Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.
It's a typical LinkedIn post that doesn't exactly go into a whole lot of detail, but it's still interesting to get just a little behind the scenes from people who worked at companies that thought they could dethrone Steam. In the post Evans notes how "we failed multiple times to disrupt the game platform Steam" despite being "250x bigger" and how they "tried everything".
Evans continued noting "We acquired Reflexive Entertainment (a small PC game store) and tried to scale it. It went nowhere" and then after buying Twitch and trying a store there assuming people would use it because they watch livestreams, they were also wrong. Then it comes to the cloud gaming platform Luna, which also appears to not be going particularly well, noting how along with Stadia from Google that "Neither gained significant traction".
Why the failures? Evans said "The mistake was that we underestimated what made consumers use Steam. It was a store, a social network, a library, and a trophy case all in one. And it worked well".
It's not just Amazon though.
When you think about the Epic Games Store, and how they're trying to compete with constant free game giveaways, they're pretty much coasting on the revenue from the likes of Fortnite, and it shows you truly how difficult it is to move people away from what they like and what they're used to.
In Epic's 2024 Year in Review they might show off some fancy numbers in multiple places with an increase in total spending from users, but they had an 18% cut in third-party PC game spending on the Epic Store. Looking back to 2023, they had a 13% cut in third-party PC game spending, so it's actually getting worse.
If you want to compete in an established market, against a company that's massive and (on the whole) quite well liked, you have to have something better to offer in some way. Just being big doesn't mean you'll be a success.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Kimyrielle a day ago
Steam is a case of "first out of the gate wins" business. It was easy being the first store out there. There was no alternative and Steam gobbled up all PC gamers. Now, you'd have to convince people to fix what's (for them) clearly not broken and make them come to your new store. When Steam has every conceivable feature already (except proper 2FA authentication, which is a headscratcher, but I digress). And people clearly having no wish to spread there games across several stores.
On top of that, the motivation for EPIC, EA and Ubisoft's stores wasn't even offering users a better experience. It was purely meant for developers to evade Steam's high fees. Thing is that users don't care how much fees the developers pay. That had and still have zero incentive to switch.
People have tried to replace Facebook, too. Same result. There is no room for another social network for the same reasons there is no room for another online game store.
Last edited by Kimyrielle on 19 Feb 2025 at 5:31 pm UTC
On top of that, the motivation for EPIC, EA and Ubisoft's stores wasn't even offering users a better experience. It was purely meant for developers to evade Steam's high fees. Thing is that users don't care how much fees the developers pay. That had and still have zero incentive to switch.
People have tried to replace Facebook, too. Same result. There is no room for another social network for the same reasons there is no room for another online game store.
Last edited by Kimyrielle on 19 Feb 2025 at 5:31 pm UTC
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Meanwhile scummy Amazon are lowering user privileges on their Kindle products, and by that I mean taking away user control on devices that you already own. See this analysis of the latest issue:
https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/index.php?title=Amazon_Kindle_removes_download_feature_of_purchased_books
Have you taken away the ability to share links, Liam (seeing as I can't see the link button in comments any more)?
Last edited by g000h on 19 Feb 2025 at 5:32 pm UTC
https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/index.php?title=Amazon_Kindle_removes_download_feature_of_purchased_books
Have you taken away the ability to share links, Liam (seeing as I can't see the link button in comments any more)?
Last edited by g000h on 19 Feb 2025 at 5:32 pm UTC
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If you want to compete in an established market, against a company that's massive and (on the whole) quite well liked
We, Linux users, know this very well, don't we?
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Caldathras a day ago
@wintermute
I particularly liked this comment for someone that used to work under him and actually was a gamer:Too bad you didn't quote the comment here as well. Unfortunately, your link is locked behind a login screen.
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Caldathras a day ago
From what comments I could see below the article:
Piotr Czech:
Piotr Czech:
Steam sells protection of gamers' rights, not games. Steam is unbeatable because gamers know that Gaben puts users before profits and it's not about the store, social network, library, and trophies.Stephen Lenz:
[Steam is] built on YEARS and YEARS of trustI think these quotes say it all as to why Amazon actually failed. Also why Epic, M$, Ubisoft, EA, etc. continue to fail as well. Ultimately, Piotr Czech's point that "they are expected to take care of their shareholders over users" just sums up their major weakness.
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Can anyone imagine the level of control Amazon would force on users, if they had the market share of Steam? They would end up killing their own business. All corporate decisions would be based on saving money. Eg. It is cheaper to support only one OS. It is cheaper to support only one video card.
I like that Steam seems to have a lighter touch with their control.
I also like that Gabe took on M$ when they thought we would all want to buy everything from their Windows 8 store.
I like that Steam seems to have a lighter touch with their control.
I also like that Gabe took on M$ when they thought we would all want to buy everything from their Windows 8 store.
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Good!
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Kimyrielle a day ago
We, Linux users, know this very well, don't we?
Except that in contrast to Valve, pretty much everyone hates M$, and people STILL don't switch. That's how hard it is to convince people to move away from an established product when there is no compelling reason to.
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after buying Twitch and trying a store there assuming people would use it because they watch livestreams, they were also wrongTwitch had a store? Or was it just a link that redirected to somewhere else?
Why the failures? Evans said "The mistake was that we underestimated what made consumers use Steam. It was a store, a social network, a library, and a trophy case all in one. And it worked well".Do they even use Steam? If they would, it wouldn't take them long to realize that they already have all the pieces, they just need to put them together as a cohesive product.
It blows my mind that even Microsoft and Epic Games struggle to compete with Steam. If they would use Steam, they would get it what they are missing.
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I think even if Amazon made a service that had every last feature of Steam I still wouldn't use their service. This has nothing to do with established libraries for me, I regularly use itch io, gamejolt, and GOG, it has to do with trust. I would not trust my game library in the hands of Amazon for the same reasons I would not trust my game library in the hands of Epic. They will not put me first when it comes to whatever they wanna do. They are the types that think that "publishers decide the store wars, not consumers" (actual quote from Tim Sweeney).
I'm not saying Valve doesn't also see me as a wallet, I'm very much in the camp of "Corporations are not your friends", but like, if Valve ever decides to fuck me, I have 100% confidence based on their previous actions that have ALMOST always centered around making the user experience better, they will at least use lube before doing so. Everyone else except for maybe the people running GOG seem like they'd violently shove a cactus up there instead if it amuses their shareholders or a publisher.
Trust is something you can't buy, it has to be earned over time. Amazon does not have the good will necessary for me to use them as anything but a prime gaming GOG key generator because of how much I use "free" prime shipping to get physical goods to the point that it pays for itself.
I'm not saying Valve doesn't also see me as a wallet, I'm very much in the camp of "Corporations are not your friends", but like, if Valve ever decides to fuck me, I have 100% confidence based on their previous actions that have ALMOST
Spoiler, click me
(haven't forgotten about paid mods, abandoning artifact, waiting 12 years for a new half life game only to still be left on a cliffhanger, the long term neglect of Team Fortress 2 that is thankfully now over with the SDK release, or loot crate controversies)
Trust is something you can't buy, it has to be earned over time. Amazon does not have the good will necessary for me to use them as anything but a prime gaming GOG key generator because of how much I use "free" prime shipping to get physical goods to the point that it pays for itself.
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Steam is a case of "first out of the gate wins" business. It was easy being the first store out there. There was no alternative and Steam gobbled up all PC gamers.
Not really. Steam wasn't the first online games platform. It wasn't even the first online games platform that Valve used - Sierra (Valve's publisher at the time) had WON. Valve felt the necessity to make their own auto-patcher with the implosion of Sierra. There were other players around at the time that could have stepped into that gap. Valve's need for something that worked well for them as a game developer, and their preference for something that worked well for customers, certainly helped - rather than the need to appeal to advertisers that the others were chasing.
People have tried to replace Facebook, too. Same result. There is no room for another social network for the same reasons there is no room for another online game store.
Facebook wasn't the first social media site, and Google wasn't the first search engine. Network effects aren't insurmountable. What you need as a minimum, though, to compete with an incumbent, is to be at least as good as them in most areas and better in some, whether you're competing with MySpace, Alta Vista, Internet Explorer, or Steam. As you've pointed out, none of the potential competitors to Steam have bothered to do that, and they all have different motivations than "let's make it easy to match people that want to buy games with people that want to sell games," which is the thing that's given Valve a lot of success since they started having third-party games on Steam.
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It's mind blowing (and somewhat hilarious) to see how naive they were...
Even me not using Steam, I perfectly know why the majority of people use it and don't want to leave, it's just obvious.
Even me not using Steam, I perfectly know why the majority of people use it and don't want to leave, it's just obvious.
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As someone who's played steam for over a decade and who's had prime since year one... PrimeGaming never even got to early years steam in terms of features and usability... I in fact, didn't even realize until this article that they even were trying to compete with steam... I would have never guessed... I honestly though they were just trying to do a silly extra perk, because that's all it's felt like.
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TheRiddick a day ago
I'm sure this is EPIC's excuse and many other big corpo game stores.
They really don't use or even remotely understand Steam, if they did, they'd get it.
Steam does so many things, is being developed, offers rewards for people just using it, has community, modding, even linux and compatibility support. It does it all, even VR and Indie games.
Making an annoying Store App, is not enough. There was a point in time when Steam was annoying to use as well, not any-more.
They really don't use or even remotely understand Steam, if they did, they'd get it.
Steam does so many things, is being developed, offers rewards for people just using it, has community, modding, even linux and compatibility support. It does it all, even VR and Indie games.
Making an annoying Store App, is not enough. There was a point in time when Steam was annoying to use as well, not any-more.
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ElectricPrism a day ago
I'm really getting sick of these Buy N Large companies after 5 years of small businesses being ***** and the upward transfer of wealth.
You Disrespected Gamer's and will NOT be Missed, Get Fucked.
Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games
You Disrespected Gamer's and will NOT be Missed, Get Fucked.
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Evans continued noting "We acquired Reflexive Entertainment (a small PC game store) and tried to scale it. It went nowhere"
Reflexive was an indie dev and publisher, and amazon proceeded to annoy its customers by de-listing its steam titles, disabling reflexive's website, and forcing the direct customers to move to amazon (particularly egregious because of reflexive's drm).
Last edited by emphy on 20 Feb 2025 at 7:44 am UTC
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Except that in contrast to Valve, pretty much everyone hates M$, and people STILL don't switch. That's how hard it is to convince people to move away from an established product when there is no compelling reason to.
Do you have a source for that, or at least some stats? In the Linux bubble "pretty much everyone hates M$ (sic!)" is a given, but how many people is that, some 3% of "PC users"?
In my RL experience, the vast majority of non-tech people (and that's the vast majority of all people) don't have any opinion about MS, it's just "what's on the computer", and the rest (of non-tech people) actively loves them for giving them the wonderful tools that let them do their jobs every day.
And people actively prefer to pirate Windows and MS Office instead of using a free alternative because it gives them the perception of having saved money. A free product is worh exactly zero, a paid product used for free - now that's value right there.
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For me, it's also that steam was built for gamers and they care about gamers. Amazon? Google? Etc? It's 100% about money and data mining to get more money. They don't care about gamers whatever, and I think that's the flaw most of these wannabe competitors have. On the other hand, I've always seen GOG as being the closest real competitor to steam... They care about the gamers.
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Yeah, Valve/Steam sells the protection of rights which is why they needed to get sued in Australia in order to implement a refund policy. Also evident in how they changed the wording regarding Steam selling games to not actually 'selling' you anything - that you needed to just accept or get f'ed if you felt like keeping the stuff you bou... temporarily and possibly revocably licensed on there. Pure customer rights advocacy reigns supreme at Valve, clearly.
Valve is a business, not your friend. They're private, so they're not focused exclusively on the next quarter, hence why their service is allowed to be better than the industry standard. That is about it.
And Linkedin is an absolute dystopic hellhole all the way down.
Valve is a business, not your friend. They're private, so they're not focused exclusively on the next quarter, hence why their service is allowed to be better than the industry standard. That is about it.
And Linkedin is an absolute dystopic hellhole all the way down.
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Amazon Prime is not available in Switzerland, so we don't have access to Prime Gaming, Amazon Music, etc...
Yet it's been 20 years since they launched these online services !!
Steam has been available in Switzerland since their very first day, just like Spotify, Apple gaming & music, etc.
Amazon does absolutely nothing to promote their services abroad and even less to support Linux or Linux gaming.
And then they come and say that they are doing everything to compete with Steam ?
Who are they kidding with such statements ?? Their boss Jeff Bezos ?? If I were him I would not be satisfied with my employees...
Yet it's been 20 years since they launched these online services !!
Steam has been available in Switzerland since their very first day, just like Spotify, Apple gaming & music, etc.
Amazon does absolutely nothing to promote their services abroad and even less to support Linux or Linux gaming.
And then they come and say that they are doing everything to compete with Steam ?
Who are they kidding with such statements ?? Their boss Jeff Bezos ?? If I were him I would not be satisfied with my employees...
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