. First parties don’t release their games on other platforms to increase the attractiveness of their platform. Valve does this with their first party titles as well (CS:GO, Half Life, etc), but they release very few games.
Exclusives are the definition of anti-competitive behavior. Valve only does this for their first party titles, and other than that is very competition friendly, since they allow devs to release on any other store, as well as make free keys to sell elsewhere.
As a platform, they behave much better than pretty much everyone else, with maybe only GOG beating them due to license transfers and DRM-free commitment. Steam arguably has the best customer service in the industry (or if not best, very close to it), so it’s less of a concern.
Valve didn’t figure out how to port Steam to ARM
Why would they? Windows on ARM is pretty much nonexistent, emulating x86 on ARM on Linux has severe performance issues, and the best platform support for ARM is from Apple, where there’s even less game selection.
Most games don’t work on ARM, so there’s little point in supporting it. But Steam does work on macOS on ARM (I think it uses Rosetta still?), where devs are actually going to port their games to ARM. Windows and Linux on ARM are incredibly niche and games just aren’t ported for those platforms. I guess they could do a compat layer like Rosetta, but it’ll be a terrible experience running a game through a compat layer.
AFAIK, EGS and GOG don’t support ARM on anything other than macOS (and phones for EGS), and why would they?
dragged their feet on x86-64
Why does that matter? The main reason to port to x86_64 is to access more memory. Even while Steam was x86, games could still absolutely be x86_64. During the transition, they still needed to support 32-bit, so why do extra work when the benefits don’t really apply?
I’ve helped update to 64-bit, and it can be a lot of work. Why prioritize that?
I’m not sure where that money goes
Steam features like Steam Input (i.e. all that stuff that makes them stand out)
Linux support - tons of investment into WINE/Proton, drivers, etc; this is huge for Steam Deck
hardware development - Steam Deck, Valve Index, etc
marketing - both their products and other devs’ games
employee salaries - Valve employees are paid very well
legal fights - e.g. patent lawsuits
Gabe’s yachts - similar to how Unreal Engine profits are used by Tim Sweeney
They’re not public, but it’s not hard to estimate since they publish a lot of data about the platform.
That’s because Steam offers a better user experience than EGS. Here are some nice things about Steam that EGS lacks:
While EGS has:
Why should I use EGS? Steam is better.
Valve has an arguably better platform but is more expensive and doesn’t have some exclusives. That would be a great opportunity for a competitor yet nobody broke through despite pouring billions in. Weird, huh?
Valve didn’t figure out how to port Steam to ARM and dragged their feet on x86-64 so I’m not sure where that money goes, probably gambling research.
Yes, I think everyone would agree that Steam is the best PC games platform
Well yeah, that’s the definition of exclusive. Sony, Epic, and Microsoft pay to have games not available on other platforms. First parties don’t release their games on other platforms to increase the attractiveness of their platform. Valve does this with their first party titles as well (CS:GO, Half Life, etc), but they release very few games.
Exclusives are the definition of anti-competitive behavior. Valve only does this for their first party titles, and other than that is very competition friendly, since they allow devs to release on any other store, as well as make free keys to sell elsewhere.
As a platform, they behave much better than pretty much everyone else, with maybe only GOG beating them due to license transfers and DRM-free commitment. Steam arguably has the best customer service in the industry (or if not best, very close to it), so it’s less of a concern.
Why would they? Windows on ARM is pretty much nonexistent, emulating x86 on ARM on Linux has severe performance issues, and the best platform support for ARM is from Apple, where there’s even less game selection.
Most games don’t work on ARM, so there’s little point in supporting it. But Steam does work on macOS on ARM (I think it uses Rosetta still?), where devs are actually going to port their games to ARM. Windows and Linux on ARM are incredibly niche and games just aren’t ported for those platforms. I guess they could do a compat layer like Rosetta, but it’ll be a terrible experience running a game through a compat layer.
AFAIK, EGS and GOG don’t support ARM on anything other than macOS (and phones for EGS), and why would they?
Why does that matter? The main reason to port to x86_64 is to access more memory. Even while Steam was x86, games could still absolutely be x86_64. During the transition, they still needed to support 32-bit, so why do extra work when the benefits don’t really apply?
I’ve helped update to 64-bit, and it can be a lot of work. Why prioritize that?
They’re not public, but it’s not hard to estimate since they publish a lot of data about the platform.