[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Of course you can play games without Steam. But I think it is disingenuous to characterize Steam as "just another system to lure users and developers into a Vendor Lock-In" when Valve has seemingly not put any effort whatsoever into locking in anyone despite their unquestioned market dominance.

[friendlybus]

They recently stopped developers promoting on steam, sale of their game on other platforms. Makes a lot of sense and if the battle with epic games gets worse we might see lock in..

Fortnite changed steam's dominance. Epic games is buying out a lot of games to offer on their store and they have the cash to burn on it. Who knows where all the fortnite fans will be in 5yrs, epic or steam.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> They recently stopped developers promoting on steam, sale of their game on other platforms.

Hard to blame them for a stance of "you can't use our storefront to advertise other storefronts" though.

Epic is doing the things it is doing precisely because Steam is so ludicrously dominant. I'd argue that they haven't been successful at usurping that dominance yet. They are still very much playing catch-up.

[friendlybus]

I honestly don't think they are aiming to take over Steam. There's a lot of features they could implement with their cash that would match Steam's store.

They prefer their churn and burn, buying out games and giving them for reduced prices. It makes little sense unless it is seen as a very long term play.

[pjmlp]

"Unquestioned market dominance.", not really.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

You disagree that Steam is the market leader in PC game distribution?

[pjmlp]

I definitely do. Any independent market reports from IGDA or similar to prove otherwise?

Valve own marketing material doesn't count.

[judge2020]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-12-20-gamesindus...

The above article estimates the PC gaming industry sold around 32.3 billion in 2017, although from [0]:

> If you throw out revenue for packaged retail titles and browser games, that leaves the dedicated digital PC game business with a total value of $23.9 billion – and that number includes DLC, which the Steam estimate does not.

> If the numbers are right, that means Valve own at least 18% of their specific market

This is by no means exact, but 18% for PC gaming is huge and, given that these are global numbers, probably doesn't account for the PC games market in China.

0: https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-revenue-2017

1: https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260

[pjmlp]

While 18% is a big number it definitely isn't "Unquestioned market dominance.".